Just got back!

[MedPuck]

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What a relief, at least until I get my scores! I just wrote the Step1 and I felt like crap throughout most of it. Very few "buzzwords" compared to qBank, a lot of secondary/tertiary questions and obscure ones at that. Less than 10% were "know it off the bat" types, 40% were do-able with relative confidence, and the rest were a healthy blend of WTF-type questions. 😱

My estimated breakdown: Note these do add up to 100% because many questions are multidisciplinary:

Path/Pathophysiology ~50%
Microbiology/Immuno ~15%
Pharm ~20%
Physiology ~5%
Anatomy <5 questions
Behavioral Science ~10%
Neuroanatomy >10questions (wasn't expecting that)
Histology <5 questions
Embryology ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀

I was finished by 2:20pm (started at around 9am) and took only two breaks (5 & 10 min, one after block 2, the other after block 5 respectively).

QBank was definitely helpful, but I was expecting common "buzzword" type questions. I agree with most others that QBank is much more detail specific. I think if I was to study again I would really bury the pathophysiology of all of the diseases better. First Aid is a must, but again too much focus on buzzwords. Memorizing FA will not get most far if you do not understand pathophysiology. Pharmacology is actually pretty straightforward with the exception of the cancer drugs. FA(2002) is insufficient with the cancer drugs!

There was a repeat question from the NBME self-assessment exam!!

Anyways, thought I would contribute since I often leech around and benefit from all of your posts. I am exhausted but drinking will take precedence over rest right now. Best of luck to all of you, you WILL get through this!!

 

[tega]

What a relief, at least until I get my scores! I just wrote the Step1 and I felt like crap throughout most of it. Very few "buzzwords" compared to qBank, a lot of secondary/tertiary questions and obscure ones at that. Less than 10% were "know it off the bat" types, 40% were do-able with relative confidence, and the rest were a healthy blend of WTF-type questions. 😱

My estimated breakdown: Note these do add up to 100% because many questions are multidisciplinary:

Path/Pathophysiology ~50%
Microbiology/Immuno ~15%
Pharm ~20%
Physiology ~5%
Anatomy <5 questions
Behavioral Science ~10%
Neuroanatomy >10questions (wasn't expecting that)
Histology <5 questions
Embryology ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀

I was finished by 2:20pm (started at around 9am) and took only two breaks (5 & 10 min, one after block 2, the other after block 5 respectively).

QBank was definitely helpful, but I was expecting common "buzzword" type questions. I agree with most others that QBank is much more detail specific. I think if I was to study again I would really bury the pathophysiology of all of the diseases better. First Aid is a must, but again too much focus on buzzwords. Memorizing FA will not get most far if you do not understand pathophysiology. Pharmacology is actually pretty straightforward with the exception of the cancer drugs. FA(2002) is insufficient with the cancer drugs!

There was a repeat question from the NBME self-assessment exam!!

Anyways, thought I would contribute since I often leech around and benefit from all of your posts. I am exhausted but drinking will take precedence over rest right now. Best of luck to all of you, you WILL get through this!!

lucky u
😀

im probably going to get stingers luck w/20 emryo

 

[tega]

how was the length of the questions compared to qb....was timing an issue with u ?

 

[DrDre']

If timing is not a problem with qbank, don't worry. Reading the stem is the quick and easy part. Good luck!

 

[jakstat33]

thanks for the words of encouragement, and congratulations!!

 

[Stinger86]

Congratulations medpuck! 😀

Great to have it all finished, huh? Now what are you going to do with your time? 😛




By the way, there you have it folks... I have a ton of embryo on my exam and he doesn't have a single question. Tricksy NBMEses

 

[Willamette]

Spend more time on pathophysiology? I take it next Thursday (6/10), would those of you who have taken it reccommend going through BRS pathology again, or buying Pathophysiology for the Boards & Wards and reading it?

Willamette

 

[Izlude_Tingel]

Hey MedPuck,

Thanks for the info, I was just wondering what how your prep was, how much time you spend on each subject and how much you studied each day. Thanks.

 

[Legion560]

Congrats MedPuck, you lucky lucky bastard 🙂

Kind of reconfirms what a couple of us were thinking.. NBME is moving away from buzzwords. Crap! They actually want us to THINK critically instead of regurgitating?

Legion.

 

[lindyloohoo]

congrats!!! so no buzzwords, eh? would you say that they were using things like "round RBCs" rather than spherocytes or "RBCs with spiny projections" rather than saying acanthocytes. basically did they give you a description of the buzzword instead of the buzzword? or did they really screw us over?

hope you're drinking enough for all of us who haven't been able to hit the bottle lately!

 

[Legion560]

My estimated breakdown: Note these do add up to 100% because many questions are multidisciplinary:

Path/Pathophysiology ~50%
Microbiology/Immuno ~15%
Pharm ~20%
Physiology ~5%
Anatomy <5 questions
Behavioral Science ~10%
Neuroanatomy >10questions (wasn't expecting that)
Histology <5 questions
Embryology ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!! 😀

BTW MedPuck, how many stats questions were there?

Legion.

 

[MedPuck]

Hey ladies and boys, back from playing some roller hockey...drinking is next. I will give you my take on your questions.

