DIP Episode 498 - The Successful Dedicated Period (Part 1)

Welcome, this is episode 498 of the Divine Intervention Podcast. Into this podcast, I'm going to be addressing a topic I'd like to title the successful dedicated period. The successful dedicated period. Many people have a dedicated period for their US Emily exams, beats step one, step two, step three. The problem for many people is they don't structure these periods well. The thing is the way you structure a dedicated period has a very huge influence on how successful you're going to be during that time. You see some people they have three months to study and you still end up with a mediocre score. You see all there's they have only four weeks to study and they end up with an excellent score. You may see two people, they start off their four week dedicated period with the same baseline. But then the end of getting you notice that wow, the final scores come out. One person did really well, one person did not do as well. So what are the factors that are playing to a successful dedicated period? I'm going to try to focus on those in this podcast. I'm going to discuss a series of principles that will help you structure a dedicated period well. So what's principle number one? The principle number one is the principle of subject days, the principle of subject days. This is going to run counter to a lot of what you see out there. Well, this is one of the best ways to make your dedicated period more efficient and also help you remember a lot of stuff very well.

Now, the classic advice out there is do questions around them every single day. That is the classic advice for many people. But the thing is most people will do a lot better if each of their study days had a particular focus. Because the thing is if you're a person that is doing things random, random, random, random questions every day, one thing you're going to notice is you're not going to end any particular day feeling very confident about how much you've learned about a given discipline. You're going to feel like, oh, I've learned many different things, but you don't feel confident at the end of the day. That's oh, I feel pretty good about psych. Oh, I feel pretty good about it. I'll be going. I feel pretty good about it. I'm going to say no because you don't catch all the whole day. And the thing is, is going to take you more time to review since you're studying so many different subjects all at once. One thing many people do not realize is that multitasking is not a good life skill. Many people think that is good to be able to balance so many things all at once. But for most people, it is not a good skill at all. I curious not. For most people balancing many things all at once is not a good life skill. It is literally not a good life skill. Most times, the smart thing you want to do with your life is focus on one thing, stick with it till you're done and then you start the next thing.

So all these people that are doing questions random every day, they're like, oh, it's more realistic for you exam. I'm not saying you shouldn't do random questions but let that be reserved for your practice tests. And the good thing about the USMLE is that there are so many practice tests available from the MBM. They're going to help you do all the randomization you could ever need, all the randomization you could ever desire. So all these people that come up with this argument of, oh, do everything or do everything random. It's not wise. It's not wise. And the thing is because you're doing everything random, you're not fully learning any one subject or any given day. At the end of the day, it's going to take you longer to learn the information. That's one thing. And the thing is, is also going to make you not be as fast as you should be. You see many people, they say that, oh, you know, I want to be fast because that's one of the causes of anxiety. There are many people's dedicated periods. Is that, man, there's all this information they have not learned just yet. Well, one of the ways you can avoid that problem is by just being a person that does not do things random. And I'll give you a suggested approach. But I want to try to pick out the arguments of many people that say do things random. And another classic reasoning people give about doing things random is that they say that, if you do things by subject, it's going to artificially inflict your scores.

Well, you know what? There's nothing wrong about that. There's nothing wrong about that. Because again, you have practiced tests that will show you where you truly stand. The thing is, many people worry so much about their scores on with Q banks. No. The Q bank writers are not the ones that are writing the exam you're taking. Is the MBME question writers that are going to be writing the exam you're going to be taking. So you might as well see where you stand from their own materials. Right. So what is my suggested approach for a dedicated period? So see, for example, your person that is studying for step two. I would encourage you to have like one day during the week. There are seven days in a week. One day during the week where all you do is will be dying. And then another day during the week where all you do is surgery. You can see surgery on another subject. Let's say like surgery and bio statistics. And then another day during the week where you do pizza. And then another day during the week where you do psychiatry and something else. Right. You can just call it psychiatry and other things like you can say psychiatry and behavioral sciences. So these things with quality improvement, ethics, healthcare systems, communications, professionalism and whatnot. And then you can see, okay, I'm going to devote two days to internal medicine. That's six days. And then the seventh day can either be a deal where you do a practice test or it can be a day where you have an off day.

