Hanad Education Consultancy » Education

Study Skills For Exam Preparation

Hanad — Mon, 28 May 2012 09:36:56 +0000

There are three main steps that you can take to ensure that you have studied effectively for your tests
and exam:

Prepare a study checklist.
Make summary sheets.
Do practice tests.

Preparing a Study Checklist

Look through notes, textbooks, course outline.
Prepare a list of major topics covered.
Divide each heading into sub-topics:
Example:
- Major topic: Types of exam questions
- Sub-topics:
  a) Objective exam questions:
  - Multiple Choice.
  - Fill-in-blanks.
  - Matching.
  b) Subjective exam questions:
  - Essays.
  - Short-answer.
  - Open-book.
Making Summary Sheets
- Look at each sub-topic from your checklist.
- Write down a key word or phrase that will help you remember the entire concept.
- Use question form where possible E.g., “What are the three types of objective questions?”
- Include definitions, vocabulary, calculations, points emphasized in class on your sheets.
- Do this for each sub-topic.
- These will serve as your study notes!
How to Use Summary Sheets
- Ask yourself exam questions you have prepared ALOUD.
- Rehearsing is the fastest way to learn.
- Reading over and over is the slowest way to practice the exam.
Practice Tests

Advantages
- Increases number of questions on exam that will be familiar to you.
- You will be giving your study sessions a focus so you will be less likely to waste time.
- Best preparation for an exam is to practice exactly what you will be doing when you write it.
- Eliminates stress of exam because the practice will make it seem ‘old hat’ to you.
How to set one up
- Use questions from old exam and textbook reviews.
- The internet and senior students are perfect source.
Types of Exam Questions

Objective Exam
- More detail oriented.
- Recognition based.
- - Multiple choice.
  - True/False.
  - Matching Questions.
Subjective Exam
- Sometimes easier because partial marks are rewarded.
- Require a broader understanding of material.
- - Essays.
  - Short-answer questions.
Take-home / Open-book exam
- Performance expectations are higher.
Objective Exam Questions

Multiple Choice Questions
- Try to answer before looking at options;If you can’t, then look at ALL options before answering.
- Answer the questions you know first.
- Your first instinct is usually correct.
- Take questions at face value – tricks are rare!
- Watch out for double negatives (e.g. “Not studying for exams doesn’t help”)
  Cross out both negatives and then answer
  E.g., “Studying for exams helps”
- Stuck?
  - Rephrase question in your own words.
  - Look for answers in other exam questions but, don’t waste time.
  - Cross out answers you know are incorrect.
  - Never leave a question unanswered.
- Guess!
  - If two answers are similar, choose one of them.
  - If two answers have similar words, choose one of them.
  - If two answers have opposite meanings, choose one of them.
  - Choose the longest answerTrue-False Questions.
- Don’t spend too much time on any one question.
- Look for qualifiers in questions, E.g., most, sometimes, rarely. They are always true.
- Questions that contain “always” or “never” are usually false.
Other Objective Exam Questions

Fill-in-the-blank
- Eliminate options that do not result in grammatically correct sentences.
- Look for cue words (eg., an, as, that, the, these)
- Make sure the answer makes conceptual sense too.
Matching
- Determine whether any option could be used more than once.
- Do all match-ups you are sure of first.
Subjective Exam Questions

Essay Questions
- Read the entire exam first.
- Make your exam easy to read; This puts the marker in a positive frame of mind.
- Read directions carefully.
- Plan your answer; Make a mini outline – if you run out of time, this could provide partial marks.
- Get right to the point; Be concise, clear, compact. It is better to know a little and present it well, than to know a lot and present it poorly.
- Keep to the point.
- Don’t forget to include the basics.
- Use examples or diagrams to show you understand.
- Keep your eye on the time – don’t spend too much time on one question.
- Always write SOMETHING – even if you don’t know anything.
- Use all of the allotted time – it’s not a race!
- Proofread, proofread, proofread.
- If exam time runs out, don’t be afraid to use point form to finish.
ON EXAM DAY
- Relax!
- Realize that you won’t know ALL of the answers.
- Accept yourself & what you know.
- Read through the entire exam.
- Plan your time well.
- Answer the questions you know first.
- Answer the questions that are worth the most, second.
- Mark up the exam & use scrap paper to guide your thinking.
Reading Directions
- Analyze = examine in detail; make judgments.
- Compare = Show similarities and differences.
- Contrast = Show differences.
- Define = Explain meaning in short answer.
- Describe = tell all you know; use details.
- Discuss = write everything you know in logical progression.
- Evaluate = examine positive and negative aspects; draw a conclusion.
- Illustrate = use examples and details.
- Justify = give reasons to support a proposition.
- Outline= Using main ideas, give an overview.
- Prove = use facts and evidence to support a position.
- Summarize = give main ideas in a short answer.
I wish all of you the best in your exam preparation.

UK Scholarship Programme for Somalia

Hanad — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:53:03 +0000

Every Year the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, offers young people the opportunity to study for a post-graduate degree in the UK under the Chevening Scholarship scheme.

The Scholarships are fully funded and cover course fees, living allowance and return airfare. The scholarships are for post graduate study of up to a maximum of twelve months. Most scholars undertake Masters programmes, but awards to pursue short courses or research for between three to twelve months are also offered.

The Chevening scheme also offers a Fellows course, consisting of 12 week courses, also in the UK, to study subjects of strategic importance to the UK and the participating country. These courses include human rights, democracy, governance, security sector reform and migration. These Fellowships are also fully funded by the UK Government.

