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  • If you've ever wondered how certain students crush every course and get straight A's then today is your lucky day.

  • We'll explore the three intellectual attributes that dictate your school performance and how you can optimize each one independently.

  • Dr. Jubbal, medschoolinsiders.com. To perform well in school you have to put in the work.

  • Assuming you are applying yourself and are using intelligence study strategies,

  • there are three intellectual attributes that dictate your overall academic performance.

  • These three domains are: memorization, critical thinking and test taking and they are all interconnected.

  • Top level performance requires maximizing all three.

  • I have good news and bad news.

  • The bad news is that every person's competence in each domain can vary significantly.

  • The good news is that you can improve in any one of them with deliberate practice.

  • But first you must objectively assess your strengths and weaknesses and that's something only you can do.

  • After several years in school, studying with others and reflecting on your own academic performance,

  • you should have a good idea of your relative strengths and weaknesses.

  • For me: natural memorization is my Achilles' heel.

  • Therefore, deliberate practice in this domain has yielded the biggest returns

  • and improvements in my academic performance.

  • On the other hand, my critical thinking and test-taking skills are better developed,

  • thereby not requiring as much deliberate practice.

  • How did I come to these conclusions for myself?

  • In college, conceptually challenging courses

  • and professors known for writing difficult tests were relatively easier for me.

  • I was fortunate to set the curve in the majority

  • of my upper division neuroscience, courses, bio-chemistry, biology and

  • several others that relied on either complex thinking or long-form essay responses.

  • However,

  • the supposed easy courses like introduction to psychology,

  • were heavy on memorizing facts and it took much more

  • effort for me to swing an A.

  • Now that you've assessed your relative strengths and weaknesses,

  • let's determine how to systematically improve each one.

  • First: Memorization

  • If you don't have naturally gifted memory, fear not,

  • I don't either. This is the easiest deficiency to make up for out of the three key attributes.

  • This is also the one domain

  • I have seen the largest improvements in

  • and you can too by following these principles.

  • The first foundational principle to effective memorization

  • is that you first must understand the information before you attempt committing it to memory.

  • Memorizing without the layer of understanding,

  • will yield weaker connections and a shaky foundation

  • that is more likely to crumble as you are required to memorize

  • additional overlapping facts that may cause confusion.

  • To solidify your comprehension, visit your professor during office hours,

  • practice the Feynman technique with your friends,

  • or seek additional online resources to address holes in your understanding.

  • While prioritizing understanding is key,

  • don't fall for the hype that by simply understanding you'll never have to memorize another fact again.

  • No matter how deeply you understand the concept of breast ptosis causes,

  • physiology and occurrence in the context of plastic surgery.

  • You still have to memorize how each level is classified.

  • There are three main memorization techniques you should be using,

  • method of loci,

  • mnemonics and flashcards, utilizing active recall with spaced repetition.

  • It isn't enough to simply know the tools you should be using but also how to use them.

  • I covered the nuances and the common pitfalls

  • you should avoid in my recent guide to medical school memorization video (link in the description).

  • Critical thinking can be categorized as subject specific or general.

  • The former of which is usually more relevant to performing well on exams.

  • Luckily, this is also the type that is easier to measure,

  • easier to improve and has been the focus of the scientific literature on learning.

  • Higher-order questions are the difficult and complex question types that require students to apply,

  • analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information rather than simply recalling facts

  • There are four main components of critical thinking each of which can be demonstrated with its respective question type.

  • Application questions require students to transfer knowledge learned in one context to another.

  • Analysis questions require separation of a concept and two component parts.

  • Synthesis questions require the use of old ideas to create new ones using information from multiple sources. And lastly,

  • evaluation questions required judgment about the value of arguments.

  • Effective critical thinking requires clarity of thought.

  • It's not simply a matter of having facts memorized, but also

  • understanding the interplay and relationship between facts and how they would be relevant or altered in various scenarios.

  • Think of this deeper understanding as your mental scaffolding in a subject area

  • whereby you fill in the scaffolding with details through memorization. Not all subjects will test critical thinking equally.

  • Neuroscience, biochemistry, bio engineering, and mathematics will be much heavier than, say, biology or psychology.

  • You'll find that courses with a high degree of essay based exam questions tend to be more critical thinking heavy.

  • To improve critical thinking, active learning is key and the process should feel difficult,

  • especially at the beginning. It's a higher order skill that builds upon lower-level skills,

  • and it's not something that will be touched on by passively reading your notes. In terms of the scientific evidence on

  • improving your critical thinking, the literature suggests there are four main strategies

  • you should employ. First, self reflection techniques. Austin and colleagues in 2008 found that structured reflection and self-assessment

  • improved test performance and critical thinking in a group of pharmacy students. The self assessment and reflection was

  • conducted real-time in the middle of test taking.

  • Additionally,

  • explicit self-reflection techniques after the fact, such as asking students to judge their performance on a recent assignment, can increase their ability to

  • understand where they need to improve and develop moving forward. Both answering and generating higher-order

  • thinking questions have been demonstrated to improve critical reasoning.

