CBSE - July 2023

[Rick Sorkin]

The advice from Ivy.ch, pleurodynia, and indifferentosteoblast were super helpful so I'll post some of my main pointers.

1. The NBMEs are a question bank; treat them like UWorld. Review them thoroughly.
2. Mehlman videos on youtube are super good.
3. I think if you study for too long you might start forgetting old stuff. For me, the sweet spot would've been 6 months (but I studied for 7)
4. Memorizing first aid is basically impossible. I would instead try to learn the logic that the NBMEs want you to adopt (UWorld is also helpful with this).
5. Building your "base" of information is super important. Putting in consistent effort over a longer period of time is just as important as your dedicated study time (the last 3-4 weeks or so).

Time to start studying for dental anatomy.

89 EPC (95/254 old scales)

Damn that’s nuts. I got an 82% (86;238). Finally done studying for this thing. Can post a break down tomorrow maybe

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[Teeth and Titanite]

Honestly kinda gutted, got a 60 EPC. At least its an improvement from last time but I'm crushed that it was a near-miss to the low pass range.

Practice exams were predictive for me. Last practice exam was a 59 EPC

 

[Pickles9000]

62 EPC what does that convert to?

 

[teeth!]

First time, 53 EPC. Pleasantly surprised. Definitely need some stuff to work on some stuff but thought it was gonna be a 35%

 

[airfryerwings]

Does anyone have a score convert table???

 

[Mirizzi]

Does anzone have a score convert table???

 

[Pickles9000]

Is this accurate? Assuming with a non categorical internship I can apply . 62 EP, studied during internship year

 

[dentalchamp98]

@Rick Sorkin @Mirizzi
Can you guys please post a thorough study plan?

I got a 39 EPC and just feel so defeated. I studied for like 6 months doing 300 cards of anki a day, and did 40% of Uworld questions…
I’m really still lacking the basic medical knowledge and even with all this time I still feel like I’m lacking a lot of knowledge

 

[Mirizzi]

@Rick Sorkin @Mirizzi
Can you guys please post a thorough study plan?

I got a 39 EPC and just feel so defeated. I studied for like 6 months doing 300 cards of anki a day, and did 40% of Uworld questions…
I’m really still lacking the basic medical knowledge and even with all this time I still feel like I’m lacking a lot of knowledge

I'll do one later tonight after I finish classes!

 

[Sharadine]

I got an EPC of 45. Disappointed for sure, but I have never been good at standardized tests (took ACT 6x and SAT 3x, failed part I dental boards...it's a pretty impressive list actually) and always learn more through my mistakes. I graduated dental school back in 2016, always wanted to do OMFS but wasn't ready to let go of general dentistry or sacrifice my free time quite yet (went to Air Force Academy so dental school was my "real" college experience). Fast forward after doing 2 AEGD residencies and I am finally ready professionally and personally to pursue the specialty.

Took an atypical approach for preparing and spent a lot of time in the ER department (was at 395 hours when I took test) because I cannot study for hours reading a textbook or do flashcards and retain information. I also used sketchy and practice NBMEs to find areas I needed to focus on. This was spread out over 10 months and done a lot more passively than I think everyone posting their study strategies. I printed out a calendar and made a study schedule that allowed me to have balance, but if I sat down to review and found myself re-reading or re-watching material over and over again and not retaining it, I called it quits for that day (or 3 or 4) because it wasn't productive. And my balance study schedule, I meant I budgeted 1 hour a day, 5 days/week. Weekends I would do maybe 3-4 hours of devote studying time. In hindsight I definitely need to focus more during study time..won't lie a good chunk of it was spent planning date nights or online shopping.

My score doesn't reflect it, but I am definitely a stronger clinician and retained a lot of the material from my time in the ER so I plan to continue that when I take the test again (for example never had to look at reference labs because knew them from seeing patients in the ER, CT imaging and EKGs I could read easily, anything including a CC or PE I recognized the condition). I previously took the test Feb '22 and got a EPC of 39 and that was attempting to study for a couple hours a day with the typical resources.

Hopefully anyone who is bummed about their score or thinks they won't ever make it finds a bit of comfort in the information I've shared. I wouldn't start residency until 2025 at the earliest when I will be 36, so it's never too late to pursue your dreams and passions. But also you guys are quite impressive with the scores you're posting - you're welcome for helping that minimal curve

 

[woooo26]

Wife of a dental student here. My husband scored a 72 EPC on his first attempt; he is about to begin D3. His school does not rank, but he would easily be top; he is coming from the only dental school in the nation where D1s see patients immediately and has already done every main procedure (besides the super cool OMFS stuff). He has 2 publications, and expects 3 more by the end of the year, 4 total externships this year at 2 weeks apiece. He handles intramurals & founded the OMFS interest group, and he has 10+ connections with oral surgeons who did residency at Texas Medical Center, Parkland, Louisville, etc. He feels disheartened and worried he may have to retake. Any thoughts?

