Boards part 1 done

[spo01]

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I don’t get why people say to use class notes as your main source. Really? Below is a picture of most of my class notes from the first 2 years. This is not all of them. After each test I would label the stack of papers and throw them in this pile. I put a jar of Peter Pan Honey Roast Creamy peanut butter (462g) as a reference for size. Keep in mind many classes I studied off the computer and didn’t print, and I also typically scale the printer to 4 pages per 1 sheet or 6-8 powerpoint slides per sheet:

Good luck studying that in less than 6 weeks. I will tell you what I did that combined the First Aid and class notes that is helpful though. And though I found the test very difficult I felt confident in the material and this ‘method’ worked to pass. But you must start this early (preferably from the first day of classes)! I started doing this the summer after first year and wish I would have started earlier. And as it turns out I found the most difficult sections of the boards the parts I didn’t start early on.

What you do is use the First Aid as a supplement to every class you take. Whatever you go over in your class that isn’t in the First Aid and you find important you will write in the book. It’s a judgment call since you can’t write down every single thing. Below is a sample page:

Add and stress important points, write out or draw mnemonics (very important!), and clarify and reword the First Aid like it’s your job. After two years, your First Aid will be sufficient as a standalone book for part 1 boards along with Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple and LEA notes/book.

 

[malleolusman]

]I'm not sure why people say this, then complain about how the exam was a "crap shoot" after using it to "study hard". [/B]USMLE and the NBPME questions are totally different, and are tailored to a specific student. USMLE questions are passage based, the NBPME are stand alone questions.

FA teaches you to recognize patterns, buzz words, etc., to narrow down your answer choices when you're given a passage and 5 answer choices so that the correct answer can be deduced. They leave the minute details to you to study, which is good if you're taking the USMLE, but 99% of the NBPME were basic, stand alone question/answer you couldn't answer if you studied FA alone because the stems aren't giving you the info you need to pick the right answer.

Which is the position what I'd say a majority of students are in, but realize this is a majority of what you're going to see on the exam.

I'm glad you passed, but when your best advice is "randomly" pick a place to start studying and use a review book that doesn't emphasize the basics of what you're being tested on, you can begin to see where the problem lies.

Hmm, its easy to come onto SDN with this sort of condescending attitude when you KNOW you passed, although I'm sure you were just as much in dark last week about your p/f status.

If you re-read my post--- you are just repeating what I said. First Aid is what people use, they study from it, and then they fill in the gaps. What I was stating was merely where my gaps needed filling and what I needed to study more indepth. FA's physio sections obviously aren't in depth enough, so yes, you would use another source to review subject X.

Class notes I think is a bit over the top and daunting to say the least. FA breaks everything down into nice, concise sections, which makes it good as your primary source to study from and FILL IN YOUR KNOWLEDGE GAPS w/ other sources.

Not sure what you mean by "randomly" pick a place, never stated one should pick a random place to start studying from--- and in fact, cardiac phys & renal phy were not heavily tested on my version of the exam..so no, they aren't the most heavily tested subjects.

 

[UNVME2]

I don't get why people say to use class notes as your main source. Really?

Yes, a significant number of questions are submitted by faculty of every school (which is in the fist pages of FA, if you read it) and this is not just for LEA.

I'm sure you were just as much in dark last week about your p/f status.

I can assure you I was not "in the dark" about my studying or my p/f status. I'm sorry you took my comments personally but they weren't aimed at you. I was replying to more than one post and since several people were complaining yet thought others should take their study advice I decided it was time to put this rumors to rest about FA and how helpful it was and why.

Honestly if you or anyone struggled with this minimal competency exam after using FA I'm not sure why you'd advocate others using it as well. I was simply stating that I did pass and didn't think I was guessing most of the time because of the materials I used prepared me well. The intent was to show other students that there are other study materials for this test and that not everyone has negative things to say about the exam.

 

[dddunit]

What subjects were deficient? It seems physiology is. And what books did you use to supplement those subjects? Is there like a combination that would cover the bases thoroughly?

 

[dddunit]

I am referring to using first aid as the primary source.

 

[malleolusman]

I used BRS path and BRS physio.

BRS path was good, but I used it only for those items in path in FA I wasn't too familiar with.

BRS physio I read cover to cover, and did the section questions.

 

[ucd]

Yea, too bad we don't have enough students in the profession to make it financially worth it for large testing companies to invest some time in making a book for us. However, there has been a lot of great advice on how to tackle this problem from all the upperclassmen!

@spo01-wow,that's gotta be at least 30 pounds worth of notes there..hopefully you didn't eat that much peter pan honey roast creamy peanut butter as well...😀

 

[UNVME2]

What subjects were deficient?

Biochemistry: Nothing on basic AA structure, lac operons, the DNA/RNA, Purine synthesis review was like 1 page, etc.

Pathology: No pathology section, it's incorporated by organ systems which just lists symptoms, common histo findings, etc. but overlooks other details that are commonly asked.

Physio: Again, no individual section for one pathology so that if you just wanted to study renal physiology you're going to miss details.

Pharm: They don't list enough adverse events of each drug. I found that your expected to know what each drug does and what receptor it acts on, but when you're asked why one of 3 drugs in the same class can be given for X disease it usually has to do with the side effect.

The list goes on and on, if you want to compare just look at the outline provided by NBPME and compare it to what's in FA. I made a list myself but I don't have a scanner otherwise I'd post it here, but it should be easy enough to do.

And what books did you use to supplement those subjects? Is there like a combination that would cover the bases thoroughly?

I used HY and BRS and had no problems. The "made easy" series I did not use because I felt the other materials were more than enough. Lot of people said BRS questions were too detailed, but I thought it actually did a great job of making you understand what was going on and emphasized the right material. If you don't know the details, what do you know?

A word of caution though regarding the outline that the NBPME provides, which is the % of questions/topic is not entirely truthful. Some people felt they got more Biochem/Neuro than they wanted. Maybe it was they didn't study that material and that made every question on that topic stick out, but I would not skip the biochem/general anatomy/neuroanatomy sections just because it says 10%.

Good luck.

 

[MaseratiGT]

A word of caution though regarding the outline that the NBPME provides, which is the % of questions/topic is not entirely truthful. Some people felt they got more Biochem/Neuro than they wanted. Maybe it was they didn't study that material and that made every question on that topic stick out, but I would not skip the biochem/general anatomy/neuroanatomy sections just because it says 10%.

Good luck.

After questions are dropped, the percentages are exactly what the NBPME reports. According to the 2007 report, the exam was scored from 150 questions - 30 LEA (20%)
15 anatomy/biochem (10% each)
23 physiology/micro (15% each)
22 Path/pharm (15% each)

The other 55 questions can be anything, but the score comes from those percentages. You just can't ever be sure which questions from each discipline will be scored and which will be dropped.

 

[UNVME2]

You just can't ever be sure which questions from each discipline will be scored and which will be dropped.

Which is why my advice is to not overlook those sections.

 

[CHOPSTIX]

For those of you that already took the exam, what materials did you use to study for the pharm portion? I was thinking whether or not it would be a good idea to buy the BRS pharm flashcards now to study along with my pharm class.