is it worth taking a speed reading course before taking USMLE step 1???

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ASUM Forum Moderator

The heart beat of ASUSM......

I don't know whay you posted this here - but YES. Think about it - 50 questions in 50 minutes for seven hours!!!

Answer these questions:
Do you even know how fast you read for 1. Pleasure, 2. regular text books. 3. Extremely difficult technical material???

How large is your vocabulary? Do you have issues with symbol recognition? What is your reading comprehension rate percent?

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To echo James's point...is speed reading applicable to science subjects peppered with a key words,key words which are itself a defination of a process or a set of processes.

Medical literature is often not like Guyton's, which is smooth and lucid, with very simple words.....though Guyton's text also gets 'peppered' with 'High falutin deep' techno words.

I tried to speed read,but I realised, the more slower I went, the faster I became with Medical literature because I understood better and retained better.I tried both English and German tests,and I had the same results in both cases.

Many Step 1 warriors have advised me to read abridged editions of books,rather than fat text.Because fat texts often leave you with the feeling that the subject is vast, and you feel you are short on time...which actually is untrue...I have from my research ,understood, most Nursing books comapre very well to medical books, and are less cumbersome, with a whole lot less pages...........I guess people like Moore and Guyton were champions of their subjects, but had no mercy for medical students,lol!

So,the slower I go, the faster I get................any takers?

But as far as step 1 exam speed reading is concerned, I am so far away from that scenario, that I honestly am not even trying to even visualise that scene.....

Fat texts - I have just finished studying for the GRE in Biochemistry where you get 180 questions in 180 minutes. 60 sec or a minute per question. I worked old release biochemistry exams, and used many sources to learn what has happened in the last few years since I have been out of school. I read most of Weaver's Genetics, selected topics in Alberts cell biology and Styr's Biochemistry text. I also read about 240 pages in Molecular Biology of the Gene - Watson. These are all well written texts - I agree the more you read the more you feel like you don't know.

All told - I read over 1,500 pages of text and did at least 50 to 150 questions per day. Many of the questions were repeats so I could fix many difficult definitions, concepts and mechanisms in my mind. I got till I could read many questions in 20-30 seconds. I still feel like I have barely gone past the surface in these subjects.

With all my work on study & speed reading - I was still working at 180 minutes.

OK, you convinced me about speed reading James!
Now,how about a lead or two, on the speed reading body of knowledge, aka a speed reading book for neophytes?

PS..I read fictional text at the non scientific speed of 2 days for a 300 page novel,but do not retain names or details, just for pleasure.Recently reread Bourne Identity in 2 days flat, during a weekend.This info is for James to better asess my reading prowess, so he can advise me better.Ah, and English is not my father tongue......just kidding,English is not my mother tongue.

There are several computer programs that work on speed reading. However, the best is to take a course with a real person. Speed reading trains your eyes (eye movement) and comprehension. A pleasure book that you read and don't retain the details is a big issue. That means your comprehension of the material is very low.

I am a dyslexic so I read at one time very slow. To retain the information you sometimes have to reread the stuff formulate questions or extract definitions as you go and then test yourself on them. You will hear alot of people say you fluck yourself out of Ross or AUC not the teachers. What they mean is you did not have good basic skills in studying the information. Our memory and brain have to be trained. When I was a child my eyes would not track accross a line of text. I could not make sense of the words. Many people subvocalize as they read and this slows them down.

There are several speed reading schools in the US. I used Davision speed reader Two program. However, I don't think it is sold any more. You want to have good eye tracking from left to right for English text.

You will most likely have to go to your student counseling center to get help or do it on your own. These are considered basic study skills - yet many people don't have them. If you are on valueMD chances are you grades were not the best when you were in school. So I would look at the root cause of why you did not achieve top scores - at the bottom of it you will find several reasons. #1 is reading skills, #2 are listen skills and note taking. #3 is knowing that tests are all about recall and it does not matter how many pages you read if you can't recall the information in those pages. Also #4 people read information and don't integrate it.

Oh yea - if the stuff you read or memorize does not have meaning for you you will not retain it. So learning or memorizing random stuff in a random order does you no good. You have to build a context rich framework. Making mental pictures helps a great deal. That is why anatomy is taught first - it is a very visual 3-D kinesetic (touching) experience. Being able to see and touch are very important. Very auditor learners do not do well in medical school for the most part.

Hope this helps.

its at the top of the page so it catches the eye plus this school forums have been inactive so i tired to make it active (i guess)....

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ASUM Forum Moderator

The heart beat of ASUSM......

Hey I am a dyslexic - not a good speller....This forum is so dead I doubt it has a pulse. We are not even sure this school has a pulse...It may be a myth. Or yea - the students are so afraid to post becasue the school will punish them or they think VMD is a joke or they don't know about VMD.

Sorry I hit submit to quick - we are not sure about any thing with this school so pick an excuse for why the student don't post.