 I only do three lectures instead of four on Thursday, a little bit of the same. Today I'm gonna share with you my exact approach that I used in medical school to study for exams where I always felt prepared going into an exam and always felt confident in leaving it and all of that without getting stressed out. Let's get into it. Hey friends, welcome back to channel. Today I wanna talk about how to better prepare for exams and do it more effectively because let's face it, studying for exams sucks. Taking the actual exam sucks. Anxiety around the exam, you guessed it, sucks. But we can make it a little less sucky if we have a nice copy and paste system that we can use across all exams. And this was the exact system that I used when I was in college and also when I was in medical school. So if you're ready to hear that step-by-step system, let's get into it. But first, go ahead and just smash that like button down below, really helps this video out. Did you do it? All right, I believe you, let's get into it. So step number one is to plan your first day of review as early as possible. One of the biggest things to prepare for an exam effectively is to know exactly when the preparation will start. In there we'll be waited to the very end for one reason or another and it led us to, regardless of what the grade is, definitely have that excess stress and feeling like we're always in a flurry. While in the past, cramming may have worked over time, it's just not sustainable. So that's why it's super important to plan backwards from test day and simply ask yourself, when do I wanna start studying for the exam? Personally, if I had an exam coming up this coming Friday, then typically I like to have about seven to 10 days to prepare for it. So that means that the test again was next Friday, typically I would start studying the Wednesday before. Obviously the situation will vary depending on how frequent your exams are, how many exams you have per week. But as soon as you kind of know, this is roughly the day and time frame that I wanna prepare for this exam, now you can finally start using the other techniques that we'll talk about in this video. So that leads you to step number two, which is to increase the amount of repetitions that you do for each and every lecture. So now that you know exactly when your test preparation will start, you need to start thinking of the whole preparations as if you were training for like a run or a marathon. And in a way, you can start thinking of each pass of your information as almost like another rep or another training session to overall help your information and understanding become more stronger. You got often what I find with most students, especially in medical school, is that because of information overload and simply lack of time, typically most students will get maybe one, maybe two repetitions before test day. But just like you would when you're preparing for a race or a workout, you wanna do as many reps as possible that way you feel comfortable when the actual event comes. And so personally, during my review phase for a test, if I had roughly seven to 10 days, I like to do roughly about two repetitions for each and every single lecture. If I've had 10 days to study 20 lectures, I actually have to cover about four lectures every single day. And this can be distributed however you want. So if you have days of your week that are a little bit more busier, you can back off on your number per day. And if you have other days that are a little bit more free like your weekends, you can start loading more of your reviews and lectures and repetitions during those days. So in this example, where we start reviewing this Wednesday for a test next Friday, here's how your lectures possibly could be arranged. So on Wednesday, for example, I may not have enough time. So I only do three lectures instead of four. On Thursday, a little bit of the same. On Friday, I wanna have the evening off. So instead of doing three or four lectures, I only choose to do one. But on Saturday and Sunday, because I planned ahead, I already knew that I was gonna front load more of my review during the weekend. So I do lecture eight to 15 on Saturday. On Sunday, I do six to 20. And also I have a little bit more bandwidth left in my Sunday. So I go ahead and start my second repetition. And then on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I go ahead and finish the second repetition of all those lectures. But because I've seen the lectures at least once before, this time I find that they're a little bit easier. I'm able to do a little bit more each and every single day. And then Thursday will be my dedicated day to review and catch up. So as you guys can see, for this example, you can distribute your lectures however you may want. Typically the weekends happen to be a little bit more busier. And then also you can see how your second repetition or however many repetitions you wanna do, each time you do it tends to move faster. So you'll find that if you're already doing repetitions really well, even before you get into your review phase, then your first repetition will be faster and your second repetition will be even faster. And then finally, as you guys can see, I like to use my Thursday or the last day before the exam as a buffer to either catch up in case I'm behind or simply use it as a confidence day. Typically there are gonna be a few topics that really just linger in the back of my head and your head then be like, ah man, I really hope that doesn't show up, but it's my one day to say, okay, let's focus on those topics because everything else is kinda covered at least twice. And at the very end of that Thursday I like to do just a quick flip through of all the material. So if I have all my slides, I just kind of flip through them like within a second. Just so I can see all the material and say, okay, I've seen this, I've seen this, I've seen this. So it's really a little bit of a confidence booster. And then finally I use that last bit of the evening to just do something for myself instead of doing what most of my classmates doing, which is programming. So if you don't already try to create a regimental schedule where you kind of know exactly what lectures you'll be reviewing each day and try to distribute it in a way where you're doing as many repetitions as possible within the amount