Quick run-down on my experience, hopefully helpful to someone out there:
During the semester:
- Studied hard for shelf exams.
- Watched DIT videos at 1.5-2x, annotating FA thoroughly (equivalent of x1 careful read-through).
- Listened to Goljan on the bus (normal speed)
During six-week study period:
- QBanks first thing every morning. Started with 3/day for first two weeks, then increased to 4 and 5 as the reviewing process became faster. Always timed, always random, and always back-to-back (with short breaks for food and bathroom, obviously, but I didn't review until after I was done with all the blocks).
- Watched one Pathoma chapter at 1.5-2x while eating lunch.
- Reviewed morning questions in the afternoon.
- Read assigned FA pages at night. I allocated 4 days for biochem, 3 days for micro, 3 days for neuro, 2 days each for CV, pulm, renal, and GI, and 1 day each for endo, repro, MSK/derm, heme/onc, BS/psych, immuno/path, pharma/embryo (in those pairings, but not in that order).
- Spent every Sunday as a review / catch-up day where I would still do qbanks in the morning/afternoon, but the evening was reserved to go back over FA pages from the week I'd bookmarked and wanted to study again.
- If I got bored, had extra time at the end of the night, or felt weak on a particular area, I read Goljan or used questions from WebPath, Rx, Robbins Review of Pathology, BRS, Rapid Review, or anything else I could get my hands on. 90% of questions in all of these are easy, so not worth the time unless you're way ahead in your FA / UW / Kaplan, and if I were only going to do one it would definitely be WebPath.
QBank and practice test breakdown was as follows:
- Once through Kaplan qbank (74%)
- Once through UWorld qbank (82%)
- Once through Kaplan questions I missed the first time around
- Once through UWorld questions I missed the first time around
- Kaplan FL-1, -18 days: 81%
- NBME-11, -13 days: 264
- Kaplan FL-2, -11 days: 77%
- NBME-12, -9 days: 258
- UWSA-1, -8 days: 261
- NBME-7, -7 days: 262
- UWSA-2, -6 days: 265
- NBME-13, -5 days: 263
FYI the only NBME I paid for was #11; the rest I used the "downloadable" versions and thought they were totally fine, but not worth paying for. I used the SDN score curve that's floating around to calculate those scores, so there's obviously a margin of error, but I don't think it's terrible inaccurate, and definitely better than shelling out $50 a pop if you have the discipline to create a test-like environment for yourself while going through the questions.
Last four days were set aside for FA review of highest-yield topics, plus 2-3qbanks on the corresponding topics of questions I'd flagged in UW:
- Embryology, neuroanatomy, limb anatomy
- Micro, ABX, immunology
- Biochemistry
- Drugs, rapid review, important notes and drawings
I also had a stack of about 30 drawings of the most common pathways, GN/GP bacteria diagrams, virus memorization mnemonics, and other need-to-know facts that I went over and redrew every single morning for the last week, which I think was really worthwhile.
Test day was relaxed for the most part. I found myself marking about 5 questions per block, and feeling confident about the answer I was ultimately submitting for 2-3 of them, and unsure about the others. Most of the content was very predictable: basic micro, common genetic diseases, very detailed CV and renal physiology, lots of gross neuroanatomy questions. Histology has been a strong point of mine and I found the path slides to be especially difficult, and often from less-commonly-covered organs like prostate and pituitary. CXR/CT were all very straightforward. Several GU and spinal anatomy questions caught me off guard. Drugs were by far the most over-represented subset of questions, covering everything I'd seen in FA or UW, and a lot that I hadn't. Autonomics and antibiotics were the most high-yield, but I had a number of weird questions on rare side effects of uncommon drugs that were probably the most difficult questions on the exam.
As many others have said, getting good rest, reading questions carefully, and not second guessing yourself is the most important thing you can do to ensure a good score. Half of the questions I got wrong were random minutiae I couldn't possibly have known were coming, and that's luck-of-the-draw, so don't lose sleep trying to hunt down stuff that isn't in FA, UW, or Kaplan. The other half are the ones I keep thinking about even now, a month later, where I picked a "less obvious" answer and, in retrospect, cost myself some important points.
Final score: 259.
Cheers to 2013 
