so active recall is the number one study method that i use that helps me to consistently get 100 in medical school and i'm about to share with you guys everything that i do personally um in this video because you guys have been asking me over and over and over on instagram so this is finally the video where i share that with you so if you're interested then please keep watching okay guys before i start this video i'm just letting you know now to please go watch this video first before you watch this one because i'm
going to be referencing that first video a lot in this video and for it to make sense you need to have watched that video so if you haven't watched my how to study anything video then please watch that first and then come back to this video and then everything will make sense okay okay now let's jump right in hi guys welcome back to my channel my name is petty and my channel name is nella grace it is a student lifestyle channel and i have my scrubs on today because it is a medical school related video
it's supposed to be made monday so that's why we have i have my scrubs on today so today i'm going to be tackling like i said in the intro talking to you guys about my active recall method i started active recall was as a way of studying about two years ago and before this i knew nothing about this study method and i watched a video from ali abdul who's amazing here on youtube and he was talking about this and how his friend in medical school would get a first and all of his exams and essays
and i thought oh i wanted i want that to be me because i really had this target of getting 80 plus in all of my exams so i went and i looked into active recall and realized that it's actually the number one proven evidence-based way of studying this study method um far surpasses any other kind of way of studying and is proven to be the best way of recording information so i was like hello it's you know evidence-based it's done a lot of people have done a lot of research into this and it's a study
method and then it also got me thinking we actually never really get taught how to study we just kind of learn by watching other people so most of the time like i said in my first video in my last week's video medical school video i talked to you guys about how most of us study in the same way we read our books we highlight we reread we highlight and actually this is called passive learning and passive learning obviously is different to active because passive means that your brain is not really working when you're rereading notes
and highlighting and things and just reading a lecture um that's why it's called passive learning whereas active recall actually takes your brain to work i talk about it a lot more on my instagram like the the behind of it and which you can find here and also my previous video so today i'm going to be sharing with you guys my actual method what i actually personally do when i'm studying and i'm actually going to be doing a giveaway at the end of this video in collaboration with kenhub which i told you guys about that i'll
be doing random giveaways in the next couple of months and i'm going to be giving you guys one month of premium um can help membership for you to learn all your anatomy and things like that so you can get a taster of it and know more more about it so i'll be giving that to two people and wait till the end of the video so you can find out how to enter that giveaway okay so active recall this means that i don't take any notes i hardly take any notes in medical school and i say
hardly because i would say i take 10 of notes um because someone did ask me some question which i will be actually addressing some of your questions as well at the end of the video someone asked me on instagram they were like do you mean you don't take any notes at all and i do take maybe i think i would say about 10 percent off no these are things that i need and i'll put a little side thing here so you can see the kind of notes i take so if it's any kind of figures
or equations or things like that that i might not be able to learn off the bat or i can learn off the back but i just want to have it written down so i can refer back to it just to make sure then maybe i'll take notes with things like that but for the most part i do not take notes what i do do is take questions and ask questions so this goes into what i do so the first thing that i do when i'm studying before at the beginning of every module when it comes
to active recall if you want it to work you have to be organized and you have to be a planner so the beginning of every module which is actually quite great because i've just started my module this week so i can actually be telling you guys as i'm doing this live is i go in and i go over and i look over my modules what i'll be studying how much material there is the content there is and i do my equation which i talked to you guys about in this video here which you can go
check out as well i do that equation to kind of tell me how much work i need to be doing a day because a lot of you were also asking you know how do you make make sure you go through all the material what if you have so many materials and the reason why you might have too much work on in a days because you're not being organized and you're not starting early so i make sure that i have my time management and all of my things planned out so i know exactly what work i'm
doing every day and i've never had to do more than about three lectures a day all throughout my medical school and i know some of you will say well i have four lectures a day i have five lectures a day and again if you go watch this video it will show you that not everything that you learn is important for your exam so you need to know that and i won't go into detail on that you can go watch that video so what i do is before the exam i mean before the lecture um this
is optional i don't always do this but you can't do this i will go over and i will just read over the lecture literally just a skim read just kind of get all myself oriented over the lectures that are going to be the next day so if i have three lectures the next day i might spend about an hour and a half to two hours reading through the lecture slowly but you know not super slowly just kind of get myself oriented with the lecture that way when the lecture is actually happening the next day it's
