2015 Study Skills Workshop

Biochemistry - Jazz and Mike

There’s no way to sugarcoat it--Biochemistry is difficult. Whether you’re learning enzyme kinetics, glycolysis, or the heme biosynthesis pathway (Dr. Offner’s favorite), you will likely encounter concepts or processes that you’ve never seen before. Without the right mindset or study tools this can be intimidating, so we are here to provide you with some tips and suggestions that we hope will make your experience in Biochemistry (and MAMS in general) more enjoyable! P.S. The new MCAT2015 now tests Biochemistry! Mastering the material now makes for a less stressful study schedule next June! Pre-lecture:

• Preview the syllabus notes and powerpoint slides. o Do this in the morning prior to lecture. Spend more time going through

powerpoint lecture since most lectures follow the slides. The amount of time you spend pre-reading varies, but remember that you are trying to become familiar, not memorize or study anything.

• Highlight the areas that you feel may require further clarification. o If these were not clarified in lecture, go to TAs, Professors, Classmates, or Piazza

for help. Everyone is here to help you succeed! Lecture:

• Go to class! It is easy to procrastinate if you do not go to class. o Re-watch the lectures if necessary.

• Taking notes: o Find what works best for you--if you use your computer, be careful of distractions

(internet, facebook, email, texting, etc). The easiest way to avoid this is to just turn off your wireless during class.

o I (Jazz) used to take notes on my computer on the slides themselves. o If you prefer writing things, you can also print the slides and take notes on them

directly. o I (Mike) took written notes. I drew a lot of pathways, flowcharts, diagrams, etc. to

connect concepts, so it was just easier to write out. o Listen! Actively listening and engaging in the lectures will help you remember

information better and make the lectures much more enjoyable. Post-Lecture:

• Go through the lecture material. Try to do it the same day as lecture. • Organize by making master notes that combine the syllabus and lecture slides. Do not

copy things down--your master notes should be written in your own words and should represent your understanding/interpretation of the material.

o Studying from complete set of master notes is easier than going between slides, syllabus, Piazza, and other resources.

Other: • Use Dr. Offner’s Friday emails as a checkpoint--if you haven’t finished what she listed,

then use the weekend to get caught up with lectures that you haven’t covered yet. • Do the practice questions as you go along. Waiting until the day before the test is useless

and does not give you the chance to ask questions or clarify confusing points.

o Don’t just answer the practice questions--ask why an answer is correct, expand upon the question to further clarify the concept, or even ask yourself/classmates additional questions for practice. (Tip: do them as you go along, but we recommend saving them until you have a decent understanding of the section’s material.)

• A whiteboard is really helpful for the metabolism section. Repetition is key! • Understand the big picture--memorizing glycolysis or DNA replication is the easy part,

so try to take a step back and understand why it’s important, what are the implications of defective enzymes, how do they connect, etc. Critical thinking!!

• Find the learning environment that works best for you. The library is a good place since it’s quiet and other people are studying too. Some people can study with their friends well, but be careful of getting distracted.

• Use Piazza! • James mentioned this at orientation, but just to reiterate: know absolutely everything in

the syllabus. It is there for a reason, so everything is fair game. • Make a study schedule!!!! Having a schedule will help you stay on track.

o Do not spend an entire day on one subject. Switch subjects every 1-2 hours. It keeps you focused.

o Make sure to devote time equally to each of the three courses. It is easy to get caught up with COT, which can then make you fall behind in Biochem and Physio. Also, keep in mind that biochem is a 6 credit course, while the others are 4 credits. Plus you have biochem lecture 4 days a week, so it requires you to keep on top of things more.

o Be flexible with your schedule. If you don’t finish something in the time you allotted to it, then change it up. At the beginning, you will need to be more flexible to assess your weak and strong points.

o Be sure to build in some time for yourself every week. It might be a couple of hours or even a full day, depending on the week, but it is super essential to do it. You do not want to burn out.

Test Day Advice:

• On the night before the test, do something for YOU. Cook dinner for yourself, play soccer, practice yoga or meditate, play an instrument, pet a dog, or whatever hobby you may have. It helps you relax, plus cramming is no good. If you don’t know it by 8 pm the night before, you won’t learn it at that point. It is better to relax and give your brain a break.

• Keep your composure! Whether it’s while studying, during an exam, or following receipt of a less-than-stellar test grade: always keep a level head!! The material is difficult. Accept the fact that you may have difficulty learning/understanding some topics, but do not let it affect your will or motivation to study.