Chevening Scholarship Programme for Somalia 2012-13

The Chevening Scholarship programme for 2012-13 is now open for applications from Somalia via the e-chevening website.

Chevening Scholarships are 1 year post-graduate courses starting in September 2012. Their objective is to promote the UK’s longer term political, economic and commercial interests and to support diplomacy by building understanding and goodwill.

Purpose

The purpose of the selection process is to attract those with the potential to become future leaders with capacity to benefit the UK, such as:

Top-level decision makers such as heads of state/government; senior ministers; religious leaders; opposition leaders; top-level civil society leaders; top-level civil servants; top level members of the judiciary and military and business leaders.

High level decision-makers such as ministers; influential MPs; regional and political leaders; high-level civil servants; high-level civil society leaders; senior members of the judiciary and military; senior business people; university vice-chancellors;

Influencers and opinion formers such as senior editors and journalists; senior academics, influential members of civil society.

Applicants are encouraged to apply for courses in line with the UK’s objectives for Somalia, which include, but are not exclusive to:

Conflict management
Human right Governance
Economics
Security

Criteria for selection

Applicants should:

have the potential to rise to positions of leadership and influence
have an adequate standard of English
have a degree equivalent to a UK 2nd class Honours
not have already benefitted from a UK scholarship

Timeline

The e-Chevening website site for 2012/13 applications is now open.

The closing date for applications will be 23 January 2012

Applications are accepted online only

Applicants should:

apply for places at UK universities when applying for a scholarship.
should not wait to be offered a scholarship before applying to universities as this may delay or impede our ability to offer scholarships.

Good luck to everyone and we wish you the best for the coming year.

Using The Internet For Academic Research

Mohamed Burhan — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:24:02 +0000

The main problem with using the internet for academic research is that the huge majority of the material posted on the internet is complete garbage. There are all sorts of ludicrous sites run by cranks and lunatics, as well as those set up by well-meaning but ill-informed enthusiasts on various subjects and hobbies. You will also be able to find well written but badly researched and misleading articles generously posted on the web for you to consult. Almost everywhere you look, it seems, you are confronted with wall-to-wall rubbish.

Where to start?

You should not despair, however, of finding useful and reliable information on the internet. There are increasing numbers of really excellent educational and academic sites available, from historical time-lines and encyclopaedias to online versions of literary texts.
Once you have found the right sites, you will discover that the Internet is a wonderfully quick and easy source of information. It is a particularly good place to look for general overviews and introductions to topics, as well as for basic facts, dates, and so on.
For more sophisticated discussions and interpretations,however, it is still best to rely on academic books and articles, which are guaranteed to have been properly ‘peer reviewed’ prior to publication (that is to say, they will have been read and appraised by other academic experts in the field).

As ever, the key is to be selective. An essay or academic presentation that makes good use of authoritative websites as sources of information, can be outstandingly good. While an essay or academic presentation that makes use of the first vaguely relevant site that came up on a quick search, regardless of its credentials, can be at best piddling and at worst middling.

Ask for guidance first?

Much the quickest way to find the most relevant and reliable academic websites for your subject is to ask the lecturers and librarians in your department or university. They will be able to tell you the best places to start and to introduce you to the electronic and online resources that your department and university subscribe to. You will be able to save huge amounts of time by having access to online biographical,bibliographical and other resources.

Academic uses of the internet

There are a number of ways the internet can be used for academic research and i will briefly describe the importance of each of them.

Obtaining particular dates of key academic individuals, events and publications

It’s very important for students to understand chronological occurrence of events they are writing or learning about, it will not only help them get the big picture but also provide them a platform in which they can review and easily explain in an essay.

Getting basic background information about a topic

Time is money is a common saying in our modern life. But this saying gives the wrong impression as it merely relates time to a business and materiastic lif. Time is much more than that, Time constitutes the moments and seconds of our life that we lose and can not get back. It’s for these reason that most people in today’s world are rushing after or busy with things that don’t matter in the long run. Students and learners are prime example. Why spend countless hours reading a textbook on Alternative Medicine when a few minutes of your time consulting popular sites like Wikipedia will yield enough academic competence to get you going and result you doing far more important things better.

Discovering biographical information about an individual

All educational systems and subjects are people-driven and every once in a while, it’s often crucial that you know more about prominent academic individuals like Albert Einstein than the subjects he helped shape e.g general relativity, so that you better understand and visualize such fields of his study.

Bibliography: identifying the main academic books and articles on your topic.

A lecturer may provide you with reading lists for any assessed project they have set you. However, the items on this list might not be available, so one of the ways you might use your initiative and go beyond the reading list is to use the internet to search for other texts to read. One way is to look for online reading lists provided by other lecturers at your own university or elsewhere. And secondly, you could use an online library catalogue such as Google Scholar to look for books on your subject and use it as a rough and ready guide to what are the most widely used standard
secondary texts on a given subject.

Getting access to academic journals

The availability and acceptability of academic journals and texts are increasing exponentially thanks to the internet. There are online journals and archives such as JSTOR which is the premier source used by millions for learning, teaching and research. These list is equally good.

For Self-study

I have already listed the resources in previous blog entry at here.

Conclusion

Do we start reading at one end of the library and try to read through to the other end. Of course not. So you already know one effective approach. Be selective!. Also Don’t forget to ask for help and recommendations from friends and teachers, and finally if you have got any tips, feedback or suggestions, Please leave us a comment or Contact us about any other academic issues.

