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Can you see that? Yeah, we can see those, you can hear me. Ok. Yeah. Ok. Um Cool, thanks very much. Um So hi guys. Like I said, my name is Maira. Um, I am going into my third year um at Downing college and yeah, I'm gonna be giving the first kind of talk for meds, so which is called how to get the most out of lectures. Um, and like I said, we're just gonna kind of touch on what to expect because you probably, um, don't know very much at this stage. Um, and I'll touch on kind of like how your timetable will work. Um, the lecture Practicals. Um, and then kind of some advice on how to study and how to navigate the year. Um, and then if you do have questions like as I'm speaking, which I'm sure you will um, just put them in the chat or um, wait till the end and then, um, we can get to that. Um ok, cool. So first we just wanna say congratulations um, on behalf of everyone um, here. Um, yeah, you've worked really, really hard to be in this position. Um, it's been a really long journey. I can remember it myself. Um And you should be really proud um to even reach this stage and really excited um for the journey to come. Um because, you know, we have no doubt that you're gonna love the university. You're going to love the um the, the course and um everything that for the next six years, which is, it is overwhelming. I'm sure I'm sure you do feel overwhelmed, but it's a really exciting prospect. So you should feel very excited. And hopefully this talk manages to kind of calm your nerves a little bit and have any questions that you're unsure about answered at this stage. Um OK, so I thought we could start by talking about how lectures work um in your preclinical years. Um So obviously, I'm, I'm sure you do know this but um I in the, in the course of your uh six years, your first three years are your preclinical years and then your last three years are clinical years. So you're in Adam Brooks for that um period of time, but before that, you are kind of just going to lectures, Practicals, dissections, et cetera. Um And you do very little uh clinical work at that at that stage. Um So, you know, very shortly, um hopefully soon you'll receive your timetables um which will tell you where to go at what time and when things are scheduled in. Um and that will include your lectures, your Practicals, your dissections, any kind of like seminars or, or, or like, um, odd, odd things like that. Um, they won't include supervisions. However, your supervisions will be organized um, through your college once you start the course. Um, and if you have any questions about that later on you can ask. But, um, yeah, supervisions are held within your college. It's not, um, it's not centralized by the university. Um And then your modules in first year, you have three modules uh called uh Mi MS Ho and Fab Mims stands for Molecules in medical science. So that's basically just biochemistry. Ho is short for homeostasis. So that's physiology. And then fab is um it stands for functional architecture of the body that's anatomy. Um And you will have uh talks later on um specifically about those modules. So like me, soccer holding talks called Intro to home, intro to fab, intro to Mis which will touch on kind of the topics that you cover within those modules. Um and uh how to revise specifically for them, what to expect. Um But if you have any questions at this stage, again, feel free to ask. So your MS and home lectures will be held in Babbage lecture theater, which is on new museum site and then your fab lectures um and dissections are held in the anatomy lecture theater which is on Downing site. So this is all kind of in the same area, it's near Downing. So if you go to downing. Lucky you, you're very close to where all your contact hours are. Um, and then the only other thing I had to mention was that most lectures start at five past the hour to give you some time to go, um, in between. Cool. So that, that's lectures. Um, and then also like MS Practicals, home Practicals, they're held in the same place. All of your contact hours are pretty much held on downing site. Um OK. And then our next slide is about different ways of learning. So, um this is a very broad topic and depending on the person that you speak to, to be honest, everybody will give kind of different advice and based on what they have found works for them and based on what they have seen their friends do and the people around them. Um, but II think the main thing on honestly to emphasize is that there's, there's a lot of different ways to study. And, um, I think in my experience and um a lot of the people that I know have really made a point of the fact that first year is really for navigating and figuring out the way that you study and what works for you. Um You know, it is OK at the beginning to be completely confused and not sure where to start and it equally is OK to try different methods. Um Before coming to a conclusion of OK, this is the way that works for me. Um But yeah, don't be afraid to experiment with, with different, um, uh study, study methods and study skills. Um You don't have to start one thing and be fixed on it just because you started that way and, and no way is right. You, you do find your own style with time. Um Even if it's completely different to what everybody else is doing. If it works for you, that's completely fine. Um So yeah, uh the advice I would give honestly is to, is to chat to your friends, uh chat to your course mates and your peers and see how they're planning to go about it. Um Take inspiration from them and, and, and try it out for yourself. Um You might find that it works uh or it doesn't or you could slightly tweak their style or their approach to suit you better. Um And s some styles of of learning might suit different modules or lecture series better than others. So me, for example, I would use a different way of studying for anatomy than for biochemistry, for example. Um Because in anatomy, you'll find that you're, if you're basically learning like it in, in a way, it's like a different language, right? Like it's, you're, you're learning all of this new terminology which can be difficult to memorize. Um So I found that using flashcards um really helped with that and kind of like spaced repetition, um really helped with that. Whereas for biochemistry, you have to learn loads of um biochemical pathways and molecular pathways. Um So for, for, for that, you might find it more useful to draw flow charts or hand drawn diagrams that you can like stick up around your room and, and um try to draw out uh by memory every so often that might work for you. But just uh my point being just um realize that you might want to use different styles for different modules and don't be afraid to do that either. That's completely fine. Um OK. And then pre lecture during lecture postlecture. Um in my experience, I think that this was the thing that stopped the most people at the beginning of first year. Uh and me as well that you, you know, you have all these lectures scheduled into your timetable, but you're not sure what to do before or after. And sometimes some people do learn very well from lectures and they are able to focus very well in that one hour. Um Whereas other people find it a lot more difficult and you'll figure that out when you go to your own lectures, obviously, you guys haven't um learn through lecture lectures before at school. So that's something that you will have to wait and see. But um yeah, it can be difficult to know what to do before and after and how to fully focus and get the most out of the lecture while you're actually there. Um So before the lecture, what I would recommend is before every lecture, you will be able to find the handout and the slides for that lecture on Mood and Mood is like the Cambridge uh database where you can basically find all the resources