DocPakMan
Forum Senior
Topics: 25
Posts: 89
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I just finished reading the first chapter of Microbiology - Bacteria etc from the Kaplan notes.. and felt I had covered the topic reasonable well for a first read. but when I did the chapter review questions I scored miserably!! Out of 50 questions I got a mere 19 right!!! thats like 38%.... what am I doing wrong! plz help anybody i need some pointerzzz........
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| unique1
InGodITrust
Topics: 19
Posts: 1,410
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Hey DocPakMan,
I finished my 1st read of micro last month and was happy that I covered bacteria well but......in bacteriology end of the chapter qs scored only 42%   
Will see how it goes after my 2nd read.
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I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
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| DocPakMan
Forum Senior
Topics: 25
Posts: 89
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ok... so im not the only one!! thanks for your feedback unique1 i was soo demoralized after that chapter! are there gonna be a lot of questions from micro on the USMLE???
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| merris134
Forum Junior
Topics: 14
Posts: 38
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58
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| keepgoing
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 1,673
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hi guyz i agree with unique1 i have also done micro 1st read but when actual things come (mcq )everything seems somewhere scattered in brain..i got 62  hope with 2nd read the scores and retaining thingy improve so repetition is the solution i guess as most of our seniors here suggest us...but biochemisry questions at the back of every chapter were more disappointing/demoralizzzing...
for micro i used KLN + MMRS and i give 9+ out of 10 to MMRS....but liked tables in KLN as well so 8 out of 10 for KLN...
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| DocPakMan
Forum Senior
Topics: 25
Posts: 89
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i agree.. repition is the key. Well today I went on to the next Chapter(fungi) did the mini test and got them all right 6/6. talk about contradictory! but I have to say that my hippocampus is running out of space to store all these funky names!
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| unique1
InGodITrust
Topics: 19
Posts: 1,410
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That is interesting!!!!!! I got 5/6 right in fungi.
Although 1st read scores do not really matter but it is a good idea to compare our scores with others just to have an idea where do we stand and how much more we nead to learn.
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I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
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| bactitech
Forum Elite
Topics: 25
Posts: 481
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If it's any consolation, MT students have the same problem. Most of the new techs I've talked to say memorizing micro stuff is difficult without having any actual lab work to refer to. Once you actually work on cultures a lot of information will come together.
If you can weasel some time with your local micro lab for a morning, do it. Everything will make a LOT more sense. Make sure you call the supervisor ahead, though. When you see how we ID cultures even a little, many things about the common bugs will have visuals that you can hook to your booklearning. This helps tremendously.
I've noticed that many of you memorize lists - catalase pos organisms, catalase neg organisms, oxidase pos organisms, etc. This is an extremely difficult way to learn micro. What you should be doing is recognizing, for example, what makes Staphylococcus sp. different than Strep sp. (catalase is the tiebreaker here). Once you make that split, then what differentiates S. aureus from S. epi (coagulase). If you memorize a bunch of lists, it just won't make sense for you. You have to know the characteristics of large groups of organisms, and then go down the lines of schemata to see how they split off - sort of like going underground through a root system and following the branches.
Hope this makes sense. I tell new techs that they need to work in micro for at least a year to know the basics well. Don't be discouraged - it's a hard subject.
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Clinical Microbiology since 1974
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