Effective Exam Strategy

Hanad — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:36:49 +0000

Exams are a regular part of the school, college and university life, which is considered to be a flexible form of learning and teaching process that aims at investigation of a student’s knowledge of a particular subject.

However, nothing makes students gloomier than the prospect of exams. Even the word examination itself makes students shudder.
There are no doubts that for the majority of students, examinations are something like death, which has the unpleasant inevitability to be faced sooner rather than later.
Exam inevitability often creates a great deal of tension, and can become a cause of procrastination, work block, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially when students feel overloaded by the amount of work they are required to accomplish.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success so that Winning is not a sometime thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing Vince Lombardi
There are countless hours of preparing and sitting for examinations that is accompanied by cramming, sleepless nights, and it very often turns out to be very distressing and debilitating ordeal. Indeed, different people deal with exams in different ways. Some people may seem to be able to handle the pressure; others get agitated, anxious, bad-tempered, and can even become seriously ill and depressed.

However, despite all this, one thing holds really true: examination period is challenge-able.
Remember that you should be responsible for your own learning. Hence, your examination success is in your hands, and in many respects it depends on your ability to focus on active learning, to schedule your time sensibly, and to organize your working place properly.

So don’t take exams lightly, putting off revision to the very last day, and entrusting your examination grades on lucky chance is not right. Therefore, exams is not an appropriate time to check how lucky you are.
Whilst you don’t want to be caught off guard and confused on the spur of the moment, as leaving revision too late is an excellent recipe for stress and anxiety.

Be sure to stick to these simple and effective examination techniques, which will help you pass your examinations with flying colours. Remember that with careful planning and preparation, exams can become nothing more than a question and answer session.

Elaborate your revision program as early as possible

Organize your time wisely. Be sure to allocate time for revision, relaxing and enjoying yourself sensibly. Be realistic about time that you can spend revising. Bear in mind that you need a balance between your revision time and the rest of your life. You need rest, and variety. So try to break your workload down into manageable chunks, combining working periods with rest.
And what is more important is to begin studying early, with an hour or two per day, increasing this time as exams approach.

Plan how you will use your time during your revision period

Your plan should include what, when and how you are going to prepare for your examination. Try to produce a day-by-day revision timetable.
Fail to plan, You plan to fail Unknown
List all the topics you’re going to cover during your revision process, make up your mind what order to learn them in, and how much time you can manage on each topic. Be realistic about your time, and always remember about your deadlines.
A good revision strategy is to set priorities. Evaluate the importance of each block of information that you’re going to revise, think it over what topics are compulsory for you to revise, and what subjects you already know.

Involve in active learning

Reading is a passive way of learning, while writing is an active studying technique, which is considered to be highly productive.
Plunge into the text you’re reading, and ask yourself: “What is the most important to remember from this section?” Make notes while you read and underline the key concepts in the text.
Mix easy and difficult topics, interesting and dull while you revise.
Try to work in a comfortable environment, to remove any distractions, and to find out where you work best. Don’t forget to interrupt your study time with planned study breaks.

Make your revision process effective

Don’t learn parrot fashion. Researches have shown that a person recalls meaningful information better and easier. That’s why you should:
1) Associate newly learnt concepts with what you already know. As you are reading try to link what you are studying with what you already know, with something that is meaningful to you.
2) Elaborate upon new information with your own examples.
3) Revise material in small chunks; don’t try to cover all the information in one sitting.
4) Information is memorized better when it is represented in an organized framework. Group information into categories; write an outline or a summary.
5) Use as many visual aids as possible; make a practical use of drawings, tables, graphs extensively in your revision process.
6) People are more likely to remember things that go in some certain sequence, so that one thing triggers another element.

Organize your working place sensibly

Many students are fully versed in importance of time management in the process of preparation for their exams; however, quite a few is acquainted with the importance of organising their working places wisely.
Be sure to divide your room into two areas: your working space that can be near your desk or table with papers, books, photocopies on it, all in all, everything you need for studying, and a place for relaxation, where you can look aside from studying, taking a nap, watching TV, or listening to music.
Get used to indulge in work only in your working area, and to switch off in your relaxation zone.
Physical separation of your working place from your relaxation area will make it easier for you to do it mentally.
Bear in mind that doing well in exams not only depends on your knowledge, but also on how good you are at revising and handling the actual exam.

Conclusion

One may argue that an exam can be a lottery, where a large proportion of success depends on your lucky chance. It’s worth noting that luck can let us down in the most unsuitable moment. So, I don’t propose you to count on it. The most reliable way to pass an exam is a thorough and profound preparation.
Remember that exams aren’t the be all end all, and the means will always justify the ends.

USMLE Plan

Hanad — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:54:15 +0000

I have come across this excellent USMLE step 1 plan while serving the net and i thought it may be a lot of help to you guys. It’s from an IMG who did USMLE early this year and please share it with your fellow students.

The USMLE is a multi-step professional examination that medical students and physicians are required to pass before they start practicing medicine in the US or Canada. The exam according to NBME (National Board of Medical Examiners) assesses a physician’s ability to apply knowledge, concepts, and principles, and to determine fundamental patient-centered skills that are important in health and disease and that constitute the basis of safe and effective patient care. Working in the US had become the holy grail for doctors in the last few years due to the payment package enjoyed by US doctors and the facilities offered by US hospitals that makes patients care much better and a more fulfilling and a rewarding experience.