for your course. I'm sure you know that, but I'm not, I'm not sure if you do. Um But yeah, you can download the handout, download the slides and ideally in an ideal world, it would be great if you could give that a flick through. Um, and maybe read it through, make some notes, try to understand what the lecture is gonna be about, try to have like a foundation knowledge of what to expect in the lecture. Um, just to kind of set the scene and this from experience, this makes it so much easier in the lecture to understand what's going on if you're in a lecture. And you know, all these new words are being thrown at you and you have no idea what the topic of the lecture is. It can be very hard to stay focused, especially when you have multiple lectures in one day. Whereas if you've read through it beforehand, if you have a general idea of what, what it's about beforehand, it makes it a lot easier to stay engaged. Um, however, be wary that as time gets busier and as your timetable gets busier, it can be really hard to stay on top of prereading lectures. Um, and if you do, if you don't manage to, that's completely fine and it's completely normal as well. I don't think I know many people who managed to stay on top of that. Um, but some people, um, some people do find it really useful to kind of make notes beforehand if, if you have the time to, I'm just saying it, it would be very good. Um, and then during the lecture, um you will look around the electrical and see people doing loads of different things. So some people will print out the lecture slides in the handout and go into the lecture with pen and paper and annotate as they're listening, some people will have their laptops open and use one note. I did this, I had like the lecture handout and the lecture slides on one note downloaded and then um I would uh make brief notes on the side um based on what the lecturer was saying and based on how I understood it in my own words at the time. So that when I read it back afterwards, it made more sense to me. Um Some people don't do anything. Some people have their laptop shut, no pens, no paper and they're just listening and just absorbing it that also can be um can be really useful for people that are able to stay focused without writing anything down. Um Other things you can use, you can use just a word document and type some notes you can use Evernote Notion, you might have heard of these um uh apps. Um So yeah, just maybe have a look into what they uh what kind of like services they offer and see if that suits you. Um And then post lecture, some people choose to review it immediately. So if you have like three lectures in one day, some people will go over all three of those lectures that evening. Um Some people will leave it to the end of the year and review it then um and then your lectures are recorded. Uh Maybe I should have started this, your lectures are recorded. Um So some people don't go and then choose to watch it in their own time. And some people go to the lecture and then rewatch it. Maybe like um come east, the term come near your exams personally, I don't know of many people who rewatch lectures religiously. Um Just because it can be very time consuming. Yes, you can put it on 1.5 times speed or two times speed and watch it like that. But it is still very time consuming and you will come to know that when you realize just the number of lectures you have, um it is super, it's not very feasible to watch every single one of them back, to be honest. Um However, having said that if you come to revise in Easter term and you're finding that there's one particular concept that you just do not understand using slides, using your own notes, using the handout, you just cannot understand it. Um What you can do is go back, find that lecture recording and just watch that portion of the lecture back and see how the lecturer explained it. And that can be really useful. And that has for me solved it many times. I just need to listen to someone explain it one more time and that's your problem solved. So that's also an option. And that's what most people um use lecture recordings for rather than watching the whole entire thing back. Um Another thing that I personally did post lecture when I had, um when I found the time to is to having listened to the lecture, having understood it at the time, hopefully, um go back to the slides, go back to the handout and um summarize it in my own words. So I'd literally just write down the key information from that lecture filter out, kind of like the um the unnecessary details or the bits that won't come up in exams. And I'd just write it down in a way that if I read this back in 345 months time, six months time come exams, I will understand the way I've written it down. Um Because sometimes you will find that you've understood it at the time when the lecture happened, when you look back at it in six months. It's like you're starting from scratch, you're like, I don't even remember learning this in the first place. But if you've written it down in a way that you understood at the time, it's a lot easier to pick back up. So I would definitely recommend doing that, especially maybe for the more conceptually challenging parts of the course. Um And that maybe would apply more so for like home, um which is physiology rather than anatomy, for example, because that's just fact learning, whereas home sometimes is more conceptual. Um And then OK, II think at this point, I should probably touch on some revision strategies um which again might be touched on later on in the later lectures, but it's very important now too. Um So one thing that you might already have heard of um but probably haven't used uh very much is AKI. AKI is a massive thing in medical school. It's a massive thing at Cambridge. And the chances are you probably will use it at some point in your medical degree. And the way that it works essentially, it's a very um uh very simple and um you know, not decorative at all. It just is purely just flashcards um that you organize um into different decks and um you study those flashcards and it sh and it uses the concept of spaced repetition where it will show you those flashcards in intervals where it knows when you will forget that particular piece of information. And then if you get it wrong, it will show you it a smaller interval. If you get it right, it will show you a larger interval. And um it is a very, very, very effective uh revision strategy. From my experience, I used Anki in first year and in second year, I used it more in second year than I did in first year. Um because, you know, I understood how to get the most out of an in second year. And I tried to apply that from the beginning. Um But if you do use it consistently from the beginning, it can be an excellent strategy um especially for your uh second MB examinations, which I'm not 100% sure if I am supposed to touch on that in this lecture. But if I am, then I will explain that um I will explain that to you. Um So what I would say with AKI, if you are keen to use it or if just to try it even that's completely fine. I was in and out of AKI and my, the first year. Um and then consi like tried to consistently start using it from about lent onwards. Um And then in, in second year, I used it from my, from the beginning. Um If you're interested in it, give it a try. What I would really recommend with AKI is that people year after year after year spend, I was making Anky on the exact same lectures that you will have this year. Um If you want to make your own anki, some people find it helpful because it helps them kind of like, um understand the topic themselves when they're making their own flashcards. I can completely understand that. However, the, the, the amount of lectures, the the amount of content, the volume of content that you have, it is not an easy task to make your own. Anky. Um So this is