I have WAYY too much to say about this experience, so I'll try to keep it short.
Goal:
250+
Grades in MS1/MS2: Slightly above average
Resources: Pathoma x2 (started using it during MS2 year to supplement, two full passes during dedicated) , FA x2.5 (started after MS2), Uworld x1 (66% first pass, started after MS2)
Study schedule:
- 6 weeks. Started after school year ended.
- First 2 weeks: 1 organ system per day. (e.g pathoma stream in the morning, FA in the afternoon, Uworld blocks at night). Took the weekend after this off.
- Last 4 weeks: Continue organ system per day schedule but cut down on pathoma/FA. Up my uworld/picmonic studies. Watch way too much NBA Finals/WC soccer.
- Last week: Read notes of Goljan's lectures/reviewed a "most common anatomy correlates" ppt 2-3x/Review biochem every day (my weakness)/Pholston's micro
Practice Tests (Test taken on 6/24):
- MCAT 36+
- NBME 12 (3 months before; required by school): 170. I didn't study for this at all, but the questions didn't seem that bad. I first saw the scaled score (230) and thought to myself, “man this is gonna be easy!”. Then I saw it was correlated to a ~170, Lol.
- UWSA1 – (4 weeks before) 231 - I was really pleased with this score and didn't know yet that it way over predicts. Didn't think it was hard or easy, and I hadn't covered reproductive system yet, so I was really optimistic with this score.
- NBME 12 (3 weeks before) 217 – Whoa, this was a shock to me, because I felt like I had a good grasp of the material and the UWSA1 score was so high. I scored a better percentage of questions better on this than the UWSA1, so I just couldn't understand why the score had dropped so much. This was probably the catalyst to join picmonic.
- UWSA2 (2 weeks before) – 252– Okay, wtf is going on. This is way too good to be true. I finally find out that this test over predicts. Not really knowing what to think of this score, I just took it as a ceiling for my scores.
- NBME 15 (1.5 weeks before) – 230 – Crap. I didn’t think this was hard, and I didn’t think there would be such a drop off from UWSA2. I began to become really worried
- NBME16 (1 week before) – 234– Ugh. Still not progressing the way I want.
- Free 150 (3 days before) – 87%- Whoa. Correlates with a 250+? I’ll just say I made a lot of progress this last week and go into the exam confident.
The day before my test, I took about 6 hours off and spent it with some family and my significant other. We had a long walk around a park and it really numbed me. When I got home, I looked over a few notes, but that day overall was pretty relaxing. I went to sleep around 9pm, which I know FA tells you not to sleep too early, but I didn't have much problems with sleep. I woke up at 6am, and I got a ride to the testing center. I was still numb during this time, like my brain was just floating. I got worried that I wasn't feeling anxious, and it wasn't until I was being checked in by my proctors that I started getting anxious. It felt good.
The test was also just autopilot as well. I had heard on SDN that you should expect a test harder than anything you could have imagined. I got a first block where I marked around 10 questions (about average for an NBME test). Continued onto the second block without a break. When I did leave the room for a break (after blocks 2,4,5,6), I opened first aid and checked answers. Probably shouldn't do that, but I’m that type of person. Also, I checked an answer that I got right on a previous block, and that EXACT question showed up again. I wasn't really hungry so I ate just a little bit during some of the breaks, but all the blocks were fairly NBME-like where I was marking around 10 questions. Only during the last block was a under real time pressure. I was usually able to finish the block with 5-7 minutes left to review the marked questions.
My test was heavy on pharm and micro. Very little biochem/anatomy. Which really played to my strengths. Some weird behavioral questions, but I did the best I could to narrow down the choices and make an educated guess.
Final Score:
~250. Wow. Due to the score estimators and my NBME avg/Uworld %, I was mainly expecting something in the range of 232-242. I had performance feedback right at about the time scores were released, so I wasnt really listening too much to what my attending was saying, and was just nodding thinking about checking my score.
Tips:
-You know yourself.
If you are not where you know you can be at a certain time in STEP studying, PUSH BACK YOUR DATE. I was advised not to do that by my professors, but I simply was not going to be ready by my original time. I pushed it back by a week, and I really think it helped a lot, because I was still making gains.
-Guys, I have heard this crazy thing where you write down your dream score somewhere at home and circle it, so you can see it every day. I wrote down my dream MCAT score on my whiteboard, and I got that score. I wrote down 250 for STEP and the same thing happened. Sometimes you need a reminder of your goal, because it can get lost in your worries and frustrations during studying.
-Don’t listen to the radio during dedicated time. I didn't because I did not want songs stuck in my head while I was studying or taking the test. It still happened during my practice tests, but I believe that this was effective. It pissed off my family and girlfriend a little though.
-Study in an environment that reduces your obligations. I went home to study for a part of my dedicated study and had my mom cooking meals and doing laundry for me. Holy moly, that’s 10 hours of freed up time a week.
-
Picmonic- This program was amazing and after 2-3 runs of some of the weaker subjects, I really began to think of them as strengths. I really do believe if you are one of those learners who often memorizes something, and you often picture where it was on that page you read, that this program is effective.
Hope i(or the adrenaline) didn't screw it up.
