ItsyBitsy Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Hi, guys. I posted a while back about my horrendous C- in Bio1000 due to poor study habits. I didn't drop it and was just aiming to do reallly well in Bio1001 to make up for that. I've completely turned things around this term - i'm keeping up with readings, acing all the labs and studying hard for the tests. But much to my dismay, I'm not doing any better - maybe even worse in the tests. And the most surprising thing for me is that I understand all the concepts very well, and I'm actually very interested in the subject matter. The problem is, our prof is VERY VERY VERY VERY detailed with his tests. You really do have to try to memorize each and every word from his ppt slides because he won't ask for basic concepts, but rather smaller details - like the specific year a certain outbreak happened and how many ppl it killed. Our class averages tend to be 59-60 on the tests. I'm not trying to blame this on the prof, i'm just saying that I've actually tried really hard for this course and understand the concepts but it's the tests that are screwing me over. I've calculated that even if I get 100 (highly unlikely) on the final exam. I'm lost now. And to be honest, really doubting myself. If I can't manage to get a decent overall grade even when I'm working hard, maybe I'm not cut out for medicine? sigh....any suggestions anyone? Should I take more science courses (in addition to basic pre-reqs) next year to try to make up, re-take the course, etc? sigh..feeling very bummed out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsyBitsy Posted July 31, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 EDIT: I was saying that even if I get 100 on the final exam which is highly unlikely, the max I could get on this course is a B+... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
future_doc Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 I don't have any specific advice now, other than to try to do your best under these difficult circumstances AND do NOT lose confidence in yourself over this and change your life plans! Virtually every one of us has faced very difficult problems and lived to fight another day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illuminant Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Add to it the fact that 5% of the people who apply get accepted at any canadian med school .. but if medicine is what you want to do, then definitly go for it. If the problem seems from the prof, then ask the students who have went into his class before or go to ratemyprof.com (look at the easiness section and its assessment out of 5) .. hope that helped you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McMarauder Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Others on this forum have even FAILED courses and still got into medical school. Don't let a couple of bad marks get you down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McMarauder Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Also, don't start doubting yourself!!!!!! You already identified what you did wrong, and now you know that your prof is a tight ass on tiny details on the lecture slides. I don't know how strict your school is with returning tests to their students, get your hands on some past tests. Those will definitely help you figure out what type of tester your professor is for future courses. Stay focussed and follow some of the advice you received from PM101. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astrogirl Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Others on this forum have even FAILED courses and still got into medical school. Don't let a couple of bad marks get you down. I failed 5 or 6 courses and got into med school. Not straight out of undergrad, but I did get in, so a B or C is not the end of the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notjk Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Hi, guys. I posted a while back about my horrendous C- in Bio1000 due to poor study habits. I didn't drop it and was just aiming to do reallly well in Bio1001 to make up for that. I've completely turned things around this term - i'm keeping up with readings, acing all the labs and studying hard for the tests. But much to my dismay, I'm not doing any better - maybe even worse in the tests. And the most surprising thing for me is that I understand all the concepts very well, and I'm actually very interested in the subject matter. The problem is, our prof is VERY VERY VERY VERY detailed with his tests. You really do have to try to memorize each and every word from his ppt slides because he won't ask for basic concepts, but rather smaller details - like the specific year a certain outbreak happened and how many ppl it killed. Our class averages tend to be 59-60 on the tests. I'm not trying to blame this on the prof, i'm just saying that I've actually tried really hard for this course and understand the concepts but it's the tests that are screwing me over. I've calculated that even if I get 100 (highly unlikely) on the final exam. I'm lost now. And to be honest, really doubting myself. If I can't manage to get a decent overall grade even when I'm working hard, maybe I'm not cut out for medicine? sigh....any suggestions anyone? Should I take more science courses (in addition to basic pre-reqs) next year to try to make up, re-take the course, etc? sigh..feeling very bummed out. Don't worry too much, try to get a B ( or B+ if you can ), and yes I know the professor tends to test on the small notes such as that question about H5N1. It is the summer and you still have a long way to think about whether you are cut out for medicine; rather then quitting on medicine make a Plan B. On a final note, don't bother retaking it; unless you failed, or the faculty told you have to repeat it. You really are better of doing a completely new course ; rather then repeating. Since it is a summer course you have to see which medical schools will actually count that mark (for example uOttawa will know you completed their pre-req; but they won't take your mark); and then decide what you should try to do. Good luck, and don't feel too bummed out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notjk Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 You also did a masters AND a PhD. That changes things! I wouldn't worry so much! It can be difficult to do well in the sciences at first when you come from an arts background. I'm an arts student as well, and when I took my first science courses (human phys I and II) I was surprised by how much more difficult I found the exams....they test on specific details and answering the questions requires some critical thinking. There is definitely an adjustment period. Also, I've heard that first year bio is a weeder course at some schools (U of T comes to mind). If you are in the GTA, consider taking it at York. It's a bird course here Ya BIOL1000/1001 are bird courses; but that is if you get Professors Noel and Kelly in my opinion. The OP I believe has Professor Vicari. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mavrik13 Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Add to it the fact that 5% of the people who apply get accepted at any canadian med school .. but if medicine is what you want to do, then definitly go for it. If the problem seems from the prof, then ask the students who have went into his class before or go to ratemyprof.com (look at the easiness section and its assessment out of 5) .. hope that helped you. 1) More than 5% of applicants are accepted. Even in Ontario, 10% of applicants are accepted (and this proportion is much higher in other provinces) 2) Once in my undergrad, I took a course simply because ratemyprof said it was easy (and the course description seemed interesting). The course was very easy to get a B in, but took a lot of work to get an A-. The course average was in the 70's, and very few people got above a 90. Take those reviews with a grain of salt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astrogirl Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 You also did a masters AND a PhD. That changes things! True. But I got a couple of C's in those as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notjk Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Oh, the OP is a Yorkie? The C- threw me off. Vanillabear had Vicari though and said it was still bird. In all honesty, you should be able to get an A in that course no problem by just knowing the lecture notes. I never went to class or read the text, barely studied, and did labs in like 2 hours lol...still got an A and this is without having taken grade 12 bio or chem. It is not a difficult course, the OP probably needs to find some different study strategies. Yup, turns out they broke down BIOL1010 to BIOL1000 (biochem,genetics etc) and BIOL1001 (evolution and ecology). And they removed some labs and added new ones. I think this change is a good idea, gives first years a chance to redeem themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanillabear Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Oh, the OP is a Yorkie? The C- threw me off. Vanillabear had Vicari though and said it was still bird. In all honesty, you should be able to get an A in that course no problem by just knowing the lecture notes. I never went to class or read the text, barely studied, and did labs in like 2 hours lol...still got an A and this is without having taken grade 12 bio or chem. It is not a difficult course, the OP probably needs to find some different study strategies. Yep I had Gadsden and Vicari and I still got an A+... forget the textbook, don't even look at it. The lecture notes are your holy book...read them once, twice, write them out, whatever it takes. Know them. EDIT: During the tutorials, he does many types of practice questions. Know how to do these too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charmer08 Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 To be honest, tests that test you on the details are A LOT easier than tests that are application based. You just have to memorize the slides. A B+ is not a bad grade and it is def possible to get 90's on the exam. Since you know how her tests are, you now know the way you should be studying for this course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charmer08 Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 Ya BIOL1000/1001 are bird courses; but that is if you get Professors Noel and Kelly in my opinion. The OP I believe has Professor Vicari. lol I had 4 diff profs for BIOL1010 and it was still easy to get an A. The class average was a B when I took it... 60 isn't that bad for the test average because the labs will bring the average up at the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illuminant Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 definitly not 10%, I would say 6-7% .. according to OSMAS 2011 booklet, Mac - applicants for 2010 is 3790 .. class size for 2011 is 203 .. 5.3% acceptance Ottawa - 3638 apply .. 156 get accepted .. 4.28% acceptance Queens - 3322 apply .. 100 get accepted .. 3.1 % acceptance Toronto - 3108 .. 259 get accepted .. 8.3 % acceptance Western - 2371 .. 171 get accepted .. 7.2 % acceptance As for other provinces, 5% of their class size will be for out of province applicants .. thats about 5-10 people out of a 1000 something applying from ontario I agree with your comment toward ratemyprof.com .. but in any case .. you should always go to that website to get an idea of how the prof is 1) More than 5% of applicants are accepted. Even in Ontario, 10% of applicants are accepted (and this proportion is much higher in other provinces) 2) Once in my undergrad, I took a course simply because ratemyprof said it was easy (and the course description seemed interesting). The course was very easy to get a B in, but took a lot of work to get an A-. The course average was in the 70's, and very few people got above a 90. Take those reviews with a grain of salt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mavrik13 Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 definitly not 10%, I would say 6-7% .. according to OSMAS 2011 booklet,Mac - applicants for 2010 is 3790 .. class size for 2011 is 203 .. 5.3% acceptance Ottawa - 3638 apply .. 156 get accepted .. 4.28% acceptance Queens - 3322 apply .. 100 get accepted .. 3.1 % acceptance Toronto - 3108 .. 259 get accepted .. 8.3 % acceptance Western - 2371 .. 171 get accepted .. 7.2 % acceptance As for other provinces, 5% of their class size will be for out of province applicants .. thats about 5-10 people out of a 1000 something applying from ontario I agree with your comment toward ratemyprof.com .. but in any case .. you should always go to that website to get an idea of how the prof is Except you are (incorrectly) using the number of applications, not number of applicants. According to the OMSAS 2011 booklet, there are 953 seats for 5,297 applicants (using 2011's number of applicants). Since someone can't hold two different seats, that means that ~18% of those who apply gain admission somewhere in Ontario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsyBitsy Posted July 31, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 "The OP I believe has Professor Vicari." You have great deduction skills! Yeah, I'm a Yorkie and I have Vicari for bio1001. All the comments about people getting high marks in his class are doing wonders for my self-esteem right now. hah.... Honestly though, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm a good student otherwise. I've gotten mostly A+s, As and B+s in undergrad (not in science), won a few awards and am about to get an essay published in a peer review article. I did pretty well in highschool science 6 years ago (I know, not comparable), so I was feeling pretty indestructible before taking these courses. People told me they were bird courses as well so I thought i'd do fine...but this was such