what I did if you have it available to you, which you probably will, I would definitely recommend asking other people asking older years for their ki um you know, these are premade decks on lectures, the exact same lectures and maybe they'll be altered slightly in which case, you can obviously adapt your uh your uh flash cards and then all you really have to do is learn them rather than make them and learn them. That's my opinion. Um And obviously older years would be super keen to help you out. They, they, of course they will pass on their resources to you even if it's not an, even if it's like essays, essay plans, advice, whatever it is, definitely get into contact with them and, and ask them for help for sure. Um So yeah, what I was um touching on is that post lecture, the most effective thing I found to do, which I did more consistently in second year was after the lecture, go through the handout, go through the slides, summarize it in my own words, such that I understand it completely. And then look at the anck that I have for that lecture, look through the flash cards, adapt any of them if I don't like the way the card has explained that particular piece of information. Or if the lecture has changed slightly, I would change the card, basically change, change the deck as you see fit if you see fit and then do the deck for it, learn the content. That's I think the most effective and uh probably feasible way to go about a practical way. Sorry to go about um post lecture revision. Um But the only other thing I would say with an, I don't want this whole lecture to just be about an, I realize that's a little bit boring. The only thing I would say is that, you know, the, the most effective outcome, like the most, the most um benefit you can get from using AKI is if you're consistent with it. So if you do your um flashcard reviews, if you do it every single day, if you review the content, because if you learn a lecture on Tuesday and you don't touch it again until weeks later, you're obviously gonna have forgotten it to the point where when you learn it again, it's as if you're learning it from scratch. And unfortunately, that's the reality of it. So, you know, if you're consistent with it and you review that lecture consistently, now you, that is, that's amazing. And you've done really, really well to, to have the time to do that. But obviously, realistically, when your time to get to busy, it's really hard to um keep up with that, but that's completely final however much you do. It's, it's still, it leaps and bounds in the correct direction and you will navigate that yourself, of how long you need to um review content for based on your own kind of like style of learning. So that's not anything to worry about at all. Um You'll definitely figure that out for yourself. Um And then kind of let's put anky aside for a second because some of you will hate it and not touch it and that's completely fine. I know people that used loads of other different ways of studying. I know people who didn't touch flashcards. Um For example, I know someone who uh made questions after every lecture. So um they would write down different questions to ask themselves in 34 months time to see if they remember the topic that can be really useful as well and you know, make the question and then underneath um Right. Right. The answer to the question, I think that person used notion, but I'm not a hun 100% sure um on that um that can be really useful too or some people don't do an, they don't write questions, they just, you know, uh learn it through the like handout, learn it through blotting, learn it through making notes, et cetera, et cetera. Um And if you have questions on that, please put them in the chart. Um Anything else I wanted to say? Yeah, I think honestly, the main thing I would emphasize here is really, really make use of your slides and lecture handouts from mood. Um because they, it, it's all examinable content, like anything on that lecture handout or slides can come up in your exam. So it's really, really important that you use those uh to your advantage, don't neglect them at all. OK. Um And then resources kind of touches on what I was just speaking about. Um But yeah, the mood all would have your lecture handouts, the lecture recordings after the lecture. Um And usually that's uploaded that day or the next day. It's really quick. The, the lecture uh recording uh uh is found on the mood really quickly. And then also the mood will contain any additional readings that are recommended by the lecturer if you want a deeper understanding of that topic. Um And it might have like resources or links to things that you might, that might help with understanding or memorizing that um particular uh topic. So have a look there. You, you might find something, something useful and then um and then subjects or module specific resources fab uh there's a website called instant Anatomy or the virtual anatomy app, which is downloaded from Moole. Um And these, these apps basically allow you to see what the, see what you're looking at in like 3D almost. Um So you can actually like identify the muscles, the nerves, the blood vessels, whatever that you're uh trying to learn. And it can be really useful to see it that way rather than reading it from a textbook. Um an anatomy in general, I think, you know, I did say that flashcards were really used for, for anatomy and that's true. It is. Um but some people might find it slightly difficult to learn anatomy with just words. Like some people really need to visualize it and see diagrams, for example, in textbooks or use these um virtual anatomy apps or um use, for example, like the um use, for example, the s uh fake bones or skeletons that you get from your college to actually visualize like if you have the bone and you're able to say, ok, this muscle attaches here or this is where the nerve runs, it can be really useful to see it um in, in in person to definitely make use of, of that. It can be, it can be a lot easier to learn that way. Um And then I was going to say with, yeah, with, with anatomy, um I was gonna touch on Practicals and how that works, but maybe I'll just finish this slide first. Actually, um and then M MS for, for biochemistry, there's uh a textbook called Fundamentals of Biochemistry and then for home called Medical Physiology. Um So it's interesting because some people do use textbooks to understand concepts. I personally didn't really use textbooks. Um Apart from maybe for diagrams for my essays, um I didn't really learn using textbooks because I found that the lecture handouts were pretty good at explaining things and like uh sufficient. And I probably, II found it more useful to actually learn from a handout that I know I'll be examined from because the textbook can sometimes contain loads of extra information, which can be useful for understanding the concept. But in terms of like what you're gonna be examined on, I don't really wanna learn. Um I don't really wanna miss out or miss out things that I could be examined on. So me personally, I didn't learn from textbooks, but if I was struggling to understand the concept, I would rewatch that particular part of the lecture or grab a textbook from the library or you can ask your supervisor or your peers, your course mates, whatever. Um But yeah, definitely, I would definitely recommend using textbooks for uh diagrams though, especially for your essays. They can have some really nice diagrams in there. Um And then your subject specific supervisors. So your supervisions will happen in your college, like I said, and you'll have a different supervisor for mis home fab et cetera. Um and they will provide loads of resources, they will help you if, if you're struggling to understand a particular concept or uh you are confused on a particular part of the lecture, that's what your supervisors for. You can go to them