Who knew dictionaries were good for defining words?

Here's a little trick I've been using since the beginning of this semester; it's so simple:

Here's what you do:

• Step 1: Buy a medical dictionary.
• Step 2: Keep it on you at at all times.
• Step 3: Whenever you look up a word, highlight it.
• Step 4: Whenever you look up a new word, take the time to randomly stop at any of the previously highlighted words and test yourself.  Look at that word, try to define it in your head, then look at the actual definition and confirm how little you actually know -- then continue on to your new word.  (This is the most important step!)

When I decided to come back to repeat 1st semester I had a couple of things I wanted to do differently and this trick was part of my plan.  When you follow these steps correctly, the words become more than random definitions on a page.  Instead, all of a sudden the context in which you learned each word matters.

Pause.  Rewind.

Let's take another look at my dictionary.

The duo of randomly selected pages from the above picture has 5 highlighted words.  The dictionary I'm using is nearly 1000 pages and nearly every single page has 1-7 highlighted words.  I'm currently half way through 1st semester and in these 6 1/2 weeks I've already looked up, tested, and retested myself on the definitions of a couple thousand words.  It only takes a few seconds for a word or two and it's amazing how fast the book fills up.

For many of the words, not only could I tell you a rough definition, but I could probably recount for you the lecture it was from and the professor who was lecturing when the word was used.  I wouldn't have been able to do the same last semester.  Simple memorization isn't enough -- especially in the face of the massive amount of information that's vomited in your direction on a daily basis.

Context matters.

I use this trick mainly when I'm previewing lectures or when I'm sitting through really boring lectures.  When I'm previewing the night before, I'm mainly trying to familiarize myself with the vocabulary that's going to be used the following day.  When I'm in a boring lecture, I use it to keep me awake.  You know the feeling.  But I try to make it a game to catch all the words in which are brand new to me or words in which I wouldn't be able to recite a medical definition for.

Bottom Line: Lectures are easier to listen to and questions on exams are faster to decode, all because of a simple little trick.