KD Psych Pre-Med Survival Guide

121 Pages·1.214 MB·English

by  Kevin Danikowski

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Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2
5 Tips That Saved My Students 80% Of Study Time 4
9 Facts They Don’t Tell You Which Kill Test Anxiety 7
Undergrad's Quickest Path to Medical Experience 12
Write & Publish Your Own Studies Before Junior Year 16
MCAT Resources List for the Broke Pre-Med 20
How I Learned Every MCAT Class In 6 Months 22
MCAT Study Scheduling 26
KDpsych 27
Intro 27
Conditioning 28
Memory / Learning 33
Types of Learning 33
Learning Models 35
Memory Types 37
Remembering 38
Forgetting 39
Teaching 40
Cognition 42
How we process information 42
Understanding the mind 43
How we think 43
Identity 46
Intelligence 49
Motivation 50
Cognitive Defenses 52
Attribution 54
Attachment 55
Biological and sleep 57
Stress 58

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Problem Solving/Making Choices 59
Language 62
Development 64
Mnemonic 64
Intro and Freud 66
Erikson 66
Piaget 67
Kohlberg 68
Mead 69
Socialization 70
Emotions 70
Relationships 72
Roles 73
Socializing and experiments 74
Culture/Social action 76
Cultural Characteristics 76
Inequality 78
Deviance 81
Groups/Crowds 82
Structure 86
Organizational Bureaucracy 89
Governmental Bureaucracy 91
Social Movements and transition 93
Other Resources 95
YouTube Links 96
Full KDpsych Playlist on YouTube 96
KDpsych (Extended) Playlist 99
Tutoring and Other Links 100
References 101

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5 Tips That Saved My Students 80% Of Study Time 
1. Test, Don’t Study 

Studies have shown that retention actually increases from the act of 
testing, but even less while studying. A study on somalian words had 
people in 3 groups, 1 who learned a set of words then moved on to the new 
material without being tested or given the words on the study material, 1 
who learned a set of words then received them only on their study 
material, and lastly 1 who learned a set of words then were continually 
tested on them without having them on their study material. At the end of 
the study, the group who was tested without the words on their study 
material, not the group with the words on the study material only, retained 
the most words. Long story short, retention is increased with testing more 
than studying.  

This leads into how should you study? When you study you should do it as 
if you are continually being tested. Some students have this bad habit of 
only looking over the terms again and again, when in reality, they should 
be testing themselves on the material countless times as they go along. 
The more testing you do, the more experience and memorization you 
obtain. This means that you need to divide your time up appropriately to 
testing on new material (passages and discretes) and studying (both 
should be done every day. No day should ever be strictly one or the other 
if you can avoid it).  

2. Review Your Exam With These in Mind 

Many students waste tons and tons of time on exams. It is not worth taking 
​ ​
an exam if you’re not going to review the material in depth, it’s just not. 
When you review the exam, you MUST go over every single wrong question, 
and what I tell my students is to write something down for every single 
question you get wrong. If you mess up the units, then write it down until 
you stop fumbling and forgetting to check the units. You’ll get tired of 
writing it down and it will put into perspective how often you get certain 
things wrong. It also keeps a log of your progress over time.  

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Also, review (at least briefly) every right question, just make sure there 
wasn’t a fact you missed or something you didn’t understand, there is a 
chance you getting that right was a fluke, but you shouldn’t leave it to 
chance.  

When you review the wrong answers, go in with the mindset that you would 
take it again 1-2 weeks later and you must score 95% correct to prove you 
know the information. In reality, 3% of the questions are not worth your 
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time to understand, you will know when you come across those questions.  

When you review your exam, do it the same day you took it. The reason, 
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when you go to read the questions the next day, odds are you’ve forgotten 
some of the passages, need to read them again, waste time doing so, and 
never fully understand the second read of the passage anyways (this is 
likely because you’re too lazy to really try to understand it). Don’t allow 
your laziness to take over, your goal is to take the exam and review most 
or the entire thing on the same day. Then by the next day you’ve already 
hit each topic twice, and studying it becomes a breeze. If you can STUDY it 
the next day! Don’t waste time by studying it days later and forgetting 
what you were studying.  

