USMLE Official 2019 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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I was wondering if anyone could give me their input on my situation:

My dedicated is going to be 7 weeks, with a 1 week warmup before because i'm going back home to study, so i'm using the warmup week to get a routine going, adjust to the time change, find a good place to study, etc.



However, I technically have 10 weeks to study because my last 2 weeks of class (starting now) are just a synthesis/review week, without exams to study for.



So considering my study period. I was planning on taking all 5 new NBMEs, UWSA 1 and 2, and NBME free 120 (week of exam). For my 7 week true dedicated. I was planning on taking an NBME in the middle of my warmup week just to get a baseline. I originally planned NBME 15 for that with the old traditional NBME routine (15, 16, 19 , 17, 18, UWSA 1, UWSA 2 , Free NBME 120). However, now i'm considering making that first NBME (during my warmup week) NBME 19.



Any input would be appreciated. Also, maybe even another NBME before the warmup week? Sounds crazy imo, maybe my time would be better off doing UWorld.
 
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Necr0sis said:
I was wondering if anyone could give me their input on my situation:

My dedicated is going to be 7 weeks, with a 1 week warmup before because i'm going back home to study, so i'm using the warmup week to get a routine going, adjust to the time change, find a good place to study, etc.



However, I technically have 10 weeks to study because my last 2 weeks of class (starting now) are just a synthesis/review week, without exams to study for.



So considering my study period. I was planning on taking all 5 new NBMEs, UWSA 1 and 2, and NBME free 120 (week of exam). For my 7 week true dedicated. I was planning on taking an NBME in the middle of my warmup week just to get a baseline. I originally planned NBME 15 for that with the old traditional NBME routine (15, 16, 19 , 17, 18, UWSA 1, UWSA 2 , Free NBME 120). However, now i'm considering making that first NBME (during my warmup week) NBME 19.



Any input would be appreciated. Also, maybe even another NBME before the warmup week? Sounds crazy imo, maybe my time would be better off doing UWorld.
Click to expand...
I’d only take one and have it be the oldest nbme
 
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I spent the last two weeks reviewing weak areas on 18, and now I’m debating on taking another full length Friday (5.5 weeks out). Can’t decide though on taking one of the new NBMEs, UW1, or just waiting another week and knocking out a chunk of UWorld qs. What do y’all think?
 
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I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice:

I have roughly 2.5 weeks until my 7 week dedicated. Right now, I just have 10 days left of class but no exams to study for. I was wondering what would be the best thing to do for the 2.5 weeks before my dedicated.

Right now, I have about 6k cards left in Zanki+lolnotacop. I really enjoy doing Anki, and it seems to work for me. I’ve really been blowing off practice questions which I feel is a horrible mistake, my attention span just gets cut short and I lose patience with doing practice questions, which I feel a part of it is a burn out.

We’ve had 2 CBSE exams so far: one in January (got an 88% which according to the scale is a 245) and one just 2 weeks ago (got an 89%, which is higher than 245 but below 250, which is a 90%)

At this point, I’m considering just keep doing my Anki deck and UWorld questions. Moreover, I was wondering when would be a good time to reset my UWorld. I’m thinking either next week (so 9 weeks before my exam). A part of me really wants to read through FA and Pathoma, but I feel that it would be redundant because I’m essentially doing the same thing with Anki.

Any input would be appreciated.
 
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Necr0sis said:
I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice:

I have roughly 2.5 weeks until my 7 week dedicated. Right now, I just have 10 days left of class but no exams to study for. I was wondering what would be the best thing to do for the 2.5 weeks before my dedicated.

Right now, I have about 6k cards left in Zanki+lolnotacop. I really enjoy doing Anki, and it seems to work for me. I’ve really been blowing off practice questions which I feel is a horrible mistake, my attention span just gets cut short and I lose patience with doing practice questions, which I feel a part of it is a burn out.

We’ve had 2 CBSE exams so far: one in January (got an 88% which according to the scale is a 245) and one just 2 weeks ago (got an 89%, which is higher than 245 but below 250, which is a 90%)

At this point, I’m considering just keep doing my Anki deck and UWorld questions. Moreover, I was wondering when would be a good time to reset my UWorld. I’m thinking either next week (so 9 weeks before my exam). A part of me really wants to read through FA and Pathoma, but I feel that it would be redundant because I’m essentially doing the same thing with Anki.

Any input would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
What is a CBSE? Is that the same as NBME? I can't find CBSEs on their website...
 
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sunshine02 said:
Just took NBME 20 and I feel like I'm hitting a plateau. Any tips on how to increase scores again?
Click to expand...
Im not sure if anyone else does this:
but take a look at your incorrects and figure out why you are getting them wrong.
knowledge,
misapplication
misreading

and work on what ever common theme emerges.
 
