BONES, MUSCLES, VEINS: How to Study for Anatomy & Physiology Lab?

WHILE brain storming this article, I was thinking about writing how to study for A&P in general. Then I thought to myself, "Do I even know how to study for A&P? Does anyone even know?!" Long story short, I remember the method I used that got me through anatomy lab easily. It would be selfish of me not share this with my readers! I understand that you could be studying for lab at this moment, and you do not want to read anything longer than this article. So, to make it easier and compact it for you, here are 5 easy tips on how you can study for Anatomy & Physiology lab, and retain all your body parts and organs:

1. STUDY IN CHUNKS: One method that I used to help remember body parts, especially for bones and muscles, was chunking groups together and focusing on that group only. For example, instead of studying every bone in order, I will spend a day just studying bones of the arms. The next day, I would just study the bones of the skull, and so on. This helped me to focus on one group at a time and retain information much better. This also worked with learning parts of organs also.

2. REVIEW, RETAIN, REPEAT: In addition to tip #1, after I studied the bones of the arm, the next day, I would REVIEW the bones of the arm, then I would move on to studying the bones of the leg. Then the next day, I would review the bones of the arms and legs, RETAIN the information I studied, then REPEAT the cycle. This method made learning anatomy so much less chaotic and much simpler. I strongly advise people to do this method because you are chunking your information together, and retaining the chunks in your head. Try it!

3. USE MNEMONICS: Associating the human anatomy to other objects will help you retain many body parts. For example, I think of my arm "breaking" while working out my "biceps brachii." The repetition of the letter "B" helps to retain the muscle name in my long term memory. Not every body part will be easy to associate with something else, but the key is to make the studying process go easier by associating with similar context clues.

4. USE A BLANK CANVAS: When you are ready to test your labeling skills, print out a blank template of a body part and label as much as you know without looking. To save paper or printer ink, you could use your own body or another person to help you study. This way, you can see what you have retained, and you can also test which parts you may be struggling with, which leads to tip #5...

5. STUDY AND FOCUS ON YOUR WEAKEST SPOTS: If you find yourself forgetting a certain part of the body, start to label that part first, or use tip #3 to better help you remember something about it. In anatomy lab, it is easy to study familiar names we know and overlook harder names, but that will not help. Start with the hardest names first; whether it is spelling or just the name in general. The more you keep looking at it, the more it becomes familiar to you, and eventually, your weakest points become your strongest points!

-futurenursehappiness