I have a pretty basic question. I am soul-searching after failing Comlex CE step 2. When you guys go over the material, do you sit and memorize until you are absolutely sure that you got it all down? For example, blood supply to brain or glassgow coma scale. I usually read it a few times and hope that I will remember. What I wonder is- do you actually write the stuff down without looking? The reason I ask is - if I start doing hardcore memorization, I don't think I can get through all this material in decent amount of time.
Thanks!
The USMLE (and I imagine the Comlex as well, though have no experience with it being allo) is designed to break people like you. The vignettes
dont have curveballs but to get the question right, you do have to know nuances. Each of the answer choices will be reasonable. Often, you might think "I would do all of these... wtf?" The thing is that there is something in the question, some factoid, some feature, that tells you THIS one is the right one.
If you have a cursory knowledge or understanding of a concept you will know just enough to fall for a trap. You have to really master a topic in order to get that question right. That's really hard, I know.
Here is a suggestion:
1.
Review first: read a review text to start your studying. This says "this is what you have to know."
2.
Then Study: go over that topic. Read First Aid Step 2 and Step Up Step 2... or some other book in that topic (like First Aid Peds, for example).
3.
Challenge yourself: do questions related to the topic
4.
Review again. I recommend
this site for a good review. It's free. Do it after you have done all the other work.
Does that sound like alot of work? Yeah. It does. Because it is. Will it work? Probably. Do you need to take some time off to make this work? So you lose a month of vacation, deal with it. Maybe you need two months dedicated to Step Prep. If that's the case, take it.
Bottom line:
if you are only getting a cursory knowledge of the material you are destined to failure; mastery is required to get through the Step