• Eat breakfast/lunch and have your coffee (that is, if you drink coffee). • RELAX!!!! TAKE A DEEP BREATH! You studied hard, and now it is time to shine!

You can do it! A little nervousness is normal, but don’t let it impact your ability to think. Test anxiety is your mortal enemy.

• Last but not least: SLEEP. All-nighters = bad. Sleep = good. It may seem tempting to stay up all night to memorize pathways, but lack of sleep essentially negates anything you think you might have learned.

Human Physiology – Jun

Welcome B.U. MAMS class of 2017! This document is designed to offer you several study tips/advice to be successful in the physiology course this year. Please note that this is not the master guide on how to study; everyone has unique study habits that may not necessarily be suitable for others. Your primary goal is to discover what works best for you through trial and error, and perfect your study techniques via integrating different approaches. The following are a few tips that worked for me while studying for this course:

§ Course Material: Everything you need to know in the physiology course are covered in the syllabus and the discussion worksheets! What’s covered in the lecture is always aligned with the syllabus, and additional texts are unnecessary unless you really want alternative explanations.

§ Pre-reading: Reading the relevant course material beforehand will make your time in lecture more productive and engaging. By pre-reading, you may also come up with questions to ask the professor at an appropriate time during or after the lecture.

§ Post-reading: After the lecture, you should always aim to read the covered material at your earliest convenience. Doing so will help you consolidate your learning and highlight what you may have trouble with. Identifying your questions and actively seeking answers early on is critical to mastering the material.

§ Key Concepts: Make sure you can explain key concepts in your own words. Being able to accurately answer self-formulated questions and/or questions from your peers is a good indicator of your understanding. Note: don't blow by any graphs or figures.

§ Learning Objectives: The course managers and professors—the people who actually write the examinations—specifically prepared these to cover the key concepts and summarize important information in that chapter. Test yourself and make sure you can answer these with thorough explanations.

§ Discussions: Go to discussions prepared; attempting to complete the worksheets beforehand will definitely make your time in discussions more effective. Substantial portion of the test questions will be based on the material covered in discussions.

§ Practices Quizzes and Exams: Do not leave these until the day before the actual quiz/exam. Go through them several days in advance, and as you go through them, don’t just choose the correct answer and move on! You should strive to explain why the other answer choices are incorrect, as doing so will strengthen your understanding.

§ Memorization: Simply memorizing facts will definitely NOT help you. The examinations test your understanding of the material conceptually, and only a handful of questions will test discrete information (even then, it most often integrates key concepts). Memorizing the material ≠ understanding the material.

§ Comprehensive Studying: “Is this testable information?” is not a question you should be asking throughout the course. All the information in the syllabus is important and fair game unless otherwise noted, and you are expected to demonstrate mastery of the material during examinations. Don’t leave any questions unanswered! You have ample resources: weekly Q&A sessions, office hours, and your peers.

§ Attitude: Physiology is challenging, but remember that it serves as one of the core foundations of medicine. With dedication, positivity, and active studying, this challenge will become your reward. All the best!

Cellular Organization of Tissues (COT) - Sean and James

Your view of COT, as with Biochemistry and Physiology, depends largely upon your level of interest. The few, the proud, the Histo-warriors eat, sleep, and breathe COT; they get a rush from zooming in on a delectable simple squamous epithelium and would willingly substitute watching a few hours of Netflix on Saturday evenings with some Biolucida quality time. The middle ground peeps neither love nor hate it; they will learn the material with no particular emotional attachment, either positive or negative. And the rest of the crew will have nightmares with Dr. Toth’s voice echoing in their heads, “Label the epithelium!” However, this is where we tell you that your personal views and emotions regarding this one-of-a-kind class do not dictate what grade you will receive. Even the most enthusiastic students for COT will fall short if they fail to study properly. The great news is that any type of student can establish good study habits and conquer this class.

COT is a difficult course for many because it condenses a daunting amount of material into four credit hours. Indeed, the amount of material and the time you must put into reviewing it is much like that of Biochemistry. Thankfully, however, a systematic and dynamic approach to studying combined with due diligence can help you succeed!

Where to begin:

§ It is very important to pre-read before going to lecture. The large amount of material covered each week makes lectures very fast-paced, and if you come to lecture without knowing what they are talking about it becomes time wasted.

§ Make sure you read actively when looking over the syllabus. Whether you are pre-reading or reviewing it again, at some point you should read the syllabus very carefully, noting things that may be important or tricky. Ask yourself questions about the material as you read. Oftentimes your questions are answered later in the text!

