Yes sir, so basically the idea is to give you a head start, you know, most of the students who are going to start preparing are in the phase where they are confused as to what do we do and I think beginning is the most crucial stage.
So if you know that you have a plan which is laid ahead and everything is going to be taken care of, I think that gives you a lot of reassurance at the beginning. So that’s what we are trying to do, give you a head start to your preparation because the exam is at least one year down the line, if not more, and I think if you have a plan ahead, a macro plan of what it’s going to look like, it will give you a lot of relief.
So in the beginning, I just wanted to bring to your notice some of the early challenges that students face and I think this is one of the most important challenges. Recently I was talking to a girl who was preparing for the next year’s exam. She told me that she wants to prepare for NITPG using Harrison’s.
Now Harrison’s is a great book. It’s often called the Bible of Medical Sciences. But if you’re preparing for an entrance examination, Harrison’s might not be the best primary resource.
So this is one of the examples of many impractical things that students tend to think in the beginning of the preparation. I think the primary reason is when we start preparing in the initial part, we’re very pumped we are like, this time we’ll show what we can do. We also carry some regrets from our last exam in PMT, we could not go to this college, and we could not achieve this.
So we are very, you know, all ready to go. And in that over-enthusiasm, sometimes we end up making certain, we end up making certain impractical decisions, which we have to pay for later on in the preparation. So as I said, the macro plan should be solid, we should be very clear in the beginning itself about what we want to finally achieve.
So Zainab ma’am, do you want to talk about some the wrong steps that students tend to take in the beginning, in over-enthusiasm? I think making your over-ambitious plans is definitely one of the things you know, that you feel like, I will go through the main notes of everything, you know, main videos of everything. And then midway, you realize that, okay, this is not working out. And then you go to something very, very radical, you know.
So, so it’s very important to lay down a very realistic plan from the beginning. And then, you know, focus on the most important stuff right from the beginning, not figure it out midway that what I was doing for the last six months was something which was not even needed, you know. So, that’s where we come in because we’ve seen, you know, the trend and how things go and we can triage it for you, and tell you that this is what you need to focus on.
So that’s where our role comes in to give you a plan and a structure. And that’s what we always say that that, you know, mission classes do or any life class for that matter does is give you a structure and tells you that these are the things that you have to focus on. So it so that’s what the main thing is that you don’t go wrong in and when you have a lot of time, you know, you feel like you can do everything but you know, a lot of time doesn’t remain a lot of time for very long.
So that’s what we want to stay away from is to not stray off from the course and not make the wrong kind of plans. Right. The second thing I think is consistency, more so for the interns.
Now when you’re doing an internship, you start studying, and everything is going well, but then you have a duty, 24-hour duty, and your preparation goes off the track, or say you are in a job, you are a post-intern, you’re in a job and suddenly something happened, your preparation went off the track. So maintaining consistency is very difficult because what we see is you are studying well for 15 days, something happens, and then you take 20 days to get back on track. So that should not happen.
There has to be something that maintains consistency and pushes you to get consistent. And that is something that we’ll again talk about.
Starting too late.
This is the other end of the spectrum. Some people are too ambitious, others are too laid back. They think that enough time is left, and I’ll start studying six months later.
And see, this is a problem more so for interns and as well as post-interns, I would say were in jobs. Say you are a batch of 100 and you just entered an internship out of those hundred, 80 would be in that enjoyment mode, let’s have fun. And those 20 who want to study, they will they will look at those 80 people and they’ll find that they are all having fun and I am studying alone.
And in that indecisiveness, sometimes you end up spending too much, wasting too much time. At this point in time, you have the advantage of starting early. You can start early and get those extra months.
If you start late, you lose that, you lose that massive advantage. So starting early, starting at the beginning of the internship is a great thing because it sets the tone for the rest of the internship. Or even if you are a post-intern in a job or just studying, not in a job, starting early kind of gives you that tone, and sets the tone for the rest of the year, which helps you later a lot.
Yeah. And again, in the internship, I have seen a lot of interns making the mistake that they feel that internship is a lot of work and let me just take a break and then I’ll get to it after internship. Anyways, this is what people call the zeroth attempt.
That’s the term that I’ve heard from students and this is not my first attempt. This is my zeroth attempt, which is my internship attempt, which I feel is it’s a very big misconception. You know, don’t take it like that.
Take it as your first and your final attempt. You know, why are you considering it as not an attempt? Even if you have a very, very hectic internship, you know, when you prepare a little bit, whatever time that you get, you know, you have to get into that zone because otherwise what will happen is there’s a big inertia which sets in if you haven’t studied for a year and taken it lightly, the very big inertia and you and you feel that it’s very difficult to bounce back. So not just that one year, you are going to lose a lot of time after that as well after that zeroth attempt as well.
And a lot of time goes into, you know, regretting that why didn’t I study earlier? So much of anxiety, and stress. So all of that is the bonus time and the damage that ensues. So you know, so one sincere advice is just to start studying.
Don’t take a break. You’re already having that momentum from the final prof. Just study a little bit every day, depending on what kind of postings you have, at least take out two to three hours, but stay consistent and you know, that is what we are trying to do. Be consistent and every day irrespective of how much you’re able to do such that that attempt you give at the end of internship should be a serious attempt.
And you know, a lot of times you’ll get a solid two to three months after your internship to prepare and then you can go all in. And that can only be done if you’ve studied, you know if you’ve laid the foundation. So that’s what you have to do during your internship days.
Right. So, Dr. Zainab used the term momentum, that’s a very important term here because it just appeared for a final exam and final exams are tough. Everybody studies for them.
