How do you approach long stem questions?

[tesamorelin]

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How do you guys answer long stem questions? Do you guys read the question line first or just read the entire question from the beginning and then read the question?

What's the proper way of answering long stem questions?

 

[seminoma]

Always read the lead-in first. Then skim the vignette for the info you need.

 

[tesamorelin]

I tried the approach of reading the question first on my last NBME few days ago. I read the last few lines first and then skimmed, I lost 10 points from my previous NBME and UWAS2. On those 2 assessments, I didn't use this approach. I took the last NBME in the evening few hours before bed time that maybe another reason for losing 10 points, but I wasn't tired. I didn't have timing issue and didn't think the NBME was that hard either. It showed couple subjects I was good at on previous NBME a month ago, now at borderline on this NBME. I was hoping for my NBME score to go up after working on my weak subjects, but instead I was devastated with 10 points drop. 10 points is too much... 🙁

I'm planning to retake this NBME in few days and not use the approach of reading the last line first to see what the NBME score will be this time since I haven't gone over the answers yet.

 

[Pushtothestars]

I tried the approach of reading the question first on my last NBME few days ago. I read the last few lines first and then skimmed, I lost 10 points from my previous NBME and UWAS2. On those 2 assessments, I didn't use this approach. I took the last NBME in the evening few hours before bed time that maybe another reason for losing 10 points, but I wasn't tired. I didn't have timing issue and didn't think the NBME was that hard either. It showed couple subjects I was good at on previous NBME a month ago, now at borderline on this NBME. I was hoping for my NBME score to go up after working on my weak subjects, but instead I was devastated with 10 points drop. 10 points is too much... 🙁

I'm planning to retake this NBME in few days and not use the approach of reading the last line first to see what the NBME score will be this time since I haven't gone over the answers yet.

Let me know how that goes second time around I'm curious to know.. I've heard some ppl say read entire vignette first while others swear by reading the question line first.. I'm not too sure how to approach those questions especially the super long ones

 

[Blue Flame]

I tried the approach of reading the question first on my last NBME few days ago. I read the last few lines first and then skimmed, I lost 10 points from my previous NBME and UWAS2. On those 2 assessments, I didn't use this approach. I took the last NBME in the evening few hours before bed time that maybe another reason for losing 10 points, but I wasn't tired. I didn't have timing issue and didn't think the NBME was that hard either. It showed couple subjects I was good at on previous NBME a month ago, now at borderline on this NBME. I was hoping for my NBME score to go up after working on my weak subjects, but instead I was devastated with 10 points drop. 10 points is too much... 🙁

I'm planning to retake this NBME in few days and not use the approach of reading the last line first to see what the NBME score will be this time since I haven't gone over the answers yet.

Retaking the NBME will certainly not tell you which strategy is superior as you'll be able to breeze through questions you remember and have more time to spend on the questions that stumped you the first time around. I would be interested in knowing what kind of questions you missed the first time around and why (e.g. missing an important detail, not knowing a fundamental concept, misreading, etc.) you missed them though.

 

[Transposony]

How do you guys answer long stem questions? Do you guys read the question line first or just read the entire question from the beginning and then read the question?

What's the proper way of answering long stem questions?

Always a good idea to read the last line to know what exactly they are asking and then skim through the rest of the stem to know what is needed to answer that question.

 

[worldbeater]

Yeah I agree with the above posters. This is how we were taught:

1) Cover the answers
2)) Read the last line and figure out if it's a "clue" (meaning it's a trigger word for something) or a "concept" that that they want. Sometimes you can just read the last line and figure out the answer immediately.
3) Start from the first line and acknowledge the data they give you. Figure out what system is affected is affected (respiratory, cardiac), are the vitals normal or abnormal, and come with a differential of what is the most common with the info they are given
4) Read the last line again, and confirm if its a clue or concept. Predict your answer.
5) Uncover the answers and pick the one that matches best with your thought.

It seems a long way of doing it, but once you practice the method you are able to blitz through questions that you have a good grasp of the info on.

 

[tesamorelin]

Thanks guys for your opinions. I'm working towards my next nbme. I just wish NBME provided the option of canceling out the choices like on UW and the real exam.

 

[worldbeater]

I think you can "grey it out" by clicking one of the mouse button on a Windows computer, it didn't work when I was using a Mac recently. It's in the tutorial everybody skips at the beginning, lol, if it's possible.