Just took it!!

[FeedTheHippo]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

haha.. Thats all I got to say for now! Taking a victory nap, and ill give my 2 cents later!

For now, stop doing questions and start memorizing FA haha!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[kryptik]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

haha.. Thats all I got to say for now! Taking a victory nap, and ill give my 2 cents later!

For now, stop doing questions and start memorizing FA haha!

done with your nap yet?

 

[FeedTheHippo]

so the exam was hard as expected.. A bit harder than I would have liked. First, let me start by telling you what I did... Basically I did it all.. I did all the kaplan vids, with the books.. and transfered all that info into my FA... During that time, I did U-rx in 3 months.. I finished all of that, and did some topics twice.. After that, I did Goljan.. I did that w/ in 8 days. It was amazing, and I heard his voice during my exam.. alot of the questions that he said would come up, didnt! at all! I feel that kaplan, phys and path, were more accurate on what types of questions Id get. After that I started Uworld.. every morning, i read a organ of brs.. and did UW questions for that evening, and maybe the following day or so following.. i finished UW w/in 5 weeks I think.. 3 weeks before my exam.. i did nbme 3.. then i started kaplan for 3 weeks.. I felt kaplan was really good, and very detailed.. more like the exam.. about 3 days before my exam, i did nbme 5.. and i killed it.. so i stopped doing questions after that, because i was on a nice high, and wanted that confidence going it..


so.... the exam.. i felt that it was hard.. there was DEFINETLY questions i saw before on kaplan and uw.. if not word for word.. then very similar concept. I had to guess A LOT on the exam.. and thats what killed me! I hated that I was guessing so much.. yes they were very educated guesses.. but i dont know if they are right, i highly doubt it actually.. I had a ton of nuero questions btw.. i dont know why.. but id say the first 3 blocks or so were atleast 40% neuro.. i had a ton of micro all over the exam.. GI, which was my strongest subject, was barley asked on the exam.. id say 10 questions max.. thats being generous.. they asked about gilberts synd twice, and ibs 3 times.. i had some biochem, not much.. I felt they touched almost everything.. but the one thing that was difficult, that i never got much of by doing 10,000 questions, is hypotheticals. instead of them asking about a specific disorder, they would make up a hypothetical of syndromes.. and then ask like pathophys and immuno and stuff about it.. but it wasnt about a specific disorder either.. it was very very hypothetical.. a lot of pharm hypotheticals too..

Anyways.. I can go on for hours.. but i dont have the energy.. a few more things ill mention is time. i was always finishing very very early during my practice exams.. like maybe 8-10 minutes early during practice.. on the first two blocks of the real thing, i almost ran out of time.. and after that, i had like 2-3 minutes remaining.. i was a big fan of tutor mode.. but i kinda wish i didnt do tutor mode, and always did timed just so i can get use to not thinking! yes, you cannot think during the exam!! haha.. i felt there was no time to breath.. you gotta know your **** soooo damn well, that as soon as u read any word, you immediately correlate that with one of the answer choices.. the exam is NOT tricky.. what so ever!!!! dont let UW worry you, or ruin your attitude.. the exam will not trick you, because you barely have time to figure out what they are asking, and what the answer is.. let alone, try and figure out if there is a trick.. its very difficult because of time.. its not only the fact that you have to rush thru the exam, but also you cant sit there and think it out, or if your like me and have a photographic memory, i couldnt sit there for a minute and flip thru the FA pages in my head like I did during my studies.. it was going way too fast, and there i felt i didnt have time to breath..

all in all.. i really do feel that FA has it all.. I felt there was some very detailed questions that I could have gotten rigth, had I memorized every word in FA.. i mean every single word!! but thats not possible!I would definitely recommend kaplan.. but you must do UW to learn the material the right way.. thats all i can say for now.. if anyone has any questions, just ask away.. ill do my best to help you all!

Good luck!

 

[metalrex]

Hey buddy, congrats on finishing the exam, that itself is an achievement....hardly anyone has expectations after they finish ,so its natural to feel like you guessed or you don't knw what u did! Yr hardwork with kaplan will pay off!

Now to my question: I have almost 5-6 weeks to go and Im averaging on 50% on UW with 33% completed, whaddya think? I have charted my weak areas and memorizing those out from FA, coupled with URx to help me with the memorization, hoping this will hike my UW scores up to bolster my confidence.

Is this right what I am doing?

Goljan RR has kinda taken a backseat now, with 6 chapters left out,I am focusing on getting my weak areas right first, then finish goljan.

Speaking of goljan, Im having a hard time retaining all the nitty gritty details, how should I pace my second run? Is it just the margins/pics/graphs. tables? or go cover to cover again?

I plan to do NBME 6 on May 1st...kinda worried to hurt my confidence, so this week is for remediation of my weak areas.

