failed shelf exam. what now...

[mossyfiber12]

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Just failed my shelf exam. what the F*$& do i do now...so frustrating....I think this is the first exam I did worse than I thought I did.

 

[FrickenhugeMD]

Retake the exam?

I know at my school they give you a chance to retake it a month later (not sure on the time frame) before they make you repeat the whole rotation.

What rotation did you fail?

 

[nlax30]

If just a one time thing on first try it shouldn't be a problem. You need to check with your school's policy about shelf retakes.

My school is similar to the above in that you can fail I THINK up to like 2, and if so you have to retake them towards the end of the year when they offer retakes. If you fail them again though you may be delayed moving on to 4th year and graduation date moved back until you do some sort of remediation.

Big picture though, don't freak out, don't stress too much. Just check with your school and see what the next step is. Also need to figure out "what went wrong". What resources did you use? Did you honestly spend as much time during the rotation studying as you needed to be?

 

[vicinihil]

Retake is also the policy here. They let you do it at the end of the third year with the next class. You don't have to re-do the rotation.

As the above poster said, focus on what went wrong, talk to the dean, and make sure you don't make the same mistakes on the next rotation.

 

[mossyfiber12]

This is frustrating. How am I going to figure out what I did wrong if I don't even get some sort feedback about what I did wrong? I mean I thought the exam was hard but definitely didn't feel like I failed it...

I used uWorld and pre-test. I did pre-test porbably 1.5 times and uWorld once. I didn't really use any textbooks because I wasn't sure what I need to be reading that's not already in the questions.

 

[SGuttenberg]

It would help to know what rotation it was and what percentile your school set as fail.

You definately need to read a review book (not just a question book) for these exams. Reading a comprehensive textbook is not needed. There is some decent info on resources in the threads for the various shelf exams.

Students study hard for these as a good shelf grade is the only way to make up for the crapshoot of subjective grading when trying to aim for good clinical grades. This means you have to do really well to get a decent percentile.

 

[drc243]

My first word of advice is to take a deep breath and know that you are not alone. I failed my surgery shelf exam. I made an appointment with my dean and they permitted me to retake it during my two week vacation at the end of May. I atributed my failure to two reasons. 1) I had yet to take medicine and half the surgery shelf is medicine 101 2) My studying was not complete as I did alot of review book reading and no questions. It seems that you did questions but no reading which works for some but not for all. Shelf exams are tough since you can be asked anything about that field so the best thing is to read a review book or two (i am a big fan of the case files, kaplan lectures notes combo). Case files in great for the overview of the field and kaplan loads you up with high yield facts. Follow that up with a crap load of questions and you will do fine.

best of luck,
dave

ps i passed my retake

 

[gstrub]

just quit man...


Seriously, chill and refocus.

 

[penguin24]

This is frustrating. How am I going to figure out what I did wrong if I don't even get some sort feedback about what I did wrong? I mean I thought the exam was hard but definitely didn't feel like I failed it...

I used uWorld and pre-test. I did pre-test porbably 1.5 times and uWorld once. I didn't really use any textbooks because I wasn't sure what I need to be reading that's not already in the questions.

Go to the clerkship director and tell him, "I didn't bother to read the textbook b/c it is useless. Then I failed the shelf. I have no idea what I did wrong." You will get your answer.