Microbiology NBME shelf

[DoctorLacrosse]

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Hey everyone, keeping the trend alive with my advice threads for studying for pre-clinical NBME exams. Short and sweet... what are the go-to resources for preparing for the Micro NBME? My original plan was Sketchy Micro + First Aid (micro and immuno sections) + UWorld, which I think would be ideal, but I'm now not sure I'll have the time to do it all given all the class material we still have coming in.

Is UWorld really a must for this NBME that I should make the time for, or is it not as representative for the shelf? Are FA and sketchy enough? Any other general tips or study advice for this thing? Thanks everyone!

 

[Goro]

My own students Rave about sketchymicro.

 

[DoctorLacrosse]

My own students Rave about sketchymicro.

i've used it throughout the course, it's amazing!

 

[marstonne]

1. SketchyMicro
2. First Aid micro section
3. Homemade abx chart from an upperclasswoman
4. Referenced the Lange micro book as needed
5. Lippincott QA micro

We did not do the immunology part of the test, so I don't have any recommendations there unfortunately. I remember the test being challenging but not nearly as hard as the physiology or pharmacology tests.

 

[DoctorLacrosse]

1. SketchyMicro
2. First Aid micro section
3. Homemade abx chart from an upperclasswoman
4. Referenced the Lange micro book as needed
5. Lippincott QA micro

We did not do the immunology part of the test, so I don't have any recommendations there unfortunately. I remember the test being challenging but not nearly as hard as the physiology or pharmacology tests.

thanks for the feedback! i hear it's a tough test, so will keep your recommendations in mind. thank you

 

[.hematoma.]

Recently took it, I thought USMLErx questions were pretty close to the real thing.

 

[coldcase331]

Hey everyone, keeping the trend alive with my advice threads for studying for pre-clinical NBME exams. Short and sweet... what are the go-to resources for preparing for the Micro NBME? My original plan was Sketchy Micro + First Aid (micro and immuno sections) + UWorld, which I think would be ideal, but I'm now not sure I'll have the time to do it all given all the class material we still have coming in.

Is UWorld really a must for this NBME that I should make the time for, or is it not as representative for the shelf? Are FA and sketchy enough? Any other general tips or study advice for this thing? Thanks everyone!

Didn't you guys just have an exam right before Halloween?


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[Doctor.Mario]

I took it a month or two ago and did fairly well with just FA micro + USMLErx + sketchy. I felt like mine had a weird emphasis on bacterial genetics which I wasn't really prepared for (as in, I hadn't seen it since undergrad), so that brought down my score a bit, although I'm not sure what resource I could've used to prevent that.

 

[DoctorLacrosse]

I took it a month or two ago and did fairly well with just FA micro + USMLErx + sketchy. I felt like mine had a weird emphasis on bacterial genetics which I wasn't really prepared for (as in, I hadn't seen it since undergrad), so that brought down my score a bit, although I'm not sure what resource I could've used to prevent that.

luckily my course covered genetics i think. did you feel first aid just kind of reiterated a lot of sketchy, or was it focused on different things?

 

[Doctor.Mario]

luckily my course covered genetics i think. did you feel first aid just kind of reiterated a lot of sketchy, or was it focused on different things?

I think FA is worth a read through alongside sketchy, mainly for the pharm and certain mnemonics. They mostly overlap though.

 

[DoctorLacrosse]

Update: this was easily my strongest performance on any NBME exam. I felt I knew the answers to most of the questions while taking it, and it translated to a great score.

In my opinion, the thing I did right was knowing Sketchy Micro inside and out (really can't say enough about Sketchy, feels like cheating, it's that amazing), which I started at the beginning of the course. It isn't enough on its own as there are other topics like bacterial genetics and immunology, but luckily my school prepared us well, and I filled in the gaps with First Aid. Sketchy + First Aid (mainly the sections not in Sketchy) + a strong foundation from class are plenty sufficient.

Result: No percentile given, but my raw score was 91% of questions correct. Hope that helps!