It can be a day where you have an off day. Right. So again, I will strongly encourage you. Don't be a person that just those questions random. Right. So see, for example, you can say, you know what? Today Monday is going to be my Obe Gin day. And on this day, I'm going to do Obe Gin content review. And then I'm going to do 80 year world Obe Gin questions. And honestly, honestly, from being honest with you, you'll be able to do more questions each day if you follow this subject's day analogy. And again, I'm telling you, there is a psychological advantage to finishing a day, feeling like you really drill down through a one big subject. Right. And the thing is, you'll notice that your memories of those subjects will be stronger because that's all your focus time. And the thing is, if you truly devote a day to just learning Obe Gin, you will learn a lot of the high yield testable information in that time frame. Imagine if you didn't do this over a four week dedicated period, four times three or dedicated period on a good regularly spaced interval, you've really drilled down into Obe Gin. And if you've drilled down into Obe Gin four times, that's going to stick in your mind. You're going to be extremely successful. Now, what is principle and you know, so the day seven can be a practice test day or it can be an off day, it can be an off day. Now what is principle number two? Principle number two is, I like to call it the balance principle. The balance principle.

So principle number one was the subject these principle principle number two is the balance principle. Now one thing that people getting to trouble with, especially with preparing for the US Semini exams, is this again, age old advice that you hear in many schools. In fact, many deans offices in medical school give this information. Many people that have seniors give this information, but they say, oh, what should you do during your dedicated period? And they say, just do questions. Just do questions. I cannot tell you how many people I have worked with because I do want to want to do and also teach a lot of review courses. I cannot tell you how many people I have worked with that have said that, oh, there's school told them do questions and they've been doing questions for months and their scores have barely budged. Let me tell you this. It's one of the most inefficient ways to learn information during your dedicated period is doing questions alone. I'm going to say that again, one of the most inefficient ways of learning and acquiring information during your dedicated period is doing questions alone. For most people, it is not wise. It is not wise. It is not wise. The thing is your dedicated personal pre-tuna balance. Your balance should be between two activities. Number one, content review, number two, practice questions. In fact, if I'm being completely honest with you, you should make that like a 50-50 balance. You should say, you know what?

They say, today's my internal medicine day. I'm going to review this much internal medicine content from some kind of reviewer resource and then I'm going to spend the other half of my day doing internal medicine practice questions. Again, just going off of the first principle that I talked about. That's the best way to structure things. Don't just be a person that knows questions. The thing is you'd be amazed by how much you can pick up from just good old content review. Good old content review. One thing you hear from many people is that man, divine content review is boring. What I'm telling you, it's a fast way to learn information. Because if you think about it, again, notice I did not see just two questions or just two content reviewer. No, do both. Do both. Do both. Do both. Do both. The thing is, if for example you're reviewing like a well-prepared OB-GYN resource, you're just getting the information coming up to really, really fast. As against the tiny, tiny doses you get from doing questions, you pick up something from this question. You pick up something from this other question. You're not going to pick up every little detail in a short time frame just doing questions. You're just not. So the thing I'll link or is you is have a defined plan that you know what? I'm going to go through this much content today. Then I'm going to go through these many questions. And here's the thing.

As you do that, you will notice that over time, especially when you make your second pass, your third pass, your fourth pass, through the information from your content review, you will notice that you'll get faster and faster and faster. As you have seen the information over and over again, it gets quicker. And the thing is just a corner from the first principle. When you're doing the subject defense and you don't content review for a day, you will notice that the questions you're doing are immediately reinforcing what you just learned from your content review. You're getting that immediate reinforcement. That's another way of strengthening the material in your head. It's almost like you're instinctively in one day bring two passes through the same information, through the same material. That thing is going to stick in your brain. It's going to stick in your brain. So let's say for example, you have a eight hour study day, you spend four hours on content review and four hours on practice questions. The first time you review that content, this it takes you four hours. But you will notice that the second time you review that same content, it may take you three hours and 30 minutes because you remember a lot of it. The third time you do that content, it may take you only three hours. One thing you will notice is that, oh wait, I have an eight hour study day. Okay, well the first time I did four hours content review, four hours of questions.

Well the second time because I've reviewed this content already in an eight hour study day, I only need to spend three and a half hours to review the content. But I have subsequently spent four and a half hours doing questions. So you notice that, wow, wait, I'm able to get through more questions. And then the third time you review that same content, you're like wait, man, the same amount of content that took me four hours a few days ago is not taking me three hours. But you still have that fixed eight hour study day. You didn't have five hours to do questions. So you notice that wait, oh the very first day I did this will be going day. I was only able to do idiotic going questions. But now, man, with this extra time I have a little get in a hundred will be going questions. You'll notice that you're still reviewing the same content, but you're having progressively more and more time to do practice questions. Again, that's the thing. These principles I'm discussing and describing, they flow from each other, they flow from each other. Now before I'm done with the balance principle, one thing I'm going to say is, whatever resource you use for content review, make sure that it meets two criteria. Number one, make sure that you're learning well. Whatever thing you're using for your studying, make sure you're learning well. Many people learn, but they don't learn well. Many people scheme, many people read what they don't learn. Make sure you're learning well.