with questions, you can uh go to them with concerns and they can clear all of that up for you. And the, the, the point of the supervision, the purpose of the supervision is to help you not only understand the lecture and really make sure you're comfortable with the lecture content also to stretch you a bit further, maybe think about it in a different way or approach it from a different angle. Um And, and how, how would you, for example, write about this in an essay, how would you structure this particular point in an essay? Um And your supervisor will set you essays, mark your essays, give you feedback on your essays all in preparation for your um the essays that you write in your final E um exam in Easter term. Um See, I've really trying to make the most of your supervisions. Obviously, I know that you might have heard loads of things about uh supervisions and how they work and nature of them and you know how they run et cetera, et cetera, but genuinely and make the most of your supervisions don't be afraid to go in with a list of questions with, you know, uh the highlights on the lecture handout saying that you don't understand it. That is what they're there for. And you know, the, the more questions you ask, the better you'll do and the more comfortable you'll feel with the content. Um So don't see it as a test, don't see supervision as a test. Um see it as an opportunity to, to ask, ask questions because these um the people that give you supervisions, they are, they could be fellows at your college or they could be doctors or um sometimes they might be older medical students less frequently, but either way they are professionals, they are really, really skilled and intelligent uh experts in their field. Um So make, make the most of that opportunity. Basically don't go into it with a closed mindset. I'm sure you are that. Yeah. Um and then finally, what I touched on earlier of asking older medical students, um you know, when you go into your colleges, you'll be introduced to your college families, your college parents, your college siblings, et cetera. And you know, if, if you are in a position where they're a medic, great. If they're not a medic, there will be other medics in your college that you'll be introduced to or you can just approach. Um and people are super lovely and they're always willing to help, especially medics where there's a very tight community of medics in every college and within the diversity in general, everybody wants to help each other out. So, you know, ask for resources, ask for anx, ask for their essays, their essay plans, general advice. Um past paper questions, like basically anything that they have, they'll probably send it to you. Um So don't be afraid to ask because the answer will be yes, they will be more than happy to and share, share with each other as well. Share with your course mates, your peers um split the work up. This actually is a super underrated tip. Um But you know, if, if you can say, oh if you can make notes on this particular topic, I'll make this notes on this topic and we can exchange or let's meet uh at this time and try and understand this together or let's do some positive questions together. Um Let's share Anky, let's make different, that can be really useful and it literally halves your work for you. Um So definitely don't, don't be afraid to um to split up work and, and, and help each other out. You're not in competition um with each other. So yeah, de definitely don't be afraid to do that. Um Cool. And then the, the last thing that II wanted to touch on that I left till the end was uh Practicals. Um So you do have Practicals in first year. You might, I remember being really nervous about Practicals. I'm not sure why I think I just, I don't know what to expect. So let me try and clear that up for you. Um, your Practicals in first year you have Practicals for home. You have home aa Practicals. You have MS Practicals and you have that Practicals. So you have, um, quite a few. Um, however they are not anything to be worried about. So, don't, don't be, don't be anxious for them. Um, let's start with, um, let's start with fab practical. Your anatomy, your anatomy practical are dissections And I don't know how much you know about this so far. But essentially, I'm not 100% sure if it's changed. When I was in first year, it was once a week, but it might be twice a week. Now, I'm not 100% sure. But um you have dissections where you are assigned a body at the beginning of my term. Um And you work with others. You're definitely not by yourself. Don't worry, you work with other uh students in your year to dissect that particular donor as you learn the different modules in anatomy. So in anatomy, you start by learning the upper limb, which is the arm and then you do the thorax, I think, and then you do the abdomen and then you do the lower limb, which is the leg. Um So you work through those modules and as you work through those modules, you dissect your donor first, you dissect the upper limb, then the thorax, then the abdomen, then the lower limb and the the the purpose essentially is you are dissecting this individual, um dissecting their body. And your aim is to figure out how this person died. So it's almost like a post mortem over the course of the whole entire year, which is super, super cool. I thought that was really cool and really interesting. Um So for example, when you get to the thorax, you might dissect and realize that they have really abnormal lungs or, you know, the the anatomy is, is abnormal there. And that might get you to start thinking about maybe that was the their cause of death. And then at the end of the year, you have a meeting and you discuss what you think their cause of death is, you find out their cause of death and more about the donor and uh you find out how they died in their life, et cetera, which is just an incredible opportunity to be able to uh do full body dissection by yourself um or obviously working with others, but it's not, you know, it's not prosection. We're one of the only universities in the country now that offer full body dissection. So this is a massive privilege. Um And obviously some people find it more useful than others. I found it very, very useful to be able to, you know, by I see these muscles, these nerves, these attachments and blood vessels and how, where they run and, and and be able to see it in 3D rather than just a flashcard on a piece of paper. It really does like um accelerate your learning. So make the most of those dissections genuinely. Um It's overwhelming at first, but it is the most incredible opportunity. Um I just touch on that quickly again. If you have questions, if you want me to go into more detail about what to expect, then uh please ask, um and then MS Practicals you have, I think it's one a term. Um It's uh definitely not as often as uh uh dissection. I think you have like one a term um where you do a biochemistry practical, which involves a lot of pipetting, a lot of um like a uh lab skills and that kind of thing. But again, if you work with other people and it's like a few hours on one day, um it's really interesting, very fun to be able to learn those skills. Um And yeah, it's a, it's a really good opportunity, I think. And then your home Practicals, your physiology Practicals are I'm trying to think is it once a week or once every two weeks? So it was either once a week or once every, I think it was once every two weeks. Um which involved kind of like electrophysiology and that kind of um topics which will be that will go, the the person giving the talk on intro to home will go into a lot more detail about what to expect in your home Practicals. But again, you're working with other people for all of your Practicals. So you're not kind of just like thrown into the deep end and you have no idea what to do. No, like you're, you're with other