am i in danger of failing??

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Delilah

Junior Member
7+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2004
Messages
178
Reaction score
0
studied for 5 weeks

nbme 7 190
nbme 6 190
nbme 5 192

i just want to pass! i want to go into psych or FM! my exam date is in 11 days. i have started the taus method and i'll be done with it in exact time before my exam. my kaplan qbank average is 57 and my uworld average is 58. i finished world and i'm redoing it. i must say the second round of uworld and FA are really helping. here is my breakdown:

46 UWORLD q
46 Kaplan q

Taus.

any suggestions would be much much appreciated.
 
Study HARD! Do 14 hours a day from here on out, till the day before the exam.

Do not read anything else except for First Aid. Read that for 7 hours. Then spend 6-7 hours doing two blocks of random/timed 48q in UWORLD. Read all the explanations. It will make the concepts in First Aid stick, and First Aid will make the UWORLD explanations stick.

Good luck!
 
second badasshairday,

focus on those UW questions and FA.. Taus method is solid, but FA and UW are the holy grail at this stage
 
If you can I would suggest push your exam for 2 weeks and work on your weak areas plus UW one block of UW daily. If not then focus on FA. I really believe that for one to avoid failing that they should score minimum 200 b/c the person can drop 5-10 points.
 
so i just buckled down this week and took a free 150 today. 75% -- which accordingly estimates a 229????

is this a GROSS overestimate?? i'm just trying to pass and last week i got a 192. i'm scheduled to take the exam in 6 days. should i still postpone or do i have a chance?

thanks so much


If you can I would suggest push your exam for 2 weeks and work on your weak areas plus UW one block of UW daily. If not then focus on FA. I really believe that for one to avoid failing that they should score minimum 200 b/c the person can drop 5-10 points.
 
so i just buckled down this week and took a free 150 today. 75% -- which accordingly estimates a 229????

is this a GROSS overestimate?? i'm just trying to pass and last week i got a 192. i'm scheduled to take the exam in 6 days. should i still postpone or do i have a chance?

thanks so much

It probably overestimates by a little bit but you don't get a 75% if you haven't been working hard. You are looking good!
 
It probably overestimates by a little bit but you don't get a 75% if you haven't been working hard. You are looking good!

thanks PokerDoc. i'm just paranoid becuase the last 2 nbmes i took were 190 and 192 (borderline).

should i just use this free 150 to restore my confidence that i can pass and take it on friday? whats the best use of these next 5 days -- finish rereading FA (i have 150 pages left) or just UW or both?
 
advice please? my confidence is still shaken from previous traumatizing nbme's.
 
is a 192 to a 229 really a fluke? i'm just trying to pass! i'm afraid if i postpone it i'll lose steam. i'd rather take this 229 at (almost) face value and charge for the next 5 days.

if i push it back, i have to make dramatic changes to my third year schedule because rotations start in 2 weeks. i'm taking it on the last possible day.

i guess all i'm looking for is a "you got it"
 
Last edited:
It's hard to jump 30 points in 5 days.

You'd better push back your test for another 3 weeks ( 8~12 hours/d), maybe 2 weeks (14~16 hours/d) and during that peroid memorize FA and re-do UW 3 blocks per day.


is a 192 to a 229 really a fluke? i'm just trying to pass! i'm afraid if i postpone it i'll lose steam. i'd rather take this 229 at (almost) face value and charge for the next 5 days.
 
I really disagree with the people here telling you to push back.. Their goals are different from yours and I think theyre missing the part where you said you just want to pass, you still got some time left..

since you've been doing UW why dont you buy one of the UW practice tests.. theyre REALLY hard, u will feel awful going through it, but the scoring is scaled appropriately so it will still be a reasonable indicator of your progress.


what is your % on UW in the last 10 full blocks? I saw your overall score but im more interested in the more recent performance. and to be honest.. a 58% overall is not bad..not bad at all. and its not even close to a failing %.. isnt the average closer to a 55% on UW?

Im concerned about your comment about losing steam.. if you start burning out after you go through all the trouble of pushing the exam back itll be all for naught.