 

[wakejilly]

Wife of a dental student here. My husband scored a 72 EPC on his first attempt; he is about to begin D3. His school does not rank, but he would easily be top; he is coming from the only dental school in the nation where D1s see patients immediately and has already done every main procedure (besides the super cool OMFS stuff). He has 2 publications, and expects 3 more by the end of the year, 4 total externships this year at 2 weeks apiece. He handles intramurals & founded the OMFS interest group, and he has 10+ connections with oral surgeons who did residency at Texas Medical Center, Parkland, Louisville, etc. He feels disheartened and worried he may have to retake. Any thoughts?

Congrats to your husband - 72 EPC is a competitive score. If he put his heart and soul into preparing for this exam, it may be difficult to score significantly higher the next time around. If he feels like there were gaps in his knowledge and 6 more months of studying is the solution, I say go for round 2. Purely subjective depending on the person, but I would be proud of a 72. On the flip side, he has another year to kill before his cycle. Aside from sacrificing your free time together, there's no harm in trying to score higher.

 

[FosterWallace]

The advice from Ivy.ch, pleurodynia, and indifferentosteoblast was super helpful so I'll post some of my main pointers.

1. The NBMEs are a question bank; treat them like UWorld. Review them thoroughly.
2. Mehlman videos on youtube are super good.
3. I think if you study for too long you might start forgetting old stuff. For me, the sweet spot would've been 6 months (but I studied for 7)
4. Memorizing first aid is basically impossible. I would instead try to learn the logic that the NBMEs want you to adopt (UWorld is also helpful with this).
5. Building your "base" of information is super important. Putting in consistent effort over a longer period of time is just as important as your dedicated study time (the last 3-4 weeks or so).

Time to start studying for dental anatomy.

89 EPC (95/254 old scales)

Incredible, congratulations. Can you please post a study breakdown? Did you use Anki?

 

[Mirizzi]

Incredible, congratulations. Can you please post a study breakdown? Did you use Anki?

Total study time was 7 months. I used Anking, Sketchy, Pathoma, First aid, NBMEs, and Mehlman audio qbank.

First 4.5 months was purely Anking + UWorld by sections that I would complete in Anking.

Anking turned my brain into oatmeal; I would do 250 new cards each day and try to keep up with my reviews. Eventually, when I was about 50% of the way through, I started suspending the cards that I had already reviewed for a solid 1.5 months. Essentially, don't waste too much time on reviews (they were taking like 6 hours a day at one point). I got about 80% of the way through Anking (I didn't do Zanki pharm/micro and only did lolnotacop). I started with biochem, then progressed through the rest of the organ systems by using wheelofnames.com. My last two topics were microbiology and pharmacology; I used sketchy and the lolnotacop anki deck for these. In my opinion, sketchy is absolutely required if you want to do well in micro/pharm. First pass of UWorld was 72%, but I only completed ~60% of the qbank during this time (I reset after my finals).

Next 2.5 months was UWorld 2nd pass + NBMEs. I would sit in bed and do UWorld on my phone because I was too lazy to bring my computer out. For the first 50% of the qbank, I thoroughly read every word of each question but over time I got worn out and just started skimming. Second pass was 82% correct and I didn't do a pass of my incorrects. I feel like 60% of the average UWorld question explanation is just fluff; reading the incorrects and the educational objective was enough for me. During the last few months (this is after I graduated), I would (inefficiently) study the entire day (I did nothing else but shower, eat, and study).

About 2 months out I started on my NBMEs, and from 20-31 my scores were 75, 77, 70, 80, 85, 85, 86, 93, 85, 91, 88, and 89. I would thoroughly review each NBME. I actually started doing my early NBMEs (20-24) after doing 2 blocks of UWorld, so my scores were a bit lower than normal (don't do this). I was really short for time in my last three weeks or so, and ended up doing NBMEs 25-29 in around a two week period.

All throughout my dedicated, I would watch pathoma and mehlman videos at night before going to bed. I also listened to all of the Goljan lectures while walking, exercising, etc.

I'll be completely honest with you, I was actually really scared when I started studying for this thing. This exam covers a ton of really complex material and it can be hard to imagine that you would be able to do well on the real deal. But I promise you, if you just stay consistent and stick at it you will do great. On average, I studied ~10 hours per day during my last semester of undergrad. I only took 3 classes (which were all pretty straightforward and didn't require too much studying), so I had a ton of free time on my hands.

Hope this helps, and I'm happy to answer any other questions through DMs or just responding here. Props to anyone that studies for this thing. It's hard, and I struggled.

 

[TeethAreKewl]

How are folks reporting their score on their CV? Just XX% EPC or... XX% EPC + (2 digit score converted)?

