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- Jul 8, 2006
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Well, well well..Finally, its behind me (and I hope it stays there and don't have to revisit it )
Let me share a few thoughts.
Time to prepare: 6 and a half month
Graduation Year : 2012
Materials:
-Kaplan videos + books from 2010
-Pathoma
-Goljan Notes (the 36 page one, didnt read them all, just a quick review)
-Netter now and then just to look at some muscles/neuro.
-First Aid 2012
-UWorld
And thats about it..Nothing more, nothing less!!!!
My Stats
UW Stratified Analysis (i.e only taking into account the Timed+Unused ones, and getting an average): 77%
UW standard cumulative(i.e the one that appears in UW normally) : 85%
UWSA1, 1.5 months before, at 50% UW : 257
NBME 15, 15 days before exam : 252
UWSA2, 6 days before exam : 265
NBME 13, 2 days before exam : 250
Real exam: Hopefully, a pass; Will let you know after 3 weeks. Wish me luck
Some notes about the materials:
-Kaplan books are MORE than enough in most subjects. But please, SKIP Pathology...it sucks! Unless you are taking a live course of Barone, who btw is AMAZING, the online lectures(both of 2007 and 2010) are not worth it..nor the book. I recommend Pathoma. I tried both, but Kaplan Path is just too boring, and sometimes too low yield.
-PLEASE SKIP KAPLAN MICROBIOLOGY. First aid is MORE THAN enough for Micro. I had this feeling that I will miss something important. Well, the thing about micro is that its only memorization, and that is done best through mnemonics which are plenty in First Aid. I am not saying the lectures aren't good. They are great, and she teaches them in an amazing way. Its just too much information, and you wont remember ANY of it when you start FA. So if you really want to do Micro, do it from First aid. You do however need to watch Immunology, and Microbial Genetics, also HIV/Hepatatis stuff. All the rest is just waste of time!
-Pathoma is great for Path. He touches on most aspect, but leaves out some crucial ones. He is weak in some cases of Neuro.
-FA. I kinda love this book, and hate this book. Why? The first review of it will easily take 20-30 days! No, I AM NOT KIDDING. And the second review, well about 8-10 days. AND IT WILL BE SO BORING! And you will get pissed off, every time you are reviewing and you see some **** that you don't remember reading the first time. And the third review, GOD you will HATE it, it becomes so painful to read it and then you get pissed off even more when you look at some random things in Cardio that you don't recall! I am not saying its a bad book. Its great, but reviewing it takes patience.
-Finally, Goljan. Every time I thought about doing Goljan, I said to myself the audio lectures and notes are quite old (they are from 2001). So, I didn't listen to his lectures. Nor his book. I did go through some of the HY pages (the 36 ones). But, here is the funny thing about Goljan. After I did my NBME and Uworld, and read his 36 pages HY notes, I found many thing mentioned in his notes. Its surprising, that Goljan notes are STILL USEFUL. So, should you listen to them? If you get time, ABSOLUTELY! Are his notes really important? Well you can pass the exam without his notes, but once you do all the material and listen to his audio/read his notes, you will see he links all of those stuff so amazingly....its like he is one of the test-writers. He knows exactly whats important, and whats not. Of course, he goes overkill, and gives you TOO MUCH detail in some instances. So, it all comes down to recall. Thats why I prefer if you get time to listen to the audio after you've done most of the material. His review book of 600 pages is great, but the real question is how much can you recall? So judge accordingly.
My Technique
Basically, I finished all the lectures/books. Took some notes in my books. Then I started FA and it took about a month. I went back to the books, and copied some of the notes into FA. Which was kinda of a bad idea, since in the end my FA was filled with useless notes from Kaplan, and some notes from UW, and in the end I cudn't know which was high yield or not. Anyway, it turned out to be useful in the long run, since if I didn't understand a concept, I could easily go to FA and review it without the need to open Kaplan ever again. So, in short I condensed everything from all kaplan lectures into my FA. Its my bible of medicine now. It has all these weird and kool facts. Seems nice, but wait till you start doing UW. Then you won't have space to fit in all those notes.
