Clerkship survival skills: Speed reading and successful examination strategies

Abstract

Read every day, but do not read everything: read selectively. For examinations, be prepared, be confident, and use common sense. For standardized clinical exams, know the basic algorithms and practice them; be presentable, be organized, and think out loud. For standardized written examinations, go through the exam three times: The first time, answer only the items that you know immediately. The second time, use the principle of convergence to maximize your score for items for which you can narrow the options to three or fewer. The third time, fill in blank items if there is no penalty for incorrect answers; regardless of the penalty for incorrect answers, double check your answers. © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005.