A number of textbooks offer both introduction and overview to each chapter and a summary of the material that has been covered. Researchers have found that of two groups of students who read only the summary of the material remembered more than those who read the whole text and that this was true when questions were taken directly from the text or required the combination of material and the drawing of inferences.

Moreover, the differences were maintained even when the main points to be remembered were underlined for the students reading the whole text. (Reder, L. M. & Anderson, J. R. (1980a). A comparison of texts and their summaries: memorial consequences. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 198, 121-134.) Clearly, this is not intended to advocate reading only the summaries of each chapter of a book, but these findings suggests that summaries can be useful as revision aids.

Revision is a way of stating or re-writing a particular concept in a way the reader understands it. It is just one way of maximizing learning as included below:

1. Reduce the material to a manageable amount. It is unlikely that every single point in a chapter is important. Therefore, try to reduce the material to its salient points.

2. Impose meaning on the material. Elaborate rehearsal (relating concepts to a personal experience or knowledge) is much more effective than maintenance rehearsal (memorization) in producing retention. An example would be making something you have read about relevant to your own experiences.

3. Learn the whole. USMLE recall tends to be better if material is reviewed as a whole rather than being broken into smaller parts. Only when the material is particularly long and complicated is breaking it into segments effective.

4. Use periodic retrieval. Instead of passively reading and re-reading material, engage in periodic retrieval to determine if the material has been effectively encoded. If it has not, review the material again.

5. Engage in over learning. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus found that he could improve his retention of material by repeatedly reviewing it after he had reached 100 per cent accuracy. Once something has been mastered, it should be reviewed at least once or twice.

6. Use study breaks and rewards. You can only function so long at maximum efficiency before your concentration begins to wane. Taking a break every so often, allows you to return to work refreshed.

Space study sessions. Two three-hour or three two-hour USMLE study sessions usually result in better retention than a single six-hour session.

6. Avoid interference. Competing material produces interference effects. Interference occurs when the learning of something new causes forgetting of older material on the basis of competition between the two. If you have to work on two or more subjects at the same time frame, try to make them as dissimilar as possible to reduce proactive interference (forgetting of information due to interference from the traces of events or learning that occurred prior to the materials to be remembered) and retroactive interference (newly learned information interferes with and impedes the recall of previously learned information). Planning study sessions to avoid this possibility is obviously helpful.

7. Use time effectively. Try to develop a time management schedule incorporating spaced study sessions in which certain times are devoted to study and certain others to leisure. Once the schedule has been constructed, stick to it.

An effective USMLE review is needed by medical students in order to help them re-learn concepts from their two-year basic science years. No one can really say for sure that he has learned all that is needed for the USMLE until he has actually taken the test. However, using these 9 study techniques mentioned above will help optimize the time you spend studying for the biggest exams a medical student will ever take.