not the first time i'm going through the material this is very important because the thing with active recall you need to be able to familiarize yourself with the information as much as possible so you're not having to reread and rewrite your notes and things like that and the more you kind of read over a material the more you're going to retain something your your retention exponentially increases after the second time you read something again that's evidence-based so what i do is the sec i will just skim over like i said read over get myself oriented
with the lecture then the day of the lecture comes during the lecture guys especially when we're online learning this is such a life hack because online we tend to be in our beds we just log on to teams or to mood or whatever it is that you're using for your online lectures and then you just probably fall asleep right while you're where your teachers are like hello are you there and you're not there but if you do this this will actually help you to be present in your lectures and that is taking questions while you
are doing the lecture so active recall basically means questions question and answer when you're answering questions so the only notes that i take is ask is questions uh during the lecture so while the lecture is happening how i phrase my questions is the topic of this of each slide i make that into a question so usually each slide in a lecture will have a heading that says something about that lecture and i will make that heading into a question instead of it being a statement because usually the heading of the lecture or of the slide
of each lecture explains what's on the slide so for example if the lecture is has 40 slides most likely i'm going to have 40 questions by the end of that lecture and because i'm paying attention because i'm actually engaged at present in that lecture i'm actually going to be taking in that information when the lecture's speaking and they're explaining something i'm like actively listening to what they're saying and writing this question down so that what at the end which i'll tell you guys about what i do with these questions after i will retain more information
at the end of the lecture once the lecture's finished i try to straight away then answer the questions because the information is still in my mind and this doesn't have to be anything extensive this is just as much as i can remember if a question is asking me about the figures or something if i can just remember 60 that's all i write if i can only remember maybe one point about a mechanism of action of a drug that's all i'm going to write anything that i can possibly recall from that lecture for that question i
will go back straight away after the lecture and i will answer it and usually that takes me about 30 minutes because i'm not trying to go back to the leisure to find the question to answer i'm genuinely trying my hardest using my brain to try and remember what the lecture was about and what that question was answering and i'm not trying to get i'm trying to get the question right but i'm not trying to be too hard on myself and again this is active recall this is the method because what you're doing is you're engaging
your brain your brain is using it's it's new you know neuronal pathways and it's creating new pathways because you're trying to actively record this information your brain is working hard it should be hard that's the whole point it's supposed to be hard because the more your brain works the more it's going to remember that is how the method works whereas if you was just to read that lecture and then reread it your brain is not working half as hard and even if you just do this once guys even if this is the only thing that
you did and you only did it once research says that you are going to do three times better than someone who passively recalls and i promise you i have reviews from my instagram that people have tried this even once and they've got a 90 from the first time they've done this so this is the least that you should do after the lecture is when the next part comes off active recall okay so what happens after the lecture so straight after i've done the lectures like i said i'll go straight after and i'll take about half
an hour depending how 45 minutes depending on how long the lecture was to try and answer as many questions as much as possible even if i don't remember some things it's okay then i'll leave that and then the next day what i do is i'm on top of everything else i'm doing for that day so if today i have three more lectures to go over i would do the same method and then i'll go over yesterday's lectures and make sure that i then go through the questions and answers that i went through and then have
the lecture next to it and see where my gaps of knowledge are so for example if i go through a question and i realize that i answered that correctly that means that most likely i know that and i don't have to re redo it again in any kind of like time soon so what i do is i go through those questions again the next day with my lecture now trying to see what i got right and what i got wrong and then i make sure that i'm categorizing these things into what i know what i
don't know and what i need to just what i kind of know but don't know well and i make this i call this red green and and yellow right so the red is i completely don't know this and i need to go over it again i need to read over it again and i need to do it again my green is i know this because i i got it just after one time of of of recalling and my oranges i kind of got it halfway but didn't fully get it right so i categorized that and
this is what i'm saying guys be organized when you're studying this can seem overwhelming but it's not i promise you once you do this and you get in the flow of things it's so much easier what i then do is i would just highlight the questions in the red or the green or the yellow so that the next time i'm going through them i'm only going through the red most likely because the green i know that i've already gone through that and this is called the space repetition method this is a whole new video by
itself i have an instagram post about it that you can go see but i won't go into detail about that so i do basically space repetition on the questions starting with the ones that i got wrong red i will always go over them the next day until they're green and if they're green i'll take about a week to go over them and if they're orange i'll take about three days to go over there again space repetition you can google it and i will do a whole new video about that that is how i do my