people. So, again, nothing to worry about. And you get to use like, uh, really cool technology and work with, um, some really cool bits of equipment. So, um, yeah, I think that's all I wanted to say about Practicals. Um And then you, you, you do get examined on Practicals as well, but I II think I'll wait for, for you to tell me if uh you guys would like me to go into uh details about how exams work and like the different uh papers that you say at the end of the year. Um Yeah, thank you very much for listening guys. I hope that was useful. I hope it settled your nerves a little bit. I definitely hope it didn't make your nerves any worse than they might already be. Um But yeah, please do put any questions in the chat or raise your hand or something like that. And I, um I'm more than happy to answer them for you. Thank you so much. Um Hopefully that was useful to everybody. It was definitely a very interesting talk. Um We've got a few questions in the chat already. Um So I'll just start by reading them out. So somebody asked what do lecture handouts entail. Could it be papers, articles, et cetera. Also, how long in advance do they upload the lecture slides on middle? Um ok. What do your lecture handouts entail? It's usually just a PDF document of and it's organized by lecture. So it might be like the PDF is the whole entire lecture series. It might be the like 56 lectures, but it's organized by lecture. So lecture one, lecture, two, lecture three and it just has a summary of the lecture. It's not um it's not, what did she say? It's not uh papers or articles or anything like that. It's an explanation of the lecture and it's obviously some lecture handouts, you'll find better than others. Definitely. But they're of very good quality and they explain things in detail. Some go into a lot more detail than others. Some will be like 10 pages, one lecture, some will be like three pages for one lecture. But um yeah, you might wanna add to it. You might wanna deplete stuff out that you don't think is um uh very useful but um yeah, not papers or articles or anything like that. And then how long in advance do they upload? Electro? Um It is variable. Usually it is way in advance. Like usually you can literally look like the next lecture series um hasn't even started yet and you can still see like the slides and stuff have already been uploaded. But it depends on the lecturer. To be honest, they might upload it well in advance. They might upload it a few days before, sometimes like the day before. But usually it's II, II have I can remember very few instances where it wasn't there when I checked, it's usually always there. Um way in advance. Um And then somebody else asked, does the syllabus for the modules, content lectures change much each year. Um And can we reliably use last year's resources? Um Does the set of the modules of content like to change much? No, it doesn't, to be honest with you, it doesn't change much if it does. It's very minimal. Um Maybe like when I was in first year, everything was pretty much the same in second year. I remember it. Maybe a couple of lecture series being slightly different. That's like a couple of lectures in the lecture series were like new or added or removed or something like that or swapped out for something else. Um But yeah, it's for the vast vast majority, it's the exact same if anything, maybe like maybe stuff has been removed, a couple lines have been added, that kind of thing. So it's definitely worth checking like your resources and your AKI and stuff like that to make sure everything's there or that you're not learning stuff that's been removed. Um But you're pretty, I'm pretty safe to say like it's, it's pretty much the same and yeah, you can reliably use last year's resources. But like I said, keep an eye on certain details. I would, I would recommend checking just in case. Um So somebody else said, how many hours a day should one spend revising through Nike flash cards? How many uh uh this is? Yeah. Um So this is a really difficult question. I feel like even now I have no idea like how much II feel like everyone works very differently. Like I know people that spent loads of time. I know people that didn't really spend much time. Um It really just depends on how you work. Like II can't really give you a certain number. It depends on how you work. It depends on your work ethic, your, how much work you feel like you need to do, how much you want to do. Um revising the anti flashcards in particular. So that's not even everything as in you will be doing other work aside from Anki flashcards. But what I will emphasize, to be honest is that you do have like a certain number of contact hours in your day. So that's like going to your lectures, going to your Practicals, going to your dissections. So that takes up a chunk of your day too. So your independent study will be aside from all of that. So, you know, it's not, it's not realistic or practical to say that you're gonna be doing 67 hours aside from going to all your contact hours or like, even five hours is a lot. Um, so it depends on the day. It depends on the time of year in my, you might not be doing that doing that much, but in Easter time when your exams are coming up, you're gonna be, you know, doing a lot more in your day. Um, but how many hours? It depends on the time of year. I would say when it gets close to exams, a lot of hours you're gonna be, I was doing a lot of ki but earlier on less. Ok. Um Sorry, if that's not a proper answer, how many um slash what kinds of past papers are available. Um And is that the main way that people revise for the M BS? Um How many and what kinds, there's loads of fast papers available, loads uh on the mood or um there's loads, some are more, more like uh realistic to the exam than others from what I remember. Like, I remember like Fab and Mims being really similar, not similar, but like as in the, the same kind of structure and difficulty as the exam. Whereas home was completely different, I don't know if they changed it now, but the home papers were from like 1995. Um And I remember thinking, what is this gonna be, what the exam was like? And it actually wasn't like that. Um It wasn't very realistic, but I don't know if they've changed that now. I would have a look at the mood. Um But there's loads available. Um and what kinds they have second MB papers, they have practical papers available and they have um uh essay papers available. So all, all the papers that you're sitting there will be passed papers on the mood or, and is that the main way that people revise their M BS? Yes, 100%. Yes. Um Even for the essay paper, like planning essays that they've asked in the past is really useful because there's so much overlap. Like you might end up getting a question in the exam. That's you can literally use one of your old essay plans for if you just tweak it slightly in the, in the exam in the moment. Um But yes, certainly for the M Bs doing past paper questions really, really, really, really useful cause they repeat questions loads as well. Um And following on from that um are past papers accessible easily. And what about the mo schemes? Um are pass papers accessible easily? Yes, they're on the mood available to download on the mood. Um mark schemes. Yeah, this is, this is the part that's annoying is that they don't, they don't have mark schemes. I think they have marines for like one or like one paper, maybe, maybe like a sample paper or something like that. But the actual past papers they don't have marines for on, on the mood um which is OK because there's a way around it for sure. And we found a way around it, which is to what my college did. We like, all did the past paper and then exchanged answers. Like we made like a, a Google form or like an Excel spreadsheet or something and found like, ok, 14 out of 15 medics are saying the answer is c then the answer is probably c