Freaking out!

[Lily05]

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I'm totally freaking out I took NBME 6 and my grade dropped significantly by 20 points!--->failed it. 3 weeks left and I am in teh freaking out mode. Performance is dropping significantly! What to do?

 

[qmcat]

I'm totally freaking out I took NBME 6 and my grade dropped significantly by 20 points!--->failed it. 3 weeks left and I am in teh freaking out mode. Performance is dropping significantly! What to do?

3 weeks is still a lot of time left for studying. How are you studying now? Be honest with yourself and think about what's working and what isn't for you.

 

[Transposony]

I'm totally freaking out I took NBME 6 and my grade dropped significantly by 20 points!--->failed it. 3 weeks left and I am in teh freaking out mode. Performance is dropping significantly! What to do?

You need to recharge your batteries..........take a break......watch a movie and/or go out on a date.......then just do UW questions and flip through FA, listen to Goljan lectures with his HY Notes and do your best ......let God do the rest!

 

[Lily05]

Thank you guys...

I am using Pathoma, FA, UWorld for my studying. I am gonna try to do DIT for 2 weeks..and focus on my weaknesses the last week..It's quite depressing to see a drop in performance.

 

[sylvanthus]

Don't let it get to you. I dropped down to a 205 on one NBME and rebounded and ended with a 250. Don't let it freak you out.

 

[qmcat]

Those are solid sources for studying. DIT may be good if you feel like you need more discipline in your study schedule. I think if you haven't already finished UWorld, you need to focus on that because I think UWorld questions will help the most. It wouldn't make sense to keep reading material over and over if you don't practice and apply it. So yea, make sure you do UWorld questions and I'd say aim to finish the qbank in 2 weeks so you have 1 week left for a final review.

When you do the questions, make sure to read all of the explanations and answers and figure out if your reasoning is right or wrong. It takes a lot of time and oftentimes you'll have to go back to your FA or Pathoma book and look up stuff. Sometimes doing questions will make you feel stupid too, but it's all part of the learning process. Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

 

[Transposony]

Those are solid sources for studying. DIT may be good if you feel like you need more discipline in your study schedule. I think if you haven't already finished UWorld, you need to focus on that because I think UWorld questions will help the most. It wouldn't make sense to keep reading material over and over if you don't practice and apply it. So yea, make sure you do UWorld questions and I'd say aim to finish the qbank in 2 weeks so you have 1 week left for a final review.

When you do the questions, make sure to read all of the explanations and answers and figure out if your reasoning is right or wrong. It takes a lot of time and oftentimes you'll have to go back to your FA or Pathoma book and look up stuff. Sometimes doing questions will make you feel stupid too, but it's all part of the learning process. Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

I agree.
DIT just makes you cram stuff without making you understand the basic underlying mechanism but this test is about understanding the mechanisms and ability to apply them in a question/answer setting. For this purpose, I find doing UW questions and then reading their explanations as well as referring to FA on the topic AND reading from a reference book like Robbins or Kaplan to cover that particular topic in question. that way you will know your weak areas and work on them simultaneously in a test setting. I also watch some high yield Kaplan videos like the Raymond's lecture on the Autonomic system in Pharma which helped me answer a LOT of questions on UW without even having to read any Pharma.
I believe that understanding is more important than cramming.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Lily05]

Thanks a lot. so it's wise to replace DIT with Kaplan for reference???

 

[Lily05]

For Goljan HY, are you guys referring to the document???

 

[1badvette]

Stick to pathoma , Goljan is not somthing you wanna start right now ... pathoma has more structure and is way more HY than Goljan ..

 

[Lily05]

alright..thanks..Hopefully my performance picks up again.

 

[1badvette]

I would try to get a hold of the offline NBME form that you took , go over it and see why you missed so many qs .. good luck

 

[Transposony]

Stick to pathoma , Goljan is not somthing you wanna start right now ... pathoma has more structure and is way more HY than Goljan ..