main bulk of active recall other methods that i do about active recall is using the material for my university so my university gives us lectures seminars tutorials and also questions like exam questions and what i mean exam questions they're basically a list of questions um depending on how big the module is it can be 100 250 questions to 50 questions and these are the questions of which our exams are based on so and again they're questions so what i do again is i go over those questions sometimes in order for me to try and answer
them using the the knowledge that i already have because i i know the knowledge from going through my lectures and i will use those questions as a way of trying to recall information and trying to answer as much as possible i also have something called a tutorial which is basically a case study so we get a case um a full case and then we get questions with the case and i'll go over those questions and try and answer as much as possible from what i remember from my lectures from reading my books whatever it is
that i'm doing so everything that i do to study is a question and answer method you can do this with flashcards you can make flashcards instead of writing your questions on the computer you can write them onto flashcards and have the answer on the other side so you're constantly asking yourself a question and then answering it on the other side this is how it works and then some of you are going to ask well what about other material do you read books do you do other things and the question is yes so i read books
when i'm trying to answer questions the second time so for example if i have my orange questions on my red questions from the first time i went over something and maybe i don't know it or even my green questions if i want to have a little bit more detail on a question a little bit more understanding on the question because maybe there's some physiology that i don't understand then i will go into extra material i'll go into books i'll go into apps i'll go into whatever you know materials that i want to use um in
order for me to get that extra information that's the only time i read extra information or are recommended textbooks so i only read the recommended textbooks from the lecturers of that module to get that extra information if i want to understand something more if i don't need to understand something more then i'm not wasting my time reading books to pass exams because i already know i'm going to pass the exam because i've read the information and i know it right i can read my books during my summer during my own time in order for me
to get extra information just because i want to learn not because i want to pass the exam so that is what is studying smart not studying hard so yeah okay guys so the rest of this video i'm going to be answering your questions but also continuing to tell you guys about my method while answering your questions because i think it's a really easy way of me doing it so that i make sure that i'm answering the things that you wanted to know so i asked you guys on instagram what questions you had for me about
my active recall method so i'm just going to go through the questions about three or four to answer as much as i can so um tasha asked tasha200 asked what do you do to catch up when you are behind lectures on active recall so i try not to be behind on lectures because again it's just a recipe for disaster but you know life happens and some things happen and it just means that i have to plug into in plug it into my formula of you know productivity just means i have to do more lectures on
some days than others but i try not to miss too much so that i don't get too behind or i just if i do miss too many that i there's no possible way of me catching up in time then i just pick the ones i think are going to be my the hardest ones and then that way i know the most information or the bigger chunk of the exam because i'll know um roughly about what the exam is going to be about because i know what the teachers have been focusing on and you know i've
done all the stuff that i talked about in my how to study anything video so that is what i would do once i asked i love your active recall method but how do you prepare for practical exams so if it's a practical you usually get given the practical sheet right like what you're going to be doing that day so what i would do is i'll just learn the practical maybe ask again you could still make questions on the practical like if it's a chemistry practical then you might ask yourself you know what chemical needs to
be added to what chemical to make what compound um you know what element is needed today or what step goes first or write down the steps for this thing that you're doing so that kind of thing so make questions that are related to whatever it is that you're doing and this is something else that i keep getting people are like oh this only worse works if you are doing like medicine or things like that but it doesn't because it can work with absolutely anything it's a way of studying if even if you're studying maths how
you would implement active recall in maths is that you just do past papers you just do as many equations as possible because you're actively recalling doing past papers or doing um past questions is a way of active recourse so you can do this in in a mathematics or engineering degree if you're just or coding even if you're consistently you know trying to write down your codes or whatever it is that you need to do just doing past papers doing equations continually practicing um that's a way that you because you're recalling it from your brain instead
of just copying and pasting or just listening to a lecture um so that's how i would do that how do you stay motivated by hi hi p hi pima how do you stay motivated and not give up when you're forgetting things so um the forgetting things thing can happen and this is where space repetition comes from like i mentioned earlier so i talk about this in my instagram post but it's basically there's something called the forgetting curve and the forgetting curve is kind of like um you know it's just a curve of when from the
first time you learn something if you don't go over it in within a certain amount of time you're going to forget it at an exponential time level like i said before yeah so in order for you to not forget you need to do space repetition you need to go over the things that you're learning in in in incremental um like time space so that's what i would do to not forget something and if you keep forgetting it then maybe you need to try a different method of the recall maybe if you were doing questions you
