Hey everyone,
I took my test back during the week of May 22nd, so I thought I'd share my study strategy and test day experience.
Strategy: Pretty typical, used UWorld, FA, Sketchy, Pathoma, Robbins, etc. I had a 6 week-long ISP. I pretty much only used Robbins as needed for understanding. Overall, my goal was to understand the content as much as I could and never make the same mistake twice.
My typical study day consisted of doing 80-100 UWorld questions and making Anki cards for the questions/concepts I was weak on so I would never get the same type of question wrong again. Once I was done doing the questions and Anki reviews for that day, I would follow up with careful reading of the relevant FA section. I did questions based on the organ system I was weakest on according to my NBME performance profile. Did ~1/2 of qbank prior to the ISP and reset and finished entire qbank right before taking NBME 19. After NBME 19, I continued doing my anki reviews, random qbank blocks, and careful re-reading of the sections of FA that I had been weakest on and/or had not studied since early in the ISP. Also used FA rapid review (at end of book) in the few days before Step 1.
Also - I took Sundays off. I started feeling pretty burned out early on during the ISP, and I found this made a huge difference for me. I'd usually go out on Saturday night with some friends and catch one. In addition, if I had been feeling burnt out/sick of studying (usually on Thursdays for some reason), I would take the second half of the day off to chill out.
Assessments:
School CBSE (2 months prior to ISP): 235
ISP:
Day 0 (Baseline) - NBME 17 - 215
Week 3 - NBME 18 - 236
Week 5 - NBME 19 - 257 (~7 days before test)
Test Day: I went into the test feeling confident. Afterwards I left I felt like I had been punched in the face and stomach several times haha. It was hands down the hardest exam I have ever taken. I don't think I have ever felt more stressed in my entire life. Some of the question stems were so long they took up the entire screen and I had to scroll down to see the answers. I would employ some deep breathing exercises and about 5-10 minutes of meditation between blocks, but the adrenaline was pumping so hard I'm not sure how much good it did. I had time to go back and re-check all of my marked answers, but I thought the time constraints were much tighter than they had been on any of the NBMEs I took.
I remember I had packed this nice lunch and I thought I would have a relaxing lunch period after block 4. This was not the case at all haha. I had absolutely zero appetite and I was still so hyped up I only force-ate about half of my lunch. Then I went back to the testing room and did some more deep breathing before beginning block 5. In my experience, block 4 and block 5 were my toughest blocks - block 5 felt awful. However, I got a second wind during blocks 6 and 7 and, although they were still tough, I was able to phase out the absolutely demoralizing feelings I had felt during blocks 4 and 5.
In hindsight, I remember there were a lot of lay-up type questions - simple regurgitation of facts and questions that were almost identical to those in UWorld. However, there were also a lot of wtf-type questions - things I had never seen before or things I had never thought I would be tested on. My test had lots of molecular bio and pt management questions, which I am thinking were experimental. I tortured myself constantly answer-checking after the test (combined with copious alcohol intake), but I can happily say now that I barely remember any of the questions, so now I am just waiting for scores to come out. June 28 can't come soon enough! But I guess in the meantime, I will just continue day-drinking and posting on SDN...