Bit iffy on that since that conversion is "technically" the official one but also not one that's really given to us

 

[Gustavo dos Santos]

How are folks reporting their score on their CV? Just XX% EPC or... XX% EPC + (2 digit score converted)?

Bit iffy on that since that conversion is "technically" the official one but also not one that's really given to us

EPC only since that is what is provided to us

 

[Gustavo dos Santos]

82 EPC. 4.5 months of studying.

First 2 weeks - all of boards and beyond, to see everything at the start, used friends expiring subscription.

Next month - all of sketchy micro/Pharm and Pathoma using pepper deck and dukes deck, dropped anki once I finished both resources and started UWorld. so only did anki for about 35 days. Anki was a grind. I watched an hour of Pathoma on 2x and took notes, watched an hour of sketchy. And then spent probably 6 hours doing anki. Dukes deck is a very slow going deck and I honestly don’t know if it was helpful. Memorizing a card for how disease x presents and its 5 major symptoms wasnt as helpful as seeing it in a practice question. Pepper deck was great for micro/Pharm. I think using anki with sketchy is where you get real value out of the resource to memorize the sketch. Once I had it memorized, I was comfortable just seeing the picture again and being able to walk through the symbols, still did spaced repetition but not with anki. Anyway, dropped all reviews and new cards after 35 days and don’t regret it.

Took a baseline NBME (25) before doing any practice questions at this point and got a 52EPC.

Next month - 2100 AMBOSS questions by system. Had a 2 week break between semesters, so I would review a full chapter of first aid in the AM then do about 120 questions for that system per day

Next month - 40 UWorld a day. Reviewed 20 Sketchy pictures a day, also started watching all of MedSchool Bootcamp lectures.

Last month - started doing less UWorld, and swapped it out for reviewing/retaking NBME 20-31. Overall I only finish 37% of UWorld at 70% correct it was obviously helpful for learning, but I kept getting questions wrong on NBMEs because I was using UWorld logic or expecting to have more info or key words like UWorld. That’s when I decided to focus on the NBMEs to better learn how they wanted me to think about and approach questions.

Last 2 weeks of the last month- re-read all of Pathoma, reviewed all of sketchy micro/Pharm, reread all of first aid. The last week cram I thought was very useful, having everything fresh was really nice.

Daily schedule:
5AM - 8am- wake up, watch Pathoma/sketchy/bootcamp at 2x speed for about 1hr, get ready, 20 mins exercise, bus to school, anki on bus or review sketches/first aid topics. Usually got in about 2 hours every morning before school.

8am-12pm - classes, would do anki during class if I could, anytime I wasn’t in class or clinic I would be studying. Varied.

12-1:30pm - lunch, always used it for studying.

1:30-5pm - classes- anki or practice questions during class if possible.

5-7pm. Go home, meal prep/cook, walk dog, spend time with family.

7pm-11pm - practice questions/anki.

Rinse, repeat. I got in about ~8hours of studying a day during the week.

Saturdays 5am -7pm studying, sometimes took a 2-3 hour break in the afternoon.

Sundays - no studying. Completely off. Maybe touched a little dental school stuff if I had a test, otherwise did no studying for school or CBSE. Just relaxed/recharged.

During breaks from school I was basically 12-16 hours of studying a day. Last week before exam I went 5am -11pm straight. Maybe 30 min of total break time during the day for lunch/dinner.

Dental school was on the back burner. Crammed the night before exams. Didn’t practice anything in sim lab outside of sim lab. Attended most lectures, but was never really present.

I obviously studied a ton. Total hrs spent in 4.5 months was probably close to 1000hrs. Very unbalanced but decided to start studying late, and didn’t want to retake or stretch studying out for 6 more months.

NBME scores
25 - 90 days out - 52
26 - 64 days out - 68
27 - 50 days out - 72
28 - 35 days out - 66
29 - 28 days out - 68 (started doing NBME 20-24, retaking 25-29, doing less UWorld after this score)
30 - 19 days out - 77
UWSA1 - 14 days out - 237
31 - 7 days out - 81
New free 120 - 3 days out- 85% correct

NBME 20-24 all had about 80-85% of questions correct.

I was making really dumb mistakes on early NBMEs. Kept missing questions because i misread, was going too fast, or just panicked and chose the wrong answer. Once I cut out the errors, stopped overthinking my way out of the correct answer and started seeing more and more official NBME questions to get their logic down, there were probably only 5-10 questions per NBME block where I had no idea what was going on or hadn’t seen the info, and I was ok with that.

Real deal felt awful. But every practice NBME felt just as bad, just had to trust my recent uptick in score and hope it all worked out.

Last note- my schedule looks super unbalanced, and it was. But I also made time for big events. Attended 2 weddings, visited family during my break, saw multiple concerts. I still studied a lot, but I didn’t beat myself up if I didn’t hit my daily study goal or finish all 40 UWorld questions.

