Constant score study TIP

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arafatni

MR.NOBODY
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Hello ,

I am currently medical student . I am planning to take my step in 6 month from now. I studied my butt off however , I don't see improvement in my score . I took the NBME and I got 55 before i start studying. now I started taking Kaplan and i took practice test in a month of taking the classes and I got 35 %. My score actually went down. I am really frustrated and dont know how to study for this. My stud plan : I wake up early morning and I do osmosis flashcards with picmonic on things i got wrong. I do subject based. let say we covering immuno/micro in that week of kaplan , then i do just those flashcards and picmonics. then I attend class from 9 am to 4 pm/5pm. i take a hour break after class. i do questions on qbank of the material covered so far. I get score of 65% in those . I read Fa to finish of the night and I make sure i finish FA part that correlates to the upcoming kaplan class on the weekend, so when I go to kaplan i have a general idea of the subject. so we covered immuno/micro, pathophysiology , integration, and behavioral in kaplan. and I watched pathoma chapter 1 -7. i take 1 hour break every 4 hours of study for a total 3 hours for the whole day. kaplan classes give you 10 min breaks . so basically i study for 12 hours /day. I am here just looking for suggestion and constructive criticism. Please leave negativity somewhere else. Thank You for all the Help.

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I'm not really sure what to tell you. From your post it seems like you may be using qbanks and review books as gospel. This is fine for people who have a great foundation, but you may need to go back to the basics. Try to really understand what's going on with each question. From my experience with questions, a lot of people just try to memorize the objective, but wikipedia, google, and youtube are your friend. You're the only person who can tell yourself if you know or don't know something, but be honest with yourself. It might be easy to say, oh, I know this, and move on. Don't get stuck in that trap. Make sure you can recall things, not just recognize them. Maybe teaching others about topics can help also. Especially if someone else knows the material, they can point out your faults.
 
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I feel you are at initial stages of building your basics with Kaplan. In my opinion doing NBMEs right now is not a great idea.
Focus on building your concepts with Kaplan lectures. After you are done with all the Kaplan lectures, review all the subjects again with FA.
Then start USMLE world Qbank in mixed and random mode. Read all the explanations even if you get the question correct. When you solve an MCQ, briefly read about that topic in FA (its patho, presentation, associations, management). I feel this is the major phase of consolidating all the information.
When you are half way through Uworld, then consider taking NBME to see where do you stand. You don't want to waste all NBMEs before starting Uworld. Its important you save them for the ending phase of your study.

Another reason why you may not be doing great with NBMEs right now is perhaps because you are solving MCQs subject wise where as NBMEs comprise of mixed subjects.
So only when you get into the real phase of solving mixed and random questions with Uworld, your scores will start improving.
Good luck!
 
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