Make sure you truly understand what you're reading. I'm telling you, I can't tell you how many times people say, oh, Dave, they're using this resource, they're using this resource, but they are not learning. They're not learning. Make sure you're learning. The second thing is that whatever resource you use, make sure that you're crafting your content review around your preferred method of studying around your preferred method of studying. What works for one person may not necessarily work for another person. Let's go to principle number three. Again, I have a feeling that this podcast will have to be broken open to two, but it's such an important podcast and I don't want to run through things. I just want to, I don't want to speak through things. I want you to truly understand these principles because when you understand them, you're going to be better able to use them and use them correctly. Now, what is principle number three? Principle number is the question analysis principle. So if you talked about two principles so far, the subject is principle, the balanced principle, the most principle number two, and we're doing the question analysis principle. The thing is, as you're studying, you need to make sure that your skills are improving, both your knowledge skills and your testing skills. One of the best high fidelity ways to improve your skills is doing question analysis, question analysis.

Many people don't spend enough time on this and then they notice that they are not improving. You go as you do your practice examples is to improve in score with each practice exam. Why? Because you're doing good question analysis. Most people just want to steam rule through their practice exams. I'm not saying that wow, man, detailed deep diving to every single question you do. No, reserve detailed question analysis for the NV Me practice exams, especially if you're a person that is short on time. Reserve that for the NV Me practice exams. And most thing you can do that with Cubanks or Cubanks are primarily for you to learn. But if you're like, wow, you know what, I don't have all the time in the world, Devon, where should I spend the most of my time on detailed question analysis? Do that with NV Me material. So please don't miss, control what I'm saying. When you do your Cubank questions, make sure you review every single one of them. And if you want to know how to review your Cubank questions, well, check out the podcast I have on how to review your own and NV Me questions efficiently. I have a podcast on that. Do you should do question analysis with every question you do? But if you're like, wow, divine, where should I really invest so much of my efforts to like really learn this information? Right, to really do question analysis, do that with the NV Mes. Because the thing is you want to start looking for patterns.

What are some subjects that I keep consistently getting wrong? What are some common testing errors that I keep making? What are some lapses in judgment that I keep having? What are some tricks that the NV Me plays on me that I keep falling for? What are some errors in the way I read questions in the way I process questions that's put in meaning in trouble? What are some mistakes I keep falling for? In information, I pay attention to in a question. These are all things that these are all pieces of insight and information that will come up from good question analysis. And I'll just put it on blog. If you're taking step one step two, step three, I have review courses that review course that specifically helps with being good at testing from an NV Me perspective. It's a 2.5 hour course. So many people have taken it and I found it to be profoundly helpful. The next course is going to be in January. I have a podcast on that. If you're interested, just shoot me some more information and I can give you, shoot me an email and I can give you some more information. So make sure you're doing question analysis. In fact, if you see a person that is taking practice exams and their scores are not in profit, it is usually for one of two reasons. Where is the number one? They are not doing good content review. They're just taking practice exams for the sake of it because they just want to pound through practice exams.

Well, you literally don't see them do any content review between practice exams. Well, guess what? Your score is not going to change. And number two, you see these people, they don't change the approach from exam to exam. They don't find tune the approach from exam to exam with regards to how they approach questions with regards to how they preview and process questions. Well, again, if you're not making any changes, you're going to be stuck at a particular score range. Now, what is principle number four? So we've talked about three principles so far. The subject is principle, the balance principle, the question analysis principle, principle number four is the short form note principle, the short form note principle. So what do I mean by short form notes? Short form notes are notes that you take from the questions that you're doing and notes that you take on things you know that man, I keep forgetting these things or things you notice during your dedicated period, you're like, man, I keep struggling with this and you write some small notes on those. Again, if you want to get good at taking notes from questions, listen to the podcast on how to review your world and NVME questions efficiently. It's going to help you because you see some people do you write big long paragraphs on every question they do and then you notice that man, they are just three weeks into the dedicated period and they already have a 300-page document.

