Exam Test Taking Strategies and Confidence

[deleted987875]

Hello,

I am a M1 student and today I had my first biochemistry exam. I made today’s exam harder than it needed to be by overthinking several of the questions on very simple and straightforward questions so I lost points here. I’ve been feeling so down today and have been beating myself because of missing free easy points/questions. My goal was to get at least a 70%, but I am afraid that I may have gotten a little lower than 70% because of overthinking/second guessing/doubting myself.

I studied so much and hard by myself, did small group study sessions, and lots of practice questions in BRS, MedBullets, and end of chapter questions in our textbook. I just do not like that my exam grade does not reflect my hard work and effort and the knowledge I have gained and learned so much over the last couple of weeks.

Does anyone have any advice for test taking strategies and having confidence? Also anyone have any advice for staying positive and to keep moving forward and have a growth mindset? I have put in so much effort, hard work, and time, yet I feel that I screwed up/messed up this first exam...

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[h23]

Hello,

I am a M1 student and today I had my first biochemistry exam. I made today’s exam harder than it needed to be by overthinking several of the questions on very simple and straightforward questions so I lost points here. I’ve been feeling so down today and have been beating myself because of missing free easy points/questions. My goal was to get at least a 70%, but I am afraid that I may have gotten a little lower than 70% because of overthinking/second guessing/doubting myself.

I studied so much and hard by myself, did small group study sessions, and lots of practice questions in BRS, MedBullets, and end of chapter questions in our textbook. I just do not like that my exam grade does not reflect my hard work and effort and the knowledge I have gained and learned so much over the last couple of weeks.

Does anyone have any advice for test taking strategies and having confidence? Also anyone have any advice for staying positive and to keep moving forward and have a growth mindset? I have put in so much effort, hard work, and time, yet I feel that I screwed up/messed up this first exam...

not sure if you still need this advice or not, but relax man. This is med school, there's going to be plenty of times when you put in the work, stay up extra nights and things just don't go the way you want them to go. That's just how life is. Whatever score you got, just use that as motivation to do better in the next exam. That's the simple answer. As far as advice, I recommend asking the M2's at your school since strategies can vary depending on the school and the person. The whole point of M1 is to get into your groove and figure things out and hopefully you should be able to do that soon. Just try to find out what you believe works best for you and stop caring so much on one exam. You're entering a field where there's a lot of failure, either in academics or a patient that you've been working with, just passed away. While it's not a pleasant feeling, you're allowed to feel sad in the moment, but after that moment, you pick yourself up and continue working. If you don't, imagine how it's going to be like when you're dealing with patients. Do you think every single one of them are going to be success stories? Moping around and feeling sorry for ourselves for too long would not only be harmful to us, but it would be harmful to the patients. Good luck on your next exams and with the rest of med school.