Incredible write-up
@kirbymiester !
What resource did you use for the incontinence stuff?
Did you use earplugs? And when did you take your breaks? Do you highlight?
Any repeats? From current/old Free 150 or recent NBMEs?
Lastly, how much anatomy/neuro/biochem was on there? And was any question from those three subjects sufficiently answered by what was in FA?
Thanks! I actually never studied the incontinence stuff except for back in class (covered in my Neuro book well) and a couple QBank problems. Just know the buzzwords of etiology, then think through the mechanism. The biggest thing they tested on my exam was that multiparity = stress incontinence. I'd go with what Vexare said about Goljan RR if you want a review book to cover it, although I didn't look at that.
Yeah, I used those Hearo earplugs recommended by someone earlier in this thread. They worked well. Combined with the over-ear headphones, I definitely felt in my own zone. I almost never felt disrupted by other examiners. I had 56 minutes of break time, which I used to take 4 breaks. Therefore, 2 sets of blocks of two were continuous. I underestimated how long it would take to sign in and out of your computer, since they have to take your fingerprint, use a metal detector, etc. This eats up about 2-3 min round trip per break. So you quickly find that you can't take a break between every block. I didn't highlight or strike out answer choices...I just personally find that it slows me down.
The NBME's were definitely better than the Free 150's for me in terms of helpfulness -- maybe it was due to the fact that I did 1000 NBME questions and only ~200 Free 150 questions (2 different years), but I found myself recalling questions similar to the NBME's far more often. It's hard to recall how many were very close/replicate, but I'd say somewhere between 5-10. They weren't the easy ones, either...somewhere around medium-hard difficulty. Some of them were ones that came up frequently in the NBME discussion threads.
Thanks Kirby! I guess chessmasters method seems kinda scary to me. I never answer school exams that fast, seems like ur doing about 30 secs a q the first time thru based on just key words? That's scary to me cuz what if there's something in the vignette that changes things and u didn't see it cuz u blew thru it so fast? I also Dont know if I'd have the discipline to go thru all 46 qs each block again lol. Or probably even if I did, I might just fall into the same mistake again thinking "oh yes that was the q about this"....Or do u read the q again on the second pass?
Curious how many heart sound tutorials u got and where were they in the block? Was timing an issue? How similar was it to the nbme 15 & 16?
Yeah, it's a little scary, so definitely give it a couple test runs on some NBME's. Of course, if you're 2 weeks away or less, don't throw your game off by switching up what you know works for you. But yes, 30 seconds is plenty of time for a lot of questions. Think about all the ones that end a vignette with something like "What is the intracellular effect of B1 agonism?" Then regarding missing crucial details, the answer choices usually guide your thought process. If they try to throw you off with a presentation that could be two things that resemble each other, you'll see them both in the answer choices and go back to the stem.
Especially when using this process, it's extremely important to rule out other answer choices. If you do that, then you'll confirm that your answer choice is best. In the event that you're not 100% sure what the answer is or don't see what you think the answer should be as an answer choice, then you sit and read the stem really thoroughly, maybe a couple times.
I do read the Q's again a second time -- at least I do with the marked ones, and try to if I have time on non-marked ones. I also try and re-reason and not just confirm (because it's easy to confirm incorrect logic).
I actually got 2 heart sound questions which were like nothing I'd ever heard of -- they gave me this little interactive thing where a 10-second repeating clip of the heart sound would play, and a video would show of an animated patient lying down with the stethoscope on a heart area. You could move the stethoscope to different listening areas to see where the murmur was loudest and hear how it changed. I had never heard of this, but maybe it's what you're referring to by a "tutorial". I really have no idea where they were in the block, sorry.
Timing wasn't an issue, unlike how it was in my NBME's. The adrenaline kept me far more focused. Only 2 of the 7 blocks I was unable to fully go through unmarked questions.
In terms of similarity, Free 150 > NBME's > UWorld. The difference between the real deal and the Free 150 was roughly the difference between the Free 150 and UWorld. This was mostly because of extra WTF questions and extra difficult ways of presenting the information. Another reason was that some of the research-type questions with graphs and figures to veil the info you need were way too crazy for UWorld, but not unreasonable for the NBME's and Free 150. Regarding repeats, check out my reply to orchitisphlebitis.
Are there any good resources out there to learn about the incontinence types?
Yeah, see Vexare's post or my reply to orchitisphlebitis.
Congrats on being done. I'm sure you did great. Can you comment on how many practice questions are available in the UWorld biostats subject review?
Thanks! Orchitis got it right, I'd say 70-80. They take a little less long to go through than UWorld, since there still are relatively thorough explanations.
Great writeup, Kirb. I'm sure you did great. Hope you get some time to kick back and take a breather before COMLEX.
I appreciate it bud. Don't let the NBME 7 get you down. Analyze it critically, learn from your mistakes, move on. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I got questions wrong and adjusting my studying accordingly...sounds like that might give you some comfort too.
