HOW I SURVIVED THE NOV-DEC 2018 DENTIST LICENSURE EXAM || PART 3: How I Studied.
- @cocoririne on Twitter
- Feb 19, 2019
- 5 min read
Rather than finding out what is best to study, I think the first thing we need to teach ourselves is how. Did it seriously take me two thousand-worded blog posts to get to the actual point? Oh yes it did! Apart from review centers, I think the second favorite thing that board-bound humans like to ask about is what materials they should read to pass the board exam. I'm by no means a study guru, but I'm a storyteller, so I'll go do my thing. ;) TYPICAL REVIEW BOOKS. As early as March of 2018, I already knew that I'd find the format of Mosby difficult to understand, so I didn't bother with it anymore. The spirit of panic-buying led me to a copy of Rudman's NBD, but I barely got any use out of it. I found a digital copy of ASDA, and it was hate at first sight. Dental Decks infuriated me to the core, because I felt that the flipping was just too bothersome. Wells was everybody's favorite, but I actually struggled with it, because there was just something about it that was just too difficult to understand. Just imagine how discouraged that made me feel, not being compatible with any of the usual reviewers. There were times when I seriously felt stupid, because I had so much difficulty understanding materials that everybody else seemed to thrive well with. I wanted to study the review books, and I really tried to. Forcing it just frustrated me, and each study attempt proved to be futile. As much as I appreciated review lecturers for typing handouts, I wasn't able to maximize them either. Sometimes, I'd see people reading review lecture handouts, and I'd catch glimpses of their well-annotated and highlighted sheets. I admired them so much for being able to learn so easily and so quickly. It wasn't just that, actually-- I was jealous of them too. REALITY CHECK. I had to do a series of reality checks in the months prior to taking the DLE, but the most important one of all was accepting that my foundation was weak. Review books, as well as handouts from review centers, are supposed to be supplemental in nature, but you can't rely on supplements to give you the basic building blocks you were supposed to have in the first place. One of my former professors once told us during class that there are fast learners, and there are slow learners, and that we just had to accept that. Accepting that I was a slow learner with a lacking foundation was a definite hit on the ego, but it later proved to be that important step that let me pass the DLE. I came up with a schedule. I made a list of all the board exam subjects, and arranged them according to my likelihood of failure. I know that thinking about failure right from the very beginning feels a bit morbid, but I really had to remind myself that I am not invincible, and that failure was a definite possibility if I didn't get my act together. That list helped me prioritize how much time and effort I needed to maximize my chances of passing. It was always frustrating when I never met my allotted time, and how I constantly had to adjust my schedule. It was by realizing that I had to be patient with myself that I overcame the frustration, and soon enough, the schedule adjustments didn't feel like such a big deal anymore. HITTING THE TEXTBOOKS. I decided to read books. I graduated years after I had actually finished my classroom subjects-- meaning that I had to re-train myself in the classical way of studying, and it was hard. I started reading my books sometime in mid-August, but because I was still retraining my brain, what really happened was that I'd start books, and never finish them; hence, pakikipag-lokohan sa sarili. As bad as fooling myself sounds, it actually turned out beneficial, because I was able to figure out what would actually work for me.
In mid-September, I started with Wheater's Functional Histology, then switched (and eventually finished) Junquiera's Basic Histology. When I was done with it, I read Ganong's Review of Medical Physiology, and then I just went about my list, somehow finishing books quicker as time went by. As I found textbook-based review strategy quite enjoyable, it didn't feel like such a drag once I decided to commit myself to a goal of at least 6 hours a day, at least 4 days a week (Instagram breaks permitted). Just because I enjoyed it, doesn't mean that everything went seamlessly. I remember taking a copy of Katzung's Pharmacology and Board Review, and essentially giving up on it halfway through the first chapter because I felt that the format was just too weird, so I walked over to Morayta to buy myself a new copy of Clinical Pharmacology in Dental Practice, which is pretty much the standard Pharmacology book in Dentistry anyway. Some books, I just couldn't, like Regezi's Oral Pathology; and some books I didn't even start because I knew that I'd run out of time, like Ten Cate's Oral Histology. I only reached about 60% of my textbook goal, but I did hit all the priority subjects. I'm not sure if a predominantly textbook-based review strategy would work for everyone, because it could easily come across as borderline-toxic, because it would really require a lot of time and effort-- but that was my life from mid-September to the end of October, and my only regret is that I didn't start sooner.
I was in a mild state of panic once November rolled around. I spent a lot of time reading, understanding, and appreciating books in my priority subjects, but I still had to do something about everything else. I hung onto Review Of All Dental Subjects (ROADS) in the first two weeks of November. ROADS isn't very popular in the Philippines, as it's mainly for Indian dentists reviewing for a qualifying exam for them to take MSc degrees. I read ROADS chapters in a sequence reflective of that of the DLE, except for Test 8, in which I relied primarily on review lecture notes by my former Dental Jurisprudence professor. THE Q&As. From mid-November until the day of the board exam, I immersed myself in Q&As-- just like everybody else did. One of the goals of reading Q&As is to familiarize yourself with the way test questions are formulated, therefore ultimately improving test-taking abilities. There's no such thing as "sure ball" test papers, so your best option is to just read whatever you can get your hands on. At this point, I felt ready to take on Rudman's NBD, but because of the sheer volume of Q&As that managed to come my way, I was only able to read two sections. RESULTS. I'm a dentist now, am I not?:) I didn't earn a place in the Top 10 of the DLE, but I did earn a place in the list of successful examinees. For someone who was nearly eaten alive by Wells, for someone who admitted to having a weak foundation, and for someone who experienced a real threat of failure, I think I did quite fine. -- Just like you will :) There are so many ways to study, and there are so many things you can do to increase your chances of passing the DLE-- but the best thing you can do is to be brave. Be brave enough to accept your limitations, to step out of the box, and to just do what you feel is best for you. You don't have to do what I did, but what you should do is to customize your study routine, and use it to your full advantage. ..and then write a 1300-word blog post about it.
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