BTW, I forgot to mention I got screwed on lots of cell/bio - molecular medicine questions, harder than the NBME self assessments!! ( i am not trying to scare you, this was my distribution and yours will likely differ), but it sucked anyways. Oh and I had so little Biochem 5 questions max.

Timing: If you are fine on QBank by a long shot, as I was (25-30min/50q), you will absolutely be fine. For those who take longer you should also be fine. The biggest difference was the seriousness of the real thing vs. QBank: of course we all wanted to see our %s go up but if you didn't know the answer who cared? On the boards I felt like I took about 30% longer to do each block just because I was nervous and having to reread the vignettes (which by the way were similar in length as qBank, with exceptions). I got so tired that I caught myself thinking about things outside the scope of medicine, a great thing but not the time to do that.

Williamette: With a week to go perhaps review your weakest areas in BRS Path (DO NOT BUY ANOTHER BOOK AT THIS POINT!!!!!). Try to narrow down your sources at this point. FA is good enough if you annotated and/or solidified most a your pathophysiology. Definitely pay attention to minute BS! Everything I hoped not to see did indeed show up, with the exception of arrhythmia meds 😀

Legion: Very little regurgitation...except for your own reflux as you try to figure out what the hell they are expecting you to know!

Buzzwords: They of course described the buzzwords in a roundabout way. The spherocyte example was pretty accurate in terms of the way they qualified some of the buzzwords. There are a few directs, but out of 350 questions there were too few.

Lindyhoohoo: I will drink enough for all of you, however I recommend hitting the bottle during your board study (maybe just a little less). It helps calm you down as you try to memorize those brutally similar and ever-so-plentiful ovarian/endometrial conditions (was I the only one who was excessively bored with gyne path and only remembered endometriosis, or was that -itis??).

My study schedule:
Did whatever I wanted on any given day, not near as structured as some. I studied for 6 weeks (3-6hrs/d the first 2 weeks, 6-10hrs/d the last 4 weeks). For some strange reason I couldn't muster up the strength to do the hard hitting cram sessions during the last 3 days. I was day dreaming much like I was during my exam, probably anxiety but I don't like to admit that!

I used BRS Path/ BRS physio/ BRS Biochem/ Micro Made Ridiculously Simple/ HY Embryo-Neuro-Behavioral-Gross/ Lippincott Pharm (in moderation)/BRS Micro Immuno (only for immuno -which sucks by the way). Oh yeah, I annotated each of the aforementioned sources in FA which I used exclusively in the last 7-10 days. Questions came from qBank (completed almost twice) /qBook /Board Simulator Series (2/5 books - just the M1 material)/ NBME released items/ NBME self-assessment x2.....and I still feel like I failed!!!!!!!!!!



Hope that helps somewhat, I'll answer any other questions. GOOD LUCK

 

[MedPuck]

Legion, I had 3-4 biostat questions, 2 were very easy, the others were average in difficulty. Not too bad.....

 

[DRealDrZ]

Thanks Puck...if I get your test, I should do OK...
Pathophys, huh...guess it's more QBank for me...

 

[omsres]

MedPuck, glad to hear you felt the way you did after the test. I took the test on tuesday and felt the same way. My test had a lot of biochem questions related to amino acid metabolism. About 20% no brainer, 40% narrow it down to two and take a good guess, 30% difficult but felt good on about half and 10% extremely tough.

Biostatistics: memorized the formulas on the first two pages of First aid and you are golden

Biochem: amino acids and enzymes

Anatomy: Got some brachial plexus injuries, ex. using crutches causes wrist drop

Patho/Physiology: relatively straight foreward. I spent a lot of time on these

Micro: viruses, anti virals, antibiotic toxicity,

Several histo slides: silver stained PCP, glomeruli

I even got an x ray with a mandible fracture, and I'm OMS. Well at least I got 1 out of 350.

It was a lot tougher than my part one dental boards. I studied 4 weeks and I think I did OK. My coresident took it last month and passed. Gook luck everyone. Hope this helps.

 

[LovelyRita]

medpuck
thanks SO much for the wrap up. i have severe daydreamitis right now. i read in short little spurts.

congrats and HAVE A DRINK ON ME !!!!!!

 

[realruby2000]

MedPuck,

1st of all congrats. I hope you spend your free time doin legal stuff 😀
I was hoping you could tell me how you were doing in Qbank before you took the exam?
thanks

 

[-=UberSharky=-]

severe daydreamitis

 

[AlexRusso]

Questions came from qBank (completed almost twice)

Congrats on being done with this thing MedPuck

Just wondering...I want to go through qbank twice also. I want to know if you figured out how to do it without repeating some questions three times while only seeing other once, instead of seeing every question 2 times?? I called Kaplan and asked them to reset my test history and they said they can't do it. How'd you do it?

 

[MedPuck]

AlexRusso, I figured out the best way to avoid the same questions over and over as I alos experienced is to do them by subject the second time. Actually the 50% of the questions I repeated were the M1 course questions (embryo, immuno, molecular etc...) which all has barely over 50 questions. This way I knew I was getting all of them. As far as path, pharm, physio I couldn't figure it out, just kept doing them and on each subsequent question set at least 85% were usually non-repeats. Hope this doesn't confuse you further. No surprise that the Kaplan corporates will not allow a score reset...god forbid!!!!!!!!!!!!