NBME Exams Given By Medical Schools, How to Study?

[JDAD]

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Hi,

I go to a school that gives NBME exams as part of our grading at the end of second year. I don't know anything about these exams, and I am just wondering what to expect.

I think we are given a "NBME Subject Exam" and "NBME Comprehensive Basic Sciences Exam"

To anyone who has taken these exams, or has knowledge about them, is there anything I can do to prepare for them? Should I use First Aid?

The reason I ask is that I am starting to get ready to study for Step1, and I was going to go through some subject based review books (biochem, micro, neuro, phys, path etc) to get a better foundation before I started with First Aid, but if I have to take these comprehensive NBME exams, I think maybe I should focus more broadly on the high yield stuff in first aid, and then use the review books during the summer.

Any ideas? (I guess this applies to USMLE studying as well, but I thought this was a better place for this question)

Thanks

 

[OddNath]

For the NBME subject exams (I've taken them for gross, biochem, and phys), use BRS. Add PreTest if you want more practice.

 

[MadameLULU]

For the NBME Comprehensive Basic Science exam, first aid should be sufficient. Most of my class read thru First Aid during the 3 day study periodand the avg was 74 which corresponds to ~210.

 

[psipsina]

Has anyone used rapid review for biochem for the NBME biochem subject test? I heard it was better for the step 1 but don't know if it will work for the subject test too? I try to buy as few books as possible so I'm hoping to kill two birds with one stone here.

 

[iscis34]

Has anyone used rapid review for biochem for the NBME biochem subject test? I heard it was better for the step 1 but don't know if it will work for the subject test too? I try to buy as few books as possible so I'm hoping to kill two birds with one stone here.

The people in my class who used rapid review did well on the exam, so it may be a good idea to get it. esp since you plan to use it for step 1

 

[Tired]

I was also required to take these exams, and actually did substantially worse than I did on Step I (based on the correlation tables).

I didn't study at all, as there was no requirement to pass it with a certain score. My school used it as a way to scare us into studying for Step I.

Do you actually have to do well on it, or is it just a mandatory practice exam?

 

[JDAD]

Do you actually have to do well on it, or is it just a mandatory practice exam?

We are actually graded and this factors in our overall grade for the year.

I haven't done that well so far in med school, and I am hoping to bust my butt and pick up some of the ground I have lost in the class rankings, so any advice would be great.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

We are actually graded and this factors in our overall grade for the year.

I haven't done that well so far in med school, and I am hoping to bust my butt and pick up some of the ground I have lost in the class rankings, so any advice would be great.

That's gonna be tough to do. Only about 1% nationally actually fail these shelf exams, but by the same token only about 1% do exceedingly well. Reason is the exams are curved once by the NBME, and then again by your particular school, so the distribution of scores gets concentrated. However little or much you study, you'll fall into the 75-85 range. And you probably won't score an 85 after scraping through the course with a 71, because your classmates with A's are likely to have studied just as much as you and the scores are relative. But it can happen I guess. We took a shelf in every subject M1 year, each acting as the course final and counting 10-25% of our overall grade, and the most I ever changed my existing grade was about 1 point. The exams themselves are tough, but again you can probably get as many as 40-45% of the questions wrong and still manage a pass. Check out NBME.org, they used to have practice questions and such. Good luck.