Otago HSFY chat - archive

[Cathay]

Okay, thanks for the help Section 3 seems like it could be quite hard so thats the part I am really not looking forward to

Good thing for you that Section 3 is only worth 10% in Otago's book, then. GG gave you a link in the "HSFY students chat" thread to a thread called Otago Medical School, where there is (somewhere nearish the bottom) an explanation of how UMAT is considered by Otago, where it's also demonstrated that for those with near-perfect marks in HSFY, it is possible to get in with very low UMAT scores, so essentially your HSFY marks are the main determinant of your entry - UMAT is a supplement.

As would've been mentioned many times, the content of HSFY dictates that hard work will be rewarded (unlike in NCEA), which means THE way to get into med is to work hard (and work smart!) - a good UMAT offers a safety margin in case things go wrong, but that's all it is - UMAT will not guarentee your entry, nor will it (in most cases) bar you from entry.

 

[skyglow1]

Good thing for you that Section 3 is only worth 10% in Otago's book, then. GG gave you a link in the "HSFY students chat" thread to a thread called Otago Medical School, where there is (somewhere nearish the bottom) an explanation of how UMAT is considered by Otago, where it's also demonstrated that for those with near-perfect marks in HSFY, it is possible to get in with very low UMAT scores, so essentially your HSFY marks are the main determinant of your entry - UMAT is a supplement.

As would've been mentioned many times, the content of HSFY dictates that hard work will be rewarded (unlike in NCEA), which means THE way to get into med is to work hard (and work smart!) - a good UMAT offers a safety margin in case things go wrong, but that's all it is - UMAT will not guarentee your entry, nor will it (in most cases) bar you from entry.

I'd saying working smart is more important than working hard in HSFY. There are a large number of students (not everyone of course) who put in many many hours into HSFY. To get into med you'll need to differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd in other ways.

 

[Cathay]

I'd saying working smart is more important than working hard in HSFY. There are a large number of students (not everyone of course) who put in many many hours into HSFY. To get into med you'll need to differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd in other ways.

That is true.

I guess it can be summed up in "work as smart as possible, as hard as necessary, and you will be rewarded", where how smart one works is inversely proportional to how hard one needs to work to succeed - working smarter will mean less work to achieve "as hard as necessary", and vice versa (so mathematically speaking, if one doesn't work very smart at all then they would have to work unhumanly hard to succeed, which they can't, and vice versa.)

I guess my emphasis of working hard was more targeted at high-achieving NCEA students - people who understand concepts with relative ease, who would've got into a habit of not working so hard due to the nature of NCEA, and would really need to readjust for HSFY. *cough*

 

[OtagoLol]

Meeting the objectives is a good start, and they're good to focus your revision around. However, they are just a start, and you need to learn everything in lectures (barring clearly minor/unnecessary details).

With regard to readings: the ones for CELS are excessive. They're technically examinable, but I've not heard of them ever actually being in a test/exam. The readings for HUBS have appeared in tests/exams, but with a very minor weighting (in my year, you would have only lost one mark in one of the terms tests if you hadn't learnt the readings). I think it's worth doing the readings for HUBS, at least because they do line up well to the lectures, so you can go into a lecture well prepared, but don't let them detract from comprehensively learning what is actually in the lecture.

Echoing what GG has said...lecture material is your number 1 priority. If you have time, then you can do a bit of reading in HUBS. For the other papers, I wouldn't bother reading the textbooks themselves. The amount of material in the lectures will be hard enough to cover and memorise, so you'd have to be doing pretty on to it and up to date if you were spending time reading textbooks!

Hi, Do you guys mean the 'essential' reading pages given for HUBS and CELS arent really that essential? And that we should focus on the lecturers and lecture slides mostly (90%+)? This is kinda confusing advice, because a lot of the lecture material, is covered more clearly/just as clearly in the textbook. Although they do mention things which arent in the textbook and vice versa... So are you guys saying we should study the material covered (excluding unneeded extra info) solely from lecture slides/lecturers for all subjects? but also learn relevant info from the textbook as well? Thanks.

Othe med students are saying its important to learn most of the info from the essential readings (for hubs/cels mostly) which also contradicts what you guys are saying... Could someone please clarify?