or sometimes your supervisor has marked schemes available. Like your supervisor would have made mark schemes and they can give that to you and you can check your work or just send it to your supervisor would like mark this for me. Um Obviously there's no marketing for essay papers. Um There will be like um what do you call it? They call it, they, they, they have examiner's report sometimes which is basically kind of like an essay, um paper, art paper, whatever, um mark and whatever. But obviously, there's no actual mark scheme for that. But if you write an essay in practice, send it to your supervisor, if you do a MB pass paper and you want answers, either ask other people in your year or ask your supervisor if they have mark schemes or other colleges might have mark schemes that you can then um get access to, but there's a way around it. So don't worry about that. Ok. So for non essay exams, will you be assessed on material that has not been covered in the lecture? Notes, non essay. Um, no, no. What they say is that anything in the lecture? Correct me if I'm wrong for it as well. But anything that's in the lecture, like said by the lecturer in the handout or in the slides can be examined. That's correct. Right. Yeah, exactly. So said by the lecturer in the handout in the slides, but it's really unlikely that the lecturer is gonna say something that's not in the handout was slides. You, you know, like it's gonna be in the handout was slides. So you, you can pretty, pretty comfortably, almost surely rely on the hand out slides, um, and make sure that, you know, everything. So don't worry about that. The, the there's nothing else that that will be examined. Thank you. Um, how much revision should we be doing in the holiday if at all? Um, this is kinda like the other question where I'm gonna give kind of like a bad answer for this. But honestly, it, it really depends like you could ask some people and they'll be like, oh, no holidays is for rest or you ask some people and they'll be like, yeah, I go to work over the holidays. It really just depends on the person. Um, it depends because your Christmas holidays, the one after Mickle mos, some people do some work. Some people don't, your Easter holidays, the ones before Easter Term you have exams when you go back. So obviously you, you people, people work a lot during that holiday. Some people don't work that much but, uh, you know, people do work. That's the holiday that you're, if you're gonna work, you're very likely to work in that holiday. Um, what I will say is that what I will say is that, um, it depends on your term time as well because, you know, your, your, your time is eight weeks. It's short. But the, the fact that it's short means that it's packed, like you have a lot of work to do. You have a lot of contact hours and it's very fast paced, you know, not just academics, your social life, everything is very fast paced within that eight weeks. So it's, it, you can fall behind it. It is possible and it's likely, you know, don't beat yourself up for a bit. It happens to everybody. It's very, very normal to fall behind at some point in those eight weeks. Now, you know, some people get caught up trying to catch up on all of that before moving on. Whereas some people would just be like, ok, leave it, start afresh this week, I'll catch up whatever I've missed in the holidays. If you are in a position where you need to catch XY and Z up in the holidays catch up. There's no, II don't, I don't think there's any point in working yourself to the bone during the holidays because then you're going back for the next term, completely tired and, and, and burn out and you haven't even rested and recuperated before you tackle a whole other eight week term. So you gotta, you gotta play, you gotta play it smartly. Don't burn yourself up before you've even gone into the next term. I would really say, make sure you take the time to rest in the holidays. Um, reflect on the term what you're gonna do better next time if you have things to catch up on. Sure, by all means, catch up on them, work slowly, work as much or as little as you want. But you also don't want to be in a position going back where you haven't understood last term's content and now you have double the work to do come East term. You know, it, it would be, it would, you would be in a better position if you were completely comfortable on Miko's content before lent term. So that come Easter term, you don't have to worry about two terms worth of content starting from scratch if that makes sense, my personal opinion on it, I did do work in all of my holidays um because it really took the pressure off me when it came to Easter time, in my opinion. Um We've got a couple of questions about uh examinations. So do we have exams before the end of the year or is everything only assessed at the end of the year? Um And then we've got uh similar questions. So for example, um, uh, many of the exams qs, all the written papers, um, et cetera. So if you could just cover a little bit about the examinations. Ok. So you are assessed in Easter term. Uh, your exams are in end of May slash beginning of June. Um, that is your final exam. That is like what counts, that's what, what it doesn't count for your, sorry, I shouldn't have said that it doesn't count for your degree. It doesn't count for your medical degree. It, it, it, it counts towards your first year grade. Ok. Um that, those are the exams that you sit at the end of the year. Most colleges will have marks in lent term when you come back from my, they don't count for anything though. That's just an internal exam. It's not centralizing the university, it's just in your college to see your progress and to kind of like sort out any issues that you have from Mius. That's why I said it might be worth worth, like when I had, er, mocks in Lent term, I did do work over the holidays to solidify my knowledge on the MS content before going into Lent. And it's really, I thought that was a really good opportunity, like some people get stressed out over mocks, but I think it's a really good chance to clear up any issues you had had with my before going into Lent. Um It just, it just really lowers your workload come Easter term. But, yeah, you, you might have marks in lent but they don't count for anything. The only exams that count are your exams at the end of Easter? Ok. And then the other question was, um, are, are many of the exams? MC QS all written? Your exams are. So for each module you have M CQ paper and practical paper, but not for anatomy. You don't have a practical paper for anatomy, just ho and limbs. And then you have your essay paper for all three sub for all three modules. Your, so I in terms of tripos, like your overall grade, it's 50% MC Qs, 50% tripos, uh 50% essays. OK. So they are weighted equally. However, just for second MB, the M BS that just a bit that you have to pass in order to progress uh to next year, like that's that section. Um It's half practical, half MC Qs, half practical, half like multiple choice questions. Sorry, I know it's really like that is part is really complicated to explain, but the point is to answer your question are many of the exams. MC Qs all written. It's both you do an essay paper for all your modules. You do MC Qs for all your modules equal. Um So some people are asking which modules you think would require the most effort to understand. Um I can't see that question. Um M which modules would require the most effort to understand. Um Honestly, like, I know people that found all the modules the most difficult, like some people find home, the most difficult MEMS, most difficult found the most difficult. Like, it really depends on which subjects you like. I found anatomy was hard at the beginning because it's a lot of memorization. Like you have to remember a bunch of different nerves and muscles and words that you've