I posted in last years thread...I suppose I can put it in this one again.
___________________________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nesir
I took the exam yesterday, here are some thoughts:
1) A lot of the questions appear very difficult on the surface (I was asked why heparin is used when starting warfarin - but none of the answers were "because protein C has a short half life" but indirectly it was in one of the answers), but the concept is tied up in the one of the answers. I promise!
2) The anatomy is tricky. I think I had a total of about 15-20 anatomy questions total ranging from which lymph nodes does this cancer go to? To here is an MRI of a leg - identify this muscle. Know your brachial plexus, 3 of my questions were directly from lesions to the arm.
3) There was a lot of Pharm on my test - I would guess 10 per section. A lot of it was straight forward. Which is this drug? Some of it more difficult - here is a micro question what is the MOA of the drug used to treat it?
4) My microbiology was very interesting. I would say there were about 2 "what is its envelope / DNA structure type questions" a lot of them were "What is this?" Some of them were quite difficult and were not the traditional appearance but they always gave you enough information that if you understood the characteristics about the bug then you could determine the cause (only 2-3 really tricky ones total).
5) Physiology - you better know this inside and out. This, in my opinion, was where they really challenged you. They will give you a syndrome and ask what will happen to 3 of the variables (such as LH, FSH, Est for a woman) - and they will give you all 8 possibilities as answers. You really just need to know the answer can't really use process of elimination to help yourself there.
6) Heme / Onc REALLY STRAIGHT FORWARD everything was 100% text book case and they would ask "which chromosome" or for a renal cell CA I was asked "which Gene?"
7) Images - I think there were only 1/2 where I had to really look at the image to see what was happening. Most of the time the images were not necessary. For instance, a woman with heavy menstrual bleeding would have a picture of hypochromic anemia ----duuuuuuh. Or post transplant pneumonia....
8) Heart sounds - Absolutely cool. It was nice that they showed the carotid arteries move on every pulse (ie. systole no guessing which one is S1 or S2). I ended up taking this test at the end of my 3rd year and I can tell you - it was way easier on this test than in real life. 2nd - I had 3 and my friend had 4 and in the n=7 population, neither one of us needed the image. We had a diagnosis straight from the question stem.
9) When given a weird experiment that some scientist did make sure you take a second and ask yourself "what the eff are the asking?" Don't just jump straight to the data. I had 1/2 where the first time I read it I was thinking...the heck?!?!? But if you take an extra minute and really figure out what the test is looking at the answer just jumps out at you. Dont worry you will have time at the end to finish questions.
10) There will be questions that when you look at them you will think to yourself - yup no idea. There were some on my test that asked "which p450 isoenzyme is used for this" and the answers were "2d6,2d9,3a4, etc." Or here is a disease that I'm sure you have never seen before but none of the other ones make sense so I'm going to guess that. In the end, I really doubt those count significantly towards your score so dont freak out when you dont know the weird hormone elevation when a person has a strange disease.
Overall I think the HARDEST part of the test was endurance. Its an 8 hour test and there towards the end I could definitely feel my brain starting to rot. Make sure you save some break time for the end. And relax, the test is a lot easier than you think it is - most of the questions have simple answers written in strange ways. Don't freak out when the text book answer isn't there.
NBME 11: 6 weeks out 255
NBME 13: 4 weeks out 263
I took the test my school offered pre-studying 4 months out - and got a 186. I only studied for this test for dedicated full time for 7 weeks. I felt that was more than enough - way more than enough.
I'll post my score when I get it back. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Just an update, REAL EXAM: 269/91
Pretty happy right now.