a reality check. Labs are going great but the tests are a different story. I haven't really had many exams throughout undergrad, moslty papers where it's more about critical application so memorizing this much detail is new for me...It doesn't feel good to be at the bottom of the class, it really doesn't. I know some other pretty smart kids have been having problems with his tests, too. One girl who tutored other students before the exams ended up getting a D! Yet, there are still some people scoring 80s, 90s, and even a few 100s (I'm beginning to think they're really robots). To the people who've done well in Vicari's class or are generally good at memorizing tiny details, could you please share your study habits with me? How often do you study, how long before the exam do you begin reviewing, and how do you possibly maintain so much detail in your brains without losing it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McMarauder Posted July 31, 2011 Report Share Posted July 31, 2011 After 2nd year, I didn't have to many memorization courses, but I do remember rewriting things over and over and over and over again. For example, if I had a list of 10 proteins to remember, I'd write the list out once, cover it and try to write out the list again. I'd repeat this process until I was able to write the whole list out without referring back to the original list. Another things that helps is using mnemonics. Say you have 4 proteins to memorize, Erk, Hsp76, CREB, Bcl-2. A simple sentence such as "Everybody hates cheap b@stards". The first letter of each word in that sentence will guide your memory to the protein starting with that letter. What exactly are you being taught in this course? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notjk Posted August 1, 2011 Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 "The OP I believe has Professor Vicari." You have great deduction skills! Yeah, I'm a Yorkie and I have Vicari for bio1001. All the comments about people getting high marks in his class are doing wonders for my self-esteem right now. hah.... Honestly though, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm a good student otherwise. I've gotten mostly A+s, As and B+s in undergrad (not in science), won a few awards and am about to get an essay published in a peer review article. I did pretty well in highschool science 6 years ago (I know, not comparable), so I was feeling pretty indestructible before taking these courses. People told me they were bird courses as well so I thought i'd do fine...but this was such a reality check. Labs are going great but the tests are a different story. I haven't really had many exams throughout undergrad, moslty papers where it's more about critical application so memorizing this much detail is new for me...It doesn't feel good to be at the bottom of the class, it really doesn't. I know some other pretty smart kids have been having problems with his tests, too. One girl who tutored other students before the exams ended up getting a D! Yet, there are still some people scoring 80s, 90s, and even a few 100s (I'm beginning to think they're really robots). To the people who've done well in Vicari's class or are generally good at memorizing tiny details, could you please share your study habits with me? How often do you study, how long before the exam do you begin reviewing, and how do you possibly maintain so much detail in your brains without losing it? It just so happens that I have someone in that class helping me write about the new BIOL courses; also ironically I sold him my labs and tests prior to the course. Personally, I had Tamara Kelly for evolution and ecology; thus unfortunately all I can do is hope for you the exam is not as brutal as the other tests . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanillabear Posted August 1, 2011 Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 To the people who've done well in Vicari's class or are generally good at memorizing tiny details, could you please share your study habits with me? How often do you study, how long before the exam do you begin reviewing, and how do you possibly maintain so much detail in your brains without losing it? For me, I went to the lectures and took decent notes "sometimes" (he taught for three hours once a week so it was hard to pay attention lol). About one week before the test, I went through the lecture notes and "rephrased" them, i.e. read a point, thought about it, wrote it down again in different words. After doing that, if I still felt a little unsure of the material, I read through the 2nd set of notes actively. This usually took me to the day before/day of the test, by then I felt comfortable with all the info. It also helps if you and a friend get together to quiz each other on material the day before the test so that you know your weaknesses. I also had to teach a lot of the material to some of my friends that never came to class so that helped me learn it better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikki dale Posted August 1, 2011 Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 After 2nd year, I didn't have to many memorization courses, but I do remember rewriting things over and over and over and over again. For example, if I had a list of 10 proteins to remember, I'd write the list out once, cover it and try to write out the list again. I'd repeat this process until I was able to write the whole list out without referring back to the original list. Another things that helps is using mnemonics. Say you have 4 proteins to memorize, Erk, Hsp76, CREB, Bcl-2. A simple sentence such as "Everybody hates cheap b@stards". The first letter of each word in that sentence will guide your memory to the protein starting with that letter. What exactly are you being taught in this course? i do this too with bio detailed memorization bio concepts i turn into a story such that it all just makes sense to me, but thats broader details and too hard to explain because its all my wierd mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsyBitsy Posted August 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 Thanks for the tips, guys. I have an exam in 2 days and am beginning to panic. \ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McMarauder Posted August 1, 2011 Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 i do this too with bio detailed memorization bio concepts i turn into a story such that it all just makes sense to me, but thats broader details and too hard to explain because its all my wierd mind. Like learning by analogy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikki dale Posted August 3, 2011 Report Share Posted August 3, 2011 Like learning by analogy? no like calling serotonin "Sir" to remember that it is the oldest known neurotransmitter (according to my psych prof) my way would never make sense to another human being but myself lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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