§ Don’t gloss over difficult concepts! You may find that the most complex and detailed concepts are the ones they test you on most frequently. Avoid skipping over these parts of the material and instead give them more attention.

§ There are many differing opinions on the use of “master notes”. I (James) found it most helpful to use OneNote (included with Microsoft Office) to create my own notes, putting lecture and lab material into a condensed format in my words.

Time management:

§ If you have no schedule or prioritized list guiding your studies, chances are you are losing valuable time throughout the day. Set a schedule for yourself to ensure you have adequate time for your heavy course load.

§ Plan out when you do your lab assignments and when you review your lecture material in a way that will most benefit you learning the material. Drawing assignments and material reviews are less helpful if you rush through them because it is the night before lab and/or a quiz.

Lab:

§ Take drawing assignments seriously! It cannot be overstated how helpful drawings can be when studying histology. Take the time to do them thoughtfully.

§ During lab, make sure you communicate with your group members rather than sitting in silence while you follow the syllabus. Your lab grade depends on how well your group communicates with each other. If you ask the TF a question and they answer it, tell your group what they said right away!

§ A more specific approach: Take screenshots of things when you find them on the slides and include them in your notes. Sometimes you find something easily during lab but can’t find it later when you review the material. Many find it helpful to make labelled screenshots to use later as a reference.

Assessments: • Learn everything! Instead of wasting your time thinking about what they will test you

on, keep your head down and learn all the material so there are no surprises on assessments.

• A sure way to have trouble on a quiz is to wait until the night before to start reviewing. Give yourself at least one day in between reviewing and taking the quiz so you have time to reflect on the material.

• It is imperative that you keep up with the material. Falling behind at any point can be difficult to recover from. The weekly quizzes are there to keep you accountable for staying on pace, do not waste that opportunity.

• Don’t second-guess yourself! Everyone knows that when you change your answer on a multiple-choice question you usually change it to a wrong choice (and oftentimes your first answer was right!). Be confident in your judgment and try not to overthink the question. If the question is suspiciously easy, it’s likely that it’s actually just an easy question!

N.B. Although the recommended text is Junqueira’s, the sixth edition of Ross & Pawlina’s Histology contains a more thorough atlas and is, in my (James’) opinion, more useful, especially for those who have never taken histology. Please note that this text should serve only as an extra reference and should not be used to replace Junqueira’s. The information for Histology is included below. Ross, M., & Pawlina, W. (2011). Histology: A text and atlas: With correlated cell and molecular biology (6th Ed.). Baltimore, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. ISBN: 978-0-7817-7200-6 Closing Tips & Tricks

• For those that are not the fondest of COT, and even for those who enjoy it a lot, it is very helpful to think of the course as a game. Some of the core objectives of the course are to be able to identify important tissues and cells and be able to describe their function. What better way to attack this objective than to treat it like a guessing game or a Where’s Waldo book. This will help give you a more positive outlook on the material. Also, you can play games with your lab partners and other classmates. Before lab and lecture or on your way home on the bus, challenge your classmates to remember the stages of hematopoiesis or the stages of embryogenesis. It may seem like a goofy and childish activity, but think about if you asked one question each day on your way home, that adds up! And several times last year, a question popped up on a quiz or exam that was exactly the question talked about on the bus!

• If you gleaned nothing but one thing from this lil’ COT write-up you MUST remember this: COT demands SPECIFICITY. You have now heard it from us and you will continue to hear it over and over again all semester. But even with all of this reminding you will still inevitably make a mistake in being too vague with a labeling answer. Ingrain this need for specificity early and you will be better off for it. For example, you analyze a slide and the cell in question is most clearly a macrophage on a wondrous slide of a lung, boom, answer: macrophage, next please! WRONG!!! The answer is: alveolar macrophage to properly account for it being in the lung. These are stupid mistakes and will leaving you feeling horrible because you most definitely knew that the slide was a lung and that the cell was a macrophage, BE SPECIFIC! Let your mistakes in the first couple weeks be that you were TOO specific. We challenge you to do this.

o Incorporate this into your guessing games! Keep your classmates accountable for answering properly when you pose questions. In demanding the specific answer, you will understand where Dr. Toth is coming from in creating the questions for the quizzes, exams and practicals. This will, in turn, give you greater confidence and skill in answering his questions: the questions that really matter!

Good luck and be confident! Sincerely, The MAMS Subcommittee

Sean Jazz James

Mike Jun