Started studying mid August 2010, took the exam January 20th 2011 (last Thursday)! Total prep time: 4-5 months

NBME 1 (after watching kaplan videos): 185
NBME 6 (late Oct): 197
NBME 7 (Dec 31st): 240
UWSA 2 (Dec 31st): 252
NBME 3 (two weeks to go): 231
USMLE Rx simulation (1 week to go): 266

Materials used:

Pathology: BRS pathology, RR pathology, Kaplan Pathololgy:

I would recommend reading BRS path once then listening to Goljan audio along with the RR pathology. I tried to read RR pathology but found the format difficult to deal with although I loved Goljan audio. Kaplan pathology was okay for pictures and I mainly used it while attending live lectures where I had Dr. Barone as a lecturer and he was pretty awesome.

Microbiology: First Aid, Clinical Microbiology made Ridiculously Simple (better than Kaplan micro):

Wasted a whole week watching Kaplan microbiology videos which were really not necessary. If I could start over, I would read CMMRS and supplement with First Aid.

Physiology: BRS physiology (highly recommend this), Kaplan Physiology:

Kaplan physiology along with the videos were pretty decent. I only ‘discovered’ BRS physiology a month before my exam and although everyone says not to read new material so close to the exam, I gave it a quick read and really liked it. I think if you know BRS physiology cold it’s sufficient for the exam.

Biochemistry: Kaplan biochemistry, First Aid:

I watched the videos but didn’t know the material really well until I attended the Live Lectures and had Dr. Hansen as a lecturer. She is pretty amazing and I went from Biochem being my weakest subject to one of my strongest. First Aid has a few conditions that weren’t covered in the Kaplan textbook which is why I’m mentioning it.

Pharmacology: First Aid, Kaplan:

I had a pretty good pharmacology lecturer during Live Lectures as well. I annotated Kaplan pharm into First Aid and I think that was enough.

Behavioral Sciences: Kaplan, First Aid:

I read the Kaplan behavioral sciences book once and didn’t touch it again. Reviewed First Aid before my exam. I had Dr. Fadem (she writes the high yield behavioral book) for live lectures and I’ve heard good things about her book but I didn’t end up using it. My med school was pretty keen on Behavioral so I felt like I had a good starting foundation and it was my strongest subject in all my NBMEs.

Anatomy: Kaplan anatomy, HY neuroanatomy, First Aid:

Anatomy was my weakest subject in all NBMEs and the actual exam. I kinda wish I had given more time to it. I felt the Kaplan anatomy book was overdetailed so I read it once but didn’t really go back to it. I didn’t read all of HY neuroanatomy just the bits on brainstem and spinal cord and some pictures. My neuroanatomy was pretty solid towards the end because I spent some time going through the pathways, pictures etc but I still really sucked at overall anatomy. I did get a lot of random anatomy questions on my exam (not just brachial plexus!) so yeah contrary to what you may have heard First Aid is NOT enough for anatomy.

Question Banks:

Finished USMLE World once and then did incorrect questions again. The No 1 thing I would recommend is to annotate into First Aid concepts from UWorld as you go along. If 50 questions sounds too much, start off by doing 10-20 questions a day just make sure you annotate. The difficult questions in the actual exam are UWorld style so this is really helpful. I managed to annotate maybe 40-50% of UWorld into First Aid as I was pretty lazy in the beginning. My average was 56% first round and 80′s towards end of second round.

I also did Kaplan Qbank, finished around 60%. I think I was on 65-70% towards the end. I don’t know if I would do the Kaplan Qbank if I had to start over, I didn’t find it extremely useful.

USMLE Rx. Finished 30%. Averaged 77%

I bought this about two weeks before my exam because I kinda run out of questions to review on UWorld and wanted to consolidate First Aid. I reallly liked it. It makes you notice the small details you skimmed over in First Aid. It was also good for doing a full 8 hour simulation test a week before the exam. It predicted me 266 though but I think it has a +/- 20 error margin. I almost prefer this as a second Qbank over Kaplan but Kaplan seems to be more popular and my scores haven’t come out so maybe I’m wrong.

August to October:

I started off watching Kaplan videos for Biochemistry, Microbiology and Physiology. My studying during the first few months was kinda on-off and I maybe did 4-5 hours a day. I found the videos good but a little slow and most of the time I was nodding off. I also listened to Goljan audio once (using RR pathology along with it) during this time but again it was a bit slow for me and I didn’t really appreciate Goljan at this point

October to first week of December:

Kaplan 6 week live lecture course. Lectures were amazing for pathology (Barone!), pharmacology and biochem. Others were decent but not anything to be over the moon about. The only downside of the lectures was that it didn’t give me a lot of time to study in the evenings and I was lucky if I finished a block of UWorld questions at the end of each day. I guess it depends on how focused you can be. I also spent some of the time there socializing ( yes you do meet some decent people on the course) so I wasn’t really pushing myself 100%.

December to exam:

Crunch time. Ended up studying maybe 12 hours a day minimum, barely left the house etc. I was never an amazing student at med school but once I made a timetable and realized how much I needed to get through I just sucked it up and starting working my a** off. My score bumped up from 197 to 240-250 after three weeks of intense studying. I didn’t really want to move my Jan 20th exam date because I had holiday plans end of January.

Things that really worked for me.

1. I went through First Aid using the DIT videos . This really forced me to buckle down and get through First Aid instead of just skimming over it. You may not need it if you are a focused person but if you are slightly attnetion deficit like I am, this really helps as Dr Jenkins kinda drills all the facts into your head. I watched them 1.7x times speed.