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I got a 164 on my first NBME practice test, and got a 246 50 days later. Obviously this took some big mistakes during preclinical to end up in such poor shape, basically I figured out how to effectively game our curriculum. It was not on purpose, just landed on a very efficient way to do fairly well on our exams that ultimately amounted to cram/purge. I knew I needed to get on top of step study before dedicated came, but in the middle of our last semester I had a break up and was super unhappy and just didn't make it happen. Also, I got a 516 on the MCAT and I'm not trying to do anything super ambitious as far as specialty, so I wasn't worried about trying to get a sky-high score and pretty confident I would be fine. I figured I would be at about 200 to start and end up in the 235-240 range with a moderate amount of studying. Clearly, that's not how it went. I think what I landed on was really the only way that I had a chance, so here's my tips. You have to pick a couple modalities and stick with them, if you're second guessing constantly it will be [more of] a nightmare.
  1. Zanki- This was far and away the number one tool for me. It's not perfect, if I had a time machine I would have used the preclinical years to edit and improve the deck as we went, but as far as I can tell it is the most complete resource there is. I reset the deck and did the whole thing. With fairly normal settings, it's impossible to keep up with the reviews, so I used my discretion on how many passes I needed for any given section. For example, with several blocks I just made a pass or two through the physiology, but reviewed the path several more times. I'll warn you right now that the two big sand traps in the deck are metabolism in biochemistry, and the MSK anatomy. Basically you can try to memorize the entire anatomy of the body to get one more question right, or you can save yourself days of studying and just plan on guessing on the one or two pure anatomy questions you're likely going to get. I could manage about 2000 clicks a day on average, about 250 an hour. So that's 8 full hours of nothing but cards every day. It's rough, but possible. And you'll need the rest of the hours for...
  2. Uworld- Also important, I did it block-by-block after I'd seen the Zanki cards. I hate doing questions I don't have a clue about, I don't think it builds any connections to guess wildly. If you have enough knowledge on the topic to think hard about it, that makes things stick. I ran out of time to do my misses, which I would have liked to do. I had to do about 65/day to get though, which meant at least 2 hours with thorough review. I read all the info, unless I thought it was a really easy question. My final percentage was 70-something, keep in mind I was making at least a partial pass of the cards before I got into a topic.
  3. Sketchy- Micro and Pharm, I watched all of them, and did the corresponding zanki cards, except I used lolnotacop for micro one someone's recommendation. I tried skipping the videos and just doing the cards and it was not as good. It's time consuming but worth it. I don't see how pharm is possible without it, for step 1 level pharm it's almost complete and super clutch. I'm on clinicals now and still think about pharm sketches on a almost daily basis. I wavered a bit on reviewing in sketchy vs. zanki pharm reviews, zanki takes longer but sticks better IMO. If you're in a hurry though you can go look at a bunch of sketches pretty quickly.
  4. NBME practice tests- This guy's unpopular opinion, screw those things. They take about 2/3s of a day to do and review, provide no explanations for their answers, and lots of the questions are just utter ****. The real test looks more like uworld. Now, you're probably going to do them anyway because it's hard to get away from and everyone else on here told you to do them. But just one guys anecdote, my forms went 164, 198, 213, 225, and then I got a 246 4 days after that last one. Had I not wasted my time to get that very disappointing 225, I'm confident I would have done even a little better, since in the time it took to do it, I would have knocked about about 1600 cards. I would do the uworld sims preferentially over the NBMEs, since they at least give you explanations. In my experience the NBMEs are neither an effective learning tool, nor an accurate predictor, also the NBME doesn't deserve your $60 when that website looks like it was made in 2001 by a guy named Gary in his mom's basement and they can't even be fussed to write up a blurb about why they think you got their ****ty question wrong.
Getting this done took all day, every day, for the ~50 days. I did truncated days twice, on Christmas and my birthday. Other than those, I think I went out to dinner once, and never did any rec activities really. I usually watched a show or something before going to bed, just to try to get my mind of it before falling asleep. Honestly, much of it was an absolute nightmare. I slept terribly because of the constant anxiety about what I had to get through the next day, I dreamed in Zanki cards, and repeatedly fell apart and had to get it together again, especially after every disappointing NBME form. It's a **** time, but that's pretty much by design, and you will learn that you're capable of pushing yourself more than you thought. So I hope some of that is useful, best of luck!
 
