How do you stop making stupid mistakes on the test?

[alisepeep]

Today i took an nbme, and missed 55 questions..upon going over them i realized that in about 60% of the mistakes i made, they were due to not reading the question correctly, not because i didn't know the material. How stupid is this? My test is on monday, how do i stop myself from making dumb mistakes??

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[SLC]

Today i took an nbme, and missed 55 questions..upon going over them i realized that in about 60% of the mistakes i made, they were due to not reading the question correctly, not because i didn't know the material. How stupid is this? My test is on monday, how do i stop myself from making dumb mistakes??

I had the same problem. The only thing I did that seemed to help some was highlighting the important stuff in the question stem. Then I double check my answer and if possible I go back through at the end and triple check.

Sometimes a second read is all that's needed.

But it's frustrating, I know!

 

[NeuroLAX]

What SLC said. I thought perhaps slowing down might help if you're doing ok on time.

 

[lyth0s]

Do you believe the answer you chose made sense with the way you incorrectly read the question stem? If your answer choice didn't seem completely correct (with the incorrect way you read the question stem) then I would suggest the following:

1. Read the question stem and highlight the obvious pertinent positives/negatives
2. Read every answer choice and cross out all the answers you can by using your logic/knowledge to rule them out
3. When you chose your final answer it should make a LOT of sense and all the other answers should clearly contradict the question stem in some fashion


That methodology takes a bit more time (and knowledge) than just jumping to the right answer, but what I have found is that it really helps to avoid making mistakes from missed information in the question stem. If you read the question stem wrong either there won't be a single answer that makes a LOT of sense, or there will be multiple answers that you are unable to cross out.

 

[Phloston]

You're going to make mistakes on your exam no matter what you do. If you don't, you're the rare exception.

I got 8.5 hours of sleep and had done an obscene number of practice questions, and I still made ******ed errors.

But the catch is that because everyone makes them, they more or less cancel out across exams, so just because you made five stupid errors isn't the end of the world because someone else scoring similarly to you probably made 3-7 as well.

 

[alisepeep]

im not talking about just 5, on my practice test today i made about 30 completely retarted mistakes on stuff that i knew very well..just cuz i didnt read the question fully or something dumb like that..for example on nbme today

 

[CDI]

im not talking about just 5, on my practice test today i made about 30 completely retarted mistakes on stuff that i knew very well..just cuz i didnt read the question fully or something dumb like that..for example on nbme today

Slow down. If you're finishing with time left over, use that time well.

 

[alisepeep]

omg i did the same thing AGAIN today on first aid..u guys would not believe the types of questions i miss cuz i cant read! HLEPPPP

 

[lyth0s]

omg i did the same thing AGAIN today on first aid..u guys would not believe the types of questions i miss cuz i cant read! HLEPPPP

"HLEPPPP" - Perhaps you suffer from dyslexia?

Dyslexia: characterized by difficulty in learning to read fluently and with inaccurate comprehension despite normal intelligence.

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

You're going to make mistakes on your exam no matter what you do. If you don't, you're the rare exception.

I got 8.5 hours of sleep and had done an obscene number of practice questions, and I still made ******ed errors.

But the catch is that because everyone makes them, they more or less cancel out across exams, so just because you made five stupid errors isn't the end of the world because someone else scoring similarly to you probably made 3-7 as well.

This...I talked myself out of a very simple anatomy question that I've known for the past 2 years (one of those anatomy things that stuck with me), I did this because other answer choices available were much more related to one another.

Your making a lot of the mistakes because you don't know the material well enough. Early in my studies I was getting 50ish incorrect on NBMEs and would tell myself "I know that, that was just a stupid mistake" on 25 of those 50.
At the end I was getting 30ish incorrect on NBMEs and would tell myself "I know that, that was just a stupid mistake" on 15 of those 30.

If you're missing it on practice exams, you're probably more likely to miss it on the real thing...just keep studying.

 

[D elegans]

Keep practicing and slow down like they're saying. My problem on practice tests was always thinking I got the jist of what the question was and then overlooking the obvious line in the stem that would have pointed me the other direction.

The other advice I would have is to (if you have time) be able to explain why the answer is NOT the other choices.