2. Listening to Goljan pathology again. I appreciated Goljan so much more second time round after I had a better pathology foundation. I also listened to this at 1.7x times speed as he was going too slow on normal speed.

3. Making connections. Annotate, annotate, annotate. If you read about a disease in First Aid, that is maybe mentioned in another section, make the connection and write it down. The actual exam is all about concepts and making connections. E.g. Paget’s disease may cause high output cardiac failure (mentioned in the musk section of First Aid). Write this down in the cardiology section also. Add to it what kind of physiological values you would expect in high output cardiac failure. So this way you end up connecting musk +cardiac path+ cardiac physiology.

Actual USMLE exam:

More tiring than any of the 8 hour simulations I took. Maybe it’s the stress bubbling away underneath. Make sure to get a good nights sleep before I know a lot of people who couldn’t sleep the night prior and this really affected their performance. Avoid caffeine after midday the day before, go out for a movie or dinner with a friend.

I got to the Prometric Center around 7:15 am and I think ended up starting my exam at 7:30 am or something. Did the first two blocks back to back, took a break after 3rd and 4th, did blocks 5 and 6 back to back, took another break then did my last block. I had a massive headache during my 4th block which I think was due to caffeine withdrawal so I took a break after that and had my lunch and some coffee.

Question-wise:

some of it was really really easy. There were definitely quite a few ‘free’ questions where you were kinda like ‘come on are you serious?’
Then there were the mid-range questions where you kinda felt good about yourself because you were like ‘this would be difficult if I hadn’t studied my ass off but I did’.
Then there were the horrible ones. Most questions I could narrow down to two choices then I’d be stuck between them for ages. Some questions were so bizarre that I felt like shouting at my computer screen. There were questions I felt like even if I had spent another year preparing for Step1 I wouldn’t have known the answer.

Time wise

: I was surprised by how I didn’t have 20 minutes extra like I normally did for my practice tests. I had three minutes left after going through my marked questions in Block 1 ( I did spend a considerable amount of time going back and forth between choices) so I cranked it up and sped up a bit for the blocks after. But yeah as I said I’m normally a fast test-taker and I didn’t have lots of extra time in the real thing.

That was really long. I hope that was useful for you guys. Still waiting for results I think I’ll be happy with anything over a 240 but would be really disappointed if I ended up with a 220 or something. I don’t even wanna think about results right now!!

- Anonymous IMG

I wish him all the best and that was one heck of a preparation for the USMLE.

Learning The Rewards of Reading

Hanad — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:12:11 +0000

Are you a wide reader?

In a gathering, you can tell who the wide readers are. Wide readers think and speak well. They win the admiration, respect, and good opinion of their peers.

Reading expands the mind . In fact, many people consider it as one of the satisfying pleasures of humans, for it involves physical as well as mental activities.

Reading is primarily a mental activity. After all, you read with your mind and use your imagination to paint the setting of the detective thriller you are reading.

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” Mark Twain

You use your mind to imagine the pain that the main character experiences as the story unfolds. You bring into play the different arguments and ideas brought up by the author in that self-help book you are holding.

To read effectively, reading helps you develop a wide vocabulary through extensive reading. A skillful reader has a wide recognition of vocabulary. He may not know exactly what every word means, but he will have a good general idea of the meaning of the sentence.

Reading makes you alert and curious about new words. Other readers develop the dictionary habit. Every time they come across a strange word, they try to figure out what it can possibly mean by the context. If they cannot do this, they refer to the dictionary.

Likewise, reading develops intellectual curiosity by exposing you to a variety of materials. You learn to read by reading books of increasing difficulty and variety. As in other forms of activity, you learn by actual y doing.

Reading trains you to have an active and open mind. Merely grasping the writer’s idea is not enough. You must make a positive response to what you read. Be an active, not a passive, reader. Develop the habit of drawing your own conclusions, the habit of active thinking, of agreeing or disagreeing with the author. Keep your mind open; understand and weigh the ideas that you read. A practical part of active reading is the drawing of conclusions.

Four Rules For Effective Reading

Allow me to share four basic rules for effective reading and better comprehension:

1) Try to read more and more. Remember the saying that practice makes perfect. Practicing in the correct way makes perfect.

2) Develop the habit of reading for main ideas. Look for the subject and predicate. Do not waste time on details or little words.

3) Learn to read with focus and concentration. Think of what you are reading. Do not let your attention wander somewhere else. Good readers read with understanding.

4) Learn to budget your time. Experiment with your reading time. Try purposely to read faster. Give yourself a time limit on specific material that you read.

Reading is a stimulating mental activity. It expands your reality and capability.

“The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.” Jim Rohn

You have so much to gain in discovering the joys of reading. Go ahead; grab a book right now!

Speed Reading

Speed may allow you to arrive at your intended destination; but along the way, were you able to take note of the things that you may have missed while speeding along the fast lane? As in driving, zooming in fast does not give enough opportunity to see and enjoy the view. The same can be said about reading.

Much of what you learn can be acquired through reading. The simple activity of getting in a comfortable position and start reading a book of your choice opens a new world for you. Reading enables you to tap into the minds of great people.

The more you read, the more you know. In the hope of reading more books, some attempt fast track reading or speed reading. It is believed that the faster you read, the more you cover.

Speed Reading may involve reading by phrases and concepts compared with the word-for-word method. It enables you to cover more pages with the same rate. However, one limitation of this method of reading is that you tend to remember only a small portion of the main idea. There is danger that you might miss the important details in the book.