A common problem is when you start UW, should you make a separate notebook or jot all the info in FA? There are pros and cons to it. I decided to make a separate book. Its good since these are truly the high yield stuff I HAVE TO KNOW. The information won't get buried down somewhere in FA, and I can review it at ease compared to the killing review of FA. Bad, because once you are reviewing FA, you will want to link some of the info to UW, and then you will begin the tiresome process of finding that one obscured fact you once encountered in UW, lying somewhere in the heap of notes you took(oh, UW notes! I finished a book and a half of 200 pages each, all just UW notes). So decide whats best for you.
After my FA, I did UW. At 50% I took an assessment, review FA again, and then continued till 92%. Then I did a third review of FA, and went back and finished UW. Took an NBME, and then the last days I was so bored to go over FA again and decided not to revise it at all. Instead I did something that I don't regret. I did ALL the NBME in the last days. They are really useful, and help you pin down all that information in your head. If you get time, be sure to do them. And dont be afraid of them.
I'll talk more about the technique later. There is so much more to write, and I have so many things to share. Let me tell about the exam a bit.
About the exam:
I keep hearing people saying on the forums "Its about concept", and I never understood that terminology. Well, for one, the exam is NOT TOUGH as you might think it to be. It APPEARS tough because of the immense consequences that we envision if something goes wrong. It APPEARS tough because we envision it to be a dragon that is going to chew on our flesh for 8 straight hours. Well folks, to tell you the truth, this dragon was completely 'slayable'. With the right technique and practice of questions, you get the ability to pick out the right questions from wrong ones. As for concepts, most of the stuff is covered in UW. FA does cover them, and if you have done good review of Path, you are all set for it.
But, if you are thinking the exam is testing your knowledge, I am sorry to say, YOU ARE WRONG. The exam is about 2 things actually - Endurance and Decision making.
So many times you will come across a question that you know the answer, but when you look at the choices, you are led astray by the distractors. My advise on how to tackle them is to read the question, and guess the answer, and look down. If you find your choice, IT MOST PROBABLY is the right answer. Of course, do check it again and have a quick mental check. Many times, you will see and realize (and laugh out sometimes ), that had you clicked the option that came into your mind, you would have fallen into the pit wrought by the examiner!
As for endurance, you really have to build a stamina for it. The last days, I was so used to doing 4 blocks every day, that the exam felt like any other day. Thats why I highly recommend that in the last days, every day just do questions. I didn't revise FA; my last revision was in the beginning of May. After that, I only did UW wrong/marked questions and NBME's. It really helped build my stamina and lock in the facts of FA.
Knowledge. NO, the USMLE is not trying to trick you as UW does. Is it testing really new stuff? Not exactly. ITS THE SAME OLD CONCEPTS, tested in a NEW manner. Nothing has changed. Even the exam question stems were not that long as I was thinking them to be. The exam was much easier compared to UW. UW, is just a nightmare, but a good one. It helps you know so many concepts, and its just fantastic! Most of the questions in exam were straight forward, classic cases, with many using the common buzzwords. Even the biostat questions were not that difficult as you might think it to be. Some simple calculations, pretty straightforward. It did have some psych cases that were kinda weird. I would say the difficulty was that of the NBME, with 4-5 questions in every block with a UW like thing to it. The thing about the exam is that in every block, you will have 6-7 WTF questions. But, you see thats the trick. The exam tries everything to ruin your confidence. It will give you questions out of no where, and rest assured, YOU WILL GET QUESTIONS THAT YOU DONT HAVE A CLUE TO. But, trust me, in the whole exam, even questions like this, if you read through you can come to a sensible and hopefully the right answer. The key is not to panic, and give it your best shot. The exam is designed to test your patience, and how your decision in later questions get affected by these strange question.
And NO, they don't give you those many media questions. Some pictures were just plain easy, and some pictures were quite strange, but heck, I wasn't gonna waste my time on one strange picture. Surprisingly, I didnt have any sequential questions. I dont know why, but not a single one.
In the end, one thing I'll like to remind everyone. Its OKAY to be wrong. Its OKAY to NOT know everything. You can do the exam even if you don't know all those icky-picky details. The exam is not so picky-the questions test the general stuff more than the exact details. In fact, while my time studying for it, I made the mistake of following into details so many times that I forgot the general simple concepts. Thats the thing I realized while I did NBME. I was good in handling difficult questions. But I always lost marks in the simple ones. So, my advise is to know the general stuff really well, then dig into the details to help your concepts.
Aright that was long. I have soooooooooooo much to share, but I guess after I get my results, I'll be better able to advise, and reflect on my mistakes. I'll tell about my exam day, and how it went. And more...!