I disagree. Pathoma is good BUT nothing like Goljan to make associations with the stuff you already know and that is the KEY to improve your score. In fact, many people have reported that once they did Goljan their score improved an average of 20 points. Goljan not only covers Pathology but he also make associations with other subjects on that particular topic. For example, yesterday I was listening to his "Coagulation" lecture and while discussing the role of platelets he went on to describe how platelets are similar to Mast cells (Immunology) in that both secrete three factors ( also how mast cell attaches requiring two Immunoglobulin molecules to get activated etc) and all of them have been asked on the Boards.
Goljan makes the stuff "stick" in your head in a way no one does.
I listen to his lectures when I cannot read i.e. while eating, driving, in the shower etc, you get the idea.

 

[Transposony]

For Goljan HY, are you guys referring to the document???

No, his Audio lectures. Just Google "Goljan Audio" .

 

[Transposony]

Thanks a lot. so it's wise to replace DIT with Kaplan for reference???

You are trying to compare apples with oranges.
DIT is NOT a reference material-DIT is for last minute cramming and as people have found out that cramming does not help that much on the test.
Kaplan has almost everything you need to know for the test. However, I will watch some key lectures if I only have only few weeks left--For example, The Autonomic lecture under Pharma by Raymond is a GEM, I watched it twice and I could answer most questions on the UW as compared to my study partner who just did DIT .
Other good Kaplan lectures to watch-Immunology-T & B cells maturation and Ig class switching, The Epidemiology & Stats lectures under Behavioral. Raymond's Biochemistry lectures. Genetics lectures (only first few) , All of Neuroanatomy and Pathology slides review.

 

[naseeha]

I disagree. Pathoma is good BUT nothing like Goljan to make associations with the stuff you already know and that is the KEY to improve your score. In fact, many people have reported that once they did Goljan their score improved an average of 20 points. Goljan not only covers Pathology but he also make associations with other subjects on that particular topic. For example, yesterday I was listening to his "Coagulation" lecture and while discussing the role of platelets he went on to describe how platelets are similar to Mast cells (Immunology) in that both secrete three factors ( also how mast cell attaches requiring two Immunoglobulin molecules to get activated etc) and all of them have been asked on the Boards.
Goljan makes the stuff "stick" in your head in a way no one does.
I listen to his lectures when I cannot read i.e. while eating, driving, in the shower etc, you get the idea.

What year is the audio you are referring to from?

 

[Lily05]

sorry I didn't mean to say use DIT as a reference..but rather do DIT instead of studying on my own and using Kaplan as a reference..

So far, I watched Raymond's autonomic nervous system from Kaplan...

On a different note, I thought there was only one audio of Goljan....are there different ones out there? (from different years)?

 

[Transposony]

On a different note, I thought there was only one audio of Goljan....are there different ones out there? (from different years)?

There is only one that I am aware of.

 

[missmedschool]

I disagree. Pathoma is good BUT nothing like Goljan to make associations with the stuff you already know and that is the KEY to improve your score. In fact, many people have reported that once they did Goljan their score improved an average of 20 points. Goljan not only covers Pathology but he also make associations with other subjects on that particular topic. For example, yesterday I was listening to his "Coagulation" lecture and while discussing the role of platelets he went on to describe how platelets are similar to Mast cells (Immunology) in that both secrete three factors ( also how mast cell attaches requiring two Immunoglobulin molecules to get activated etc) and all of them have been asked on the Boards.
Goljan makes the stuff "stick" in your head in a way no one does.
I listen to his lectures when I cannot read i.e. while eating, driving, in the shower etc, you get the idea.

I completely agree. People who say they don't have time to listen to Goljan -- think about it. Neither do I, but I listen to him in the morning when I'm getting ready for school, or when I'm cooking, or when I'm cleaning the house ... or driving ... or getting ready to go to sleep ... or working out ... (it makes a great 1 hr workout, forces you to actually work out for an hr lol) there are many opportunities to listen to him if you just think about it. I've never just sat down in one spot to listen to him, ever. I'm always doing something random.