How fast did you progress when preparing for CBSE?

[yorta]

I've been studying for 4 months and practicing with UWorld for about a month and a half. Despite this, I feel like my progress has been really slow. For the past month, I’ve been scoring around 40% on UWorld practice exams. I’ve been using Pathoma, Sketchy, and Anki (via AnKing) to review daily. So far, I’ve completed about 30% of the UWorld questions. I’m wondering how quickly you all progressed when preparing for the CBSE. Is it normal to move this slowly? Will I see faster improvement after finishing all the videos—I’ve completed Pathoma once and am halfway through Sketchy Micro and Pharm—and getting through more than half of UWorld? I feel stuck at this level. If you’ve experienced something similar, how did you break through and make faster, more solid progress?

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[Prehealthwhatever]

I think your issue is retention of the info. Understanding the info through a vid once is not gonna be helpful if you can retain it. Figure out a way to memorize the info better (mneumonics, sketchy path) and hit anki system based then do a uWorld test of that systems questions to see how you’re doing.

 

[Colastick]

As a dental student, you are not supposed to feel good doing Uworld lol. When i took cbse for the second time, i think completed about 80% of uworld, was scoring around 60% and got 76 on cbse. This was back in 2016.

Sketchy micro helped me a big time

 

[omfsing]

I did uworld, first aid, Kaplan qbank

What I liked about the Kaplan qbank is that it forced you to remember first aid (which is basically the test).

I did this a got an 81 back in 2014

Good luck

 

[Spamspamspam]

If you’re using pathoma as the primary learning tool there’s a lot of information your missing out on prior to seeing them in UWORLD questions. You can either stick with this and try to learn through UWORLD or add in something like bootcamp/boards and beyond.

 

[c.s.Snarl]

It took me about a month per organ system (averaged out -- neuro is massive relative to GI) while keeping up anki reviews for everything prior. You'll feel like you're not making any progress some weeks, but just stick it out. Setting daily goals and being diligent about anki will pay massive dividends. I tried to hit 50 new cards per day / 30 Uworld questions (didn't start questions until the latter half of my study plan).

All in all, I put ~400 days towards it and hit a >90 EPC.

 

[serpentofthewest]

It took me about a month per organ system (averaged out -- neuro is massive relative to GI) while keeping up anki reviews for everything prior. You'll feel like you're not making any progress some weeks, but just stick it out. Setting daily goals and being diligent about anki will pay massive dividends. I tried to hit 50 new cards per day / 30 Uworld questions (didn't start questions until the latter half of my study plan).

All in all, I put ~400 days towards it and hit a >90 EPC.

What would you say each of you put in weekly hour wise to study for the CBSE??? Were you studying on average 30hr/wk? 40? 50? 60? I am feeling kind of lost in terms of how many hours I should be shooting for each week.

I know the most obvious answer is "as many hours as you can squeeze out of any given week" but I would appreciate a ballpark estimate of what I should shoot for! Thank you

 

[Anonamoose]

What would you say each of you put in weekly hour wise to study for the CBSE??? Were you studying on average 30hr/wk? 40? 50? 60? I am feeling kind of lost in terms of how many hours I should be shooting for each week.

I know the most obvious answer is "as many hours as you can squeeze out of any given week" but I would appreciate a ballpark estimate of what I should shoot for! Thank you

As they mentioned you can set a goal based on the task and have that guide your hours - like a block of 30 UW questions and/or a certain number of new cards + reviews. If you run out of time adjust the daily goal or your schedule. Calculate how many questions you have to do to finish UW between now and your test and you can get a quick idea of how fast you need to work through the bank.

 

[dratc]

How much time are you dedicating to true uninterrupted study per day?

I really underestimated how much time and focus I would require to do well on the test.

It wasn’t until I made this test practically my entire life (temporarily) that I started seeing progress.

You may already be doing this. Maybe you are lots smarter than me and don’t need to do this (very possible). But something to consider.

 

[c.s.Snarl]

I agree with @Anonamoose -- you spend as long as it takes to hit your daily goals which are based on "what needs to be done" divided by "how many days you have till the exam". That will be different for everyone depending on speed. At the end of the day, it has to be done in a systematic manner though. When you're burned out, do sketchy or switch topics to something easier like psych / statistics.

To give a more concrete schedule, I'd wake up at 5 - 6 am, run cards before class. Put my headphones in, sit in the back of the class, and run more cards (ask friends for class notes for the exams). When I got sick of cards, I'd do uworld. Card my incorrects. And then learn new content in the evenings out of First aid. All in all, > 50 hours dedicated CBSE studying in a week and then spent the rest of the time studying for classes / doing lab work / practicing hand skills. D2 year was a grind but you get used to it. Just take it one day at a time and your stamina will increase.

 

[serpentofthewest]

I agree with @Anonamoose -- you spend as long as it takes to hit your daily goals which are based on "what needs to be done" divided by "how many days you have till the exam". That will be different for everyone depending on speed. At the end of the day, it has to be done in a systematic manner though. When you're burned out, do sketchy or switch topics to something easier like psych / statistics.

To give a more concrete schedule, I'd wake up at 5 - 6 am, run cards before class. Put my headphones in, sit in the back of the class, and run more cards (ask friends for class notes for the exams). When I got sick of cards, I'd do uworld. Card my incorrects. And then learn new content in the evenings out of First aid. All in all, > 50 hours dedicated CBSE studying in a week and then spent the rest of the time studying for classes / doing lab work / practicing hand skills. D2 year was a grind but you get used to it. Just take it one day at a time and your stamina will increase.

Thank you for that breakdown! All in all, how long was the process for you? Was it 12 month+ process / did you take the exam multiple times?

 

[c.s.Snarl]

Thank you for that breakdown! All in all, how long was the process for you? Was it 12 month+ process / did you take the exam multiple times?

400 days -- summer of D1 to July of D3 year. Took the exam one time.