That is number one, it's not realistic and number two, you're never going to be able to go back and review those things. Now, it's better to have a much smaller document that you can review over and over and over again. So what is the short form principle? The short form principle is that for these short form notes you write, you need to review them regularly on a schedule. You need to review them regularly on a schedule. This is a feeling of so many people, so many people, so many people, so many people. You see them, they make notes on things they struggled with with questions and everything. They spend hours and hours and hours making these notes and then they never go back and review these notes. If you don't go back and review these notes then you're not going to get any benefit from those things. Yes, don't get me wrong, there is some benefit from the notes you took, just you literally writing them down. But the enduring benefit of those things is from consistent review, consistent review, consistent review. So have a one time period every week where you say, you know what, these two, three hour period is just for me to review my short form notes. It's going to help you start selectively, consistently dealing with your weaknesses all throughout your dedicated period. Because again, remember, what is the goal of a dedicated period?

You start off a dedicated period with so many weaknesses, but you want those weaknesses to consistently be weddled down over the course of your study period. If you're not doing a dedicated review of your short form notes, you're not weakling down those weaknesses over time. You're pretty much wasting your dedicated period in a sense. And then you notice, in fact, I'm telling you this, one of the ways you can know that, oh, I'm not reviewing my short form notes consistently, is that you make the scene mistakes two, three times during a dedicated period. Like you get the same information wrong twice. If you're doing that, something has gone wrong. You're not doing what you're supposed to do. I promise you, you're not. So start doing the right thing, start doing the right thing, right? Have every week have one time you select where you're doing a dedicated review short form notes. Okay. Now, what is principle number five? Again, we've talked about four principles so far. Subject the principle, balance principle, question analysis principle, short form principle, and then principle number five is the planning principle, the planning principle. This is something that you're supposed to do before your dedicated period even starts. What does the planning principle until the planning principle entails making a D by D schedule?

Many people, one of the things that makes their plans for the USML Es feel is that they have a list of resources they want to get through during the dedicated period. That's all they have. Did you not take the next step that will make that list of resources reality for them? Having a list of resources does not do you any good. If you don't have a plan, forgetting through that list of resources. One of the things I do when I work with people one on one, especially people that are in a dedicated period or about to enter a dedicated period, is I literally sit down and make a detailed D by D plan for them. You know, I spend some time, I interview them like, okay, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, and I'm able to flush those out pretty quickly because thankfully, you know, humblets are skill and built up over the years. And based on that, I literally make a D by D plan for these people. Sometimes I go to the level of, in the morning, this is what you do, afternoon, this is what you do, evening, this is what you do, that's the one. The two, morning, this is what you do, afternoon, this is what you do, evening, this is what you do. You're going to be a lot more successful when you have a guide for your dedicated period, right? So make a D by D schedule and make sure that it is something that is manageable. You see some people, they make some very unreasonable schedules. They make some very unreasonable schedules. And what are some unreasonable schedules?

What are some antecedents of an unreasonable schedule? One, they put a ridiculous number of hours in every day. They're like, I'm going to study from 70m to midnight. That's ridiculous. That's literally from doing my math right. That's like 19 hours study day. Well, okay, it's not 19 hours. So 7 to 12 is five hours, 12 to 6 is six hours. That's 11. Okay, so that's a 17 hour study day. That is not so sustainable. Most people study these, they probably get a lot more from it if you were in between each to maximum 12 hours. I really tell people try to make it at least eight hours if you can because that's about as long as your exam is going to be. So you want to be able to focus for that length of time. But having studied these that are 15 hours long, I'm telling you, it's not going to be sustainable. It's better to have something that you can do consistently every day of your day, get it paired than to go overboard, to overreach. And then you only notice that while. I'm able to get through, you do it for like three days because you have adrenaline guiding you. And then you burn out and then you take two days off. And then you say, ah, and then you feel crushed. The man, I didn't know how long with my plan. And then you do, you do it for five days and then you burn out. And then for three, four days, you're useless. You're not studying effectively. No, right. So one antecedent of a very bad ah, plan is like a like a poor plan is, ah, you put too many hours in.

