freaking out

[slim]

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test on monday (3 days to study), and i feel like i'm not nearly where i want to be in terms of memorizing first aid. just took the NBME 150 questions; thought i'd get a 50% considering how clueless i felt but ended up randomly guessing my way to an 83%. three questions:

1. i've been led to believe the questions on the actual exam are really long, but the 150 questions had a bunch of 2-liners (or something else pretty short). are these questions (length, difficulty, detail of what they want to know) pretty indicative of the real thing? or are they just playing with me?

2. like i said: only 3 days left to study. i figure i should bust my butt memorizing first aid and not bother with kaplan full length or the NBME practice exams since they seem so time consuming. but what do i know? is it worth it? i'm willing to do anything at this point. i already finished qbank.

3. does the 83% mean anything? am i okay or inevitably screwed if i really did feel that mentally challenged during the exam?

THANK YOU. i'm reallly freaking out there and thank god there's a forum out there with ppl going through the same thing as me.

 

[Nosa]

test on monday (3 days to study), and i feel like i'm not nearly where i want to be in terms of memorizing first aid. just took the NBME 150 questions; thought i'd get a 50% considering how clueless i felt but ended up randomly guessing my way to an 83%. three questions:

1. i've been led to believe the questions on the actual exam are really long, but the 150 questions had a bunch of 2-liners (or something else pretty short). are these questions (length, difficulty, detail of what they want to know) pretty indicative of the real thing? or are they just playing with me?

2. like i said: only 3 days left to study. i figure i should bust my butt memorizing first aid and not bother with kaplan full length or the NBME practice exams since they seem so time consuming. but what do i know? is it worth it? i'm willing to do anything at this point

3. does the 83% mean anything? am i okay or inevitably screwed if i really did feel that mentally challenged during the exam?

THANK YOU. i'm reallly freaking out there and thank god there's a forum out there with ppl going through the same thing as me.

i haven't taken the actual test yet so i can't answer your question. however, like you, i am taking it soon and just took the 150 questions and got about an 83%. of course i can't say exactly what that means but i did take the nbme about 2-3 weeks ago and got the = to a 240, which i was pretty suprised by and happy with. a friend of mine, who is wicked smart, also took the 150 q's and got around an 80 - she took the nbme the other day and got in the high 240's. so if that's any indicator, i would say you are doing ok... even if you say you guessed on a lot of it, which everybody does on this test more than they are used to.

as far as what to do the next few days, i started off saying i was just going to bust out kaplan q's like mad these last few days but then changed my tactics and am reading 1st aid instead. my logic is this: 1. i want to get a big picture sense of things now, not just accumulate fragmented facts from kaplan. and #2, i want to review the big stuff that i know will be on the exam now (ie first aid). kaplan will waste my time telling me about some crazy side effect for an anti-neoplastic that you only use for M2, not M3 CML... not what i care about right now. if i remember that little crap from q-bank, great. if not, oh well. now if i forget something big like the brachial plexus or the gram positive algorithm, which i knew cold a few weeks ago, then i will be angry.

just my 2 cents. good luck to you!

 

[nutmegs]

the questions on the exam are sometimes quite short. there are a few longer ones but I'd say the NBME sample was pretty representative of the length. not like the qbank ones that are back to back paragraph long stems.

listen to me. you are going to be fine. there is no "randomly guessing" your way to an 83%. you do not know everything that could possibly be tested on this exam, but give yourself some credit. you know enough, and you are going to do fine on it.

if you've done all of qbank and are familiar with the timing of 50 minute blocks, ditch the full length exam. read first aid, solidify the stuff that you knew at one point but might have gotten bumped out of your head because it's so obvious: translocations, cytokines, cell markers, p450 inhibitors and inducers, the anterolateral and dorsal columns of the spinal cord, the % of a drug eliminated in 3 halflives. this exam is not tricky. you will be OK 🙂

 

[pujllay]

test on monday (3 days to study), and i feel like i'm not nearly where i want to be in terms of memorizing first aid. just took the NBME 150 questions; thought i'd get a 50% considering how clueless i felt but ended up randomly guessing my way to an 83%. three questions:

1. i've been led to believe the questions on the actual exam are really long, but the 150 questions had a bunch of 2-liners (or something else pretty short). are these questions (length, difficulty, detail of what they want to know) pretty indicative of the real thing? or are they just playing with me?

2. like i said: only 3 days left to study. i figure i should bust my butt memorizing first aid and not bother with kaplan full length or the NBME practice exams since they seem so time consuming. but what do i know? is it worth it? i'm willing to do anything at this point. i already finished qbank.

3. does the 83% mean anything? am i okay or inevitably screwed if i really did feel that mentally challenged during the exam?

THANK YOU. i'm reallly freaking out there and thank god there's a forum out there with ppl going through the same thing as me.

having taken both nbmes and step 1, I can say:

1. they're playing with you

2. at this point, stick to the memorizing

3. 83% is pretty darn good

hang in there, best of lucks Mon