never heard of before. That can be hard. Um But it's like understanding wise, it's not as hard as for example, physiology, home is a bit more like understanding based, you know, like understanding how the heart works, understanding uh respiration, understanding um nerve conduction and that kind of thing. That's more conceptual and concept based um which might be a bit more difficult to understand. And then biochemistry is again, more memorization rather than understanding in my opinion. Um Yeah, thank you. Um Somebody asked if you have any recommendations on how to use apps like an or notion effectively? Um AKI on lotion. Do you have any recommendation on how to use? Um So like I said, with Aci would recommend using it from the start. However, honestly, I think in first year, you really have to navigate AKI for yourself. Um I tried and it, it took me first year to realize how to use an properly and then I used an properly in second year. So you do need to navigate it by yourself at the beginning. But what I would say is try, try to use it, try to use it as consistently as possible. So if you do a deck, try to keep up with your reviews, it is difficult just because it's time consuming and like you have so many lectures so, you know, keeping up with doing all those reviews is hard. But even if you do them a little bit and then do we catch up in the holidays or something like that? It's better than nothing, you know, um Notion notion. I don't use slash know how to use, to be honest. Um Yeah, I can't, I can't reliably speak on notion. I don't want to tell you false information. But with AKI, honestly, I would ii would just say my personal opinion if you want to make your own Anki, make your own Anki. Don't let me to tell you 100%. But in my opinion, I used premade Anki from older years and then I adapted them, changed the flashcards. I didn't like deleted, added um reworded, et cetera. And I just found that to be a bit more manageable in terms of workload. Um And I could actually, that means I could spend more time actually doing and learning the ki rather than making the ki because I know people that have made uh spend hours making an and then didn't even use them in the end cos they didn't have time. So, you know, way up, way up what you think, um, it's better. Um, so somebody's asked what is assessed on the exams? Is it everything covered in the last year or only certain modules? And how many exams are there? Uh, what is assessed on the exams? Uh, what is assessed on the exams? It's just everything that's in the slide slash lecture handout. Um, and in the lectures, is it everything covered in the last year or only on certain modules? So, your exams are separate. So you have your home exam, you'd have your MIMS exam, you'd have your fab exam separate. So, obviously in the fab exam you're only examined on fab. Um, and how many exams will we have? Oh, I think it's, for example, MS, you'd have three, you'd have your multiple choice paper, your practical paper and your essay paper home is the same MC QS practical essay. And then anatomy is your essay paper and your multiple choice paper. So that comes to what, eight exams, something like that? Something a around that number. Um, which exams and in which years count to the final class of your degree. I'm pretty sure nothing. No years count right apart from sixth year. Yeah. No, no years count apart from sixth year. So, for your undergraduate degree, your third year. Um, oh, yeah. So you intercalate in third year. You do, you do a different degree rather than medicine and you graduate at the end of third year with that intercalated degree and whatever grade you get in third year is the grade that you graduate with for your, uh, intercalated degree. But in terms of your medicine degree, your sixth year will count for that. Right. Um, and some people are asking whether the exams will be on computer or on paper and, um, kind of following on from that. How time pressured are exams? And would you recommend learning to touch type? Ok. Are these exams on computers or on paper? In when I was in first year and second year they were on computers? I know before that they were on paper at one point. Yeah. My, yeah, she's nodding. But, um, they were on paper at one point, um, when I was in first year and second year they were on, uh, our computers. But you, you, you're on your own computer but you're in an exam room. So you take your computer with you and it's like on a specific, um, uh, portal where everything else is blocked off and you're only on the exam. So you can't, like, go on anything else. Um, and then what was the other question again? How time pressured is it? And would you recommend learning to touch type? Um, a time pressure. Honestly, some papers are more time pressure than others. Like, uh, you know, some papers you might find that you have a bunch of time left over to go and check your answers some, you're gonna be typing to the last second. Um, and it depends on what you're like in exams as well. Um, it again, really depends. I remember coming out of exams thinking how time pressure was that and everyone was like, no, or I remember coming out thinking, oh, there was, I had time left over and people were like, no, I was writing at the last second. It depends. And it also depends. For example, in an essay paper, how much you're writing? If you're writing loads of words and you essays, you'll be more time pressured than if you're kind of writing a more succinct and short essay. So it depends. Um And you will work with the time pressure. Like when you do your past papers, you will do it under timed conditions that, you know, roughly how much time to spend on each question and you're not kind of leaving half the paper untouched. Um Would you recommend learning to touch type? Yeah, I mean, I think it's always a good skill to have to be able to type quickly so that you're not limited by your typing speed. I think that's a shame if you had a bunch of stuff to write and, you know, you had more to give and you were limited by your, by your typing. I think, I think that's, that would be a shame. So, yeah, if you're able to sure learn how to touch type. I think it's a really good skill if you are a slow typer. Don't worry, you know, I know loads of slow typers when I was in 1st and 2nd year I knew loads of slow typers and, you know, you make it work, you practice. Um And yeah, I would just say, you know, practice from now onwards, you'll get better and yeah, nothing to worry about. Um Do you recommend going over a level biology or chemistry content before starting in October? Um No, I don't think so. II mean, yeah, I honestly I would say you what you're starting in two weeks, something like that. I would say rest. So like just rest so much. Enjoy your last two weeks. Do what you wanna do, have fun. I really, and even if that wasn't my philosophy, I still wouldn't say to revise a level bio chem. II, don't think I did and I don't think I ever wished I did either. Um Yeah, don't do it. Um And I think this is based on something you covered during your talk, which is what you would do before, during and after your lectures. Um So somebody's asked, what would you do recommend doing before during and after Practicals? Oh, that's a really good question. Um Before practical you usually have to like, read something or like do something like they, they, you have to go on the mood and there's like a pretty practical sheet and read it and understand what you're gonna be doing cause you don't wanna walk in completely, um, baffled before dissection. Like each dissection will be on a particular module of um anatomy. So ii it would be so good if you could know what you're looking at before you go in there, you know, and inevitably there will be times where you go and you're, you, you haven't looked at the dissection anatomy module section thing, whatever before the