Diagnose me please

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Doc-sted

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Hey guys,

Help me. I finished RX a couple months ago, reviewed FA again, and started doing U world. I was slamming it the first 10 or so tests (scoring 70% average, maxed at 78%). Now after final exams I am slumping hard core. I just scored a 50% and my averages have been down around 65%. What do you think is my problem? I feel like I'm forgetting everything! What should I do from here? I take the real deal June 23rd. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Unfortunately I took a day off over the weekend:(. Can anyone respond to the fluctuation in my U world scores. They seem to be saw toothed in appearance... and no, I don't have BP 1 or 2, Cylothymia, or any other mood disorder.
 
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Unfortunately I took a day off over the weekend:(. Can anyone respond to the fluctuation in my U world scores. They seem to be saw toothed in appearance... and no, I don't have BP 1 or 2, Cylothymia, or any other mood disorder.

atrial flutter......I think Step 1 is making you too worried. Relax bro!
 
Just like on the real exam, you'll get easier blocks and harder blocks in UWorld. If you have a bad block, don't beat yourself up. Just review what you got wrong/guessed on and move on.
 
Unfortunately I took a day off over the weekend:(. Can anyone respond to the fluctuation in my U world scores. They seem to be saw toothed in appearance... and no, I don't have BP 1 or 2, Cylothymia, or any other mood disorder.
You have plenty of time. I would take a day or lay out a plan for the rest of your time. Looking back at uworld, I did 40 (46 ? each) or so tests until my averages started normalizing around 75-85%, and another 40 tests until it was around 85-90%. You have a ways to go with uworld, just keep at it, keep learning, and your scores will improve.
 
You have plenty of time. I would take a day or lay out a plan for the rest of your time. Looking back at uworld, I did 40 (46 ? each) or so tests until my averages started normalizing around 75-85%, and another 40 tests until it was around 85-90%. You have a ways to go with uworld, just keep at it, keep learning, and your scores will improve.
Those are some very impressive scores! I'm a bit confused however - from your post I gather you've done 40 blocks with 46 questions each (75-85%)... and then another 40 (85-90%). But UWorld only has ~2200 questions, which is about 48 blocks. Is the 85-90% on your second pass?

And to the OP - for what its worth, my score dropped about 10% after my 4th block, and stayed about 7-8% lower for about 15-20 blocks before it slowly creeped back close to my first-three-blocks-average. I think I just got a lucky series of easy blocks to start, then a bunch of hard ones, and now its more balanced. The histogram is almost a repeating "W" over the past few days haha
 
Those are some very impressive scores! I'm a bit confused however - from your post I gather you've done 40 blocks with 46 questions each (75-85%)... and then another 40 (85-90%). But UWorld only has ~2200 questions, which is about 48 blocks. Is the 85-90% on your second pass?

Correct. I did 2 full passes, first in tutor mode by subject, then random-timed. Then I did all of the incorrects and now just working off my annotations.
 
Correct. I did 2 full passes, first in tutor mode by subject, then random-timed. Then I did all of the incorrects and now just working off my annotations.

Nice. I hope things go well for you. For what its worth. I dug deep into my actions over the past few tests and noticed some patterns that were malignant. I came up with a general guiding principle list that I thought someone might benefit from:
1. Slow down, read the question stem a second time if your mind doesn't instantly go to an answer.
2. Realize that most questions test a basic and simple fact that you have already seen several times. The questions are just good at obscuring/hiding it.
3. Vignettes are classic, don't try to put a square block through a circular hole. In other words, if you are thinking Small Cell Lung Cancer but it doesn't have some of the main features, its most likely not Small Cell.
4. If there are a lot of answer choices, it is because the question is very easy, so examiners have to add in a bunch of distracters.
5. THIS HAS PROVED TO BE THE BIGGEST GAME CHANGER FOR ME: GO WITH YOUR FIRST THOUGHT AND ANSWER CHOICE SELECTION. If your mind instantly goes to something, it is probably RIGHT. I have found that subconsciously I know the answer, bringing it into my conscious frame of mind can sometimes be difficult. There is a considerable amount of medical muscle memory that I realized I accrued over the last two years. My mind instantly went to Glutamate when a question asked about NMDA receptors. However, I tried remembering if this indeed acted on the receptor and couldn't for the life of me put it together. However my brain knew it well.

Doing these five things changed my scores from 50% range back up to 76% range. Study On!
 
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