Took the real deal today. I think I luckily had an easier version and I would say it was somewhat/slightly easier than--UWSA1/2 or UWorld. I only took NBME 12, so I cannot comment on other NBMEs, but the real deal felt only slightly more difficult than NBME. I actually felt absolutely fantastic coming out of the exam, which was totally unexpected. I think it was partly because it was so nice to see my classmates that I haven't seen for weeks/months. I felt so relaxed and was in a good mood going into the exam and during breaks. I also took a break after every block and approached the real deal as a series of 100 m sprints, rather than a long continuous marathon. That made the real deal a lot more manageable and "less scary."
However, I do expect that the curve will not be as generous as I hope. There were a lot of gimme questions that I think it would all come down to how many silly mistakes and lucky guesses students have made.
One thing I would say is that I was very surprised that although the real deal covered a lot of topics, it did not necessarily go into more details on each topic. The version that I took almost made me feel like going through FA second pass was an overkill. I felt that many questions were relatively easier, because the question stems provide a lot more clues than UWorld question stems. If these questions were on UWorld, I would expect to see 70-80+% of people choosing the right answer. UWorld was difficult for me because I usually had 2-3 plausible answer choices on many questions per block, thinking "If there was literally one more pertinent positive/negative, I could have got the right answer." On topics I was familiar with, it did not happen in the real deal--thankfully.
With that said, there were several questions per block that I did not even have any clue. I could rule out several answer choices, but I still had 3-5 choices where I just guessed and moved on. I can remember at least 10+ questions that I know I missed for sure. I also definitely got exhausted towards the later blocks that I found myself marking more and more questions. I marked about 20-25 questions on UWorld blocks, while the number of marked questions in the real deal ranged from 5 to 10.
Board prep:
I started out with watching pathoma and watching sketchy micro/pharm along with courses. In spare time, I tried to go through Brosencephalon Anki deck (organ systems and modified pharm decks) starting in winter break, and I started USMLE Rx in February (4 months out). I used picmonic for things that sketchy micro/pharm did not cover and for any pathology associations that I tend to forget easily. Before my dedicated, I finished Rx and 80-90% of Bros Anki. (The only reason I used Anki was not because I learned the best from using flashcards, but because I wanted to give it at least a try and thought it would be more manageable than reading through FA.)
During my dedicated, I spent the first 2 weeks or so going through DIT. It helped me getting focused in the beginning with my first pass FA. I was able go to through DIT relatively quickly, because I enjoyed watching videos and a lot of things they mentioned were what I've seen before. Then I spent the next 4 weeks going through UWorld. Doing 2 blocks + review all the explanations + writing them on my notes took me all day. I read things extremely slowly and carefully, so I did not even have time to do 2nd pass of pathoma/sketchy/etc. Then I spent the last week for my FA 2nd pass. This was the most painful period of my dedicated. Reading is not my primary learning style at all, so I think the fact that it was only a week before the real deal gave me enough pressure and motivation to do it.
School NBME = 220 (7 weeks out, before dedicated)
UWorld average: high 70s - low 80s, untimed
NBME 12 = 254 (2.5 weeks out after finishing UWorld)
UWSA 1 = 258 (2 weeks out)
UWSA 2 = 251 (2 weeks out)
Lastly, one piece of advice that I could give is: If you are below average or at average in class and learn things slow and it takes a lot of time to understand/memorize things--like me--then it might be helpful to start your board prep early in the process, instead of doing nothing until 2-3 months out and freaking out. I have never met anyone saying "I studied way too much" or "I started studying way too early." But I did meet some people saying "I wish I started earlier." I know that a lot of people around me said we shouldn't start studying for boards until 2-4 months out, and I am glad that I did not listen to them. I know my pace of studying is super slow, so I would have been in a very different position if I followed that advice.
