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  • This video is part of our Ultimate Study Skills series, and today we're talking about how to review for exams using practice questions or past papers.

  • During med school, I remember going through massive QBanks on UWorld for big exams like the MCAT or the USMLE.

  • Massive, like literally thousands of practice problems.

  • But I've also taken classes where I was only given a few past papers, and I still made it work.

  • And so I realized it doesn't matter if you have 10 practice problems or 10,000.

  • If you're not using them properly, then it's going to be a waste of time.

  • So how is this done?

  • The most important idea to understand here is confidence.

  • You know when you use flashcard apps like Anki or RemNote?

  • After you answer the flashcard in your head and reveal the answer, it asks you to rate how well you know it.

  • That's the important part.

  • It's asking, how confident were you with that decision?

  • I would argue that it's smarter to rank your confidence before even checking the answer.

  • Because it's not enough to just get the answers right, you also need to be confident that you know the answer and that you'll get it right again.

  • More confident that we know something, but it turns out that we were wrong, that piece of information is way more likely to stick in our memory.

  • In psychology, this is called the hypercorrection effect.

  • Like I remember once I got into it with my friend that the main villain in Lord of the Rings was Saruman.

  • And you know, we got this heated argument about it.

  • Then it turns out I was wrong and it's Sauron, not Saruman.

  • Lost 50 bucks for it.

  • And so yeah, I'm never going to forget that again.

  • So here's a three-step framework to problems.

  • Step one is to always make sure you know why the right answer is right and why the wrong answers are wrong.

  • That's why it's always helpful to have an answer key to check your answers.

  • And you want the answer key to be a detailed explanation.

  • So it explains the thought process.

  • Step two is to change the variables of the answer choices or change the variables of the question itself.

  • So for example, if you know why the wrong answers are wrong, how would you change the wrong answers to then make them right?

  • Or how would you change the question itself so that the start manipulating the questions and the answers, you'll start to think like an exam writer.

  • I would say, try to go even deeper and ask yourself, how could this question be asked differently on the test?

  • Or ask, how could the teacher ask a curve ball question or combine multiple variables into the same question?

  • So now I'm going to use tips number one and two on some practice problems to see how this all works.

  • And because I love triangles, let's do some trick.

  • So let's draw a right triangle here like that.

  • It's actually pretty good.

  • And let's say this side here is a four, this one over here is six.

  • And we'll be solving for this length here, which is x.

  • And I'll put some answer choices from this problem set here.

  • So A is going to be 12.

  • B is going to be 7.2.

  • And C is 17.2.

  • So for my long lost memory of trigonometry, and from googling it like 20 minutes ago, I recall that to find the hypotenuse of a right triangle, the long side that's opposite from that right angle can be found using the Pythagorean theorem.

  • So the Pythagorean theorem, I think I spelled that right, which is also equal to A squared plus B squared equals C squared.

  • C being the length of the hypotenuse, the long side.

  • So with some simple plug and chug, we get four squared plus six squared equals C squared.

  • Simplifying this down, we're going to get 16 plus 36 equals C squared. 16 plus 36, or is that 52, equals C squared.

  • And finally, we just take the square root of each side because this one has A squared over here, plug that into your calculator or Wolfram Alpha or whatever, and we'll get that C is equal to 7.2.

  • And that makes B the correct answer choice.

  • Now, what if this one practice problem was all you had to study for your upcoming quiz?

  • We can use tips one and two to learn a lot more from this problem.

  • So tip number one is to know why all the wrong answers are incorrect and why the right answer is correct, right?

  • For math, this is much more black and white.

  • Like obviously I can just google square root of 52 and I'll know that it equals 7.2, not 12 or 17.2, right?

  • But I can also stop and think more carefully about why answers A and C were included at all.

  • Like why is 12 and why is 17.2 possible answers that it could have gotten given this situation?

  • So from the limited amount of information that was given from this problem, what else could I actually solve for, right?

  • Well, I also know that I can find the area of a right triangle if I have the height and base of the triangle.

  • And those are two variables that I am given.

  • So the area of a triangle is equal to the height times base divided by 2.

  • Let's do some simple plug and chug here.

  • We have the height of 6 times the base of 4 divided by 2.

  • That is going to equal, doing simple math in my head, 12.

  • Okay, cool.

  • So answer choice A was solving for the area of a triangle, whereas B was testing for my knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem.

  • What about C?

  • I see a 0.2 there, that decimal, and answer B, which we just solved for, which was the hypotenuse, was 7.2.

  • So the only other variable that I can think of that would be equal to 17.2 would be the perimeter of a triangle, right?

  • Just adding each side length together, the perimeter of a triangle.

  • It's equal to A plus B plus C.

  • Plugging all of those in, we would also get 4 plus 6 plus 7.2.

  • Since we just solved for it in the Pythagorean theorem, this is going to equal 17.2.

  • So C is solving for the perimeter of a triangle.

  • So now I know why answer choices A and C were wrong.

  • They were using different formulas, one for the area of a triangle, one for the perimeter.

  • And I know why B was correct because we used the Pythagorean theorem, which was the right formula for that equation.

  • Now let's move on to tip number two.

  • How can I actually change the conditions so that I would solve for a different variable of this equation overall?

  • What would it look like if instead of getting this here, I was actually given 7.2 and asked to solve for this variable right here?

  • How would that change the way that I applied the Pythagorean theorem?

  • So we can just kind of do the same plug and chug as we just did before, but this time it would look like this.

  • We would have A squared plus 6 squared equals to 7.2 squared.

  • And that would give me this final answer of A equals to 4, right?

  • All right, what if, for example, this angle right here was unknown?

  • It wasn't right angle.

  • That means that the Pythagorean theorem wouldn't apply, right?

  • I would have to use a different formula, right?

  • The law of cosines is equal to C is equal to the square root of A squared plus B squared minus 2AB cosine of that angle.

  • So you see, I can just keep manipulating this one practice problem to generate a whole different set of problems to solve for.

  • Applying different constraints to solve for different variables, like how would I solve for this angle instead?

  • How would I solve for this angle if it was a right triangle?

  • What if this was a completely different shape, like it had another triangle over here?

  • What if it was three-dimensional, you know, and it had this shape like that?

  • How would that change solving for different angles?

  • How would this change the way that I approach this problem?

  • So effectively, I can turn this one practice problem into like 10 problems or more.

  • This is such an underrated way to learn because it emphasizes making connections between topics and really challenging yourself to think more deeply.

  • Connecting ideas like this differentiates them and makes them more applicable and usable in different situations.

  • And remember that this is what your teachers are doing when they write exam questions.

  • They're testing your ability to manipulate and distinguish between different kinds of concepts.

  • All right, so let's get back to the framework.

  • The last tip actually happens after you finish reviewing the problems for the day, and it's a really important step.

  • You have to track your confidence for every topic you study.

  • Otherwise, you'll end up wasting precious time reviewing past papers or even entire chapters that didn't need to be reviewed.

  • There are different ways to do this from the old algorithms, but let's be real.

  • The simpler, the better.

  • Our preferred way is something we call the GROW method.

  • Not only does it keep track of how well I know each topic, but it also serves as a study schedule that recommends which topics to study at any given moment, which is a huge time saver because I don't need to worry about planning a schedule ahead of time.

  • But I go way more into detail with a step-by-step walkthrough on the GROW method in this video right over here, and you won't want to miss it.

  • All right, bye.

This video is part of our Ultimate Study Skills series, and today we're talking about how to review for exams using practice questions or past papers.

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How to Review for Exams (UltimateTest Prep Guide)

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    Yu Ting Huang posted on 2024/10/31
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