 So you've got exams coming up and you're just not sure where to get started with it all. Are you on the right track? Should you be doing something differently? What are the most high yield topics? Have you studied enough? Or do you need to kick into gear and put your foot on the gas? It's also difficult not to compare your technique with other people on the course or to doubt if what you're doing is actually going to work. What is up guys? Karma Medic here and welcome back to another dose. If you've got exams coming up then this video is for you. It's hard to know whether your studying technique is going to get you the grades that you want or need so here are five life-saving exam tips to help you get through the exam season. My first tip is to have a plan and to have a plan early. It's so important for you to know how your course is structured and when your exams are. You also need to know the type of exams you're going to have. So in medical school for example most commonly we have single best answer questions or MCQs, we have oskies, anatomy spotter exams and so on. I think students really underestimate how beneficial it is to start early with understanding the basic layout of your course and when you can expect to be having your exams so that you can be better prepared for them. It's easy to think that your exams are at some point in the summer and just have that sort of in the back of your mind and then before you know it you're a month away from exams and you're cramming in all the work and you're just really stressed and it's a bad time. I find it helpful to meticulously plan my year at the start instead of waiting for the last term and then panic ensues. It's always worth remembering that we're really good at talking ourselves into and tricking ourselves into the belief that we have lots of time ahead of us and that we shouldn't worry or we can leave planning until tomorrow. When we all know that tomorrow doesn't really come the idea situation is to use the information on your course and the dates of your exams, other assignments and reading weeks etc from day one so that you can plan your studies around it and try to avoid the trap of tricking yourself into believing that you can leave everything until the last month before exams. You probably can and I'm sure a lot of people get away with that but it comes along with a lot of stress and anxiety and that's something that we're trying to avoid here on the channel. If you haven't already done this don't worry or freak out you know it's never too early to start I always say having a plan no matter when in your studying journey is going to be very very helpful so just think about making a plan so you have a general idea of when things are going to be. Before we get into what you can do if you're in the thick of it in exam season I kind of want to talk about falling behind with content. I've made an entire video about the steps that you can take if you've already fallen behind but I just want to try and remind everyone to make it your goal to not fall behind to begin with if it's avoidable and the reason that I say that is because if you stay on track throughout the semester then it's a little bit of work every now and again consistently and you stay where you are once you've fallen behind everything kind of becomes exponentially more difficult to get back on track and then get ahead once more and so just trying to remain a little bit consistent throughout time is a lot easier than having that falling behind sensation and having to just do tons and tons of work just to get back to the same starting point. Now I know that a lot of the time it isn't avoidable if you're on well or if you have other commitments outside of academics or you're just having a really bad day you can't reschedule something like work etc but I think that building into your study routine the fact that you might fall behind at some point and sort of building in this margin of error or this safety net is really helpful when it comes to planning and one way that you can get around this is that if you ever find yourself with a little bit more free time you know obviously take that time to go out and have fun and see friends and whatever but dedicate a sliver of that time to looking ahead you know at lectures that are already available or doing some of the readings that you know you're going to have to do anyway next week or in a couple of weeks. Sometimes lectures from the previous years are already available online and so you can just look at those and get ahead with that little bit of free time that you have this can be really helpful especially as you approach exam season because once you reach exam season you kind of just want to be reviewing the content and the notes that you've already gone over and that you've made you don't really want to be looking at new content making new notes and seeing things for the first time so close to your exams and if you've had a little bit of free time throughout the semester to do a little bit of reading ahead it usually just propels you that much more so that when it comes exam time you're less stressed you have your notes ready and you can just review them for me personally the idea of cramming or pulling all-nighters or you know studying really really intensely before exams causes me a lot of stress and anxiety and part of the reason that I work so hard throughout the year and that I work so hard generally is because I'm trying to avoid that stress I'm trying to avoid putting myself in a position where I would be so anxious and worried and stressed pulling all-nighters and things like that and one of the ways that I've been able to do that is by reading ahead in some of my free time or down days. I cannot stress enough how important active recall is but also how important doing active recall is early on in the academic year it's helpful to get an idea of what your uni is going to be testing you on way before you even get to exam season the benefit of this is that you're doing something that is going to help you remember and understand and apply the content for exactly what you're going to be tested on. If you do pass paper questions early on in the year then you're going to be able to learn the exam structure learn the type of questions that are going to be asked for you and see the cumulative effects of learning information at spaced intervals as you get closer to the exam. I've said it before but at least in medical school I feel like 80% of the marks that you get in your exams are going to come from something like 20% of the content so you really benefit from learning what these topics are early on in the year. Doing pass paper questions or going through flashcard decks that you might have gotten from the older years in your university even if it's on content that you haven't quite gone through yet it doesn't matter. Starting early to build up that familiarity with topics that you're going to learn about in the future that you even might not know about right now is really really helpful and it can tell you what to harness and focus your efforts and your energy on when it comes to studying. Obviously if you haven't seen this material before and you're not familiar with the questions then you might not be scoring as well as you'd like but especially at the beginning I really wouldn't worry about the scores it's more about getting familiar with the types of questions with the types of content and just