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I'd say pharm. Its the most "crammable" you can probably memorize a few more MOA's and SE out of FA. Path and Neuro aren't as crammble. More understanding than cramming.

My last day was spent on pharm and micro
 
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Pharm is either totally hit or miss (i.e. you totally know it or you've never seen it before), path cannot be crammed - so I'd go over neuro pathways (esp MLF and spinal pathways).
 
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Don't bother trying to cram path because, by now, you either know it or you don't. I would suggest neuro or pharm depending on which one you feel weaker in. Pharm is much, much higher yield on the exam than neuro, but neuro questions are easy points if you're prepared for them.
 
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Read over first aid cover to cover. Focus on pharm ofcourse but dont slack off, read the book one more time. Spend at least 6 hrs reading it. Then go to sleep and RELAX.
 
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Med4ever said:
Read over first aid cover to cover. Focus on pharm ofcourse but dont slack off, read the book one more time. Spend at least 6 hrs reading it. Then go to sleep and RELAX.
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Umm. He only has 11 hours til his test. I'm not sure how much time he would have for relaxing if he did that.

My vote right now is for sleep.
 
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ok. just got back. i have to say that i'm very happy that it's over!

my qbank score: 15% (yes, this is worse than the expected value of guessing)
class ranking: bottom 1/20th.
nbme test: 100
penis size: 2 inches


ok.....the test:
breakdown:
biochem: tons of it. and i loved it! this is probably my biggest strength. i'd say around 10% straight up biochem questions, and another 10% with molecular bio/pathogenesis.

immunology/inflammatory mechanisms: a junk load.

pharmacology: this was the subject that i was most concerned about..it's hard to figure a pharm question if you've never heard of it. luckily, it was all straight forward. pharm was heavily represented on my test as well.

path: alot, as to be expected. path is path..what can you say?

behavioral: alot of "what would you say?" questions. not too bad i guess.

anatomy: i got mainly image based questions, with cross sectional, diagrams, etc.

embryology: no more than a few questions.

neuroanatomy: not too much.

physiology: well balanced i'd say....mostly with graph or chart analysis.


things that i thought that helped for preparation.

-DURING the school year. for each system block, reviewing Big costanzo for that system, then webpath, BRS path, Pathology Review:goljan, and doing all of the questions for that system on webpath, doing all the questions for that system in Kumar's pathology questions,and going over all of UCV's for that system as well.

-5 months before the exam...starting the review process early.....this is not a crammable test. write out a schedule.

-taking a practice NBME exam, early in the process, rather than at the end. the nbme exam should be used to show you what you should focus your studies on....and to see how they ask questions....not to show you your predicted score a few days before the exam. for me, the NBME test was a wake up call for pharmacology. throughout the school year i'd focus mostly on mechanisms, not side effects, contraindications, interactions, etc.

about resources: (out of 5 stars)

First aid: ***
First aid Pharm section: *****
HY gross anatomy: ****
HY neuroanatomy: ****
HY embryology: ****
HY Cell/molecular: ***
HY biostats: **
HY pharm: ****
UCV: **** (the micro, path, and behavioral are the best sections)
Lange Micro/immuno: *****
Microcards: ***
Pharm cards: ****
Lippincott pharm: *
BRS behavioral: ****
Big Costanzo: *****
Little Costanzo: ***
BRS path: *****
Goljan Pathology Review: *****
Webpath: *****
Lippincott Biochem: $$$$$.

question sources:

Webpath: ****
Kumar: *****
BSS: ****
NMS: ****
QBank: ***
 
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I have the Goljan Path Review, why do you think it is good? I just finished 1st year, and was thinking to read Robbins and BRS for each module, what role should goljan play? Do you think it is a comprehensive type book, because frankly, I have no idea about it? Thanks, and I hope you rocked that sucker!
 
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the_equalizer said:
I have the Goljan Path Review, why do you think it is good? I just finished 1st year, and was thinking to read Robbins and BRS for each module, what role should goljan play? Do you think it is a comprehensive type book, because frankly, I have no idea about it? Thanks, and I hope you rocked that sucker!
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i did not read one page of robbins during the whole school year. i'd read goljan and brs path and webpath instead. however, i didn't use goljan during the month prior to the exam, it was more of a course book during the school year. during the month prior, i consider goljan a bit thick to use...if you highlight sparingly maybe you could skim it perhaps. certain subjects are covered in goljan that aren't covered very well in brs path.......for example..porphyrias aren't mentioned adequately in brs path.
 
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Hi, on the Comprehensive Science exam, given/graded by the USMLE people that my school paid for us to take, I received a 255 (graded as if it were the Step I), and I can guarantee you that I did NOT get over 80% correct. Probably right at 80%, with a range of 76-80%. This is the best prediction I can think of as it contained retired Step I questions graded the same way as the Step I. Hope this helps.
 
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bigfrank said:
Hi, on the Comprehensive Science exam, given/graded by the USMLE people that my school paid for us to take, I received a 255 (graded as if it were the Step I), and I can guarantee you that I did NOT get over 80% correct. Probably right at 80%, with a range of 76-80%. This is the best prediction I can think of as it contained retired Step I questions graded the same way as the Step I. Hope this helps.
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Did your school by any chance administer the exam AFTER you had finished your courses? At my school, they gave it to us in mid-March, when we were only half-finished with path, pharm, and behavioral science for the semester. Nice. 🙄
 
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Stinger,

Actually, it MUST be administered on the same day, so I still had a full 9-10 weeks of class to go through. I also took it in mid-March, I forget the date.

How did you do on it? I got the highest score in my class, but I think it was a total fluke. 🙁
 
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Well, I guess it's good to hear other schools have it the same way. I was one person in the 35% of my class who got a passing score (I got ~215) on the thing. Let's just say the people in the other 65% of the class were absolutely livid, especially considering that our dean requires us to take a review course at the school (which is really expensive) if we fail the CBSE. Since we hadn't had a lot of high yield material yet, there was almost a revolution. 🙂
 
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Yep I did. Depressed myself b/c I got some gimme questions wrong that were straight out of FA. So I left my FA up in school and headed to the parents w/o it. Now I just haunt the USMLE forum.
 
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Yep, I looked up as many as I could remember, as soon as I got home. Once I got that out of my system, it became easier to wait for the scores. Of course, now that it's been four weeks and no report, I'm getting fidgety again
 
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Stinger86 said:
Yep, I looked up as many as I could remember, as soon as I got home. Once I got that out of my system, it became easier to wait for the scores. Of course, now that it's been four weeks and no report, I'm getting fidgety again
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did u get most of them right?
 
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I made mental notes of what I felt were the 30 hardest questions on the exam (that I could remember) and I have gotten 17/29.
 
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