 

[skyglow1]

For everything you do in HSFY, think about the cost (the amount of time you have to spend on the task) and the benefit. GG is right...the CELS readings are excessive. They have not turned up in exams. There is a very very very slim chance they could though. The amount of time you'd have to spend doing CELS reading is definitely not outweighed by the tiny unlikely benefit you might gain from it. The same thing with HUBS, although with HUBS the benefit from doing the readings is slightly greater than in CELS.

I'll say it again. Personally, I would spend all my time getting the lecture slide material down 100% first. The benefit you gain from spending time on lecture slide material is way way more than the benefit from doing the readings. If I still had time left after learning lecture material, and that is a BIG if, then I would maybe consider doing a bit of HUBS reading (and I wouldn't bother with CELS reading at all). You'd be doing pretty damn well if you knew all your lecture slide material 100% already, and I'm fairly sure that is pretty rare to see.

It's important as healthscis that you think for yourself and have some autonomy. Who cares that they say the readings are essential?! Think for yourself as to what is most likely to be examined and what you have heard from people who have actually sat the tests. Another example is the students who use the "Cornell method" or whatever from CELS or HUBS (can't remember) just because it was shown to them in the lectures. I would have hoped that students would have developed their own note taking and studying system that they know works for them, rather than just adopt something they saw. You have to 'appraise' (lol HEAL) every bit of information that you receive in HSFY i.e. think about its validity and how it affects what you'll do. Never blindly accept things, even from lecturers or department staff.

 

[Cathay]

Othe med students are saying its important to learn most of the info from the essential readings (for hubs/cels mostly) which also contradicts what you guys are saying... Could someone please clarify?

There is truth in all of them, the summary: (pretty much reiterating what skyglow said above) If one is to 100% memorise (with understanding) everything in the lecture slides, readings, the lecturer's verbal bits (minus abstract examples), and is able to reproduce and/or apply all of it in the exam, then one will get full marks. For the rest of us mortals, though, the slides are far more concise and succinct in terms of the nuts and bolts of examinable material, so in the limited time that we have, if we embedded the slides into our memory and ran out of time on the readings, we would be better off than if we remembered the readings but not all the slides.

Also, for HUBS, the lecturer (Dr Buckley) has said, and I quote, "use your lab book as the guide to the level of detail you need to know, same as the GLM. If you're asked to identify a bone or a function of it, then you will need to know that. All the other details in the text that you haven't been asked to identify, you won't need that. Of course the material in the lecture is important, but I am giving you extra information to help with your understanding, so just use your lab book as the guide." For more details of what she said about the level of detail required, refer to podcast for Lecture 9 from 03:54 to 05:22.

Realistically, too, if they've mentioned something in the slides, the GLMs, or the labs, then they know that we should know that and we will be expected to be able to reproduce that, and I would think that it's more realistic (and efficient) for the staff to look in the slides, the objectives, the lab book, and the GLM booklets to see what material they should set in exam questions, as opposed to pouring over all the prescribed readings looking for abstract details, although I may be wrong...

 

[SaxGuy]

If I weigh in with what I think would be useful, I found some (not all) of the HUBS GLM questions quite similar to exam style questions (probably easier though, and exams don't have all of those details about what the concentration of solutes in the body).
Definitely lectures have all the relevant info, plus things that lectures say to accompany them. Don't feel you have to do as much study as everyone else - I rarely ever had to study on the weekend, and I had a job during the week also (looking back, I probably wouldn't have done this, but I guess that's what hindsight is for and I still got in anyway).
I'm not really sure what else I can offer, I had quite a vague studying style. I'm a bit surprised I got into med, tbh.

 

[OtagoLol]

For everything you do in HSFY, think about the cost (the amount of time you have to spend on the task) and the benefit. GG is right...the CELS readings are excessive. They have not turned up in exams. There is a very very very slim chance they could though. The amount of time you'd have to spend doing CELS reading is definitely not outweighed by the tiny unlikely benefit you might gain from it. The same thing with HUBS, although with HUBS the benefit from doing the readings is slightly greater than in CELS.

