Note Taking

On numerous occasions you will be offered notes from previous students, provided you pay a sometimes significant amount of money. Said students will entice you with statements like “these got me into med with an A+ average”, “I’m just here to provide you with advice and help that I would have loved to have gotten in HSFY”, and “we’re providing these so that you don’t have to make your own notes – in effect we’re saving you valuable time”. Sometimes these products will just be a stack of paper typed up in word, sometimes they will look a lot flashier (I’m thinking of one very popular book in particular that here will remain nameless – just remember that a nice cover does not make for a good resource)

My advice – don’t buy any of these products. Let me make this clear – owning a set of notes for a paper compiled by an A+ student will not get you an A+, and it is unlikely to help you in any way.

Why is this? Quite simply it is because you will already be provided with all the information you need to get an A+ and into med by the official Otago teaching staff. Everything you need to know can be found in lecture slides, on lecture handouts, in textbooks. These are reliable sources, and where mistakes are present these are pointed out and corrected by the teaching staff. If you need clarification on a point there are plenty of reliable books in the libraries and plenty of reputable websites. This high reliability and accuracy is not something that can be found in student-made resources. Depending on such resources for information will potentially lead to you learning incorrect material. It may also lead to you learning non-examinable material and missing out on examinable material (particularly if the course has changed since such resources were produced) – this point is particularly relevant to people who buy such products ‘to get an idea of what to take out of each lecture’. To such people I give you the unfortunate truth – unless the lecturer explicitly said that something is non-examinable then it is examinable and if you want to get into med you’d do well to learn it.

The most important point when it comes to note taking however is that the final product does not matter. No one cares if you have neat, comprehensive notes. Why? Because you are not allowed to take these into tests and exams! It is all very well to have a nice resource made by an A+ student, but if you don’t know the material in it then owning it is pointless.

The main benefit of note taking and note making is that the process of doing so helps you to learn and memorise basic material. The A+ student offering their notes for sale got an A+ because in compiling those notes they were able to draw together all the relevant material while learning and revising it at the same time – hence all this was in their head during the final exam.

It is quite possible for anyone seriously aiming for med to themselves produce a set of notes of similar quality. If however they produce the notes themselves then they will do much better in the final exam. The sad thing is that a lot of the students offering their notes for sale know this. The fact that they want money in return should make you a little suspicious – their main priority (regardless of what they might say) is to get money from you, not to help you get into med.

In my opinion the best way to study for most of the HSFY papers (the exceptions being CHEM191 and PHSI191) is to pay full attention in lectures while taking pretty good notes. I found that if the lecturer said something then I was more likely to remember that than if I read it in a book – hence simply listening attentively in lectures (which is more than a significant number of people do) takes you a long way towards that A+. After that lecture (preferably in the same day) I’d review the content covered, the stuff in the pre-readings (which where possible should be read before the lecture), and combine it into around 1 page of notes summarising what that lecture covered. At the same time I would identify key terms and words to learn. The result was that by the end of each paper I’d have a very good resource that for me was far better than anything I could have bought. When people say “these notes got me into med with an A+ average” they may well be right – for them, the process of making such notes would have been a valuable learning exercise, and in this way such notes may well have gotten them that A+. The same notes will not get you the A+. If you want an A+ make and use your own notes.