Oh I agree! I just never saw a trend and I was hoping the UWSAs at least predicted a higher 230s score than before. I feel like I made so many small, silly errors in the NBMEs but I am accustomed to the UWorld questions. I am happy to know that I can feel confident about scoring a 230, I just hoped I might be headed for something better.
Thanks for the advice! I didn't know how they compared.
Hey, anything is possible. It's possible that you just got better at recognizing silly mistakes. It's also possible that you might get a test that has more uworld type questions or plays to your strengths in some other way. I don't want to shatter anyone's dreams because ultimately the only thing that matters is test day. You also did have that throw that one flier in your NBME scores, so that indicates that given the right form and the right day, you could possibly score higher than you have been.
All that being said I don't want to get your hopes up either and being realistic even if you feel like you've been just making silly errors on NBMEs, you took quite a few of them and got a good data set with fairly good consistency. Unless you somehow figure out how to change your testing strategy to avoid those errors (possible), all indications are that you will make a similar number of those errors on the test.
I was thinking maybe it's just me and I kept on blaming myself for being that stupid or even wondering if I have some kind of attention deficit.
Ritalin (prescribed of course). Works for me and it gets two enthusiastic thumbs-up!
In all seriousness though, I have what I would call moderate-to-severe ADD and I'll share with you some of the (non-pharmacological) coping strategies that I have acquired over a few decades of . . . LOOK A SQUIRREL!
1) Posture. I know this sounds stupid but at least for UWorld and NBMEs, this is probably the one thing I can recommend more than anything for being attentive and thinking quickly. I've noticed that as soon as I start slouching back into the chair, getting comfortable, or putting my feet up against the wall it's all over. When you're comfortable, you push yourself less to think well and think quickly. Back straight, off the backrest, no sitting on your legs/feet, etc. Helped me a lot.
2) Well-lit rooms. Similar thing to the above.
3) Mentally or verbally make a pact with yourself that you're going to especially focus on concentration before you start each block.
4) If you're having trouble thinking, go back to the question, focus back on the presentation, and think "Okay, do I at least have an idea of what organ system/s might be primarily involved here?" Then let your brain come up with a bunch of hypotheses. Test them out. A lot of times it won't be a perfectly classic presentation, but you have to ask yourself "are the negatives for this hypothesis the types of things that rule it out (i.e. ST-elevation for stable angina) , or are they just non-classic things that I could come up with a hypothetical explanation for based on what I know about physiology/pathology, etc.?" If you're still not sure, pick the best answer and come back to it.
5) This is the only real content-oriented thing on this list. When you're studying, try to think like an examiner. What I mean by this is that even if something is not explicitly pointed out as an important tidbit, if it seems like something that distinguishes one disease from a related disease take note of it. It makes some questions much simpler. A lot (perhaps even most) questions I've seen actually have multiple routes to the correct information. Usually there is a fairly direct route (based on knowledge of specific distinguishing information) and a longer, more complicated route based pathophysiological reasoning and strong educated guessing. You'll never be able to know all of the specifics, but the more you know the less questions you're going to have to sit there and really think through and the more time you have for the questions you do have to do that for.