  • There are two ways to approach this first you should seek out practice problems that are specifically high-quality. More on that shortly.

  • Second, you can generate higher-order thinking questions

  • most effectively through making your own synthesis questions after attending lecture.

  • These questions should force you to exercise higher-order thinking.

  • One of my favorite methods is to change a variable or assumption and then think what

  • downstream effects and changes would you expect? I've outlined how to create these questions in further detail in my recent note-taking video.

  • Number three: Spaced repetition. Kapler et. al. in 2015 found that when reviewing lecture material in a space repetition manner, versus cramming,

  • students performed better not only in factual recall, but also higher-order thinking questions.

  • We've known cramming is suboptimal for factual memorization, and now we also know it's bad for critical thinking and performance on higher-order level questions. Number four: Retrieval Practice

  • Agarwal and 2019 found that quizzing factual information only improved factual knowledge,

  • but not critical thinking. Retrieval practice only improves critical thinking when higher-order questions are

  • incorporate, therefore including higher-order thinking questions into your Anki flashcards or practice problems is advised.

  • No matter how well you understand the information and have it memorized,

  • you won't score well in class or on the MCAT unless you have adequate test taking skills.

  • The most straightforward way to improve your test-taking skills would be to simply take more tests in the form of practice tests or practice questions.

  • When studying for standardized exams like the MCAT or

  • USMLE, proper use of practice questions is hands-down the most effective way to study. The problem

  • is that most students fail to use this valuable resource to its full potential. First,

  • you should replicate your test taking environment when doing the practice tests. What time of day is the real exam?

  • What time constraints will you face? Will you be wearing earplugs? What is the environment like? Seek to recreate these factors as closely as possible.

  • Next, are the practice questions of high quality.

  • Ideally, they should be representative of the real test. For the MCAT,

  • AAMC and UWorld questions are the highest quality. For USMLE Step one, two, and three,

  • NBME and UWorld questions should be your go-to.

  • If you need additional practice questions, seek out the practice tests

  • which are harder than the real test, not

  • easier. If you are preparing for a class exam, try to get your hands on previous years' tests or quizzes.

  • If you're studying for the final, refer to your midterm or previous quizzes to understand the professor's testing style

  • which should guide your study approach. The most common mistakes students make is not properly reviewing their answers.

  • I recommend you review all questions even if you got the question

  • right. If you got lucky and guessed,

  • there's tremendous utility in reviewing the question properly so you won't have to guess next time

  • you see the concept. If you knew the answer, spend less time reviewing the

  • explanation but ensure you hit all the major points.

  • If you got the question wrong, make sure you both understand the underlying concept that is being tested

  • but also see if you made any mistakes in the

  • application of said concepts to the question. One of my strongest assets in performing optimally

  • academically was enjoying the experience of taking exams. The mild adrenaline rush helped me focus and

  • taking tests became enjoyable in an almost meditative way, as I would focus on the question at hand without

  • distraction. I call this test taking flow.

  • Unfortunately, most students experience the opposite- test taking anxiety.

  • After conducting thousands of hours of tutoring since 2007,

  • there are a few techniques that I found consistently helpful for my clients. First get your foundations in order.

  • That means proper nutrition, hydration, and sleep before the exam. Positive

  • self-talk is also key. Second, slow deep breathing.

  • Your belly should be rising, not your chest.

  • Third, when doing practice problems, seek to recreate the

  • adrenaline and tension you will feel on test day by consuming caffeine to stimulate your sympathetic nervous system.

  • That way, come test day, your nerves and jitteriness are more familiar and you can mitigate any detrimental effects on your

  • performance. Optimal test taking skills also require proper planning. How much time will you allocate to each question?

  • How do you decide when to skip a question and come back, or when to guess and move on?

  • How can you guess intelligently and hedge your answer choices to come out ahead with the highest possible score?

  • These are more advanced skills that will take your test scores to the next level and it's something that our team at Med School Insiders

  • specialize in. Not only are our tutors top-tier performers with top percentile scores on the MCAT, USMLE, and other tests,

  • but they're also phenomenal teachers. As well helping thousands of students drastically improve their performance.

  • My team and I have worked tirelessly in creating the best one-on-one tutoring experience for future doctors.

  • Not only do we recruit the best tutors in the industry,

  • but we've obsessed over creating the most effective and rigorous system that optimizes for one thing:

  • delivering results. If you want to crush your MCAT, USMLE, or need help doing better in any class, from organic chemistry or physics

  • to cardiology or surgery and anything between, our team has got your back.

  • Visit MedSchoolInsiders.com and use the coupon code best tutoring for $100 off any of our tutoring packages of 10 hours or more.

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  • Which domain is your strongest and which is your weakest requiring the most attention?

  • Let me know with a comment down below.

  • If you liked this video, hit the thumbs up to keep the Youtube gods happy and

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  • Much love to you all and I will see you guys in that next one.

If you've ever wondered how certain students crush every course and get straight A's then today is your lucky day.

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