Ever feel that way? Like you’d have studied all day and all night, but there’d be material you’d missed. I’d panic that the books I was using wouldn’t have everything I needed in them, that I would miss some key information for my exam.
So, what do you do?
No review book has all the information in it. If it did, it wouldn’t be a review book. It would be Harrison’s or Cecil. And those are ridiculous for getting ready for your exam. Even Current is just too much.
The first step is to understand that you can’t possibly get through it all. I know that’s a bit of mind switch, especially for type A people like PA students, but you really can’t. I tried to read from Cecil’s while I was in school, and it was almost a total waste of time.
You have to rely on your professors and your review books. There simply is no other way, and you have to understand that you aren’t getting everything.
Your review books are like maps.
I came across a powerful idea this week while reading “The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts” by Shane Parrish, Rhiannon Beaubien.
It was the idea that…
Maps are not the terrain.
I’d never heard this before, yet low and behold it describes our situation here beautifully.
A map is an extremely condensed version of a geographic area. It has some relevant information for traveling, but it does not cover every intricacy and every detail of the terrain. The only way to do that would be to have a map with a scale of one mile = one mile, but even then it wouldn’t be in 3D so you’d be missing a lot of information.
Understand that your review books are maps. The cartographer decided what information was most important to get you to your goals, and then cut EVERTHING else.
Some maps are great for some things. Some maps are terrible. No one map is a perfect representation of the terrain.
I hope that sinks in a bit.
Anyway, within the pages of the September issue of the PAES newsletter is a technique for creating comfort from this discomfort. A technique that will banish the screaming banshees the night before your PANCE (or any other big exam or event) and let you sleep.
Part of it is understanding that no review book is perfect, and the other part of it is taking some time to understand how far you’ve come. I explain in great detail in the pages of Issue #42.
It heads off to the printer on Wednesday morning bright and early.
Physician Assistant Exam Scholars
Brian Wallace