3. 3% of Questions Aren’t Even Worth Understanding Why You Got It 
Wrong 

I made reference to this in the topics above. Have you ever heard of the 
80/20 rule? It means that 80% of your results come from 20% of your 
efforts. Time wasting on the MCAT questions work in this way, in my 
opinion. A portion of your questions will take up majority of your time 
yielding little to no results. You need to understand when questions are 
not worth your time to understand, and move on. There are 1000s of 
questions to practice on!! Don’t waste your time on individual questions 
you don’t believe will really help benefit your overall grasp of topics, this 
wastes more time than you know (but most students only realize this when 
it’s too late). 

4. You Need To Know How You Study Best 

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So I can speak from my own experience in this regard because I’ve 
successfully learned quite a few glasses in just one weeks time (to make 
this happen I recommend checking out my videos on timeknowledgepower 
on youtube, here is the link to how to learn topics in 1 week time 
https://youtu.be/PVswyqKe1ks). However, everyone studies differently, so 
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not everything I will tell you is universal.  

First, you need to be interested in the topic, I elaborated on this in another 
section below.  

Second, it’s best to make sure the time is optimum; if you’re half asleep, it 
probably isn’t the best time to be taking on difficult studying. I always used 
the times that worked best for me, often no earlier than 10AM and no later 
than 8PM. During those times I could still think, but coulnd’t maintain 
motivation, so I would do practice problems in stead and review them in 
the morning.  

Third, you need to be in the correct mood; this is probably obvious to be 
honest. That means don’t eat foods that make you feel like crap, and try to 
exercise a bit during the day to heighten your mood.  

Fourth, what is the right environent. According to the Yerkes-dodson law 
of arousal, we all have an optimum level of arousal. For me, it’s actually 
quite high, thus I tend to learn best in high energy environments. SHould 
you read the book “Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop 
talking”, you will find introverts excel at lower noise and arousal levels. Use 
this to your advantage. I liked to walk while studying, for one it changed 
the environments around me, and two is that it gave me some exercise 
which I was lacking during my studies.  

Fifth, there really isn’t a fifth, insert whatever you’ve noticed with your 
study habits here and stick to it. 

5. If You’re Not Interested In the Topic, You’re Screwed - Here’s How to 
Fix That 

If you aren’t interested in your topic, you’ll likely be wasting a ton of time. 
How do you solve not being interested? For one, think of your end goal, let 

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that motivate you when the individual topic isn’t. Another way is to get 
someone who really enjoys it to accompany you and your studying. Lastly, 
find the teachers which have the passion you have on youtube or 
somewhere else. These were short and brief; if you use them all (assuming 
most of you aren’t using all of them) you’ll save copious amounts of time in 
the long run and break those score plateaus. 

9 Facts They Don’t Tell You Which Kill Test Anxiety 
1. 30, 60, 90 Rule 

This is a rule I discovered from working through AAMC materials, and I 
would say the most powerful anxiety reducing rule there is for MCAT 
students. So you’ve probably had questions in test prep material which 
you got wrong, and after you read the answer, you thought, “I still have no 
idea what that means”. This is normal! There are quite a few of these in test 
prep material, I would argue about 3% of test prep company questions 
seem like this.  

Those questions have you going, “I have no idea how anyone could get this 
right”, and if that is the case, you could be spot on; nobody gets those 
right. The reason these questions exist in test prep materials is because 
they boast about having vast arrays of questions, but it also means they 
have some pretty poor questions.  

How is AAMC different? AAMC is a standardized exam, this means they 
need both validity and reliability. Specifically the reliability, the ability to 
have a repeatable test result, even with different versions, doesn’t allow 
questions like these.  

AAMC questions appear to fall into 3 categories: easy, medium, and hard. 
The easy ones 90% of people get them right, the medium ones 60% of 
people get them right, and the hard ones 30% of people get them right. 
This means that if you get a question wrong, you can trust that about 30% 
or more of people got that question right, and if you don’t understand it, 
that just means you don’t understand the topic or misread the question by 
mistake. 

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This is good news because the questions you get on AAMC will be honest 
questions which are often (though not 100%) superbly written. So be 
confident that when you get a question on your test prep thinking, “WTF 
does that explanation or question even mean?”, rest content knowing that 
AAMC will not likely have those questions. I recommend you see AAMCs 
question packs to find out for yourself and not just take my word for it, as I 
don’t represent AAMC. 

2. Test Prep Company Materials Don’t Fully Represent the Exam 

Have you taken a full length AAMC exam or done the question packs? If 
not, then you probably won’t know what I’m talking about. When you take 
full length exams from test prep companies you’ll notice a few things. 1. 
Your score is lower, 2. There is some questions which are basically super 
explicit facts, and 3. You’re expected to know things that AAMC will likely 
put into the passage.  