I really think you need to take another practice exam but since you already did NBME 5-7, I think a UWSA practice test is the way to go since i heard NBME 1-4 were too easy and not predictive.
 
thanks for the feedback PokerDoc.

my average on the last 10 blocks average is 70%.

my test is sched for Friday. when do you think i should take a UWSA. is it 4 hours long? would i be better off using those hours to study and bolster my confidence.
 
thanks for the feedback PokerDoc.

my average on the last 10 blocks average is 70%.

my test is sched for Friday. when do you think i should take a UWSA. is it 4 hours long? would i be better off using those hours to study and bolster my confidence.

are you kidding me? 70% im not even doing that yet.. YOU ARE READY.

forgot the practice exam.. blow through first aid.

there are 477 readable pages in FA.. divide that by how many days you have left minus the day before the test (i'll explain in a min) and every time you come up on something you totally forgot, and i mean REALLY forgot, write it down. and on your last day, study that stuff you wrote down.

now is the time to focus on your strengths,


YOU ARE READY there is not even a doubt in my mind here that pushing off the exam is an option.
 
If you have time to push it back: Take another NBME test one Wednesday. If you get over a 200 take the test, if not eat the cost and push back.

I agree, anything less than a 200 and you have a real chance of not passing. The free 150 isn't really accurate, you would need to take another NBME to figure out where you really are right now.
 
i have less than 100 pages left of my 2nd pass of FA which i hope to finish tomorrow.

i'm also going through my second pass of UW now, doing incorrect qs.

i've decided not to push it back. if i push it back, i'll have a week gap of nonstudying (a mandatory clinical skills week) and then after that i can resume studying. i'm afraid i may lose my steam/motivation/recall with a week gap. i'm just going to charge forward and learn from all of my incorrects.

after i finish my 2nd pass of FA (tomorrow), whats the most high yield thing to do in the last 3 days? just Uworld? Uworld and FA?

thanks for everything
 
i have less than 100 pages left of my 2nd pass of FA which i hope to finish tomorrow.

i'm also going through my second pass of UW now, doing incorrect qs.

i've decided not to push it back. if i push it back, i'll have a week gap of nonstudying (a mandatory clinical skills week) and then after that i can resume studying. i'm afraid i may lose my steam/motivation/recall with a week gap. i'm just going to charge forward and learn from all of my incorrects.

after i finish my 2nd pass of FA (tomorrow), whats the most high yield thing to do in the last 3 days? just Uworld? Uworld and FA?

thanks for everything


I think in the very last few days you should be solidifying your strengths, its not the time to be learning new things. So I would lean more towards first aid than UW at that point.. you can wake up in the morning and do one question block, but thats it, and even at that point, since youre doing questions you already did only look at the ones you marked and got wrong to save time.

but the rest of the day should be spent looking at high yield information. Thats my opinion and will be my plan anyway.

I think you're making the right decision by not delaying the test though.. The logistical nightmares that would result otherwise could well end up hurting you more than taking the test this week.

best of luck to you!
 
If you can, and have access to these things, this is what I would suggest (took my test June 10):

Make sure you know every enzyme linked with a disease in the biochemistry section of FA- I had literally 10 of these on my test, and they were easy since I looked this over one last time the morning of my exam.

If you have RR Path by Goljan, or can borrow it for a day from a friend, read just the blue margin notes. If you're short on time, read the chapters that you know you are weakest at.

Review pharm info in every chapter of FA, focusing on the actual pharm chapter, antiobiotics and antivirals, cardio, neuro, musculoskeletal. Most of my classmates have taken their exam this year, and almost every pharm question came from those sections and was something directly in FA.

Skim physiology concepts, concentrating on renal, cardio, respiratory. If you have BRS physio, do the end of chapter questions in these sections and really take a look at anything you miss. These questions seem to be more integrative, but they want you to understand a basic concept in these areas and apply it.

Good luck, keep your head clear! Go slowly, use every second on those questions in each block to minimize any mistakes so you can achieve your true potential!
 