There is a solution for this. Few people are aware of this seldom-talked about technique in fast learning. This is based on the principle that the mind thinks in pictures.

Learning is accelerated when you “see” the whole idea of the write-up or book.

Seeing “live pictures” of ideas and thoughts of the writer makes reading experiential and unforgettable. When you see nothing while reading, you learn nothing. Fast reading becomes useless.

This technique is called visualization . Visualization is vital to quick learning.

Visualization in reading is like constructing a jigsaw puzzle where pieces are put together to form the whole picture. The whole thing not only “appears,” but actually “comes alive” before you. Al of these happen in the realm of the mind.

Just going through the motions of fast reading can give you a hazy picture of the subject matter. But like a mist, this picture often quickly evaporates into thin air.

Fast reading without visual pictures often informs but very seldom impresses.

Impressions last while information changes with time. Past information is easily forgotten in favor of new ones. Impressions change you, and these are stored permanently in the mind.

For learning to become effective, it requires brief pauses to be able to visualize and reflect. Effective learning is not about how fast you can finish reading a book. It is more on how you effectively comprehend the ideas brought forth by the writer.

Visual pictures provide lasting impressions. Go after ideas and how it wil enrich people’s existence. Go for lasting impressions and insights that wil mold you into better individuals.

Best Places To Educate Yourself Online For Free

Hanad — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:33:24 +0000

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Alvin Toffler

All education is self-education. Period. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop. We don’t learn anything we don’t want to learn.

Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world. Take a look at any widely acclaimed scholar, entrepreneur or historical figure you can think of. Formal education or not, you’ll find that he or she is a product of continuous self-education.

If you’re interested in learning something new, this article is for you. Broken down by subject and/or category, here are several top-notch self-education resources I have bookmarked online over the past few years.

Note that some of the sources overlap between various subjects of education. Therefore, each has been placed under a specific subject based on the majority focus of the source’s content.

Science and Health

MIT OpenCourseWare – MIT OpenCourseWare is a free web-based publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
Tufts OpenCourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course content for everyone online. Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences in addition to its multidisciplinary approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its local, national and international communities.
HowStuffWorks Science – More scientific lessons and explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
Harvard Medical School Open Courseware – The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware Initiative is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other academic institutions, prospective students, and the general public.
Khan Academy – Over 1200 videos lessons covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, and biology.
Open Yale Courses – Open Yale Courses provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the internet. The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and biological sciences.
webcast.berkeley – Every semester, UC Berkeley webcasts select courses and events for on-demand viewing via the Internet. webcast.berkeley course lectures are provided as a study resource for both students and the public.
UC San Deigo Podcast Lectures – UCSD’s podcasting service was established for instructional use to benefit our students. Podcasts are taken down at the end of every quarter (10 weeks Fall-Spring and 5 weeks in the summer). If you’re enjoying a podcast, be sure to subscribe and download the lectures. Once the podcast has been taken offline, faculty rarely approve their reposting.
Johns Hopkins OpenCourseWare – The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s OpenCourseWare project provides access to content of the School’s most popular courses. As challenges to the world’s health escalate daily, the School feels a moral imperative to provide equal and open access to information and knowledge about the obstacles to the public’s health and their potential solutions.
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative – No instructors, no credits, no charge. Use these self-guiding Carnegie Mellon materials and activities to learn at your own pace.
Utah State OpenCourseWare – Utah State OpenCourseWare is a collection of educational material used in our formal campus courses, and seeks to provide people around the world with an opportunity to access high quality learning opportunities.
AMSER – AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.
Wolfram Demonstrations Project – Wolfram brings computational exploration to the widest possible audience, open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts. Free player runs all demos and videos.
The Science Forum – A very active scientific discussion and debate forum.
Free Science and Video Lectures Online! – A nice collection of video lectures and lessons on science and philosophy.
Science.gov – Science.gov searches over 42 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.
The National Science Digital Library – NSDL is the Nation’s online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.
EnviroLink Network– A non-profit organization, grassroots online community uniting organizations and volunteers around the world. Up-to-date environmental information and news.
Geology.com – Information about geology and earth science to visitors without charge: Articles, News, Maps, Satellite Images, Dictionary, etc.
Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetics, the study of evolution, variation, and the rich complexity of living organisms. The site also expects to expand into other topics of learning and education.
LearningScience.org – A free open learning community for sharing newer and emerging tools to teach science.

Computer Science and Engineering

“Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.”
Eugene S. Wilson

VideoLectures.NET (Computer Science) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
Wikiversity School of Computer Science and Technology – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
New York State University (US), Computer Science – Hundreds of lectures, tutorials and links to educational material.
Dream.In.Code Tutorials – Lots of computer programming tutorials.
MIT OpenCourseWare (Engineering and Computer Science) – MIT OpenCourseWare is a free web-based publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.
Maine University (US), Fogler Guide to Computer Science – An insanely detailed list of computer science resources.
FreeComputerBooks.com – Free computer, mathematics, technical books and lecture notes.
Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies – A massive collection of bibliographies of scientific literature in computer science, updated weekly from original locations, more than 3 millions of references (mostly to journal articles, conference papers and technical reports), clustered in about 2000 bibliographies.
W3Schools – Web-building tutorials, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.
FreeTechBooks.com – This site lists free online computer science, engineering and programming books, textbooks and lecture notes, all of which are legally and freely available over the Internet.
Free computer Tutorials – Free computer courses and tutorials site. All the courses are aimed at complete beginners, so you don’t need experience to get started.
Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code – Several helpful resources for computer programming beginners.
Google Code University – Provides sample course content and tutorials for Computer Science (CS) students and educators on current computing technologies and paradigms.