Now the score is lower part is described in another section, however let’s 
discuss number 2. The goal of a test prep company is to prepare you. This 
means there material is intentionally difficult (this is a good thing). It 
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means they should cover every topic, but they also subsequently cover 
topics you will likely not see. It’s up to you to distinguish the things you 
should and shouldn’t learn from those test prep companies. So that 
plethora of fact-based questions you get on these test prep company 
exams can likely be limited to just the essentials, eliminating a significant 
number of low yield facts.  

Also relating to number 2, the passage length of test prep company 
passages tends to lean toward longer passages as compared to the MCAT 
and possibly more poorly written. This is not true of all companies of 
course, but this makes it more difficult than what you will experience on 
test day.  

I’m sure you’ve gone through some passages (specifically sciences) and 
some of the questions involve a formula you haven’t fully committed to 
memory. Now this is going to happen on the actual exam of course, 
however, there is something to keep in mind. The AAMC exam passages 

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are often very well written (in my opinion, of course, and from what I’ve 
seen). This means they have a logical structure. In science passages, the 
logical structure often lends itself to stating the formulas which are 
related to the passage; as such, AAMC often provides the relevant 
formulas more often than do test prep companies. Not that you shouldn’t 
memorize and understand scientific formulas for the AAMC exam, but 
keep in mind memorizing the formulas may not be as important as it tends 
to be for test prep companies.  

3. Your Test Prep Scores Will Always Be Lower 

If you’ve taken an AAMC full length and a test prep company full length 
you’ve probably noticed a difference in score and difficulty. Now, if you 
don’t believe me I invite you to look at the link below: 

Link to spreadsheet: 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vOMLNFh6G1kSt2Yuclf8VcFJr_k
9dwsfPRx5Co-w7lU/edit?usp=sharing  
Link to Reddit if Spreadsheet link doesn’t work: 
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mcat/comments/403tb5/score_spreadsheet_now
_with_entry_for_the_scored/  

What you will find is proof of what was discussed above. The AAMC scores 
tend to be pretty reliable, whereas the test prep scores very dramatically. 
For example, you see score caps on test prep exams that you do not see 
on the actual AAMC exam. Use this to more accurately judge your AAMC 
score position while taking practice exams.  

4. Your Stamina is Heightened on Test Day 

Ever have difficulty falling sleep before an exam? Of course! Adrenalin is 
going full force, related to your level of importance you place on that 
exam. Obviously, the MCAT is more important than most of your other 
exams you’ve taken. This makes your adrenaline go, leading to heightened 
awareness (I prefer wakefulness though). You won’t know what I mean by 
taking only practice exams, it needs to be the real thing. When that 
adrenalin (specifically noradrenaline / norepinephrine) rushes your brain, 

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it increases your level of attention leading to a hyper focused state that 
benefit your mindset on test day (usually) 

Now some people have issues staying awake for such long bouts of time, 
here are some tips I used. I dressed thin and short - shorts and a tank - 
because it would allow me to stay colder during the exam which protected 
me from falling asleep while reading. I also made sure I knew the best 
foods which worked for me. Personally, I found a pound of fish in the 
morning, and peas with pecans during the exam, tended to keep my 
energy up and avoiding a sugar crash. Additionally, I took 1/3rd of a 5 
hour energy drink during my breaks and recommend it for most of my 
students because coffee or energy drinks are diuretics.  

5. You Can Retain the Information Much Faster Than You Are 

If you’re anything like the student’s I’ve had, then it’s likely that you have hit 
quite a few plateaus in your scores; this is because of reviewing your exam 
in the proper way and doing better at studying.  

I do have a 5 tips to save yourself 80% of your study time (comparatively of 
course of bad studier vs a good one), but I will hit it briefly here.  

You’re likely moving slow because you don’t know how to study, it should 
only take a day or two to retain 60% of what you’ve studied those 1-2 days. 
This was the number I was able to achieve with myself, and the students 
which performed best tended to hit this number as well. The thing which 
they all had in common was that they knew which study strategy worked 
best for them. This is easier said than done, but I recommend you 
checkout the 5 tips article.  

So the anxiety reducing fact here (for most but not all students) is that you 
can do much better at studying than you currently are.  

6. The SDN Forums Lie 

Ever looked up a question on SDN, and all the responses go like this: 

PreMedMonkey: Yea I just got 512 on a practice test, so bummed :/ 
DarthDoctor: I tried using that strategy but only ended up with a 508 

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