Wish me luck guys!!! 😕
Let me share a few thoughts.
Time to prepare: 6 and a half month
Graduation Year : 2012
Materials:
-Kaplan videos + books from 2010
-Pathoma
-Goljan Notes (the 36 page one, didnt read them all, just a quick review)
-Netter now and then just to look at some muscles/neuro.
-First Aid 2012
-UWorld
And thats about it..Nothing more, nothing less!!!!
My Stats
UW Stratified Analysis (i.e only taking into account the Timed+Unused ones, and getting an average): 77%
UW standard cumulative(i.e the one that appears in UW normally) : 85%
UWSA1, 1.5 months before, at 50% UW : 257
NBME 15, 15 days before exam : 252
UWSA2, 6 days before exam : 265
NBME 13, 2 days before exam : 250
Real exam: Hopefully, a pass; Will let you know after 3 weeks. Wish me luck
Some notes about the materials:
-Kaplan books are MORE than enough in most subjects. But please, SKIP Pathology...it sucks! Unless you are taking a live course of Barone, who btw is AMAZING, the online lectures(both of 2007 and 2010) are not worth it..nor the book. I recommend Pathoma. I tried both, but Kaplan Path is just too boring, and sometimes too low yield.
-PLEASE SKIP KAPLAN MICROBIOLOGY. First aid is MORE THAN enough for Micro. I had this feeling that I will miss something important. Well, the thing about micro is that its only memorization, and that is done best through mnemonics which are plenty in First Aid. I am not saying the lectures aren't good. They are great, and she teaches them in an amazing way. Its just too much information, and you wont remember ANY of it when you start FA. So if you really want to do Micro, do it from First aid. You do however need to watch Immunology, and Microbial Genetics, also HIV/Hepatatis stuff. All the rest is just waste of time!
-Pathoma is great for Path. He touches on most aspect, but leaves out some crucial ones. He is weak in some cases of Neuro.
-FA. I kinda love this book, and hate this book. Why? The first review of it will easily take 20-30 days! No, I AM NOT KIDDING. And the second review, well about 8-10 days. AND IT WILL BE SO BORING! And you will get pissed off, every time you are reviewing and you see some **** that you don't remember reading the first time. And the third review, GOD you will HATE it, it becomes so painful to read it and then you get pissed off even more when you look at some random things in Cardio that you don't recall! I am not saying its a bad book. Its great, but reviewing it takes patience.
-Finally, Goljan. Every time I thought about doing Goljan, I said to myself the audio lectures and notes are quite old (they are from 2001). So, I didn't listen to his lectures. Nor his book. I did go through some of the HY pages (the 36 ones). But, here is the funny thing about Goljan. After I did my NBME and Uworld, and read his 36 pages HY notes, I found many thing mentioned in his notes. Its surprising, that Goljan notes are STILL USEFUL. So, should you listen to them? If you get time, ABSOLUTELY! Are his notes really important? Well you can pass the exam without his notes, but once you do all the material and listen to his audio/read his notes, you will see he links all of those stuff so amazingly....its like he is one of the test-writers. He knows exactly whats important, and whats not. Of course, he goes overkill, and gives you TOO MUCH detail in some instances. So, it all comes down to recall. Thats why I prefer if you get time to listen to the audio after you've done most of the material. His review book of 600 pages is great, but the real question is how much can you recall? So judge accordingly.
My Technique
Basically, I finished all the lectures/books. Took some notes in my books. Then I started FA and it took about a month. I went back to the books, and copied some of the notes into FA. Which was kinda of a bad idea, since in the end my FA was filled with useless notes from Kaplan, and some notes from UW, and in the end I cudn't know which was high yield or not. Anyway, it turned out to be useful in the long run, since if I didn't understand a concept, I could easily go to FA and review it without the need to open Kaplan ever again. So, in short I condensed everything from all kaplan lectures into my FA. Its my bible of medicine now. It has all these weird and kool facts. Seems nice, but wait till you start doing UW. Then you won't have space to fit in all those notes.
A common problem is when you start UW, should you make a separate notebook or jot all the info in FA? There are pros and cons to it. I decided to make a separate book. Its good since these are truly the high yield stuff I HAVE TO KNOW. The information won't get buried down somewhere in FA, and I can review it at ease compared to the killing review of FA. Bad, because once you are reviewing FA, you will want to link some of the info to UW, and then you will begin the tiresome process of finding that one obscured fact you once encountered in UW, lying somewhere in the heap of notes you took(oh, UW notes! I finished a book and a half of 200 pages each, all just UW notes). So decide whats best for you.