 

[Aackman]

Any thoughts on a 64% EPC and currently doing a non-categorical internship? Top 1/3 of dental school class, interesting life story, military background, etc

Great job to everyone! My advice would be to crush this exam while you are in dental school! Because if you think you have time to studying while doing a noncat you are mistaken, but it is still very much possible. Time is limited, sleep will become limited, and getting 1 hour of sleep before a work day and knowing you need to study when you get off is a horse pill to swallow.

I am a traditional man with a twist. UFAPS through and through. However, I knew that ~60% of the exam is pathology related so I spent much of my time doing that, then I opted for Biochem (mehlman medical Anki deck, get it and love it..you’ll thank me) First Aid 2020 rapid review deck, sketchy, etc. something that is not talked about too much is that UWorld explanations is also huge for understanding why something IS NOT the right answer (obv in addition to why the correct answer is correct) which will help you discern better on test day. Pathoma 1-3 learn it, love it, marry it— this will be on your exam.

 

[JustAWanderingStudent]

In my first attempt, I used to use Anki for the exam, but I felt like it was a waste of time and ultimately got me a pretty bad score, I kept using it bc a majority of people mentioned that it worked for them. Anki isn’t for everyone. Your number 1 tool should be problem solving. So either do uworld or start to use Med Bootcamp, which has picked up steam.

The best resources by far is Mehlman. His notes are to the point NO BS and extremely high yield. Learn his cardio, pulm, and renal notes but ultimately make sure to know his neuro anatomy, MSK and arrows. Every exam has some question related to the brain stem, or the pons or what happens when you fracture your arm/the leg etc etc. Afterall, his notes ARE the nbme. Supplement them with pathoma. Chapter 1-3 has been, and at this rate, will always be HY. His videos are also pretty good.

Lastly, the website of some programs tell you the truth. They’re looking for specific scores that they use to screen out. After a certain score the difference is really what you’ve done during your time in DS.

 

[Lilrico]

Took this test while in a non cat. Got a 53% EPC. I am interested in a 4 year. Am I SOL? Does anyone know people with similar scores and a noncat who have been successful?

 

[dentalchamp98]

Your number 1 tool should be problem solving. So either do uworld or start to use Med Bootcamp, which has picked up steam.

The best resources by far is Mehlman. His notes are to the point NO BS and extremely high yield. Learn his cardio, pulm, and renal notes but ultimately make sure to know his neuro anatomy, MSK and arrows. Every exam has some question related to the brain stem, or the pons or what happens when you fracture your arm/the leg etc etc. Afterall, his notes ARE the nbme. Supplement them with pathoma. Chapter 1-3 has been, and at this rate, will always be HY. His videos are also pretty good.

I also used anki for my first go around and I absolutely did not think it was useful at all. I will probably just be focusing on medschool bootcamp to learn the material? Is all of mehlman resources free?

Also please forgive me for my ignorance but what is non cat lol

 

[We'reAllGonnaMakeIt]

I also used anki for my first go around and I absolutely did not think it was useful at all. I will probably just be focusing on medschool bootcamp to learn the material? Is all of mehlman resources free?

Also please forgive me for my ignorance but what is non cat lol

You don't have to use Anki but it's a pretty powerful tool, are you sure you're using it correctly? Most of the mehlman resources are free, i found a free deck of his high yield PDFs and that was pretty useful to understand the concepts imo but he preaches memorizing the NBMEs but I don't think that's super useful.

Non-cat = non categorical intern you do a 1 year internship at a program but don't continue on to PGY-2 and still need to apply to a program to be a categorical resident.

 

[letmeinthankss]

82 EPC. 4.5 months of studying.

First 2 weeks - all of boards and beyond, to see everything at the start, used friends expiring subscription.

Next month - all of sketchy micro/Pharm and Pathoma using pepper deck and dukes deck, dropped anki once I finished both resources and started UWorld. so only did anki for about 35 days. Anki was a grind. I watched an hour of Pathoma on 2x and took notes, watched an hour of sketchy. And then spent probably 6 hours doing anki. Dukes deck is a very slow going deck and I honestly don’t know if it was helpful. Memorizing a card for how disease x presents and its 5 major symptoms wasnt as helpful as seeing it in a practice question. Pepper deck was great for micro/Pharm. I think using anki with sketchy is where you get real value out of the resource to memorize the sketch. Once I had it memorized, I was comfortable just seeing the picture again and being able to walk through the symbols, still did spaced repetition but not with anki. Anyway, dropped all reviews and new cards after 35 days and don’t regret it.

Took a baseline NBME (25) before doing any practice questions at this point and got a 52EPC.

