APMLE Part 1 2021 Edition

Started by DexterMorganSK
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AdrenalineJockie said:
less than a week away! How are ya'll feeling?
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Issa Rae Reaction GIF
 
I wish there were youtube videos of " high yield topic review for the APMLE" like there are for the USMLE. Going into this last week I am just trying to get those high yield topic points, but have no idea what drugs, pathways, anatomy is high yield besides from hoping that the topics on all the practice tests are what are high yield.
 
You will need to trust yourselves and the studying that you have done. I believe most people have that feeling that they do not know a lot going in for the exam. You need to calm yourselves down and relax. Once you are at the test center, there is nothing else you can do. Relax, do your best, trust your knowledge. Remember that passing rate is high. You will do well and pass.
 
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butdidyoudie7 said:
I wish there were youtube videos of " high yield topic review for the APMLE" like there are for the USMLE. Going into this last week I am just trying to get those high yield topic points, but have no idea what drugs, pathways, anatomy is high yield besides from hoping that the topics on all the practice tests are what are high yield.
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LE anatomy is high yield. All of it. I don't remember specifics, but anything at the knee and below is high yield. You need to know it very well for that exam and for the rest of your career.
If you have done Sketchy Micro and Pharm with Anki decks, you are good to go. That prep will carry you through those topics. For Immuno part (not many questions) just review the topics listed in their outline. Will take you several hours at most. Biochem is smallest section on that exam, I followed someone else's advice and literally spent 3-4 hours looking through USMLE. Just remember high yield things like pathways, and some genetic diseases - you will do fine on that section.

If you guys followed advice of previous class listed in another thread, I am sure you all will pass.
 
de Ribas said:
If you have done Sketchy Micro and Pharm with Anki decks, you are good to go. That prep will carry you through those topics. For Immuno part (not many questions) just review the topics listed in their outline. Will take you several hours at most. Biochem is smallest section on that exam, I followed someone else's advice and literally spent 3-4 hours looking through USMLE. Just remember high yield things like pathways, and some genetic diseases - you will do fine on that section.
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Thank you. What would you say for path and physio?
 
Does anyone actually get how boards are graded? I asked an administrator at my school and he said "they keep it hush hush" only to have a professor break down my schools average vs the national average per subject. Seems pretty shady haha most of the class above me passed but our "average" compared to the national average was definitely below average. AKA what I'm saying is the dean could have just lied so he wouldn't have to tell us that we sucked.
 
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AdrenalineJockie said:
Thank you. What would you say for path and physio?
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For Path, I used pathoma book just because I found a cheap book and I wanted to stick to just one material and not worry about different materials knowing that one resource will have everything I need. Pathoma book had all high yield points. It's is not necessary. I was probably the only one using it out of my class or even previous class. We also had school notes which were similarly organized to pathoma booklet it was in word document format which made it too boring to study from. I liked to have subjects separated into chapters with big colorful headings, pictures, tables, charts just for better retention. I believe USMLE boom pathology is all over the place. I didn't want to jump different sections or combining materials. So I picked pathoma book and stuck with it.

For Phys, as most ppl, I used BRS. Just read it and answered their questions. Supplemented with BV questions and school slides when needed more clarification on something I was still confused.

My detailed study breakdown can be found at last year's APMLE threads where lots of us shared how we studied.
 
I swear I had 50% biochem and physio, definitely harder than board vitals or the practice tests. I had a lot of Cancer stuff too??
50 questions in I thought I was going to cry, but my version eased up on me on the 2nd half.
I felt like I was way overprepared for Lower Extremity, and underprepared for everything else.

Now I wait in agony.
 
I had lots of lower anatomy (as expected) but lots of general anatomy and biochem too, which doesn’t make sense….I spent soooo much time on pharm and micro and was pretty disappointed with the low number of questions I got. Most of my questions were higher order with paragraph style questions. Definitely felt the exam was harder than board vitals in some aspects. I either got a very hard exam or I did not study the right stuff lol
 
I found it pretty hard, but not totally horrible. The first 40 questions were great, then I suddenly hit a wall of much harder ones lol. We’ll see what happens!
 
Idk how I feel about that exam. I had like around 30 that I had no clue what they were asking and around 60 flagged and so many between 2 answer choices which I ended up choosing wrong answer 🙁((
Like all of you, I wonder how they grade and how many questions we need to pass. I also got very few LEA questions. I felt like I focused more on LEA and not as much for other subjects which messed me up as I didn't get as many LEA questions as expected!