So you can just carry that momentum and also there are a lot of disadvantages, but a lot of advantages also of preparing for an internship. First of all, the final year is still fresh in your mind, right? So it takes much less time to revise. And also say you decide that I want to just have fun in an internship.
After one year, when you start all over again, then you are rusty. It takes some time for you to get back into the rhythm. So why not use the current momentum to take your preparation? If we talk about the time available, of course, it’s less an internship.
But then because you’re fresh with many things, it takes even with less time, you’re able to cover more. So that internship advantage, you should not let go of. Another thing is Zainab ma’am, we have seen that students in the beginning are kind of, reluctant to do the MCQs.
I think the primary reason is, that they don’t want really to see that they are not able to answer the MCQs correctly. There is this whole avoidance that, okay, let me study. And when I’m good, I’ll do the MCQs.
Do you want to say something about that? Yeah, I think passive learning is always easier to do. You know, when you are watching videos or you are watching even live classes for that matter, it always feels easy because it’s coming to you on a platter, right? All you have to do is listen and maybe just annotate or make notes. So that’s always easy.
The tough part always becomes the active learning, which is studying by yourself and revising those notes. And second would be to test and also learn, you know, MCQs will be a learning tool as well as a testing tool. And that is a form of active learning.
And that is something which is irreplaceable. You know, you have to have to practice MCQs. And that’s what you do anytime you’re following any sort of video module or even offline classes, what you have to do is supplement that with questions and make sure that, you know, you are revising what you’ve done, you’re testing, because knowing the theory is one thing when you don’t know how to apply it in a question, it all goes down the drain, you know.
So this is something you have to do simultaneously while you’re attending. And this is something which, you know, personally, I feel can be done while you are at your job or your internship, you know, just make it a habit that, okay, when I come back from my job or internship, I have to see these modules. And then next day, when whatever time that you get, you know, you’re running around for some reports or something, try and keep solving questions on the go.
So this way, you’re always, you know, doing something, you are making sure you’re not losing out on time. And you’re also not wasting time, you know, which is sometimes spent in an internship, just, you know, not doing anything productive. So you can spend that time doing MCQs at least, you know so that you supplement your theory with MCQs.
That’s something which is very, very important. Right. So MCQs should be a part of the preparation for the world from the very beginning.
And also the same applies to the GTs, right? A lot of students are averse to taking GTs because they don’t want to see the bad score. But, you know, taking initial GTs gives you a baseline score that, okay, this is where my preparation stands today. And every month, every two months, you can see how you’re improving or not.
So it again, it’s not only an evaluation tool, it’s also a preparation tool. GRG says this thing repeatedly, that if you get a question wrong in a GT, you will never get that question wrong in the actual exam. Right.
So to ensure that there are as many questions as possible that you do in GTs. All right. After this, what we think is the requirement or what things are needed to succeed in the exam? I think the biggest one remains structure.
Nowadays, the problem is not of lack of content, but it’s the problem of plenty. There are so many things, so many good resources, so many videos. How do you ensure that you cover everything and you also revise it twice or thrice before the exam? So I think we have to make a plan where we can structure the preparation.
We have a plan that this is when I want to complete my first reading. This is when I revise first for the first time, second time, third time, and so on and so forth. Discipline.
Again, this is important because if you’re an intern, if you’re a post-intern, there should be opportunities to get back on track.
If something happened, or your three days got wasted, there should be something that can bring you back onto the track on the fourth day. That is what I mean by discipline.
Concepts are important in medical preparation and facts are important. If you are not strong in facts, probably you cannot forget about getting selected.
There are certain things which you have to remember, which are factual, and you can find ways of remembering them, but they have to be there.
At the same time, there are certain things which are so conceptual that if you understand them once, they stay with you. So a mix of concepts and facts is what is needed. Then the art of solving MCQs.
Getting an MCQ correct is not only about knowing the information behind the MCQ but also being able to rule out two options and many other things. So these are some of the important things, some of the important ingredients that are required to succeed in the entrance exam. Dr. Zainab, do you want to add something to this? Yeah, so you almost summarized it completely, sir.
But yeah, basically, this is what you keep in mind. You know, whenever you’re doing any sort of content, you know, the most common question is am I doing enough? You know, because nowadays, most of the people rely on BTR slash rapid revision and then, you know, they question whether am I doing conceptual enough.
So this is what you all have to understand is irrespective of what you’re doing, you know, supplement it with MCQs and supplement it with the weak points, you know, whatever you feel are your weaknesses, and you go upwards from there, and you go to your main videos and the main modules from that.
So the idea is to understand and personalize whatever you’re doing according to your own weaknesses and according to where you are placed, you know. So as an intern, if you’re addressing an intern right now who has one year of time, you know, so what is it that we would recommend doing is, you know, a midway approach between a bridge between main videos and you know, something as short as BTR perhaps, you know. So that is why we’re talking about mission classes because we don’t have enough time to go through main videos and main notes now, but we have more time to just do BTR, you know.
So that’s where we will try and integrate a plan that you can do the best of everything and then you can also supplement the points or the topics in every subject where you’re weak with the main videos, you know. So that’s where mission classes will help you navigate all of these resources combined because as an intern, the most common question they get is what do I do? There are so many things, just on the Cerebellum alone, there are so many things which are available, what do I do? So that’s what we will tell you every step of the way this is what you have to do. And again, out solving MCQs, I think there is no better way to learn how to solve MCQs than test & discussion, you know, you attempt a test and go through it with your own mind, what were you thinking? This is the answer and then the teacher comes and tells you why this is the answer and what you were thinking was perhaps not correct and why this is the way you have to think.
So this is not just knowing the answer, but it molds the way you think slowly over time, you know, and that’s what the aim is. So theory plus test in discussion is the best way forward. And that’s what, you know, we propose.