Mathematics

Oxford University Mathematics OpenCourseWare – Various online mathematics classes provided free by Oxford University.
UMass Boston Mathematics – Various online mathematics classes provided free by UMass Boston.
Whatcom Online Math Center – Various math lessons provided free by Whatcom Community College.
VideoLectures.NET (Mathematics) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
Wikiversity School of Mathematics – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
AMSER Mathematics – AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.
Math.com – Math.com is dedicated to providing revolutionary ways for students, parents, teachers, and everyone to learn math.
Intute Mathematics – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorized by subject specialists based at UK universities.
Free-Ed College Mathematics – Offers a wide range of free online math courses and study programs.

English and Communications

“Through the power of self-education you can be anything you want to be or do anything you want to do. Self-education power does not require money, fixed time or fixed life style. Options are extremely flexible. Rewards are unlimited. You can control your destiny.”
Bob Webb

Open Yale Courses (English) – Open Yale Courses provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the internet.
Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students – These guidelines for engineering writing and scientific writing are designed to help students communicate their technical work.
MIT Writing and Humanistic Studies – The MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies gives students the opportunity to learn the techniques, forms, and traditions of several kinds of writing, from basic expository prose to more advanced forms of non-fictional prose, fiction and poetry, science writing, scientific and technical communication and digital media.
Merriam-Webster Online – In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill. And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.
National Novel Writing Month – Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Lifewriting – A complete text of the 9-week writing class a professor taught for years at UCLA.
Guide to Grammar and Writing – Grammar and writing techniques, lessons and quizzes.
Purdue Online Writing Lab – Over 200 free resources including lessons on: writing, research, grammar, and style guides.

Foreign and Sign Languages

BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online.
Livemocha – Start learning a new language online for free.
Learn10 – Gives you a language learning habit that’s hard to kick. 10 new words; everywhere, every day.
One Minute Languages – Learn a new language via podcasts that are updated regularly.
Mango Languages – Over 100 lessons, shown to you in PowerPoint style with interstitial quizzes, to move you through any language without cracking a book.

Multiple Subjects and Miscellaneous

OpenLearn – The OpenLearn website gives free access to Open University course materials. Multiple subjects are covered.
Capilano University OpenCourseWare – The Capilano University OpenCourseWare site is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
University of Southern Queensland’s OpenCourseWare – Provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
YouTube EDU – Educational videos on YouTube organized by subject matter.
LearnHub Test Prep – Raise your test scores with free practice tests & counseling on various subjects.
iTunes U – Hundreds of universities — including Stanford, Yale and MIT — distribute lectures, slide shows, PDFs, films, exhibit tours and audio books through iTunes U. The Science section alone contains content on topics including agriculture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and geography.
United Nations University OpenCourseWare – Showcases the training and educational programs implemented by the University in a wide range of areas relevant to the work of the United Nations.
Brigham Young Independent Study – BYU Independent Study now offers free courses in different areas of study. These areas include Family History, Family Life, and Religious Scripture Study, Personal Dev elopement, etc. Use these courses as a starting point for your personal studies or just to add insight to an area of interest.
University of Utah OpenCourseWare – Provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
United States Nation Archives – The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper. Valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching an historical topic that interests you.
Wikiversity – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
UMass Boston OpenCourseWare – Various online classes provided free by UMass Boston.
About U – A collection of free online educational courses from About.com.
Academic Earth – Online degrees and video courses from leading universities.
Free-Ed – Clusters of courses that support your preparation for today’s fastest-growing careers and critical academic disciplines.
Connexions – A place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute.
TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
Intute – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorised by subject specialists based at UK universities.
Boston College Front Row – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.

Educational Mainstream Broadcast Media

BBC Learning – Online learning, support, and advice. This site offers internal and offsite links to a vast amount of materials.
Biography – The site holds videos to past interviews and biographies on people in topics that range from Black history to women’s history.
Book TV – This is the companion site to Book TV on C-Span2. The site holds some current interviews with authors, many past interviews, opinions, reviews, and featured programs through online video.
CBC Archives — Relive Canadian history through thousands of available radio and television clips.
Discovery — This channel is home to several different networks that focus on the military, animals, travel, etc. The Discovery site offers a “Video of the Day” from its home page, a separate online video section, and a Discover Education center where teachers can accumulate materials for K-12 teaching. It’s impossible to list all their offerings here, so go discover!
History Channel – Visit the Video Gallery for a selection on historical topics. Like the Discovery Channel, this network provides many opportunities for you to gain access to information and reference materials.
NOVA — Watch current science shows or browse by category. PBS sponsors this channel.
Research Channel — Speakers, researchers and professors present revolutionary thoughts and discoveries. Use their Webstreams and an extensive video-on-demand library for research.
Weather Channel – You can learn about weather all over the world, but the Weather Channel also offers dynamic content based upon seasons and special conditions and a special multimedia and education section.

Directories of Open Education

Google Scholar – Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
OpenCourseWare Consortium – This site provides a portal to search through hundreds of free courses or to add new courses you know about to the database.
iBerry – Check out this site for a huge directory of open courseware organized by school and subject matter that can point you in the right direction for any type of learning.
Self Made Scholar Directory – Free online directory of web-based classes and courses.
MERLOT- Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching – MERLOT is a free and open online community of resources which is a user-centered collection of peer reviewed higher education, and online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services.

