Do you know these secrets for studying?
By Dr. Becky Lossing
I still remember waking up at 4 am for my toughest clinical rotation in vet school to SOAP 8-10 patients by 8 am: equine sports medicine.
I wasn’t even an equine-minded person, but while on my (it’s-October-it-shouldn’t-be-that-bad) large animal medicine rotation, they asked my cohort of students for a volunteer to help the much busier sports medicine service. I caved a few seconds into the silence, and that was that.
I didn’t study for the NAVLE® that week. Or the next.
If you’re a student on clinical rotations right now, you’re all too familiar with just how busy life can get. But (hopefully), you’ve also been on some slower rotations where you can get home for dinner on time and move onto your second job: studying for the NAVLE®.
With over 992 diagnoses and 21+ species on your plate, herein lies the age-old question: With so much to (re)learn and so little time, what’s the best way to tackle the NAVLE®?
When it comes to creating a study strategy, it’s easy to let your determined optimism steer you wrong: “It’s a ton of stuff, but I plan to review it all!” (this was me).
Instead, it’s better to let the cautious realist in you set the tone for how to study: “It’s a ton of stuff, and I might not get to it all.” If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t predict what the future may hold.
The key, therefore, is to study as if you don’t know how much time you will have to study for the exam – because you don’t.
But one thing we do know for sure is the expected (target) percentages that each species will be tested on the exam.
You might be thinking, “If only I knew how much total time I would have to study for the exam, then I could just calculate how much time I should spend on each species” (while maybe adjusting for your relative strengths and weaknesses). Right?
While you can’t do exactly that, you can do the very next best thing.
And that is to divide your time – proportionally by species – as you go.
This is exactly how the “The Next 10 Hours” strategy works. The idea is that you study in 10-hour rotating increments. The 10 hours don’t have to be all in one day or even a week; they can ebb and flow around your clinical rotations and life.
In each 10-hour block, you study (almost) all of the species that will be on the exam, in time that is equal to their expected proportion on the exam. For example, canine questions are 25.6% of the exam, and bovine is 13.3% of the exam. So, in every single 10-hour block you are studying 2.5 hours of canine and ~ 1.5 hours of bovine. You’ll study other species as well, for different proportions of time.
You’ll notice in the illustration that there are toggle groups: Group A and Group B. This flip-flopping format accommodates species with lesser target percentages on the exam, while still giving you enough time to focus on that topic without feeling too rushed.
Using “The Next 10 Hours,” you’re studying at least some diseases for all of the species, in exactly the proportions that they are expected. It ensures that regardless of when you started studying, or what percentage of overall material you actually get through, you will always be preparing for the whole exam.
You can think of this strategy as the “if I only had 10 hours to study … and then got lucky and had another 10… and another 10… etc., up until the exam” study plan.
Even if you have a busy rotation, need to take care of a family member or friend, or (congrats!) get engaged, you will be preparing for the NAVLE® in a balanced & holistic way.
To learn more about the Next 10 Hours and put it into practice, visit the link below:
Notes & Disclaimers:
The Next 10 Hours was developed by mini mammoth for informational & educational use only. It is not intended as a guarantee for passing the NAVLE®.
NAVLE® is a registered trademark owned by International Council for Veterinary Assessment. mini mammoth, LLC is not licensed by, endorsed by, or affiliated with International Council for Veterinary Assessment.
References:
(1) 2019. "NAVLE® Species and Diagnoses." International Council for Veterinary Assessment. https://www.icva.net/image/cache/NAVLE_Species_Diagnoses_FINAL.pdf
(2) 2017. "North American Veterinary Licensing Examination: Practice Analysis Executive Summary." International Council for Veterinary Assessment. https://www.icva.net/image/cache/ICVA_NAVLE_Practice_Analysis_Executive_Summary_final.pdf
