I need some advice

[The Angriest Bird]

Sorry for over-posting recently. I appreciate you bearing with me.

I have attached my study schedule step1.xls

In a nutshell, I'm using the following mainstream books

- HY Behavior, HY Anatomy, HY Neuroanatomy, HY Embryology, HY Cell Bio
- RR Biochemistry
- BRS Physiology
- BRS Pathology
- K&T Pharm
- Micro Made R Simple
- First-Aid
- BRS Pharm Cards

- USMLE World
- Kaplan QBank

So far I'm okay. If I continue to do what I'm doing, I will actually finish all of them. I read each book, annotate, highlight, skim again, and attempt to memorize all. I do all questions as unused-timed. I score about 50-60% on UW and around 65% on Kaplan.

The problem is: I haven't taken an NBME yet.

My plan is to take an NBME two days before the exam, and spend last day on short-term memory stuffs (pharm cards, immunology...). One forum member told me NOT to take NBME within 3-4 days before, because your score won't change and it will freak out if you do bad.

Here are my questions:

1) Should I Stick to my schedule or
2) Take NBME tomorrow instead, see where I am, and push back everything by 1 day (I hate to do this because I hate to get questions wrong because I haven't studied the topic yet)
3) ANYTHING you want to contribute

MANY MANY THANKS!
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[Mr. Freeze]

I'm in a little different boat, since I took #3 already, but I was thinking of taking another 6 days out. I don't know. What I would not do however, is take one, what, 2 days before? Don't do that. Many people use NBME's as a diagnostic, so let's assume they are useful as that (prolly debatable). You essentially have an unbreakable appointment with the Reaper; don't get an HIV test right before you go. Yeah, maybe you pass with flying colors. But it'd be a long, useless day and a half if you don't.

Just my .02.

 

[hsans23]

I do NOT see a point of taking a NBME 2 days out, unless you are terribly worried of either failing or not getting the score you desperately want, whatever that is - and if failing the thing/not getting the score will make you pony up the 100 bucks to change your exam date. I would def not do that. If you want to take one sooner and tack on a couple more hours of study for that day (it IS 4 hrs only), then you could do that, or just not take one at all. The only real point of them is to see if you'll pass/fail (and i use that loosely, to some their 'pass' might be a 230).