Next month - 2100 AMBOSS questions by system. Had a 2 week break between semesters, so I would review a full chapter of first aid in the AM then do about 120 questions for that system per day

Next month - 40 UWorld a day. Reviewed 20 Sketchy pictures a day, also started watching all of MedSchool Bootcamp lectures.

Last month - started doing less UWorld, and swapped it out for reviewing/retaking NBME 20-31. Overall I only finish 37% of UWorld at 70% correct it was obviously helpful for learning, but I kept getting questions wrong on NBMEs because I was using UWorld logic or expecting to have more info or key words like UWorld. That’s when I decided to focus on the NBMEs to better learn how they wanted me to think about and approach questions.

Last 2 weeks of the last month- re-read all of Pathoma, reviewed all of sketchy micro/Pharm, reread all of first aid. The last week cram I thought was very useful, having everything fresh was really nice.

Daily schedule:
5AM - 8am- wake up, watch Pathoma/sketchy/bootcamp at 2x speed for about 1hr, get ready, 20 mins exercise, bus to school, anki on bus or review sketches/first aid topics. Usually got in about 2 hours every morning before school.

8am-12pm - classes, would do anki during class if I could, anytime I wasn’t in class or clinic I would be studying. Varied.

12-1:30pm - lunch, always used it for studying.

1:30-5pm - classes- anki or practice questions during class if possible.

5-7pm. Go home, meal prep/cook, walk dog, spend time with family.

7pm-11pm - practice questions/anki.

Rinse, repeat. I got in about ~8hours of studying a day during the week.

Saturdays 5am -7pm studying, sometimes took a 2-3 hour break in the afternoon.

Sundays - no studying. Completely off. Maybe touched a little dental school stuff if I had a test, otherwise did no studying for school or CBSE. Just relaxed/recharged.

During breaks from school I was basically 12-16 hours of studying a day. Last week before exam I went 5am -11pm straight. Maybe 30 min of total break time during the day for lunch/dinner.

Dental school was on the back burner. Crammed the night before exams. Didn’t practice anything in sim lab outside of sim lab. Attended most lectures, but was never really present.

I obviously studied a ton. Total hrs spent in 4.5 months was probably close to 1000hrs. Very unbalanced but decided to start studying late, and didn’t want to retake or stretch studying out for 6 more months.

NBME scores
25 - 90 days out - 52
26 - 64 days out - 68
27 - 50 days out - 72
28 - 35 days out - 66
29 - 28 days out - 68 (started doing NBME 20-24, retaking 25-29, doing less UWorld after this score)
30 - 19 days out - 77
UWSA1 - 14 days out - 237
31 - 7 days out - 81
New free 120 - 3 days out- 85% correct

NBME 20-24 all had about 80-85% of questions correct.

I was making really dumb mistakes on early NBMEs. Kept missing questions because i misread, was going too fast, or just panicked and chose the wrong answer. Once I cut out the errors, stopped overthinking my way out of the correct answer and started seeing more and more official NBME questions to get their logic down, there were probably only 5-10 questions per NBME block where I had no idea what was going on or hadn’t seen the info, and I was ok with that.

Real deal felt awful. But every practice NBME felt just as bad, just had to trust my recent uptick in score and hope it all worked out.

Last note- my schedule looks super unbalanced, and it was. But I also made time for big events. Attended 2 weddings, visited family during my break, saw multiple concerts. I still studied a lot, but I didn’t beat myself up if I didn’t hit my daily study goal or finish all 40 UWorld questions.

Do you go to an unranked school? I feel like this type of schedule and just completely putting off school is not realistic if your ranked

 

[carabelliscusp]

.

 

[Gustavo dos Santos]

Do you go to an unranked school? I feel like this type of schedule and just completely putting off school is not realistic if your ranked

I do go to unranked, but still had above 90% in all courses which is an A.

If I had an exam coming up I’d make sure I was aware of it. If it was something that I thought I needed more time in I’d do maybe 30minutes here and there or pay better attention in lecture. Otherwise I’d cram the day before. When I had an exam I’d still usually do my morning CBSE studying for 2 hours. But then would switch to school stuff during the day/night. I’d try and get at least 20 UWorld questions on these days, but sometimes would do less depending on the exam and how I felt.

It felt like I was drowning for 4 months. Balancing patients, lab work, school, family, studying. Some nights I stayed up til 1-2AM cramming for tests, still woke up at 5AM. Exam weeks were brutal.

Some people may disagree, but the CBSE isn’t different from other standardized tests. 10% of people just don’t have it, no fault of their own, and no matter how much time they put in will never quite get the scores they’re hoping for. 10% are freaks, they put in less time, everything they read sticks, again nothing they really do differently their mind just works differently, and they do insanely well with less time studying. The other 80% of people comes down to time and resources.

I put in 1000+hrs for this exam in a short period of time and had dental school basic science classes as my foundation. I’m sure every other person who has done well has also put in equal amount of hours.

