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[YouScrewedup]

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[blueforest]

I'm a nice person so before some others give you criticism I will applaud you for the huge jump in scores. Getting to a 207 means you did some serious studying, trust me... The best advice I keep getting that I can share as well is to just work on your weaknesses. Everyone says that all the time but the reality is some of us don't do it. I'm guilty of not trying harder to studying my weaknesses, because I hate it, I know I suck at it and it takes TIME and MOTIVATION to learn something you are not good at. You still have 2-3 weeks left? You can get that score up even more. I've been getting 205/225/223 on NBMEs and my exam is 1 week away..., and yes I still feel like an idiot sometimes because doing uworld incorrects and still making the same mistakes is pathetic. It's called being human, and just don't give up, you (we) are almost there 😉

I'm just trying to get through FA as much as possible while doing uworld incorrects at the same time... and some ANKI here and there for things that don't stick (bacterial toxins, pharm, anatomy lesions etc.)

 

[chromuffin]

You've made great progress. There's people on here that started low and done exceptional. Look up @Major procrastinator

You've got time. A friend of mine boosted his score 20 points in 2 weeks. Just keep at it and focus on what NBMEs tell you is weak.

 

[YouScrewedup]

I'm a nice person so before some others give you criticism I will applaud you for the huge jump in scores. Getting to a 207 means you did some serious studying, trust me... The best advice I keep getting that I can share as well is to just work on your weaknesses. Everyone says that all the time but the reality is some of us don't do it. I'm guilty of not trying harder to studying my weaknesses, because I hate it, I know I suck at it and it takes TIME and MOTIVATION to learn something you are not good at. You still have 2-3 weeks left? You can get that score up even more. I've been getting 205/225/223 on NBMEs and my exam is 1 week away..., and yes I still feel like an idiot sometimes because doing uworld incorrects and still making the same mistakes is pathetic. It's called being human, and just don't give up, you (we) are almost there 😉
I'm just trying to get through FA as much as possible while doing uworld incorrects at the same time... and some ANKI here and there for things that don't stick (bacterial toxins, pharm, anatomy lesions etc.)

Hey thanks for the vote of confidence! I actually have only a week till my exam (originally scheduled for the 27th) but since I barely passed my last NBME I've decided to push it back till sometime in April.
Ahh you're right about working on my weaknesses, I've heard it multiple times and it's probably good advice, but I feel like I'm weak in everything! One minute I'll get a question right on for ex. Cardiac Myocyte APs, then the next minute i'm getting it wrong! Super frustrating! How is your anki deck set up? Right now I'm just have Picmonics, and some mnemonics (which I also forget ahaha)

You've made great progress. There's people on here that started low and done exceptional. Look up @Major procrastinator

You've got time. A friend of mine boosted his score 20 points in 2 weeks. Just keep at it and focus on what NBMEs tell you is weak.

I actually don't have 2 weeks, only 1 week, which is why i'm probably gonna postpone. Sometimes I feel like the NBMEs are skewed, for Ex. NBMe 17 will say hey you did above Avg in Cardio, but that's only because they didn't test me in Cardiac drugs etc. I'll definitely heed your advice and the person above you's advice as well.

I think I just need a clear cut plan going forward since I'll be postponing for a couple more weeks!

 

[Major procrastinator]

Would you mind showing a picture of your last NBME that has the horizontal lines showing weaknesses and strengths?
that would help with guiding you further.

First of all negativity and criticism is not going to help you.

blueforest and chromuffin gave you great advice!

stop ****ting on your scores. 158 to 207 is nothing to laugh at. It takes a ton of hard work to get that far. Be happy your seeing progress along the way.

1) whatever your last NBME says is weak work on it, weaknesses is where you have the most points to gain. Just because cardio may say your strong it doesn't mean you will never miss another cardio question, it means that you have solid understanding and you are getting most of them right. lets say micro is low performance and cardio is high, why would you waste another 5 days doing cardio? just to get 1 more question right? while micro you ignore cause you hate it or its hard but you have 15 questions you can get right. Get the point here?

2)your time is limited so this is what I would do

pathoma in 5 days-fill out FA if you havent already ( you will need more time if you never did this)
sketchy micro 2 days
DIT immuno 5 hours
use anki for weakest areas only at this point

uworld questions started by section in weakeast areas, focus on explanations at this point.
review all your nbme's with newest to oldest, find right answers for yourself. I never annotated a word of uworld. It is very detailed. Unless you are at a 230 or above already you are wasting time on details. Focus on mastering how to read and answer questions timed, and on the main concept if i were you, taking all these notes is taking time away from learning. Add major concepts to FA if you need to.

then depending on time read FA for 10-12 hours a day. in one week you can finish it comfortably. Also squeeze in questions from RX or uworld just to keep testing strategy alive. DO timed.-if you have time do an NBME after finishing and then focus on weaknesses again first and then try to read all of FA again before exam. The key here is having all the info in your head in as small a time as possible. This is the reason my score went from 215 NBME 18 (7 days before exam) to a 232. I had never gone through all the info in even a month before this point. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had time to read FA again.

