In the past, I used to think that studying well meant sitting in front of the desk longer, reading more books, and trying to “strain” a little more every day.
However, after many years of intense medical school and working as an official doctor in the US, I have realized a completely different truth:
Fast learners are not necessarily more learners. They simply know how to learn better.
If you are feeling overwhelmed with a huge amount of knowledge and want to boost your performance, here are 7 small but powerful changes that you can apply today to learn faster and more effectively.
1. Article 1: Don’t start by reading, start by asking questions
An extremely common habit of us when starting to learn a new topic is to open the book and read from the first page to the last.
This passive learning method is essentially like walking into the supermarket without a list of items to buy. You can walk around for a long time, pick up a lot of things, but when you get home you still find that you’re missing the most important ingredient.
So, before you start reading any material, activate your brain by asking yourself these core questions:
- “What should I understand after finishing this lesson?”
- “In what ways will teachers usually exploit this part of knowledge in the exam?”
- “If tomorrow I had to explain this part again to someone else, how would I present it?”
When your brain is equipped with questions in advance, it will automatically scan information in a much more targeted and sensitive way.
2. Article 2: Re-explain to yourself or act as a teacher
Reading and re-reading a document many times often gives us a very pleasant feeling of complacency: “Ah, I already know and understand this part of knowledge.”
But you need to remember that the familiar feeling when looking at a word does not mean that your brain has really memorized it deeply. It’s just like when you look at the face of a person passing by on the street and find it very familiar, but when it comes time to call their name, you’re completely helpless and can’t remember what their name is.
Real understanding only happens when you can courageously close the book, express and explain the entire content again in your own simple words. If you stumble or cannot present coherently, it proves that that piece of knowledge does not actually belong to you.
3. Article 3: Change the goal from “how long to study” to “what to learn”
Be proactive in eliminating the cliché setting goals over time like: “My goal today is to study continuously for 6 hours.”
Because locking yourself in front of your desk for 6 hours absolutely does not mean your brain will absorb and progress corresponding to those 6 hours.
It’s like going to the gym for 2 hours but most of the time you just walk back and forth, touching this exercise machine a little, admiring that exercise machine a little. Your body is still tired, but your muscular system certainly couldn’t be healthier.
Replace them with specific and measurable action goals:
- “Today I will successfully complete 40 multiple-choice practice questions.”
- “Today I have to thoroughly explain this pathophysiological mechanism.”
- “Today I am forced to distinguish between these 3 very confusing diseases.”
- I’m wrong because I’m completely unfamiliar with this area of knowledge?
- Am I wrong because I have the habit of skimming the questions too quickly?
- Am I wrong because I was distracted by an approximate noise solution?
- Or am I wrong because I haven’t really distinguished the boundary between two similar concepts?
- If you only pass that way once, the weeds will only slightly drift to the sides and then quickly grow back as before.
- If you persistently walk that path many times, a new path will gradually form clearly.
- And if you don’t step foot on it for a long time, the weeds will grow again and erase all traces.
The total time you spend in your chair is never as important as the actual results you produce after that study session is over.
4. Article 4: Proactively do practice questions early
There are many students who often have a procrastination mentality, wanting to wait until they “finish all the theory” before starting to work on practice questions.
But learning theory without practical questions is no different than trying to learn to swim on dry land. You can memorize every instruction book on how to fan your arms, how to kick your feet, or how to catch your breath underwater, but only when you actually step into the pool will you know where you’re out of breath.
Multiple choice questions and practice exercises are created for more than just checking your score. It is an effective learning method that helps you proactively identify knowledge gaps, points you are misunderstanding, and exam traps that you are most susceptible to falling into.
5. Article 5: Dig deeper into the reasons for errors instead of just reading the answers
Many people, after getting a question wrong, often just quickly glance at the explanation of the correct answer, then think to themselves: “Ah, that’s it, I understand” and quickly move on to another question.
This behavior is essentially the same as your car showing a dangerous engine error light, but instead of opening the hood to check the details, you just try to turn off the warning light to hide it from your eyes.
To really improve, every time you get a question wrong, stop for a moment to dig deeper and accurately classify the root cause of that mistake:
Each error analyzed is an invaluable road map showing where you need to make changes. If you just skim over the correct answer and then move on, you are personally throwing away the most valuable asset of the learning process.
6. Article 6: Set up an intermittent review cycle for long-term memory
You absolutely should not try to cram a huge amount of knowledge into your head in one day and then ignore it for weeks later.
Knowledge in the brain operates completely like a small path in the wilderness:
The human brain also works according to a similar mechanism. Knowledge is never engraved into long-term memory thanks to a long cramming session. It can only be remembered sustainably through the brain actively naming and using it over and over again in a spaced cycle (Spaced Repetition): Study today, quickly review tomorrow, meet again a few days later, and a week later do the self-assessment test.
7. Article 7: Absolutely do not sacrifice your sleep
When faced with the pressure of a mountain of unlearned homework, the natural reaction of many students is to try to stay up 2-3 hours late at night to gain more knowledge.
But you need to know that sleep is absolutely not a useless waste of the body’s time.
In fact, science has proven that sleep is the golden time for the brain to arrange and link all the information streams received during the day and convert them into long-term memory.
You can force your body to stay up extra tonight to study. But if the next day you have to step into the exam room or office with a sluggish head, loss of concentration, impaired memory and slow learning ability, the cost to your health and actual score will be much greater than what you receive.
Conclusion
Studying well and being successful is by no means a race of physical suffering. It is the art of knowing how to make your brain cooperate optimally.
Because on a long and challenging road, the person who gets to the final destination and reaps the most achievements is not the one who tries to learn the most at all costs, but is always the one who knows how to learn properly, correct mistakes quickly, and maintain their own endurance and endurance. body.
What do you think about these 7 changes in your learning method? What methods are you applying to optimize your learning every day? Please leave a comment below to share with me.
If you feel this article provides practical and useful information, please share it widely with your friends and colleagues!
Dr. Christina Nguyen
The Phoenix Medical Academy