of days you have, as well as giving yourself a little bit of buffer that way you can feel that confidence at the very end. Now finally, step number three is to gather your difficult topics and master them over time. So just like we said before, studying for an exam is almost like preparing for a race. If you have ever trained for a 10K or a half marathon or a marathon, then you kind of always know that before you ever do it for the first time, there's a little bit of initial struggle. For example, I couldn't run a mile before I ran my first 10K, but eventually after a few training sessions I was like, okay, this is not so bad. And there's like a little burst of confidence that comes with it. And it's almost the same when you're learning and preparing for an exam. You have X amount of topics that seem overwhelming when you're first starting. And then every single time, if as long as you can keep track of what topics you need to know, you almost think of everything like a tech mark. Or if you're preparing for a race, if you're running 26 miles and preparing for a marathon, it's almost like, okay, I can do one mile in a row. I can do two miles in a row. I can do four miles in a row. And that confidence continues to build up because ultimately and ideally you want to know all the material, but you don't need to know all the material at once. And so what that really harps on is you have a good system to collect these topics as you're learning them and as you're reviewing them. So some of the examples that I love to use in medical school would be creating an Excel sheet of all the topics that I'm learning for exam and then being able to check them off in a different column or creating a flashcard for all the topics that I missed in a practice question or things from a slide that just didn't make sense. I made a practice question and I had a full deck for all the information that was relevant to me. And remember one of the things that I would do for things like chemistry back in college is I would create a word doc of all the different equations and formulas and reactions that I need to know. And then I would just kind of color code them based on how well I knew them. That way each time I'd come back and review, I would say, okay, all the greens are mastered, all the yellows are something I should review and all the reds are something that are going to freak me out. So let's start with those first. And then as testing got closer, that list of material that was just like scary or things that were marked in red became smaller and smaller. And if you wanna learn more step-by-step strategies on things that you can do to review, better for your exams, then you guys can check out the level of your setting course which goes through a lot of different study strategies and methods that I used as well as other top students used in medical school. And really it doesn't matter if you use my method or one of yours, just have a very good system where as you go from lecture to lecture, you essentially are growing a database of all the material you need to know. And then slowly as you review each lecture, with each repetition, you should be able to see your database and say, okay, I've mastered this, this feels comfortable, or if this doesn't, and then the next repetition that you come back to that initial lecture, you can say, okay, let's focus on these first before I focus on the rest of the topics. And over time you'll find that just that you prepare for a marathon where you feel good for mile one, mile two, mile three, you'll feel good for lecture one, lecture two, lecture three, and then ideally you'll be ready when the exam comes around. If you don't take anything else from this video, just remember that you don't need to know everything on day one, you just need a very predictable system where you can gather information and then do as many reps as possible. And again, if you want more help in creating a system like that for yourself, then check out the level of your studying course, which will be linked down below. But most important takeaway is to think of test day like a bunch of little tiny check boxes that you have to do. And the more check boxes you can click off as you get closer to your test day during your review phase, the more confident you'll feel and the better you'll ultimately do on the exam. But with that being said guys, those are my tips and strategies on how to better, perfectively prepare for exams. Now, obviously there's a lot more nuances that go into it. So if there's something that I didn't cover, go ahead and drop your comments down below. And if you want to learn more, a few options for you. One, you can check out the free videos that we have for you here on YouTube, including our study playlist. Two, you can check out our level up your studying course, which goes over how to create a perfect study system for you in just three weeks. And then finally, three, if you want to learn more than just how to study, but also crush it on every phase of your medical journey, then go ahead and consider checking out the Medellin Academy where you can see all of our courses, but also work with me with life type coaching, Zoom and Slack, where you essentially have the ability to text me. So if you're interested, go ahead and check that in the description. But with that being said, guys, hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. If you did take one piece of advice that you really enjoyed, apply it to your day to day and come back to this video and report back on how it worked. Too often we take way too much time actually listening to advice and not enough time applying it. So take one thing from this video that you actually enjoyed and let me know how it works. And then two, if this content resonated with you, if you enjoyed the channel, go ahead and hit that like button to support this video on the YouTube algorithm. Consider hitting that subscribe button for more videos just like this and add your comments down below. I love interacting with you guys in the community. And if you enjoyed this video then check out this video on how you can use Anki like a pro to help you dominate on your medical journey. With that being said guys, thank you so much for joining me on my journey. Hopefully that was a little help to you guys and yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.