I'll say it again. Personally, I would spend all my time getting the lecture slide material down 100% first. The benefit you gain from spending time on lecture slide material is way way more than the benefit from doing the readings. If I still had time left after learning lecture material, and that is a BIG if, then I would maybe consider doing a bit of HUBS reading (and I wouldn't bother with CELS reading at all). You'd be doing pretty damn well if you knew all your lecture slide material 100% already, and I'm fairly sure that is pretty rare to see.

It's important as healthscis that you think for yourself and have some autonomy. Who cares that they say the readings are essential?! Think for yourself as to what is most likely to be examined and what you have heard from people who have actually sat the tests. Another example is the students who use the "Cornell method" or whatever from CELS or HUBS (can't remember) just because it was shown to them in the lectures. I would have hoped that students would have developed their own note taking and studying system that they know works for them, rather than just adopt something they saw. You have to 'appraise' (lol HEAL) every bit of information that you receive in HSFY i.e. think about its validity and how it affects what you'll do. Never blindly accept things, even from lecturers or department staff.

Thanks for the reply. I think the main issue i have is that the HUBS text book covers a lot of what they say/ info that are on the lecture slides, so i end up studying a lot from the textbook, as well as learning additional info from the slides. This would be okay wouldnt it? I mean im learning whats exactly in the lecture slides but mostly from a different source.

 

[skyglow1]

Sure, it just seems odd to learn it from the textbook when you could learn it from the slides. I tend to remember things in the same format that I first saw them displayed, so slides work well for me. And you can't really memorise paragraphs in the textbook, but you can certainly memorise slides.

 

[Cathay]

This would be okay wouldnt it? I mean im learning whats exactly in the lecture slides but mostly from a different source.

One would've thought that if you're learning the same knowledge then it wouldn't matter where you learn it from... There is no need to conform to how other people learn, just learn the way that works for you, and as long as you do learn the right stuff, you shouldn't have a problem.

I know there is a huge temptation to try to do things the way people who succeeded in the past have done (that's just the way of HSFY - everyone's paranoid about everything and constantly worried that they're doing it wrong - in fact, even though I've done my research and made sure that my current method suits my learning style, and I like it, I still occasionally feel insecure), but I don't believe there is a necessity - as long as you have a method that works for you that you can stick to, there shouldn't be a problem.

EDIT: If the textbook works well for you, it's fine, but do at some stage try the slides method - skyglow is right, it's easier to learn the key points from the slides (in fact, it can be rote-learned, lol), and another thing to keep in mind is that the lecturer's key points (in the slides) may not be the same key points the textbook writer emphasised on.

 

[smile]

And just to add...
Don't feel you have to go crazy and know every detail to get into med!! People get so caught up in how difficult it is to get in but as long as you solidly work hard, keep up, and maintain a relatively high standard of studying you should be fine. Take breaks, relax when you can, get as much sleep as possible and don't get caught up in what anyone else is doing. If someone wants to do every reading then thats cool but it doesn't mean you have to or need to - coming from me who never did any
My advice though would be to start your physics cheat sheet now. Just keep a notebook where you can jot stuff down that you want on it so that when it comes time to make it, it doesn't take you forever like mine did!

And good luck for HUBS this weekend Hope you all do fantastically as I'm sure you will!!

 

[OtagoLol]

Sure, it just seems odd to learn it from the textbook when you could learn it from the slides. I tend to remember things in the same format that I first saw them displayed, so slides work well for me. And you can't really memorise paragraphs in the textbook, but you can certainly memorise slides.

One would've thought that if you're learning the same knowledge then it wouldn't matter where you learn it from... There is no need to conform to how other people learn, just learn the way that works for you, and as long as you do learn the right stuff, you shouldn't have a problem.

I know there is a huge temptation to try to do things the way people who succeeded in the past have done (that's just the way of HSFY - everyone's paranoid about everything and constantly worried that they're doing it wrong - in fact, even though I've done my research and made sure that my current method suits my learning style, and I like it, I still occasionally feel insecure), but I don't believe there is a necessity - as long as you have a method that works for you that you can stick to, there shouldn't be a problem.

EDIT: If the textbook works well for you, it's fine, but do at some stage try the slides method - skyglow is right, it's easier to learn the key points from the slides (in fact, it can be rote-learned, lol), and another thing to keep in mind is that the lecturer's key points (in the slides) may not be the same key points the textbook writer emphasised on.