Point being that for 80% of people, to do well on this exam it comes down to time spent effectively studying. You can condense that time into fewer months, or you can spread that time out over more months if your dental school schedule doesn’t allow for as much daily studying.

Anyway, to your point - the schedule was very unrealistic and unbalanced. If I was more on top of things I would’ve started in January and studied for 7 months and had a more balanced day to day life and would’ve gotten much more sleep. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case and I started the first week of March. I did what I had to do so that I didn’t have to drag out my studying for 10 months while still maintaining my grades in dental school.

 

[carabelliscusp]

Just wanted to type one of these up for anyone in their future studies. I may have not gotten the best score on here (79 EPC/83/232) but just some feedback for others.

12 months studying, first 6 BnB+anki+sketchy. Stopped doing anki at month 7 or so.

7-11 – Uworld, 1x pass, took my sweet time (4-5 hours per block)

1 month out – NBMEs 20-31, memorized and thoroughly understood.



Practice test scores:

	Number of Incorrects​	Predicted Score​	Days out​
NBME 21​	67​	210.43​	55​
NBME 22​	72​	205.82​	42​
NBME 20​	61​	216.02​	30​
NBME 23​	67​	208.23​	23​
UW Avg​		60%​	20​
NBME 24​	58​	216.39​	19​
NBME 25​	49​	222.50​	17​
NBME 26​	53​	216.62​	15​
NBME 27	58​	211.51​	13​
Free120​	72%​		11​
					​
NBME 28​	58​	210.49​	9​		​
					​
NBME 29​	51​	218.16​	7​		​
					​
NBME 30​	41​	229.86​	5​		​
NBME 31​	45​	226.00​	3​

Some thoughts:

If I had to do it again, I would only use sketchy + Anki decks (Lighyear/Pepper micro). I wasted my time with so many resources, and there’s really no point to even watching BnB videos. I gave up on anki halfway through and thoroughly regret it. Would do 6 months Anki only, 3 months Uworld, 1 month all NBMEs.

I think its necessary to do all NBMEs and understand them. The actual exam was very different, but it’s the best predictor. I wouldn’t even bother with UWSA1/2. Did them – waste of time.

If you’re obsessing about your score and predicting it: predictmystepscore.com predicted me basically perfectly.

 

[carabelliscusp]

How are folks reporting their score on their CV? Just XX% EPC or... XX% EPC + (2 digit score converted)?

Bit iffy on that since that conversion is "technically" the official one but also not one that's really given to us

I never even thought to put on CV. Should I include this + class rank?

 

[Gustavo dos Santos]

Still had all A’s umhmmm…

 

[TeethAreKewl]

I never even thought to put on CV. Should I include this + class rank?

Unsure about class rank since I'm at unranked but I'd imagine so. Sounds like PD's read your CVs most heavily vs. the ADEA app itself so it'd be easier to give all the info up front.

Past CVs I've seen from my school show college GPA, INBDE Pass, DAT score, CBSE all on there

 

[Rick Sorkin]

View attachment 374999

Unsure about class rank since I'm at unranked but I'd imagine so. Sounds like PD's read your CVs most heavily vs. the ADEA app itself so it'd be easier to give all the info up front.

Past CVs I've seen from my school show college GPA, INBDE Pass, DAT score, CBSE all on there

People include their DAT scores? Lol I have not seen that but hey I’m game

Edit: idk how that Gustavo meme got quoted but whatever

 

[TeethAreKewl]

People include their DAT scores? Lol I have not seen that but hey I’m game

Yea I doubt that ultimately has any impact but hey if you got a killer score why not

 

[popfg]

My score was fairly middling (76EPC), but just wanted to add my two cents.
Started studying in March, 10 hours everyday on weekends and 2 hours every weekday, not including sketchy micro that I had already memorized.

Resources:
Memorized Sketchy Micro over a year prior.
Memorized Sketchy Pharm in March. Used Anki to memorize both.
uWorld - finished about 60% with about 60% accuracy.
Memorized Pathoma with Duke's deck in June.
Miscellaneous resources like Dirty Medicine on YouTube to learn high yield biochemical pathways.
First Aid was only useful for looking up a random disease/concept that I wanted to know just the high yields for.

Scores:
uWorld exam #1 - 2 weeks out - 231
uWorld exam #2 - 1 week out - 221
NBME #31 - 3 days out - 69%

Didn't necessarily take the practice exams seriously, so take the scores with a grain of salt, but they were roughly accurate in the end.

If I had to do it again, I would have done every single NBME instead of uWorld (of course doing all of both would be ideal, but if you had to choose, I'd focus on the NBMEs and do uWorld as an after thought). It was mentioned previously, but uWorld really does function differently in logic compared to the CBSE. I got more from just NBME #31 than maybe 500 uWorld questions.

