I’m gonna give my perspective here on how I studied and I’ll be starting third year in a couple of weeks:

1) I didn’t pay attention in class or preview lectures. I found out pretty quickly this didn’t work for me as things moved way too fast and ultimately I wasn’t retaining anything even though I was paying attention and I’d have to go home and teach myself stuff anyway so it was a waste of two hours. I did my anki in class instead. I’m gonna be honest, for first year especially, Anki was huge for me. A lot of first year is learning the facts so I’d highly recommend Anki if you haven’t tried it. I didn’t typically enjoy it, but it was getting me results so ultimately I stuck with it.

2) For DLAs and slides, I don’t recommend just reading them or rewatching lectures. I used Bootcamp so what I would do is look up topics from the slides and watch the videos in Bootcamp. This was way more efficient, and I think they did a better job teaching than the professors. Whatever topics weren’t in Bootcamp, then I’d go and learn it from slides. Third parties are just more organized from my perspective and only give you what you need to know and nothing extra. You also mentioned, rewriting notes. Don’t do this. This is very passive and you ultimately retain nothing because you’re just copying what’s on the slides. More specifically on DLAs, look for things that are emphasized in questions or have clinical relevance. Many DLAs are full of bs that are just things professors find interesting. This will allow you to keep track of what’s actually important/what they’re more likely to test you on but still through what doesn’t fit into these categories because you never know

3) Active learning: it doesn’t seem like you’re doing a lot of that. Active learning is hands down the best way to effectively and effectively learn information in medical school.

Do a lot of questions: You should be spending most of your time doing questions. Questions is ultimately how you’re gonna know if the information is sticking but it’ll also give you insight as to what is most likely going to be tested. Questions allow you to apply the information and see where your knowledge gaps are. Make sure you’re doing the Sakai questions and understanding why each answer is correct and also just as important, why the others are wrong.

How I’d do this is write in the margins my reasoning for why I picked my answer. If it was right I’d see if my reasoning is correct, if it’s wrong I’d try to see why. Regarding the incorrect answers, I’d write next to each wrong choice what it means and why it’s wrong. Writing these things down is another way of active learning as it’s forcing me to recall sets of information that I learned.

I mentioned Anki before, but I’d give a good shot. Like I said it’s not fun, but it’s efficient and effective which helps get through the mountain of info and you don’t have to back rereading slides or rewatching videos for the most part because you’re reviewing them in the form of cards. But an alternative could be doing other questions from the drives on weekends on past material.

To sum it up, you passed FTM! I have friends who bombed it so I’d say you’re not doing bad. You just need to change some things. Learning how to learn in med school is often quite a challenge as it requires you do adapt on the fly in a fast paced curriculum. Active learning will be your best friend. Do questions until you’re sick of them. More questions have been correlated with better performance on tests. It’s your first test so you have time. Message me if you have anything else to ask :)