Last Week...

[Mellifera]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I have one more week left until my test (June 14). I have only finished about 25% of UWorld. My averages on UW have ranged wildly from 52% to 72% on random, timed blocks of 50 questions (averaging out to 62%). I've been studying a lot, but everything took me a LOT longer to get through than I had initially scheduled, so questions didn't get done. In this last week of review, is reviewing FA like mad or doing 200 questions per day + a few hours per day of FA more worthwhile? I'm starting to feel panicked... It seems like most people on this board complete UW at least 1 week before their exam, & some people have completed both UW & Qbank. I think I approached studying for this exam all wrong... I should have done more questions & focused on just FA and Goljan. I used an outside source for just about every subject, & now feel like I know a little about everything, but not enough about anything. Anyhow, too late - so should I cram FA or just do tons of questions & try to learn from those?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Cards21aceking]

I have one more week left until my test (June 14). I have only finished about 25% of UWorld. My averages on UW have ranged wildly from 52% to 72% on random, timed blocks of 50 questions (averaging out to 62%). I've been studying a lot, but everything took me a LOT longer to get through than I had initially scheduled, so questions didn't get done. In this last week of review, is reviewing FA like mad or doing 200 questions per day + a few hours per day of FA more worthwhile? I'm starting to feel panicked... It seems like most people on this board complete UW at least 1 week before their exam, & some people have completed both UW & Qbank. I think I approached studying for this exam all wrong... I should have done more questions & focused on just FA and Goljan. I used an outside source for just about every subject, & now feel like I know a little about everything, but not enough about anything. Anyhow, too late - so should I cram FA or just do tons of questions & try to learn from those?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

One thing to consider is how long does it takes you to take a block of 25 or 50 questions? It doesn't matter if you're doing 200 questions, if you're not learning from them. I think that 200 is pushing it, and that your time might be better spent ironing out some of the details that you might be missing. Just my $.02.

And, for what it's worth, I don't know if you can accurately say that "you approached this all wrong." SDN is by no means the right way to do it. It's always whatever works best for you. Good luck.

 

[lilnoelle]

Your not alone. I'm also sort of freaking out. I've done about 60% of UWorld, but I still have half of Neuro, Renal, Reproductive, and Pulmonary to go through. And I don't feel like I remember much from all of the studying I've done this last 3 weeks. I don't really know what I could've done better.... I've been putting in an average of 14-16 hours a day studying.... I think I probably just didn't learn it well enough the first time to move through it quickly. My average in Uworld is 63%, but I haven't been doing random questions, I've been going over whatever I went over that day, and if I had time to do an extra block, I'd put in everything I'd gone over up to that point.

Anyway, I take my test on the 16th and so I have a little more than a week.... but I wish I had two or three weeks more.

 

[Mellifera]

I still have to finish the anatomy section of musculoskeletal & go through micro. I'm pretty good on viruses & bacteria, but I haven't done the other stuff. And I really need to cram pharm. I keep having panic attacks. I try to calm myself down because I can't process anything when I get into that mind frame, but I can't seem to make it stop. NBME 2 was a 216. After tons of studying & 2 weeks later, NBME 4 was a 211 🙁. I took the free 150 questions and scored 78%. I am going to take the UW self assessment on Sunday. Hopefully my score will improve and I can feel a little better going into the exam...

 

[InternationlDoc]

test is on thursday and still got 400 questions to go!

I don't know how people just finish these questions so quick. Just doing a 100Uworld questions is so draining + the review. I don't think I'm gonna finish...but am thinking about using last 350 tommorrow as a test so I could just get it out of the way. 🙁 what a dragggg

 

[DMBFan]

I feel the same way and am thinking of delaying the test just so I can get through the information 3 times.

One question - what are the 150 free questions that people keep referring to? Are they the ones that come with the tutorial from NBME?

 

[myrtle]

I have one more week left until my test (June 14). I have only finished about 25% of UWorld. My averages on UW have ranged wildly from 52% to 72% on random, timed blocks of 50 questions (averaging out to 62%). I've been studying a lot, but everything took me a LOT longer to get through than I had initially scheduled, so questions didn't get done. In this last week of review, is reviewing FA like mad or doing 200 questions per day + a few hours per day of FA more worthwhile? I'm starting to feel panicked... It seems like most people on this board complete UW at least 1 week before their exam, & some people have completed both UW & Qbank. I think I approached studying for this exam all wrong... I should have done more questions & focused on just FA and Goljan. I used an outside source for just about every subject, & now feel like I know a little about everything, but not enough about anything. Anyhow, too late - so should I cram FA or just do tons of questions & try to learn from those?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I have a few subjects to finish up with all of my outside sources so I think I'll do that and then focus on FA and hitting all of my weak points, things I've studied and forgotten, along with Qs all day.

We can do it!! This nightmare is almost over.

 

[45408]

I feel the same way and am thinking of delaying the test just so I can get through the information 3 times.

One question - what are the 150 free questions that people keep referring to? Are they the ones that come with the tutorial from NBME?

FA says that people who push their test back don't do any better because of it.

 

[lilnoelle]

I still have to finish the anatomy section of musculoskeletal & go through micro. I'm pretty good on viruses & bacteria, but I haven't done the other stuff. And I really need to cram pharm. I keep having panic attacks. I try to calm myself down because I can't process anything when I get into that mind frame, but I can't seem to make it stop. NBME 2 was a 216. After tons of studying & 2 weeks later, NBME 4 was a 211 🙁. I took the free 150 questions and scored 78%. I am going to take the UW self assessment on Sunday. Hopefully my score will improve and I can feel a little better going into the exam...