need to do um um flashcards maybe you need to do past papers maybe you need to do something a bit different but that is still active recalling so that's what i would do rabba abba asked how long before your exams can you implement this this being active recall how would you ensure that how would you ensure that you implement i start active recall right at the beginning of a module i'm studying from the first day or even the day before my modules start i am starting to study and go over the things that i'm going
over if i'm doing it the day before if i'm doing it the day off then i'm starting the same day because it's not going to take me that long because again i know how much work i need to do per day so four or five hours a day maybe six of studying and it's not going to so i start doing it at the beginning basically and then maybe towards the end i might switch it up so instead of doing questions and answers my own questions and answers i might go over like i said before past
papers instead i would do that i don't usually i don't make flashcards anymore personally because my method works for me but if whatever so towards the exam i might start doing um different types of active recall or i'll just focus on the questions that i've been struggling to remember so that might be my read or orange questions those are the things i might go over a lot more do you active recall do you active recall every day i find it difficult to revise and study new material every day at the same time i do like
to recall every day try it first and then let me know how you feel because the new information um the reason why you you probably find it difficult to study new information every day is because your study method doesn't work it's because you're trying to read new information and then reread it and maybe highlight and whatever it is you're doing so you're just packing in information but you're not actually knowing that you're retaining it and recalling it so i would say try the active recall method and then see if you're not remembering the information and
if you're not remembering the information then maybe there's something else to do with your actual like lifestyle little things that you don't even realize can change how you retain your memory and your memory capacity this can be the food that foods that you're eating this can be your sleep are you sleeping well the time that you're studying to do with your hormones you know like maybe you need to be studying early in the morning things like that really can make a difference when it comes to actual study so i would take also the study lifestyle
as a holistic lifestyle not just like you know a side thing so that's what i would say so that's basically everything about my study method guys i'm sure you all have a lot of questions still that i haven't answered and if you do comment then down below and i'll try and do maybe a q a a separate actual q a video and how i do this because it can be a lot like and i'm only covering you know part of what i i covered as much as i can but it can vary in things like
that maybe i'll do a study with me session as well if you do like the idea of me doing a study session with you where i do my active recall method then thumbs up this video and i will try and do that as well or just comment down below and let me know but that is basically it and without further ado we're gonna go into the giveaway now guys because i have something for you for watching till the end because you guys are my ride or dies so giveaway you guys know that i have been
working or started to work with kenhub kenhub i've used for years and years and years for anatomy because i know anatomy is the thing that people struggle with the most in medical school but i not only utilize it for anatomy i use it for medical imaging for like cts and x-rays and stuff and also it would be helpful for you because they also have histology on there and it's just amazing go what you know i talk about it a lot on my um previous video like i said before and uh yeah so i want to
be giving two of you guys one month premium membership to kenhub so you can get familiar with what it is and see how amazing it is and the rules are very very simple all you need to do is to be a follower obviously be a subscriber which you are if you watched it this well because i know you are a ride or die and if you're not just subscribe to my channel and also follow me on instagram because what i need you to do in order for me in order for you to enter is to
go to this post on my instagram this post share it on your story and then tag me when you share and that's what that way i know that i know who you are because if you share it without tagging me i won't see it so make sure that you tag me or if you have a private account tag me share it and then send me a screenshot because then i'll know that you've actually shared it so that's all you have to do be a follower of me from here if youtube and also on instagram go
to this post re-share this post on your story and tag me when you reshare so i can see it as well and it's open internationally even if you already have a kenhub account a basic one it's okay we can upgrade you into the premium because it's a premium giveaway um it's open to everyone no matter where you are in the world as long as you've got internet and you can go onto the kenhub website it's open to you too and i'll be giving away two of those um for this giveaway and this is going to
be open for one week so from this day until seven days from now this giveaway will be closed and it's only open to you guys on youtube because people in the game are not gonna know about it so that's fun um i think that is everything that i wanted to say about the giveaway if you have any questions about the giveaway let me know below if you don't have instagram then i'm sorry sis can't help yet get instagram i don't know what to tell you um otherwise guys that is it for this video i know
it's been a long video but thank you for watching it this far if you have questions about studying my study method please go watch my playlist this is all my study tips and my study hacks that will really really help you in order for you to do your best in anything that you're studying not just medical school otherwise um thank you so much for watching and i'll see you guys in my next video and that's it bye
