NBME 3 point score of 163, roughly 4 months until step 1 - How to improve?

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33wins

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Hi I just took an NBME and got a 163 3-point score. Minimal studying was done in preparation for this practice NBME. Is this score horrible? My exam is approximately 4 months away, and I am willing to use/purchase any available resource to help me improve. We are still learning new material, though we are on our last module. What would people who took the exam recommend to do pre-dedicated to help boost my scores?

Thank you very much for all suggestions

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Hi I just took an NBME and got a 163 3-point score. Minimal studying was done in preparation for this practice NBME. Is this score horrible? My exam is approximately 4 months away, and I am willing to use/purchase any available resource to help me improve. We are still learning new material, though we are on our last module. What would people who took the exam recommend to do pre-dedicated to help boost my scores?

Thank you very much for all suggestions

The answer is always ufap. do ufap that many times how much you can afford, and get used to the "vague" nbme type of questions. all you need to know is in uworld + Fa + pathoma. do brosencephalons 16 000 cards. Go through the utah webpath images, they will solidify your knowledge. Go through boards and beyond, i personally think that is bilion times better than kaplan or DIT, of course if you already know what is for example anion gap, and that chloride is outside the cell. in my understanding boards and beyond + ufap can easily get you 240 + if you know every single word of FA cold, never trust to people saying "gone through FA 1 time", maybe that wierd person has crazy memory, i have done 27 000 flash cards until I knew FA cold every single word, maybe not even every word. When I say every single word of FA it means that you really know every single word + you can remember little stories about that every single word. For example you must know how CMV can cause vision problems? It causes retinitis right? it is an inflamation right? so this will cause scaring and vision loss. So you must know CMV = Retinitis + little story beyond that. This is all about the board exam. This exam is about memory, who says that not - they lie. You remember the pattern and then you remember the associated things (like CMV = Retinitis and then you know little story) + great test taking skills. Just check here a thread about test taking skills, that guy is awesome, I used his method and I had at least 10 minutes free after each block to run through marked crazy stuf. Test taking skills can easily get you 10% more right answers. good luck!
 
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@Surgeria Could you point me towards the thread you're speaking about? Test taking skills.. thanks

it is somewhere in step 1 column, I think 2nd or 3rd page just search for it. The author has really written very important points that may already know but most of the people don't. you need to have decent test taking skills and mostly about the rulling out wrong answers in a question where you don't know the right answer, half of my exam was about the rull out I think
 
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The answer is always ufap. do ufap that many times how much you can afford, and get used to the "vague" nbme type of questions. all you need to know is in uworld + Fa + pathoma. do brosencephalons 16 000 cards. Go through the utah webpath images, they will solidify your knowledge. Go through boards and beyond, i personally think that is bilion times better than kaplan or DIT, of course if you already know what is for example anion gap, and that chloride is outside the cell. in my understanding boards and beyond + ufap can easily get you 240 + if you know every single word of FA cold, never trust to people saying "gone through FA 1 time", maybe that wierd person has crazy memory, i have done 27 000 flash cards until I knew FA cold every single word, maybe not even every word. When I say every single word of FA it means that you really know every single word + you can remember little stories about that every single word. For example you must know how CMV can cause vision problems? It causes retinitis right? it is an inflamation right? so this will cause scaring and vision loss. So you must know CMV = Retinitis + little story beyond that. This is all about the board exam. This exam is about memory, who says that not - they lie. You remember the pattern and then you remember the associated things (like CMV = Retinitis and then you know little story) + great test taking skills. Just check here a thread about test taking skills, that guy is awesome, I used his method and I had at least 10 minutes free after each block to run through marked crazy stuf. Test taking skills can easily get you 10% more right answers. good luck!
Would you still recommend Bros if his "foundation" was weak? Like people keep saying don't anki without having learned something but I usually learn through anki (reading ppts do nothing for me vs repeatedly missing questions on cards).
 
The answer is always ufap. do ufap that many times how much you can afford, and get used to the "vague" nbme type of questions. all you need to know is in uworld + Fa + pathoma. do brosencephalons 16 000 cards. Go through the utah webpath images, they will solidify your knowledge. Go through boards and beyond, i personally think that is bilion times better than kaplan or DIT, of course if you already know what is for example anion gap, and that chloride is outside the cell. in my understanding boards and beyond + ufap can easily get you 240 + if you know every single word of FA cold, never trust to people saying "gone through FA 1 time", maybe that wierd person has crazy memory, i have done 27 000 flash cards until I knew FA cold every single word, maybe not even every word. When I say every single word of FA it means that you really know every single word + you can remember little stories about that every single word. For example you must know how CMV can cause vision problems? It causes retinitis right? it is an inflamation right? so this will cause scaring and vision loss. So you must know CMV = Retinitis + little story beyond that. This is all about the board exam. This exam is about memory, who says that not - they lie. You remember the pattern and then you remember the associated things (like CMV = Retinitis and then you know little story) + great test taking skills. Just check here a thread about test taking skills, that guy is awesome, I used his method and I had at least 10 minutes free after each block to run through marked crazy stuf. Test taking skills can easily get you 10% more right answers. good luck!
such an honest opinion. I wish I could favorite your comment but I am def going to copy and paste somewhere. In case, I do forget.
 
The only way the person tells you that this exam is not about memorization is if he or she has a decent memory and memorizes from the first time of read, otherwise it is definitively 2 step memorization pattern. There is not to much things where you can answer to a question by logic, because even if you go down to rue out wrong answers you need to know how that wrong options will look like in real life. If you tell you that the bug is gram negative and you have a list of bugs and there is a listeria, your must know that the damn listeria is gram positive, is not this an memorization? - yes it is. This is simply why some people need 1 month to study and some of them 4 month. I personally have done uworld 3 times, and the last time I got 91% right and 240 on nbme 18, 244 I guess on uwsa 2. Anki has saved my life and that 26 000 cards. The only question is, how many times you need to go through the same material to master it? And how many times you must repeat the details about that material to memorize it? Anyways you will forget half of it in a month, es te la vie, world turns in this way, just roll with it. You memorize, sat for exam, and then forget everything in X years
 
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I HIGHLY recommend making your own Anki cards, in addition to UFAP. An initial score that low is highly concerning but not completely unfixable, are you an IMG or have you taken significant time away from medicine?
 
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