If you can, and have access to these things, this is what I would suggest (took my test June 10):

Make sure you know every enzyme linked with a disease in the biochemistry section of FA- I had literally 10 of these on my test, and they were easy since I looked this over one last time the morning of my exam.

If you have RR Path by Goljan, or can borrow it for a day from a friend, read just the blue margin notes. If you're short on time, read the chapters that you know you are weakest at.

Review pharm info in every chapter of FA, focusing on the actual pharm chapter, antiobiotics and antivirals, cardio, neuro, musculoskeletal. Most of my classmates have taken their exam this year, and almost every pharm question came from those sections and was something directly in FA.

Skim physiology concepts, concentrating on renal, cardio, respiratory. If you have BRS physio, do the end of chapter questions in these sections and really take a look at anything you miss. These questions seem to be more integrative, but they want you to understand a basic concept in these areas and apply it.

Good luck, keep your head clear! Go slowly, use every second on those questions in each block to minimize any mistakes so you can achieve your true potential!

LoveGI,thanks for the info.im taking mine in 3 1/2 weeks, and i was wondering what i should read 3 or 4 days before exam.
 
LoveGI,thanks for the info.im taking mine in 3 1/2 weeks, and i was wondering what i should read 3 or 4 days before exam.

Well, I can just share what I did the last 2 full days before the exam (I had a noon test, so my 'last day' stuff posted above is really what I did the morning before I headed in). Consider if it would work for you, but stick to what you know you do best with- I am a kid that never studied more than 4 days before a school test, so I'm a last-minute kind of person for details.

I did at least 200 UWorld questions a day (mix between new questions and marked questions) the last three days, including the day before. I wanted to have some stamina built up, and I was trying to push through to finish the qbank. Alas, it's only 96% complete and that's where it's gonna stay!

In the last two days, I did a complete push through FA page by page. I basically skipped biochem altogether (except for diseases, vitamins, and the cell bio section in FA), because it is so super low yield and it would take me a week to learn one pathway. I also skipped the micro section, since I had read CMRRS in my last study week from cover to cover and felt that was better prep than FA. I do think this netted me a few extra micro questions, but would only suggest this to someone with the time and that likes micro (it's possibly my favorite sub topic). Other than that, I had seen the whole enchilada within 48 hours of sitting for my exam...

What I wanted to do but didn't have the time: I wanted to go over the blue margin notes in RR Path, but ranked this lower since pathology is a strength of mine. I did read the whole book during my dedicated study time, every freakin bullet point, and felt like a I learned a lot. I would have liked a quick refresher of those tiny details, but truthfully in hindsight don't think this would have really made a difference (but I was strong going in, and had also heard all of his audio at least 2x before test day). I wanted to go over all of my marked question in UWorld, but only reviewed ~200 out of the 450 I had marked. I was pretty selective when marking, only marking an important concept I wanted to return to closer to test day (ie a good diagram, a concept I kept screwing up, etc).

Keep in mind, this was my last few days after a 5.5 week push of ~12 hours a day. I did not go over FA 5x like some people, but really took my time the first time through and learned that thing! Most sections I only saw that second pass through the day before, outside of referencing a question I got wrong or something. I did, however, do RR Path in its entirety, BRS physio in its entirety, 96% of UWorld, 50% of USMLERx, and maybe 1/3 of kaplan questions (won these last two in raffles, so used them when I wanted details and not concept studying). Also add in CMRRS, and the high yield series systems book on the kidney (great recommendation if you suck at renal like I do!!!).
 
Let me tell you what happened to me

I took an NBME 3 weeks before my exam and got 390/198, then after 2 weeks (1 week prior to the real thing) took a UWSA and got 460/209, I decided to take the risk and did it. I got 199/81 on the real exam. I am happy with the score because just like you all I wanted was to pass.

So, is it risky? yes it is, but as my score showed, NBME's are really accurate.
 
Although I debated it much, i went ahead and took the UWSA2 today and got a 224!!!!

I know this is likely an overestimate, but I still feel my confidence is restored to PASS.

Test on Friday -- Finished my second round of FA. About to follow your advice on the last run.

THanks for everything! Best of luck to us all.
 
Top