After my FA, I did UW. At 50% I took an assessment, review FA again, and then continued till 92%. Then I did a third review of FA, and went back and finished UW. Took an NBME, and then the last days I was so bored to go over FA again and decided not to revise it at all. Instead I did something that I don't regret. I did ALL the NBME in the last days. They are really useful, and help you pin down all that information in your head. If you get time, be sure to do them. And dont be afraid of them.
I'll talk more about the technique later. There is so much more to write, and I have so many things to share. Let me tell about the exam a bit.
About the exam:
I keep hearing people saying on the forums "Its about concept", and I never understood that terminology. Well, for one, the exam is NOT TOUGH as you might think it to be. It APPEARS tough because of the immense consequences that we envision if something goes wrong. It APPEARS tough because we envision it to be a dragon that is going to chew on our flesh for 8 straight hours. Well folks, to tell you the truth, this dragon was completely 'slayable'. With the right technique and practice of questions, you get the ability to pick out the right questions from wrong ones. As for concepts, most of the stuff is covered in UW. FA does cover them, and if you have done good review of Path, you are all set for it.
But, if you are thinking the exam is testing your knowledge, I am sorry to say, YOU ARE WRONG. The exam is about 2 things actually - Endurance and Decision making.
So many times you will come across a question that you know the answer, but when you look at the choices, you are led astray by the distractors. My advise on how to tackle them is to read the question, and guess the answer, and look down. If you find your choice, IT MOST PROBABLY is the right answer. Of course, do check it again and have a quick mental check. Many times, you will see and realize (and laugh out sometimes ), that had you clicked the option that came into your mind, you would have fallen into the pit wrought by the examiner!
As for endurance, you really have to build a stamina for it. The last days, I was so used to doing 4 blocks every day, that the exam felt like any other day. Thats why I highly recommend that in the last days, every day just do questions. I didn't revise FA; my last revision was in the beginning of May. After that, I only did UW wrong/marked questions and NBME's. It really helped build my stamina and lock in the facts of FA.
Knowledge. NO, the USMLE is not trying to trick you as UW does. Is it testing really new stuff? Not exactly. ITS THE SAME OLD CONCEPTS, tested in a NEW manner. Nothing has changed. Even the exam question stems were not that long as I was thinking them to be. The exam was much easier compared to UW. UW, is just a nightmare, but a good one. It helps you know so many concepts, and its just fantastic! Most of the questions in exam were straight forward, classic cases, with many using the common buzzwords. Even the biostat questions were not that difficult as you might think it to be. Some simple calculations, pretty straightforward. It did have some psych cases that were kinda weird. I would say the difficulty was that of the NBME, with 4-5 questions in every block with a UW like thing to it. The thing about the exam is that in every block, you will have 6-7 WTF questions. But, you see thats the trick. The exam tries everything to ruin your confidence. It will give you questions out of no where, and rest assured, YOU WILL GET QUESTIONS THAT YOU DONT HAVE A CLUE TO. But, trust me, in the whole exam, even questions like this, if you read through you can come to a sensible and hopefully the right answer. The key is not to panic, and give it your best shot. The exam is designed to test your patience, and how your decision in later questions get affected by these strange question.
And NO, they don't give you those many media questions. Some pictures were just plain easy, and some pictures were quite strange, but heck, I wasn't gonna waste my time on one strange picture. Surprisingly, I didnt have any sequential questions. I dont know why, but not a single one.
In the end, one thing I'll like to remind everyone. Its OKAY to be wrong. Its OKAY to NOT know everything. You can do the exam even if you don't know all those icky-picky details. The exam is not so picky-the questions test the general stuff more than the exact details. In fact, while my time studying for it, I made the mistake of following into details so many times that I forgot the general simple concepts. Thats the thing I realized while I did NBME. I was good in handling difficult questions. But I always lost marks in the simple ones. So, my advise is to know the general stuff really well, then dig into the details to help your concepts.
Aright that was long. I have soooooooooooo much to share, but I guess after I get my results, I'll be better able to advise, and reflect on my mistakes. I'll tell about my exam day, and how it went. And more...!
Wish me luck guys!!! 😕