Whaddya think? Am I going in the right direction? I kinda touched Kaplan months ago, but I feel I don't have the time now,,,which kaplan sub should I do NOW? Which will be the most hy?


Thanks so much! and good luck dude!

 

[Streptokinase]

You're the man!

sounds to me like you killed it

 

[Elixir86]

Great job Mr. Hippo! Just a quick question. When you say you recommend Kaplan, are you taking about the Qbank or the series of Kaplan books?

 

[FeedTheHippo]

Hey buddy, congrats on finishing the exam, that itself is an achievement....hardly anyone has expectations after they finish ,so its natural to feel like you guessed or you don't knw what u did! Yr hardwork with kaplan will pay off!

Now to my question: I have almost 5-6 weeks to go and Im averaging on 50% on UW with 33% completed, whaddya think? I have charted my weak areas and memorizing those out from FA, coupled with URx to help me with the memorization, hoping this will hike my UW scores up to bolster my confidence.

Is this right what I am doing?

Goljan RR has kinda taken a backseat now, with 6 chapters left out,I am focusing on getting my weak areas right first, then finish goljan.

Speaking of goljan, Im having a hard time retaining all the nitty gritty details, how should I pace my second run? Is it just the margins/pics/graphs. tables? or go cover to cover again?

I plan to do NBME 6 on May 1st...kinda worried to hurt my confidence, so this week is for remediation of my weak areas.

Whaddya think? Am I going in the right direction? I kinda touched Kaplan months ago, but I feel I don't have the time now,,,which kaplan sub should I do NOW? Which will be the most hy?


Thanks so much! and good luck dude!

If you already a third way thru with UW and getting a 50, that isnt really that good.. however, its not horrible.. i would stop UW for a bit.. and if you have Rx, I would start doing more Rx so you can memorize the FA and learn it.. after that, when you pick up UW again, you should see your score boost.. take your time with the questions, and really absorb EVERYTHING in the explanations..

as far as goljan.. memorize everything he says.. like really coorelate it w/ what you already know.. i didnt read his book from cover to cover.. not at all.. i only read part of the organs... like if i had Wilsons Dz in FA, i would read what he says about Wilsons dz, and just add on to it.. or just understand it better.


and kaplan qbank.. i would do it before the exam.. best of luck

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

haha.. Thats all I got to say for now! Taking a victory nap, and ill give my 2 cents later!

For now, stop doing questions and start memorizing FA haha!

I bet you're relieved! What was your average for Qbanks and what's your target score?

 

[FeedTheHippo]

Great job Mr. Hippo! Just a quick question. When you say you recommend Kaplan, are you taking about the Qbank or the series of Kaplan books?

I did kaplan vids when i studied.. but i definitely recommend qbank before the exam.. i did that within 3 weeks of my exam

 

[metalrex]

If you already a third way thru with UW and getting a 50, that isnt really that good.. however, its not horrible.. i would stop UW for a bit.. and if you have Rx, I would start doing more Rx so you can memorize the FA and learn it.. after that, when you pick up UW again, you should see your score boost.. take your time with the questions, and really absorb EVERYTHING in the explanations..

as far as goljan.. memorize everything he says.. like really coorelate it w/ what you already know.. i didnt read his book from cover to cover.. not at all.. i only read part of the organs... like if i had Wilsons Dz in FA, i would read what he says about Wilsons dz, and just add on to it.. or just understand it better.


and kaplan qbank.. i would do it before the exam.. best of luck

Yeah, I agree ,Im doing just that for now.RR can wait for a lil bit.

Thanks and good luck! Do keep yr feeds comin in

 

[FeedTheHippo]

I bet you're relieved! What was your average for Qbanks and what's your target score?

My qbank score was pretty high at times.. many times i was hitting upper 70s, around 77 or 78.. sometimes when i had a bad day, it was in the 60s.. I went into this exam expecting nothing less than a 235.. however, i felt during it that it wasnt going to happen!

so we will see.. good luck to you all.. keep doing questions and memorizing FA!! thats the best simple advice you can get

 

[meerak]

how much of GI physio did u have on ur tesT?

I dont think Im gonna spend too much time on it

 

[FeedTheHippo]

how much of GI physio did u have on ur tesT?

I dont think Im gonna spend too much time on it

no need to.. I had one questions on GIP and its effect on insulin. and a cpl questions on bilirubin mechanism, however that is more biochem GI.. so definetly memorize that page from FA that has a table of all the hormones and what stimulates them or inhibits them.. also, they asked some pharm questions that correlated with the physio, ie proton pump inhibitors..

good luck

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

My qbank score was pretty high at times.. many times i was hitting upper 70s, around 77 or 78.. sometimes when i had a bad day, it was in the 60s.. I went into this exam expecting nothing less than a 235.. however, i felt during it that it wasnt going to happen!

so we will see.. good luck to you all.. keep doing questions and memorizing FA!! thats the best simple advice you can get

Well I hope you get a score well above that. Good luck.