And then the second thing is having too many moving parts. Many people's plans that fail, are plans that have too many moving parts, too many moving parts. I just like to think of it this way. If you have a device that has so much technology built into it, there's so many more points of failure of that thing. That's why if you notice, honestly, mini, don't get me wrong. The cars we meet today are way safer than the cars of the past. But the cars of today do unfortunately for mini brands, don't last as long as the cars of the past. Why? Because there is so much going on with cars these days. You know, making anything basic and straightforward. The more tech you add, right, the more points of failure you have. Like in a fridge, right? Ooh, let's add a nice maker. Let's add this. Let's add the screen. You can watch You Tube on your fridge. You can do this. You can do that. Well, those are all points of failure. If you notice some of the fridges, the refrigerators that last the longest, are the ones that are those up, up and down fridges. No bells on whistles, no ice maker. They just get the job done. They're going to last you very, very long, right? So that's the same thing with the dedicated period. If you have too much going on during your dedicated period, you just have more, you are just more susceptible to failure. You are more susceptible to a dedicated period failure. Right? So too many moving parts.

In fact, when I make plans for people, most times is like two or three basic activities that they do every day. That's it. Two or three basic things they do every day. Well, those two or three basic things are a high-eal things so they can get a lot from their study days. So I'll encourage you. Don't be that kind of person that has a plan where every day you're doing 10 different things. That's not wise. Most of your study days should be where you do like three or four things. I mean, those things things you do consistently, consistently, consistently. Honestly, if you do those things consistently, it would then become a habit. It would then become a habit. And as you're building those habits, you're setting yourself up beautifully for your exam day. And I'm going to talk about a principle that relates to that, that relates to that in this series. So make sure you have a day by day schedule and do this long before your dedicated period starts. Don't do it like two days before because there's going to be a lot of anxiety with that process. Let it be something that you do like two weeks before your dedicated period starts. So you can evaluate it, you can think on it, you can meditate on it and it's okay. This is reasonable. This is not reasonable. And then principle number six, so we've discussed five principles. I'm going to pause after principle number six. So there's going to be an episode 499 where we'll talk about the other principles. But this is kind of getting long.

And again, these things I'm trying to give, this is probably like my most detailed podcast I'm given on how to structure a dedicated period. I feel like if you, yes, this is time that you're spending trying to understand my reasoning behind things, but I promise you like this is time that is well worth it. So what is principle number six? So again, don't five principle will discuss the subject. This principle will discuss the balance principle. We've discussed the question analysis principle. We've discussed the short form principle. We've discussed the planning principle. Principle number six is the steam power principle, the steam power principle. What do I mean by steam power? Steam power means you've made a commitment to something stick with it for the long call. This is one of the most common causes. This is one of the biggest risk factors for people not getting much from their dedicated period. What exactly do I mean by this? People keep changing their plans. They keep changing their plans. They keep waffling on things to do. Half steam power. When you make a commitment, that's why you see these principles kind of flow from each other. The previous principle was said make a manageable plan. When you've made this manageable plan, stick with it. Don't keep vacillating. You don't have time to keep daily dali. It's a dedicated period. There's not much room for air. There's not much margin for air.

In fact, if you see a person that originally said that oh my dedicated period is going to be six weeks, but then it turns to 12 weeks, and then 15 weeks, and then 18 weeks. One of the most common causes of that problem is a consistent change in of plans. They never start off with something and stick with it. You see many people that give up the moment a plan looks like it's not working. Literally within like a week, in fact a week is too much. You see some people three days. They try something for three days. It's not working and they're like okay well let me try a different plan. Then they go online, they go on Reddit, they go on Twitter, they go on SDN, they go on You Tube, they find a new plan, they start following it. They notice that wow man my scores have not changed in two days. They go and change their plan again. They keep changing their plan. So they're basically running in a rat race, rat race, rat race, change plan, do it for two days, change plan, do it for two days. So those people you notice that they never get anything done for a huge chunk of the dedicated period. Until after a while they kind of snap out of it and see what am I doing with my life, but if birth like a month in that process, you don't want to be that kind of person. That's why the planning principle before you study a dedicated period matters, spend good time, make a good plan. Once you make that good plan, stick with it. Stick with it. Discipline yourself. Stick with it. Stop changing plans.

