 I'm just tired. I'm tired of taking tests and not getting the results I want. I'm tired of missing 50-50 questions and I'm just a terrible test taker. If you've said any of those things guys about taking exams then I promise you I totally understand because I used to be in your shoes. When I started medical school I was a C student at best and I was sucking on all my tests. But after using the tips that I'm going to be giving you in this video I transitioned to an A student and I was able to do it with a lot less stress and often a lot less time. So if you're interested in learning how you can get those results stay tuned after the Centro. Alright guys what is going on? Luxury of an MD journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. If you're new to this channel the whole mission is to help students through weekly video tips learn how to get in this mentality of thriving on their medical journey and not just surviving. So if you want to learn how to do that first of all make sure you give this video a like and then hit that subscribe button. But let's get into this video which is how do you become a better test taker? Which is do you take what tips and motivations do I have and finally how can you learn even more? So let's get to tip number one which is a process that I've used to take my exams to get to the right answer more often and also avoid some of the common traps that the test makers set out for students. And this approach is my question answer STEM method. A lot of you guys may heard something similar but let me let you know how you can use it in college and as a medical student. The typical approach especially in med school is to read the very long question which usually has like a patient vignette finally it's the question and then read all the answer choices and still be clueless on where you should be headed and what the right answer is instead we're going to flip it on his head. We're going to start by reading the question first. So usually the question may be what's the diagnosis? How do you manage it? What imaging test do you do? But often you know you don't want to read a large paragraph and have the question end up being what is two plus two? You can answer that without the information given before. So basically that's what we're going to do. We're going to start with the question and get an idea of what direction are we expected to think about. And then we're going to look at what our options are. You know, if the question is what is the diagnosis? Well, we want to know what diagnosis are the potential or possibilities and you're going to go through each and every one. Now before you go back and you read the paragraph what I want you to do is I want you to think about what would have to be true for this answer to be correct. If the answer choices are things like cancer, things that you may be thinking about like weight loss, person may have new pain, they may be a smoker depending on the cancer. If it's something like heart failure, the person may have difficulty breathing, they may have swelling. There's different evidence that you know would be attributable to each answer choice. So now you know what the question is, what your options are, and you know what pieces of detail and evidence you would need for that answer to be right. Now go look for that evidence, go back to the stem, and see if you can find it. If you think your patient has heart failure or that could be a potential, look for those clues. Look for the swelling, look for the difficulty breathing, or the patient that's non-compliant with medication. Because if you start seeing those things and you'll understand, okay, this question is going to be pointing to the heart failure answer. Now guys, the reason that this works so well is for one, it's quicker. If you can read the question and gets the answer without having to read the long paragraph of the vignette, then you save some time and you're able to spend more time on the more difficult ones. And two, you also avoid the traps that the test makers set out for you. And the reason is because the typical way the student reads is that they're going to be reading the paragraph and they're going to see evidence for the heart failure, but they may also see some trap pieces of detail that may also point to maybe cancer. So by the time they get to the point of trying to answer it, half of them is thinking cancer, half of them is thinking heart failure, and they're not really sure which pieces of evidence matter. But if you instead don't start with the paragraph, you can avoid these traps and focus on just finding a proof to the answers you already know are your options. So try this question step method out and let me know what you think. And if you are using it already, comment down below and be like, that's the method I use, and it works pretty effectively. When I transitioned from the method that I was originally using, which is the typical test taking strategy to this one guys, my grades is shot up by a whole grade point average. And then I'm going to go ahead and give you some more tips later on this video to explain how to even boost your performance even more. So tip number two guys is a mindset shift. You need to get away from the typical high achieving pre-med type rate personalities which look at questions as potential to do worse on the exam. If you have a heart test, every single question is going to seem like another step closer to failing it. If you take an exam, you're going to say, oh crap, I failed it because everything seemed like a potential of more points you got lost. But instead, flip it on its head and look at every question as an opportunity to gain more points instead of losing them. It's essentially the same thing, but when you're in the second mindset, you're looking at everything as an opportunity and you can get through the test with more confidence because here's what happens. You look at each question one at a time. If you feel like you know it, then perfect. It's an opportunity for you to gain points and you feel good about yourself. But if you get to those questions that you're going to that are going to trip you up, it's going to give you a hard time, then you can get to this point where you just shrug and say, okay, well, at best case scenario, I'm going to guess and I get it right. Worst case, you know, I missed it like I probably was going to anyways. And you continue to focus on the questions that you are earning, the questions that you feel more comfortable about. Because by the end of the exam, you're probably going to do well on a majority of the questions you felt pretty good about. So you're going to claim those points. You're going to probably get some of those questions you guessed about that you weren't really sure. And you're going to feel more confident at the very end. And when you're more confident, each and every question becomes a little bit easier in your head. So get away from this mentality of questions being a way to lose points instead look at them as an opportunity to gain points. You have mindset shifts of I either know it, if I don't, you know, there's no big deal. I'm going to work on the next one and try to earn those points instead. That really makes a huge difference. And finally guys, tip number three, which I think is huge is you have to have a system to work on your weak points. Think about the last few days before an exam. What stresses you out the most? It's not the topics you know really well. It's the topics that you know you're pouring in, but you also spend very little time in. Thus, it's going to be the most likely thing that if it shows up on the test, you are going to freak out and have an anxiety attack. You know, these are the topics that I've been confusing you from day one and you've been pushing into the side, pushing into the side. And now you're a couple of days away from the test and you don't have enough time to review all of those topics. So instead you need to have a system to review these weak points from the very start. Now a couple of videos that I do make, I do include a method called a review container. Now go ahead and link a video explaining how that works. But it's a great method that helps you do justice, so just create a system to work on your weak points from day one. So if you want to learn how the review container works, make sure you take out the link in the description. But regardless of what you choose, whether it's review container or something totally different, have a system from the day you go to lecture to identify the topics that are going to give you a tough time and somehow work on them a little bit daily to the point where when test comes around, you have less and less of these topics that are going to give you difficult time on the exam. So guys, those were the three tips that basically helped transform my performance on my exam. So make sure you use those three tips. Now quickly I want to explain where you can go to next. So as I mentioned, check out the review container if you want to learn how to have a system or work on your weaknesses. That'll be linked down in the description. And you'll also have four other study methods that myself and other medical students have found to be effective and usually work quicker. So again, that'll be linked to the description. Two, if you want to see how I would study as a first year from start to finish, comment an entire video about that. Also, you can find out YouTube below. And finally, if you want to learn how some of my students are taking my tips to completely transform their studying in just three short weeks and spending less time while getting some of the best results that they possibly can, you're probably going to be interested in checking out my level up your studying course, which I'll link down below. But basically it's a three week system that teaches you how to identify what you're doing wrong, what you should be doing instead, and then finally how to craft your perfect study system so you can be studying less, studying better, and getting some of the best results possible. So again, that'll be linked to the description for anyone interested. But regardless, hopefully you guys found this video helpful and now can feel it have more of ease when you're taking exams in college or in medical school. If you found this video helpful, guys, first of all, make sure you give it a like, comment down below with anything you've learned or any questions you guys have, and obviously make sure you hit that subscribe button. Help me get to my impossible goal of 25,000 subscribers. Hopefully you guys will join me on my journey and hopefully you found this video helpful. But I'm gonna stop babbling like I always do. I'll see you guys in the next one. Take care, my friends.