Does anyone else notice this as they go through UW...

[PokerDoc]

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When I started out, I definitely struggled, sometimes I would hit the average around 55% ish and sometimes I would be below.. but I def felt overmatched.

Now, I am consistently scoring 65-70% which i still want to improve on in my final 8 days here, but i feel just as overmatched sometimes and I mark just as many questions as I did in the beginning but I get more right. Its no fluke either, its very consistent.

Im just curious if other people feel the same when they take random timed UW blocks; do you still say WTF at the same # of questions but get more right than you did say 3-4 weeks ago?

just random curiosity thats all.

 

[MoscowAbe]

That happened to me as I was doing UW for the first time and saw a consistent increase in my score, part of the reason, I think is that the explanations are so well integrated that as you do more questions you acquire that necessary knowledge needed to think through the questions.

 

[drizzt3117]

I think in general it's a good strategy to mark any q that you can't figure out in 30 sec and move on. I like to skip around a lot. A lot of this is psychological, esp on the real test. I feel like you think clearer when you're in a groove.

 

[PokerDoc]

I think in general it's a good strategy to mark any q that you can't figure out in 30 sec and move on. I like to skip around a lot. A lot of this is psychological, esp on the real test. I feel like you think clearer when you're in a groove.

yeah see i'm the exact opposite, once im done with a question im done. I dont like changing answers (also psychological) because I always end up going from right to wrong (spent a year and a half doing that in medical school before I decided to never change an answer again and my grades went up lol). I don't mind doing it this way though because timing is so far from an issue for me now.. I always finish with 8min left, and sometimes I daydream in the middle of questions before realizing that im being timed.

 

[drizzt3117]

whatever works for you. Just keep in mind that the real test has longer stems.

yeah see i'm the exact opposite, once im done with a question im done. I dont like changing answers (also psychological) because I always end up going from right to wrong (spent a year and a half doing that in medical school before I decided to never change an answer again and my grades went up lol). I don't mind doing it this way though because timing is so far from an issue for me now.. I always finish with 8min left, and sometimes I daydream in the middle of questions before realizing that im being timed.

 

[PokerDoc]

whatever works for you. Just keep in mind that the real test has longer stems.

is it true that nbme 7 mimics it pretty well or not? i am planning on taking it tomorrow exactly 1 week before my exam but if its going to not really be representative i might as well just stick to UW

 

[drizzt3117]

is it true that nbme 7 mimics it pretty well or not? i am planning on taking it tomorrow exactly 1 week before my exam but if its going to not really be representative i might as well just stick to UW

The level of difficulty of the normal questions pretty closely approximates the boards. The harder questions are WTF and you probably won't know unless you are really familiar with the field (I.e. Don't worry about it) I had qs about obscure neoplasms that my dad who is a surgical pathologist had barely heard of. Keep in mind that the nbme engine is not the sane as the boards. USMLE is closer, but the way media is done on the boards is different than any of the q banks. I'd say the overall difficulty of the test was closer to the nbme than Uw, did you do both self-assessments?

 

[PokerDoc]

The level of difficulty of the normal questions pretty closely approximates the boards. The harder questions are WTF and you probably won't know unless you are really familiar with the field (I.e. Don't worry about it) I had qs about obscure neoplasms that my dad who is a surgical pathologist had barely heard of. Keep in mind that the nbme engine is not the sane as the boards. USMLE is closer, but the way media is done on the boards is different than any of the q banks. I'd say the overall difficulty of the test was closer to the nbme than Uw, did you do both self-assessments?

yeah i did, i did one before i started my studying to establish a baseline and i did one last week and got a 220ish on it.. ive basically gone up about 10 points a week since my first test, so im hoping for a 230 tomorrow and a 240 on next fri's real thing 😉 (I am interested in radiology, so even maintaining a 230, will keep me competitive enough if I do well 3rd year and beyond).

 

[drizzt3117]

yeah i did, i did one before i started my studying to establish a baseline and i did one last week and got a 220ish on it.. ive basically gone up about 10 points a week since my first test, so im hoping for a 230 tomorrow and a 240 on next fri's real thing 😉 (I am interested in radiology, so even maintaining a 230, will keep me competitive enough if I do well 3rd year and beyond).

Yeah sounds like a good plan 🙂 I'm planning on rads too, maybe we'll see each other on the interview trail!

 

[PokerDoc]

I hope so!

 

[buckeye12]

I went through UW Qbank, did about 50% of the questions, averaged around a 70%. Read through FA once. Went to the beach for four days a week before the exam, came back and did 20% of the UW Qbank just in sections I was weak in according to the percentile ranks I got on the first 50% (which was pharm, immuno, biochem // neuro, hepatobiliary, heme).

On the boards, I was dead certain (not flagged) on about 35 of the questions per block. I was pretty damn sure about another 4 or 5 (flagged but re-read the question at the end to be sure). And the remaining ones, for the most part, I had down to two answers and only on 1 or 2 per block did I not have a gut feeling that one answer was more correct.

Honestly, it felt good, and I think relaxing and just doing questions the week before the exam helped out. That, and the US victory on Wednesday morning brought my mood up!

 

[PokerDoc]

I went through UW Qbank, did about 50% of the questions, averaged around a 70%. Read through FA once. Went to the beach for four days a week before the exam, came back and did 20% of the UW Qbank just in sections I was weak in according to the analysis of the first 50%.

On the boards, I was dead certain (not flagged) on about 35 of the questions per block. I was pretty damn sure about another 4 or 5 (flagged but re-read the question at the end to be sure). And the remaining ones, for the most part, I had down to two answers and only on 1 or 2 per block did I not have a gut feeling that one answer was more correct.

Honestly, it felt good, and I think relaxing and just doing questions the week before the exam helped out. That, and the US victory on Wednesday morning brought my mood up!

I turned on the game in the last 15 min, that was so awesome, it sent my energy levels through the roof for like 5 hrs of studying haha..

recently ive come up with some very weird ways to motivate myself.. like for example, I know i need to read like 80 pgs of FA a day, and I have this counter app i just downloaded for the iphone.. each time i finish a page, i push the counter and hear a little click.. it some how strangely motivates me. Before i tried timing but thats an accurate measure of progress due to posting on SDN lol