So how do I study? Well my method is probably similar to others, but I LOVE summary sheets. During the first part of my freshman year I used highlight the book and study that, but that just wasn’t high yield for me because I found myself still slightly reading the unimportant unhighlighted portions of the book. What I began to do after that is turning what I highlighted in my book into questions. So for each chapter (because I love to type) I would have like 60 to 100+ questions coming from what I highlighted. This was pretty high yield and made studying slightly fun. As I got to the upper division classes and the course material became more challenging and increased in volume, I realized that typing out questions took TOO MUCH TIME. So yeah, I switched to my current system, which is basically summarizing in a Word document everything in a chapter that I though was important. I like this method, because now that I’m studying for my Biochemistry ACS final, which covers everything I did this semester plus all that crap from last year, I can just look at the chapter summaries I made last semester and study that rather than rereading the whole chapter. I’ve also found for the pathways in Biochemistry that its easier for me when I make a chart of the pathways detailing for the most part what electron acceptors are used, whether ATP is produced or used, and what the enzyme does. I heard that the Biochemistry ACS exam is mostly pathways, but I’m still studying stuff from last semester to be safe. Anyway, I decided to attached some of the summaries and charts I made from last semester and this semester for Biochemistry BELOW. Hopefully this will give premeds an idea of how I study and hopefully you can glean something and incorporate it into your studying style. There are probably typos, so don’t crucify me. :-).
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