 

[TXDNTST123]

66 EPC (72,204). top 10% class rank. Will have multiple research publications and very involved in extracurriculars. So I think my application other than CBSE score should be strong! is 66 EPC too low to get interviews/ match?

 

[Pickles9000]

66 EPC (72,204). top 10% class rank. Will have multiple research publications and very involved in extracurriculars. So I think my application other than CBSE score should be strong! is 66 EPC too low to get interviews/ match?

did you do a noncat? i think thats a perfect score for 4 year program

 

[TXDNTST123]

did you do a noncat? i think thats a perfect score for 4 year program

No currently a 3rd year but was thinking that may be the route I have to take!

 

[Pralk Nekorf]

Literally no one asked for this, but this is also kind of for me, so I figured I would post about my experience and maybe it will help someone. I might delete this I might not but oh well here it goes:

I am an incoming D2 and I just took my first CBSE. Let's just say you'll see me at Prometric in February. Here are some of my opinions/things I learned/whatever-

Overall:

- do not overwhelm yourself with resources (as another SDNer mentioned). Each resource is great for its own things. Some people stick to one resource at a time while others may be using a few at once - that is not what I mean. I mean don't rush through one resource because you want to do another. That leads to my next point of quantity/quality
- Quality over quantity. I feel like I really tried to study quantity because I found that for the DAT it was more quantity over quality but here I really feel it's quality over quantity. Like sometimes you might be two sentences in the stem, and know exactly what the pathology/Dx is, but then the question will ask for something like mechanism, similar disease, etc. and you really need in-depth knowledge of which you only have the surface. I rushed through all of Uworld with this mindset and completed all of it but looking back it probably would have been better to do half of it but really understand my mistakes.
- Do not let answer choices throw you off. Cannot emphasize this. For example, you may get a question that seems relatively easy that you read and come up with a diagnosis. Then you see another answer choice and convince yourself that the answer choice is right.

Odds and ends about materials:

- Sketchy Pharm and Micro were godsends and I loved them because they were so creative and made learning pharm/micro fun. I would do the videos along with the pepper decks. I liked watching the videos because I enjoyed the physiology reviews and the extra stuff they said.
- Boards and Beyond was good, but I personally found it pretty time-consuming to watch all the videos and I am not sure if it was worth it. The quizzes are tough and require you to have previous knowledge (for example, i started with the biochem quizzes but the questions sometimes required you to know stuff from other systems). So I'm still on the fence of whether I'm going to use this again next go.
- Mehlman PDF's were good to review high yield points in weak sections.
- Uworld is good but in my opinion, they present questions differently then NBME does. So do Uworld but also make sure you do NBME's to get used to that presentation as well.
- Pixorize Biochem Anki (Adytumdweller) was good to remember minutia in all the random diseases (lysosomal, familial hypercholesterolemias, etc) and they also had a bunch of other random sections on stuff that is commonly confused. would recommend.
- Cheesy Lightyear deck is a great deck that encompasses a lot of material. I did each section after I watched the B&B videos and before I did the quizzes. I wanted to be consistent so I did it but at one point it just felt time consuming and not the best use of my time. I think making concept maps/more active learning would be more effective.
- First Aid i annotated alongside B&B to underline what was important and used as a reference guide, but that was it. I regret not using it more and want to incorporate it more into studying.
- Pathoma i did chapters 1-3 and thought it was really helpful and regretted starting it late because I think doing it would have been a good review.

For this next go my plan of attack is to spend a while reading First Aid cover to cover and supplement it with videos on confusing concepts either from B&B or some other source. I then want to do all of Uworld but leave a lot of time out for it so I can make the most of it and truly understand everything there is. Also review Ankis for Sketchy Pharm/Micro as well as Pathoma 1-3. Then do a few full-length NBMEs after I've gone through all that, and really understand my mistakes on those as well. Would appreciate any thoughts/comments/whatever but also it's cool as I don't even know what this post is. Hope you enjoyed reading!

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

On average, I studied ~10 hours per day during my last semester of undergrad. I only took 3 classes (which were all pretty straightforward and didn't require too much studying), so I had a ton of free time on my hands.

You pregamed the CBSE even before starting dental school?!

Big Hoss

 

[Aackman]

66 EPC (72,204). top 10% class rank. Will have multiple research publications and very involved in extracurriculars. So I think my application other than CBSE score should be strong! is 66 EPC too low to get interviews/ match?

you passed the CBSE and you have a passing step 1 score. You can retake it or choose to bulk up your application elsewhere. Just my 2 cents.

Also depends on which program you are applying to. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe Case has you take step 1 before residency begins, so that might be an instance where you’ll want to bulk up the score to show them that you’re ready to roll

 

[Ivy.ch]

you passed the CBSE and you have a passing step 1 score. You can retake it or choose to bulk up your application elsewhere. Just my 2 cents.