Read all list of places from Marc and Angel Hack Life – Practical Tips for Productive Living

First Clinical Hospital of Jilin University

Hanad — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 03:54:08 +0000

History & Infrastructure

The First Clinical Medical Hospital was established in 1949 as a comprehensive teaching hospital; integrating medical treatment and teaching research.

It is the first standard third rank hospital of Jilin Province and among one hundred good hospitals of the nation.

The Institute has an area of 72,650 square meters and faculty and staff of 1855, including 113 professors, 294 associate professors and 232 instructors.

There are 1,100 open beds in central hospital and 350 open beds in the subsidiary hospital. The number of patients visiting OPD is over 1,520,000 in 2006 and the number of patients discharged from hospital is 64000. The hospital is abundantly equiped with all the mordern machinery required for flawless medical treatment.

The first modern PET-CT unit of the region was established in this center. The hospital has a modern imaging department and advanced equipment like the newest endoscopic imaging display, an MRI, a color Doppler,a YAG laser machine used in medical surgery, a fully automatic biochemistry analyzer and a Co 60 radiotherapy machine.24-hours service is offered in the modern emergency departments, laboratories and pharmacy.

Education

The institute offers 16 master’s degree programs, six doctoral programs in neuromedicine, neurosurgery, otolaryngological & neck surgery, orthopedics, general surgery and digestive medicine.

There are 45 doctoral advisors, offering doctoral and post-doctoral programs. The institute also offers pediatrics doctoral program jointly with Peking University.

Key disciplines include neuropathy (under Ministry of Education), internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, infectious diseases, neuromedicine, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, otolaryngological & neck surgery and orthopedics (under Ministry of Health).

Research institutes include National Training Center of Neuromedicine, Tumor Center (jointly run by Norman Bethune College of Medicine and Lavern University, Canada), Jilin Province Consultation Center for Difficult and Complicated Diseases, Jilin Province Institute of Cardiovascular Study, Jilin Province Liver Disease Institute, Jilin Province Geriatrics Institute, Jilin Province Pediatrics Institute, Jilin Province Otolaryngological and Neck Surgery Institute, Jilin Province Institute of Male Urological Disease, Jilin Province Blood Disease Institute, Jilin Province Institute of Endoscope Surgery, Jilin Province Institute of Trauma Orthopedics, and Clinical Pharmacology Base.

The institute is also in charge of editorial works of “Apoplexy & Nerve Disease” Magazine and “Clinical Liver and Gall Diseases” Magazine.

Research works

Since last ten years, the institute has undertaken 171 national and Jilin Provincial key research projects, and won 35 national, ministerial and provincial prizes of scientific and technological advancement.

The institute is leading internationally and domestically in the following fields: neuropathology, hearing reconstruction of various conductive deafness, ear neurosurgery, joint biological reconstruction in the first phase of bone tumor and research of bone biology,

3-D encephalic imaging technology, kidney transplantation, bone marrow transplantation, free skin pedicle transplantation, remaking fingers by foot and finger transplantation, wrist trauma reparation and function reconstruction, examination of density of medicine in blood, treatment research of portal maximum pressure, treating arrhythmia by RFA, Percutaneous Balloon Mitral Valvuloplasty (PBMV), bifocal advanced back-atrium artificial crystal implantation and application of peritoneoscope,…etc

Address

First Clinical Hospital of Jilin University,
No 71 Xinmin Street,
Chaoyang District,
Changchun, Jilin, China.
Phone numbers: 0431-88782222
Website: http://www.jdyy.cn/

Hanad Education Consultancy » Education

Study Skills For Exam Preparation

Preparing a Study Checklist

Making Summary Sheets

How to Use Summary Sheets

Practice Tests

Advantages

How to set one up

Types of Exam Questions

Objective Exam

Subjective Exam

Take-home / Open-book exam

Objective Exam Questions

Multiple Choice Questions

Other Objective Exam Questions

Fill-in-the-blank

Matching

Subjective Exam Questions

Essay Questions

ON EXAM DAY

Reading Directions

UK Scholarship Programme for Somalia

Chevening Scholarship Programme for Somalia 2012-13

Purpose

Criteria for selection

Using The Internet For Academic Research

Where to start?

Ask for guidance first?

Academic uses of the internet

Obtaining particular dates of key academic individuals, events and publications

Getting basic background information about a topic

Discovering biographical information about an individual

Bibliography: identifying the main academic books and articles on your topic.

Getting access to academic journals

For Self-study

Conclusion

Effective Exam Strategy

Elaborate your revision program as early as possible

Plan how you will use your time during your revision period

Involve in active learning

Make your revision process effective

Organize your working place sensibly

Conclusion

USMLE Plan

Materials used:

August to October:

October to first week of December:

December to exam:

Things that really worked for me.

Actual USMLE exam:

Question-wise:

Time wise

Learning The Rewards of Reading

Are you a wide reader?

Four Rules For Effective Reading

Speed Reading

More Reading

Best Places To Educate Yourself Online For Free

Science and Health

Computer Science and Engineering

Mathematics

English and Communications

Foreign and Sign Languages

Multiple Subjects and Miscellaneous

Educational Mainstream Broadcast Media

Directories of Open Education

First Clinical Hospital of Jilin University

History & Infrastructure

Education

Research works

Address

On the Map