I believe strengthing major areas of weakness such as pathology via pathoma is way way more important then doing uworld for 5 days.


do free120 a day or so before

I personally would want 3 weeks at your position. I totally believe you can break 230 if you do this.

 

[YouScrewedup]

Would you mind showing a picture of your last NBME that has the horizontal lines showing weaknesses and strengths?
that would help with guiding you further.

First of all negativity and criticism is not going to help you.

blueforest and chromuffin gave you great advice!

stop ****ting on your scores. 158 to 207 is nothing to laugh at. It takes a ton of hard work to get that far. Be happy your seeing progress along the way.

1) whatever your last NBME says is weak work on it, weaknesses is where you have the most points to gain. Just because cardio may say your strong it doesn't mean you will never miss another cardio question, it means that you have solid understanding and you are getting most of them right. lets say micro is low performance and cardio is high, why would you waste another 5 days doing cardio? just to get 1 more question right? while micro you ignore cause you hate it or its hard but you have 15 questions you can get right. Get the point here?

2)your time is limited so this is what I would do

pathoma in 5 days-fill out FA if you havent already ( you will need more time if you never did this)
sketchy micro 2 days
DIT immuno 5 hours
use anki for weakest areas only at this point

uworld questions started by section in weakeast areas, focus on explanations at this point.
review all your nbme's with newest to oldest, find right answers for yourself. I never annotated a word of uworld. It is very detailed. Unless you are at a 230 or above already you are wasting time on details. Focus on mastering how to read and answer questions timed, and on the main concept if i were you, taking all these notes is taking time away from learning. Add major concepts to FA if you need to.

then depending on time read FA for 10-12 hours a day. in one week you can finish it comfortably. Also squeeze in questions from RX or uworld just to keep testing strategy alive. DO timed.-if you have time do an NBME after finishing and then focus on weaknesses again first and then try to read all of FA again before exam. The key here is having all the info in your head in as small a time as possible. This is the reason my score went from 215 NBME 18 (7 days before exam) to a 232. I had never gone through all the info in even a month before this point. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had time to read FA again.

I believe strengthing major areas of weakness such as pathology via pathoma is way way more important then doing uworld for 5 days.


do free120 a day or so before

I personally would want 3 weeks at your position. I totally believe you can break 230 if you do this.

Thanks for the good advice.
I was planning on finishing and redoing UWORLD incorrects and using Kaplan's QBank to boost cement understanding in specific blocks. I haven't annotated Pathoma into FA, I figured it was easier to annotate the things he mentions in the videos but are not in his book..in his book, and then I'd reference FA for discrepancies and additional info.

I am not necessarily annotating Uworld but instead writing down the certain concepts I've gotten incorrect and then reviewing it the next day. Seemed good in theory but you're right it takes Forever to write them down, and then to go over it again. I think I'll do what you've said and only add major concepts to FA. In terms of reading FA, should is it just familiarizing myself with the content? Or literally memorizing each page? I think the latter is the reason I've defaulted to DIT and Qs.

Thanks again for your input.

 

[chromuffin]

Hey thanks for responding! And awesome step score man!
Below are my weaknesses according to NBME 18 (1st), I also posted the one for 16
View attachment 216405 View attachment 216406
Thanks for the good advice.
I was planning on finishing and redoing UWORLD incorrects and using Kaplan's QBank to boost cement understanding in specific blocks. I haven't annotated Pathoma into FA, I figured it was easier to annotate the things he mentions in the videos but are not in his book..in his book, and then I'd reference FA for discrepancies and additional info.

I am not necessarily annotating Uworld but instead writing down the certain concepts I've gotten incorrect and then reviewing it the next day. Seemed good in theory but you're right it takes Forever to write them down, and then to go over it again. I think I'll do what you've said and only add major concepts to FA. In terms of reading FA, should is it just familiarizing myself with the content? Or literally memorizing each page? I think the latter is the reason I've defaulted to DIT and Qs.

Thanks again for your input.

I would highly recommend watching Boards and Beyond Biostats videos. He will make your Biostats be above the average.. I can almost guarantee it. If that doesn't work out, there's a YouTube video that is pretty great by a guy called Randy Neil (biostatistics summary Step1 -- the basics). Super high yield. Helped me learn Biostats and EBM cold in like 3 hours. Haven't missed a question since.

 

[YouScrewedup]

I would highly recommend watching Boards and Beyond Biostats videos. He will make your Biostats be above the average.. I can almost guarantee it. If that doesn't work out, there's a YouTube video that is pretty great by a guy called Randy Neil (biostatistics summary Step1 -- the basics). Super high yield. Helped me learn Biostats and EBM cold in like 3 hours. Haven't missed a question since.

Thanks for the rec. It seems boards and beyond isn't free so I'll prob look into the YouTube link you sent!


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