I've been lurking on this thread for a while now while preparing for the exam, and as much as it scared the s*** out of me to read some of your experiences, it was helpful to know we're all in this together. So I figured I would post now that I've taken the beast.
My exam was yesterday 4/25. I prepped for 6 weeks, but didn't have a structured schedule....I tried, but I just couldn't be that disciplined.
I watched most of DIT, used FA, UWorld, Pathoma, Sketchy (just the micro part), and some picmonic for the glycogen storage diseases (there was no way I could keep these straight otherwise!)
NBME's were all over the place:
- exam that the school gave us prior to dedicated: 192
- NBME 15: 222 (4 weeks out)
- NBME 16: 222 (3 weeks out...no improvement freaked me out!)
- NBME 17: 251 (2 weeks out)
- NBME 18: 237 (1 week out....I was very disappointed with this drop)
UWorld cumulative average with 80% completion: 72% with the last 20 or so sections were between 75-86%
I felt ok during the exam. I was prepared for the worst, and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It felt a lot like UWorld, in both difficulty and the length of question stems. I have no idea how I did, but I've been actively trying not to think of any questions that might have screwed up.
I took a break after the first 3 sections, and then another after the next two. In hindsight, I should have taken a break before the last block, because that's when my mental exhaustion really hit me hard. All in all, I'm just glad it's over!
I'll post when I get my score, cross your fingers! 🙂