If it's a well constructed plan, it's well work. Just give it enough time. Give it enough time. The thing is many times, I can't have observed this over many years. Well constructed plans that work with who you are will work giving enough time. I'm going to say it again. Well constructed plans that are created that match up with who you are are going to work given enough time. I've literally seen some people that have to keep pushing through a plan for four weeks, but then around the four week mark, they just have this inflection point where things completely turn around for them. Right. But if they had given up in week two, they would never hit that inflection point in the first place. This is something that happens with many dedicated periods. It's just going to be a day where things just seem to click. And then after that, your progress becomes extremely rapid. So the thing is, I keep you not. A dedicated period many times is like building a home. Right. The thing is, before a home comes up, you notice that why it's almost like a building just popped out of nowhere. No. Honestly, the building did not just pop out of nowhere. No. Here's what happened. The thing that happened is a lot of time will spend building the foundation, putting the structures together, getting the wiring done, getting the drywall. But once that basic foundation is there, everything after that is really, really fast. Everything after that barely takes any time. Literally barely takes any time.

So that's what I'm trying to encourage you with this morning. Right. The fact that something is not working, you may not see the effects immediately. It's just like water that you're boiling. At first, you put that thing, it's on a heater for a long time. But once the boiling starts, it's like, it gets really fast. That's how dedicated periods often work. So you may not see any progress or your progress is very slow for the first few weeks. But that's because you're in the foundation building phase. Once the foundation is set and it's standing, you're going to start seeing very rapid progress. You're going to see people where they like jumping five five to 10 points almost every day or something crazy. Right. So be mindful of that. Have the power. Don't keep changing your plants. Do not keep changing your plants. So in summary, what have we discussed today? Again, there's going to be a part two of this. We've talked about six principles so far that make for a successful dedicated period. Number one, we talked about the subject days principle. Number two, we talked about the balance principle. Number three, we talked about the question analysis principle. Number four, we talked about the short form principle. Number five, we talked about the planning principle. And the number six, we talked about the steam power principle. Right. These principles work, use them, craft your dedicated period using these principles.

In the next podcast, God willing, we're going to continue this story. Now I do offer one or one tutoring for all the US and the exams. Step one, step two, seeking and step three pre clinical medical exams and third year shelf exams. I have review courses for step one, step two and step three. If you're interested in any of these review courses, shoot me an email. These review courses are not lectures. They are almost exclusively problem sets, clinical scenarios, clinical vignettes, because that's going to be more achieved to how your exams are constructed. And these courses focus on clinical presentations, deep understanding of pathofilness, physiology and very good integration of concepts across many disciplines. If you listen to my podcast, you understand exactly how I teach. And then number three, these podcasts are on Apple, Google, and Spotify. And I have a You Tube channel you can consult. And then I have on the website, call, divineinterventionlifelessons.com. Every week, I post two podcasts and from a biblical perspective, I address a live lesson. We have about 240 podcasts right now. There is an Apple podcast associated with that. So thank you for joining me today. I will see you in episode 499. Have a wonderful rest of your day. God bless you and bye for now. Thank you.

The Subject Days principle—dedicating an entire day to one specific subject (e.g., Cardiology Day) to achieve deep focus and better retention.

A 50/50 balance between content review and practice questions.

It allows for deep focus on one discipline, leading to stronger memory retention and greater confidence in that subject at the end of the day.

For NBME practice exams, as these materials are most representative of the actual exam structure and allow for pattern recognition.

The benefit comes not from writing them down, but from regularly reviewing those concise notes on a consistent schedule to address weaknesses.

Making a commitment and sticking with the plan consistently; do not change plans or give up when progress is slow (the foundation building phase).

Subject Days, Balance Principle, Question Analysis Principle, Short Form Note Principle, Planning Principle, and Steam Power Principle.

Spending roughly 50% of the time reviewing core content/textbook material and 50% of the time completing practice questions related to IM.

It is an inefficient way to learn information, leading to plateaued scores because foundational knowledge gaps are not addressed.

To allow time to evaluate the feasibility of the schedule and adjust it, preventing anxiety or overambition at the start date.

Concise reminders about specific weaknesses encountered in questions, concepts that are easily forgotten, or patterns of error.

Having too many moving parts (too many subjects/activities) or setting an unsustainable number of hours per day.

Subject Days, Balance Principle, Question Analysis Principle, Short Form Note Principle, Planning Principle, and Steam Power Principle.

Spending roughly 50% of the time reviewing core content/textbook material and 50% of the time completing practice questions related to IM.

It is an inefficient way to learn information, leading to plateaued scores because foundational knowledge gaps are not addressed.

To allow time to evaluate the feasibility of the schedule and adjust it, preventing anxiety or overambition at the start date.

Concise reminders about specific weaknesses encountered in questions, concepts that are easily forgotten, or patterns of error.

Having too many moving parts (too many subjects/activities) or setting an unsustainable number of hours per day.