Also depends on which program you are applying to. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe Case has you take step 1 before residency begins, so that might be an instance where you’ll want to bulk up the score to show them that you’re ready to roll

Yes, at Case, if you get accepted, you take CBSE again in May before you start to prove you’re still going to pass, then you take STEP 1 in June before you even come to Cleveland to start residency.

 

[Rick Sorkin]

Yes, at Case, if you get accepted, you take CBSE again in May before you start to prove you’re still going to pass, then you take STEP 1 in June before you even come to Cleveland to start residency.

Why don’t all programs do this, politics?

 

[dentalstudent555]

Yeah this thing destroyed me lol; probably gonna retake in Feb. It is what it is.

Is the registration for the Feb exam open yet? I can't seem to find it the right tab.

 

[Mirizzi]

Is the registration for the Feb exam open yet? I can't seem to find it the right tab.

I don't think it'll be available for some time; the first day to register for the July 2023 exam was on March 1st (144 days before test date). Registration should probably open up some time around September-October. Good luck!

 

[Teeth and Titanite]

Why don’t all programs do this, politics?

I would imagine Case specifically does this because of how accelerated the med school portion of that program is. I agree though that getting STEP 1 done early would be amazing.

 

[Pickles9000]

can someone give me some advice? Got a 62 EPC, I have done 1 noncat and this year is my 2nd noncat. Applying broadly to 4 years, should I consider also restudying for Feb exam?

 

[dentalchamp98]

You don't have to use Anki but it's a pretty powerful tool, are you sure you're using it correctly? Most of the mehlman resources are free, i found a free deck of his high yield PDFs and that was pretty useful to understand the concepts imo but he preaches memorizing the NBMEs but I don't think that's super useful.

Non-cat = non categorical intern you do a 1 year internship at a program but don't continue on to PGY-2 and still need to apply to a program to be a categorical resident.

Do you mind sharing his deck with me?

 

[MaxilloMaestro]

What is the best way to schedule blocks of uworld questions, in terms of subject/system?
I’ve gone through all of sketchy pharm, sketchy micro, and pathoma videos, and matured the correlating anking cards.
What is the best way to go from here?
I signed up for the upcoming February 2024 exam awhile back, thinking I would have been much farther ahead then I am currently. Do I still take it as a feeler for the experience? My mind is more set to perform better in July and I’ve gone through most of the material. How would you recommend going from here, supplementing uworld and utilizing NBME exams? Is there an efficient schedule to follow or should I just start tackling everything at random on uworld? What do you guys think?
Thank you guys so much in advance if you see this and reply 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

 

[carabelliscusp]

What is the best way to schedule blocks of uworld questions, in terms of subject/system?
I’ve gone through all of sketchy pharm, sketchy micro, and pathoma videos, and matured the correlating anking cards.
What is the best way to go from here?
I signed up for the upcoming February 2024 exam awhile back, thinking I would have been much farther ahead then I am currently. Do I still take it as a feeler for the experience? My mind is more set to perform better in July and I’ve gone through most of the material. How would you recommend going from here, supplementing uworld and utilizing NBME exams? Is there an efficient schedule to follow or should I just start tackling everything at random on uworld? What do you guys think?
Thank you guys so much in advance if you see this and reply

You only have 5 weeks do nbme 20-31 memorize and understand incorrects no more time for uworld

 

[MaxilloMaestro]

You only have 5 weeks do nbme 20-31 memorize and understand incorrects no more time for uworld

Thank you so much for the advice.
Can’t seem to find full versions of NBME 20-24 anywhere. Found a bunch with the answers, or some with most of the exam but missing questions. Any way you can share with me 20-24?

 

[Anonamoose]

Thank you so much for the advice.
Can’t seem to find full versions of NBME 20-24 anywhere. Found a bunch with the answers, or some with most of the exam but missing questions. Any way you can share with me 20-24?

I think top comment should be good, I just skimmed a few and looked like they didn't have answers

 

[The Kube of Kubes]

Hey everyone! Just got done talking to one of the OS faculty at my school about the CBSE, and he mentioned it would be a good idea to start studying this summer since I’ll be at level ZERO when it comes to the basic sciences. He’s suggesting I take a full fletched course with a tutor to get me ready haha. This wasn’t my original plan of attack and was hoping to stick to UFAP with heavy sketchy and anki, but he had me feeling like I shouldn’t start there and should start with something like BnB? What would you guys do? I’m just a stinky D1 that doesn’t know where to start haha. I have around 50 screenshots of peoples cbse breakdowns, and all of them are awesome, but there’s not a ton of variety outside of what people prefer to supplement UFAP with and study schedules.

For reference, I only have about a month/month and a half off for summer, and plan on grinding full time the day I get off for Xmas break up until I take it in July.