getting used to what you're going to be asked on the exam. As time goes on and you review that material and you go over those topics in your lectures and your tutorials etc then you can be expecting to score better but I really wouldn't worry about it at the beginning. Okay so if you're only seeing this video a month before your exams and you need some tips right now for while you're in the thick of it the best tip that I can give you is to be really clear about what your time is worth. I see a lot of people spending hours on making flashcards or notes and other resources that already exist out there. I think this can generally be a pretty big waste of your time you could be using this time to actively engage with your content through pass papers and pass paper questions. It's so important that you consider where your time is going especially when you don't have a lot of it and with limited time you want to make sure that you're focusing on the most high yield materials, the most high yield content and topics that are likely to come up on the exam and will actually move the needle for you in terms of getting a better grade. Using resources from older years, exchanging study notes with your friends, organizing study groups and finding more creative ways to use your time instead of just sitting in the library or in your room studying alone reviewing your notes over and over again can be really helpful. You've always got to be thinking about what's going to best engage your brain. Are you going to do better with doing one hour of flashcard making or one hour of flashcard answering? Oftentimes students don't realize that there are already resources out there which can prevent them from duplicating that work and putting a lot of time and effort into doing the sort of preliminary stuff before the actual highly engaging stuff like answering questions and recalling information. My advice is to use all of the resources available to you and to continuously ask yourself am I spending my time in the most high yield way. Another important thing is about organizing study groups. One of the main reasons that I did so well in my oskies is because I studied with other people. You'll learn so much from other people on the course and you can ask them about things that you're struggling with and you can consolidate your learning by explaining things or teaching them to other people as well. If you don't know people that well just start a what's up group and add people who you'd like to know better or you'd like to study with and get in charge of organizing something. I've personally been the king of this method every year before exams. I'd always make a what's up group and I'd put like 10 to 20 people in there who I knew on the course. I'd send a message with something along the lines of all right guys the time is here we have to start preparing for finals. Let's pool all of our resources together in this group and share everything that we have and then people would send over their notes their flashcards their pass paper exams like everything you name it and suddenly we were all in a much better position with all this shared information and resources than if we were all just studying on our own and all of this because I made a what's up group and message 10 to 20 people which took me like five minutes. Everybody wins and you'll be surprised about how much people want to be included in something like this especially when you get closer to exam season just most people don't want to take that initiative and take charge of actually making the group. So my last tip is to rest meaningfully and consciously even if you've left everything to the last minute you still need rest. There's no scenario where you're going to study day and night for multiple days in a row and still keep your sanity. You're going to go crazy and you're going to be really stressed. You can't study effectively if you're not resting regularly and meaningfully. I mean look maybe you can I don't know but I'll speak for myself and in order to study hard I definitely need to rest hard as well. I personally keep quite a strict schedule which includes resting time for doing whatever it is that I want in my day and also to make sure that I get my seven hours of needed sleep at night. If I don't do that then I'm much more likely to burn out and then also when I'm studying during the day and I'm tired it's not the best thing for you know retaining all of that information and actually learning it properly. You need to rest between topics and between blocks of studying in order to be able to learn that information more efficiently. As you've seen in my previous videos I have a really strict study routine especially around exam time but it's so good to know that in my downtime I can do whatever it is that I want. I have this really strict differentiating line between my studying time and my resting time and that means that when I'm studying I'm completely focused and I don't have my phone I don't go on social media and I'm just doing all the hard work and then in my resting time I don't have to think about work I'm not guilty about not studying because I know that I've already done that and I can focus all of my mind and my energy on having fun and resting. Even though in my resting time my to-do list is still full of things that I need to do and I know that I have a lot to get done I know that I deserve this break as well and I should take advantage of it and rest as much as I can. I really like to remind myself as often as I can that it's important to rest my mental health in order to get the most out of my studying time or my productive time in the day. If you are finding it difficult to get in enough rest or your mental health is deteriorating then please reach out to your friends, your family, your personal tutors at university or anyone who you trust who might be able to help. I know at least here in medical school there is help available and you know universities are used to dealing with students who are struggling with their studies, with their mental health, with whatever and so they have experience dealing with these issues and they're available to talk to if you need them. So please do remember that and don't suffer through it on your own or struggle through it by yourself. Talking to other people is a really really great way to sort of get tackling the problem you know moving past any difficult period that you're in in your life. And that is it guys those are my five life-saving exam tips that will hopefully help you get through your exams. Hopefully this video will have added value in some way shape or form that can help you adapt your studying routine for the better. I hope there's something that you've been able to take away from this video even if it's just a reminder to reach out to friends to study together or to take rest or even just to start planning for exams from now no matter how far into the academic year you are. If you have any tips that you think might help other students then please do leave them in a comment down below. And if you're interested I have my Patreon the Karma Club where we do lots of these live study with me sessions and you can ask like-minded people questions about studying and everything else. It's just a great place to be I'll leave a link in the description down below if you're interested. And that's it from me I'll see you in the next one. Peace. Show em. Amazing eh? Greek Blizzard.