its about the understanding on how stuff work and not memorizing, when u understand a certain pathway or mechanism it get stuck in your head, u have that "ooh shit" moment. memorizing is not long term, you'll need it for the future
I analyze and I memorize, like for example the pathophysiology of SLE, and how do i memorize? after reading about it after the lecture, i sleep at 5pm then wake up at 1am then i study/memorize about it again from 1am to 4am then sleep and wake up at 8am. I study the concepts first then I take practice questions from NCLEX and USMLE.