Thanks you guys. Yea your both right. Definitely also need to incorporate a lot of lecture slides as well with textbook...To be honest it does seem easier just to learn from lecture slides. I just feel that it needs to be more indepth sometimes so i get paranoid about how much info is required...

To Smile: Thanks! Much Appreciated!

 

[otagohealthsci]

Wow! You guys, these are really helpful advice. THanks I read a lot of posts from the other Healthsci thread before and knew that you guys said nail down the lectures etc so I thought I would do exactly that. However, as health science started and on the hand outs they wrote "essential reading" I was so determined to read it all. I think this worked fine for the first week since we weren't given crazy amounts of info but later on I could see that i didn't have time to actually revise cuz i kept on pre reading lol. As a result of that, i forgot a lot of the stuff from the lecture slides (the main points and stuff). Yeah, so I went thru the "read all the essential textbook pages" to see it was impossible........... So now i've got 2weeks worth of stuff to catch up... Anyway, I'm glad this topic was discussed again

Oh, actually I still have a question about the textbook reading issue. I think Dr Terry Scott mentioned at the very first lecture that this course is very much based on the textbook (since they wrote it). I also found that the textbook contents are pretty much the same as the lecture slides except in more detail. However, I also thought the lecture slides itself weren't really sufficient for me to understand the concepts. So for PHSI, would you read the textbook to help you understand with the lecture notes? Oh also, would you guys recommend doing the textbook questions or just do the past exam ones straight away?
Oh also (lol I'm talking a lot), when you guys did health sci and got stuck in a physics question, and just had no idea how to do it (since they don't have the working) what did you do?? I'm sometimes worried about it cuz I just don't know how to approach questions.

One last thing, for Hubs especially, there are some slides with a few bullet points or perhaps a picture, and no explanation. In this case, are we expected to just know the bullet points or do we have to know about what it is in detail? (what the lecturer says about it)

Thanks~

 

[Cathay]

For physics, it's an exception to the textbook policy - the textbook is written for the course, and it contains all the nuts and bolts, with supporting bits and pieces to help understanding, and doesn't have excess detail (plus the fact that the slides are somewhat not as helpful), so it would be a good thing to base your physics study around. I heard that the questions have become less relevant since the book is now internationally published, but nevertheless I've decided to do them.

Also for physics, if you're stuck on a question, consider getting help if you can't figure it out - there are many methods: discussion board (remember not to blatantly ask for answers), help room (wednesday to friday, 12pm-2pm I believe), tutorial part of labs (last hour), and if you have tutorials (college or OUSA) then they are also good places to go for help.

For HUBS, I've taken the cautious approach of getting to know what the lecturer said for the really brief bullet points. Perhaps someone who's actually done it already can enlighten us

 

[aaa24]

Speaking of the hubs test, who's ready haha! I think ive had enough of reading over the material and have memorised some possibly unnecessary details from the podcasts. In a weird way im looking foward to the new material these following lectures, the old stuff is getting a little bland.

 

[Cathay]

On a side note, for those interested: I've just received an email from health science admissions that I've passed the English diagnostic test.

 

[SKpol]

really? congratulations~~~
this question might already be all over the forum, but how is the English diagnostic test? to be more specific, what format, types of questions is the test anctually compromised of???

 

[l0lita]

I passed too!!!

 

[OtagoLol]

really? congratulations~~~
this question might already be all over the forum, but how is the English diagnostic test? to be more specific, what format, types of questions is the test anctually compromised of???

It is honestly nothing to worry about. I know people who were kinda hungover on day of the test and they passed. Basically if you have passed level one NCEA english and can read Harry Potter properly then you're all good.

BTW, just to add on to my previous question. For certain slides e.g. Lecture 7, HUBS Bone Tisse: Bone Remodelling,theres a slide on it but has very little info on it (only says maintains normal mature bone) and lecturer did not mention too much about it, yet on essential readings page in the text book theres a large but informative paragraph on it. What do i do? Do i need to learn it properly from the textbook or just memorise the brief sentence on the slide?

This kind of thing appears in many of the slides and it just gets really confusing sometimes...

 

[aaa24]

I passed too, although i would have been pretty surprised if i didn't.