Also, any tips on how to keep my mind distracted from thinking about the exam? 🙁

Let's just hope and pray the curve is in all of our favor!!
 
AdrenalineJockie said:
Idk how I feel about that exam. I had like around 30 that I had no clue what they were asking and around 60 flagged and so many between 2 answer choices which I ended up choosing wrong answer 🙁((
Like all of you, I wonder how they grade and how many questions we need to pass. I also got very few LEA questions. I felt like I focused more on LEA and not as much for other subjects which messed me up as I didn't get as many LEA questions as expected!

Also, any tips on how to keep my mind distracted from thinking about the exam? 🙁

Let's just hope and pray the curve is in all of our favor!!
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Take a break...go out, drink beer, meet family, etc.
The exam is over; you did your best. The majority pass so don't worry too much...in case you didn't pass, you can retake it.

But for now..try to relax before Junior year begins.
 
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I passed!

Study plan:

Used cramfighter to organize my study schedule:

Two weeks of sketchy pharm videos. Each day I would unsuspend the tagged cards from the pepper pharm anki deck, and then graduate those cards naturally. So each day was longer and longer for review.

Two weeks of sketchy micro videos. Each day I would unsuspend the tagged cards from the pepper micro anki deck, and then graduate those cards naturally. So each day was longer and longer for review.

Two weeks of LEA using our school notes and an anki deck that was purpose built for each lecture of our school notes. Then I reviewed multiple times the material I was less strong on using notes and drawing pertinent anatomy etc.

Over the last week I read BRS Physio book from front to back, and did the question banks at the end of each lecture.

I studied biochem rate limiting steps and watched one video on glycogen storage diseases the night before the exam.

I did all board vitals question banks twice (besides biochem), averaging about 80 percent the second time around.

I did not study for pathology at all.
 
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Passed

Study Plan: 3 weeks total
  • Week 1: Did boardvitals + made notes based on answer options and descriptions (supplemented with first aid mnemonics)
    • Got like 30-40% on first pass
  • Week 2-3
    • Did the Prometric's practice and 2005/2008 practice + took notes based on the answer options and descriptions (also did temple practice but turned out not to be very helpful, didn't do kent state practice cause it was so bad)
    • Studied the notes I made from all the practice questions + notes from my lower extremity anatomy class
    • Did boardvitals a 2nd time
      • Got at least 70% on 2nd pass
    • Re-took Prometric's practice
    • Did boardvitals a 3rd time
      • Got at least 95% on 3rd pass
Overall, you will pass if you're confident about 100 questions on the board and guessed on the other 100
 
Aresnebula said:
I would really appreciate any advice, please.
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Study harder your 2nd time and pass it.
Isolate what your issues were.

-Weakness in certain subjects
-Testing anxiety
-Not understanding certain high yield topics
-Issues with recalling information
-Not understanding the wording of the questions themselves
-Connecting what you know vs how they want their answer worded

Every weakness you hit and fortify are just more points added to your score. Swallow your pride and go kill this thing.
 
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Karawak07 said:
I passed!

Study plan:

Used cramfighter to organize my study schedule:

Two weeks of sketchy pharm videos. Each day I would unsuspend the tagged cards from the pepper pharm anki deck, and then graduate those cards naturally. So each day was longer and longer for review.

Two weeks of sketchy micro videos. Each day I would unsuspend the tagged cards from the pepper micro anki deck, and then graduate those cards naturally. So each day was longer and longer for review.

Two weeks of LEA using our school notes and an anki deck that was purpose built for each lecture of our school notes. Then I reviewed multiple times the material I was less strong on using notes and drawing pertinent anatomy etc.

Over the last week I read BRS Physio book from front to back, and did the question banks at the end of each lecture.

I studied biochem rate limiting steps and watched one video on glycogen storage diseases the night before the exam.

I did all board vitals question banks twice (besides biochem), averaging about 80 percent the second time around.

I did not study for pathology at all.
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Congratulations!!!!

My approach was very similar, but didn't use Anki, used Reuben's Notes for LEA and used Pathoma for path. Didn't study biochem much, except a little bit on sketchy (about half the videos). I also only got through about half the Boards Vitals questions. I wish my approach was a little bit better because I didn't feel super confident after leaving the exam, but it worked out in the end thankfully. Take my experience with a grain of salt 👍
 
de Ribas said:
Did you request your score to be seen? Or they are now showing it to everyone?
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I saw it on prometric website. I honestly don’t feel like that score even pertained to my exam because I was scoring >70% on board vitals. Knew lower extremity like the back of my hand. I studied for crazyyyyy long hours.
 
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