session and you just, you don't know what's going on and you can't identify the structures, whatever. And honestly, more than anything is, it's just more like a waste of your time at that point because you're not gaining as much as you could gain. Obviously, you can try your best in that moment to, to do what you can. But the, the m you'll gain the most out of your dissection when you're prepared for it, when you know what you're looking at where you can actually contribute and identify and ask questions, blah, blah, blah. Um So I would definitely recommend preparing for dissection and then for your uh Practicals for home and Mims, you have to read something beforehand and make sure your um like sometimes it's like a pre practical quiz or something like that. Um Just to make sure you are like, send me on the right page before you go in and then during the practical, just try and understand what's going on sometimes you can get so bogged down in like pipetting and WW what test tube this is and what test you that is that you forget what we're actually trying to do in this experiment. So try and keep a bigger picture during the experiment of what's going on. And then after I would say, usually there's like a post, there's like a debri sheet that they put on the mood or explaining what actually went on in the practical or like explaining the results or sometimes there's like a post practical quiz or something like that. Um And sometimes those quizzes are compulsory. So keep an eye on that, like sometimes they use it to mark attendance. Um But yeah, have a look at that, do that. Um Maybe make a couple of notes on what, what the practical was about in the first place just when it comes to revising, it might um sort that out a bit. But honestly, I would say this is the reason I'm saying it's a good question because don't neglect practical is because you are assessed on them at the end of the year. Um It's easy to get bogged down in MC Qs and essays until you realize you have a practical paper too. So um yeah, try to engage as much as you can in, in the practical itself and then when it comes to revising you, it won't be that hard. Um And a nice question to kind of finish off the talk. Is there anything you'd recommend doing? Now before we start? Um Oh, I just realize someone asked, are you likely to be able to access another colleges, mock papers to practice? Um Y yeah, if you have friends in other colleges, you can ask them. Um And sometimes like people are really willing to like share resources and like make shared Google drives and stuff. So literally just, there's no harm in asking even if they say no, it doesn't matter. Just ask anyway. Um And yeah, some colleges, supervisors make them mock papers, they make mark schemes, they make the like model essays and things like that. So definitely ask, I'm sorry, we went on a tangent. Your question was about, is there anything to do now before you go? Um Like I said, honestly, I would just say enjoy the last two weeks before you go and get excited. Like this is so an amazing and exciting opportunity that you're starting at the beginning of like six years, which is so cool. Um Like, it's, it's such a great opportunity for you. You're gonna be in a completely new environment, new people, um new goals and, and, and new lifestyle and it's just so exciting. So, really think about what you wanna gain and think about how you're gonna approach things and maybe like um chat to people that you're gonna meet or something like that. Um Maybe like, if there's anything, I would definitely not say to sit and like, revise biology or chemistry or math or something like that or like, like start learning content. No, I definitely wouldn't say do any of that. If there's anything that might be, be useful to you in two weeks time, it's to think about how you're gonna go about it. So, like, think about this type of things that we talked about during this talk and think, OK, let me look into AKI. Should I use AKI? Let me look into notion. Should I use notion? Should I make notes? What am I gonna do before the lecture? After lecture? How am I gonna go about this? How am I gonna organize my files? Um Am I gonna have folders? Am I gonna print things out? How much just think about things like that? Honestly, I think that would probably be the most useful because when you go in, you don't have to like do all of that in the first week when you're still like doing freshers and meeting people and all of that. Um Yeah, don't stress out about doing stuff before you go. OK. Um And we've got two very short questions left, but before um I read them out, I can see some people are slowly dropping off from the Q and A. So before you leave, if you could please fill in the feedback form, I've put it in the chart. Um That would be very, very useful to us. Um And it will help us make sure that we're kind of making the talks as useful as possible to you guys. Um So please do fill out the feedback form. It will take just three minutes of your time. Um And that'll be very, very nice of you. Um OK, so last couple of questions, how long are essays in terms of the word count? Um They're about 800 to 1000 1000 200 something like that. The essays that you write for your supervisors, like for your supervisions will probably be longer because you're like writing them, you know, with your lecture notes and in your room and with all the resources available to you. So you might, you know, you wanna write, you're gonna wanna write a good essay and you're gonna probably make it longer. So it'll probably be about 1000 words give or take. Um But then in the actual exam when you're time pressured and like your, you don't have resources available to you and stuff, it might be a bit shorter. Um But that's not like a long essay. Doesn't mean you're gonna get a first and a short essay doesn't mean you're gonna get a first, like I've written shorter essays, I've done really well and longer essays. I've done well longer essays that are done but not as well. So it's the, the length doesn't reflect how you're gonna do. You don't have to meet a certain word count to do. Well. So, um, but yeah, it's roughly around that like point. Did you find that you had time, um, to be active and social during freshes alongside the first week's work? Yeah, for sure. First week, you know, you have lectures and stuff but, and you might be starting supervised supervisions and, like, starting to organize them and stuff. But, you know, you're not bogged down with work in the first week, you know, you only have freshers once. So take advantage of it, have a good time, meet people, like literally just introduce yourself to everybody and make loads of friends. Um And yeah, like, well, you, you, you will have time to work also and if not, you can, there's plenty of time after that. Um But yeah, don't, don't sacrifice freshers for work and don't sacrifice work fresh, just make sure you have a good balance, I would say. But like I said, freshes only happens once. So don't, don't waste it basically. Um And lastly, what is the format of practical exam? So are they MQ or short or long answers? Um Are they Mt Qs or short or long answers or essays? They're not essays. So practical exams, home practical exam is just Mt Qs. Just Mc Qs. M's practical exam is short answers, short answer questions. That's for first year, second year is a bit different. It's MC Qs, but I in first year home is MC Qs, MS is short answers. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you all for coming. Um And thank you for your questions. I hope that you found the talk useful. Um If you do have any more questions, feel free to get in touch and just a reminder that we do have another talk on Tuesday um on essay writing. So please do come along um and find out a little bit more about your essays. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks guys. Good luck.