Oh yeah, I've got to cram pharm in too... I did really well in pharm but I have forgotten a lot. I'm hoping it'll come back quick. It just feels like every time I put something in my brain, something else pops out.

I know its not advised to postpone your test. I don't get that though.... Either the time we spend studying helps us or it doesn't..... I guess a person who gets through all the material they need to in time and gets plenty of time practicing questions wouldn't necessarily benefit from postponing the test.... but someone who doesn't finish everything that needs to be done might benefit from postponing the test.

I don't know, I'm beginning to think that I could've probably taken the test the day after school finished and done about the same as I'll do in a week. Sure, I'll get a few more questions right - since a few of the questions will be fact recall, but most of the questions aren't fact recall and test concepts which I probably understood just as well two weeks ago compared to today.

 

[DolphinSwim]

I also have a little more than a week left and totally understand how you are all feeling! After a 4 weeks of studying my NBME score went up a whopping 2 points and my UW scores dont seem to be budging! I should have just taken a nice vacation before rotations....the good news is that its almost over one way or another!🙂

 

[DolphinSwim]

I have one more week left until my test (June 14). I have only finished about 25% of UWorld. My averages on UW have ranged wildly from 52% to 72% on random, timed blocks of 50 questions (averaging out to 62%). I've been studying a lot, but everything took me a LOT longer to get through than I had initially scheduled, so questions didn't get done. In this last week of review, is reviewing FA like mad or doing 200 questions per day + a few hours per day of FA more worthwhile? I'm starting to feel panicked... It seems like most people on this board complete UW at least 1 week before their exam, & some people have completed both UW & Qbank. I think I approached studying for this exam all wrong... I should have done more questions & focused on just FA and Goljan. I used an outside source for just about every subject, & now feel like I know a little about everything, but not enough about anything. Anyhow, too late - so should I cram FA or just do tons of questions & try to learn from those?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

I will probably spend a few hours each day reviewing some of FA (esp pharm🙁) but focus the rest of the time doing questions....I wouldn't worry if you don't get through all of them....just make the ones you get through count. That's just my opinion..... Good luck!

 

[Mellifera]

I think I'm going to keep up my normal schedule of waking up at 4:00 a.m., study FA until ~2-3 p.m., & then spend 4 hrs doing 100 UW questions and reviewing them. That puts me at about 6-7 p.m., so then I can eat dinner and be in bed before 9 p.m. That will mean I'll have only finished a little more than 50% of UW, but I think it has given me a good idea of how questions are asked. I'm not sure doing questions more than that will help much until I really have the facts straight in my head. I missed 2 questions alone on my last practice exam on Gq -- IP3 vs DAG by not knowing which activated Ca channels and which activated PKC. Like I said, I have a general idea of how everything works, just the details are missing. Thanks to everyone who replied - it somehow makes me feel better to know that I'm not the only one feeling this way before the exam.

 

[medstu2006]

I feel the same way and am thinking of delaying the test just so I can get through the information 3 times.

One question - what are the 150 free questions that people keep referring to? Are they the ones that come with the tutorial from NBME?

Yea it came with the tutorial. I took it the other day and I felt like the questions i missed were either due to silly mistakes, overconfidence or because I hadn't looked over the material pertaining to the question or forgotten that material. So I felt like it was a god test to take to determine whether one is having problems applying concepts or forgetting the material. The questions seem easy though.

Wikipedia has a scoring table and explanations. I think wiki takes into consideration that these questions were easy because a 100% on this test correlates to 250, and on the real thing a 100% would give you a higher score.
http://www.wikitestprep.org/sample_nbme.asp

 

[BusterDO]

I still have to finish the anatomy section of musculoskeletal & go through micro. I'm pretty good on viruses & bacteria, but I haven't done the other stuff. And I really need to cram pharm. I keep having panic attacks. I try to calm myself down because I can't process anything when I get into that mind frame, but I can't seem to make it stop. NBME 2 was a 216. After tons of studying & 2 weeks later, NBME 4 was a 211 🙁. I took the free 150 questions and scored 78%. I am going to take the UW self assessment on Sunday. Hopefully my score will improve and I can feel a little better going into the exam...

just a little encouragement...it seems like NBME 4 is really tough, a bunch of people on this forum have said that. Keep on pushing through and don't let that discourage you too much.

 

[Nodelphi]

just a little encouragement...it seems like NBME 4 is really tough, a bunch of people on this forum have said that. Keep on pushing through and don't let that discourage you too much.

Yeah something's odd on NMBE 4, at least for me. I took it then took NMBE 3 a week later and my score jumped 27 points, how does that even happen? Now I don't know which score to have confidence in.

 

[BusterDO]

Yeah something's odd on NMBE 4, at least for me. I took it then took NMBE 3 a week later and my score jumped 27 points, how does that even happen? Now I don't know which score to have confidence in.

the conclusion is you shouldn't really rely on either. Just keep studying until the exam. With that said, in the experiences thread, most state that NBME 3 is more representative of the actual exam and was a better predictor of their score.

 

[-Goose-]

Keep in mind that there is no magic prize for finishing UW. It would be better to have gone over 95% of it well than 100% of it half a$$.

Good luck! I will be so glad when this garbage 6 week period of my life is over.