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oldnbroken said:
I got a 164 on my first NBME practice test, and got a 246 50 days later. Obviously this took some big mistakes during preclinical to end up in such poor shape, basically I figured out how to effectively game our curriculum. It was not on purpose, just landed on a very efficient way to do fairly well on our exams that ultimately amounted to cram/purge. I knew I needed to get on top of step study before dedicated came, but in the middle of our last semester I had a break up and was super unhappy and just didn't make it happen. Also, I got a 516 on the MCAT and I'm not trying to do anything super ambitious as far as specialty, so I wasn't worried about trying to get a sky-high score and pretty confident I would be fine. I figured I would be at about 200 to start and end up in the 235-240 range with a moderate amount of studying. Clearly, that's not how it went. I think what I landed on was really the only way that I had a chance, so here's my tips. You have to pick a couple modalities and stick with them, if you're second guessing constantly it will be [more of] a nightmare.
  1. Zanki- This was far and away the number one tool for me. It's not perfect, if I had a time machine I would have used the preclinical years to edit and improve the deck as we went, but as far as I can tell it is the most complete resource there is. I reset the deck and did the whole thing. With fairly normal settings, it's impossible to keep up with the reviews, so I used my discretion on how many passes I needed for any given section. For example, with several blocks I just made a pass or two through the physiology, but reviewed the path several more times. I'll warn you right now that the two big sand traps in the deck are metabolism in biochemistry, and the MSK anatomy. Basically you can try to memorize the entire anatomy of the body to get one more question right, or you can save yourself days of studying and just plan on guessing on the one or two pure anatomy questions you're likely going to get. I could manage about 2000 clicks a day on average, about 250 an hour. So that's 8 full hours of nothing but cards every day. It's rough, but possible. And you'll need the rest of the hours for...
  2. Uworld- Also important, I did it block-by-block after I'd seen the Zanki cards. I hate doing questions I don't have a clue about, I don't think it builds any connections to guess wildly. If you have enough knowledge on the topic to think hard about it, that makes things stick. I ran out of time to do my misses, which I would have liked to do. I had to do about 65/day to get though, which meant at least 2 hours with thorough review. I read all the info, unless I thought it was a really easy question. My final percentage was 70-something, keep in mind I was making at least a partial pass of the cards before I got into a topic.
  3. Sketchy- Micro and Pharm, I watched all of them, and did the corresponding zanki cards. I tried skipping the videos and just doing the cards and it was not as good. It's time consuming but worth it. I don't see how pharm is possible without it.
  4. NBME practice tests- This guy's unpopular opinion, screw those things. They take about 2/3s of a day to do and review, provide no explanations for their answers, and lots of the questions are just utter ****. The real test looks more like uworld. Now, you're probably going to do them anyway because it's hard to get away from and everyone else on here told you to do them. But just one guys anecdote, my forms went 164, 198, 213, 225, and then I got a 246 4 days after that last one. Had I not wasted my time to get that very disappointing 225, I'm confident I would have done even a little better, since in the time it took to do it, I would have knocked about about 1600 cards. I would do the uworld sims preferentially over the NBMEs, since they at least give you explanations. In my experience the NBMEs are neither an effective learning tool, nor an accurate predictor, also the NBME doesn't deserve your $60 when that website looks like it was made in 2001 by a guy named Gary in his mom's basement and they can't even be fussed to write up a blurb about why they think you got their ****ty question wrong.
Getting this done took all day, every day, for the ~50 days. I did truncated days twice, on Christmas and my birthday. Other than those, I think I went out to dinner once, and never did any rec activities really. I usually watched a show or something before going to bed, just to try to get my mind of it before falling asleep. Honestly, much of it was an absolute nightmare. I slept terribly because of the constant anxiety about what I had to get through the next day, I dreamed in Zanki cards, and repeatedly fell apart and had to get it together again, especially after every disappointing NBME form. It's a **** time, but that's pretty much by design, and you will learn that you're capable of pushing yourself more than you thought. So I hope some of that is useful, best of luck!
Click to expand...

Glad to have your perspective on Zanki. I was really having trouble deciding how to split up study time since I was averaging 8 hours of cards every single day non-stop. I also dream about step 1 four out of seven nights a week lol.

NBMEs are weird. The curves are really harsh, the interface isn't great, my exam sometimes freeze up in the middle, and it really shouldn't be $60/test. Nice to see that NBME under-predicts...
 
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oldnbroken said:
I got a 164 on my first NBME practice test, and got a 246 50 days later. Obviously this took some big mistakes during preclinical to end up in such poor shape, basically I figured out how to effectively game our curriculum. It was not on purpose, just landed on a very efficient way to do fairly well on our exams that ultimately amounted to cram/purge. I knew I needed to get on top of step study before dedicated came, but in the middle of our last semester I had a break up and was super unhappy and just didn't make it happen. Also, I got a 516 on the MCAT and I'm not trying to do anything super ambitious as far as specialty, so I wasn't worried about trying to get a sky-high score and pretty confident I would be fine. I figured I would be at about 200 to start and end up in the 235-240 range with a moderate amount of studying. Clearly, that's not how it went. I think what I landed on was really the only way that I had a chance, so here's my tips. You have to pick a couple modalities and stick with them, if you're second guessing constantly it will be [more of] a nightmare.
  1. Zanki- This was far and away the number one tool for me. It's not perfect, if I had a time machine I would have used the preclinical years to edit and improve the deck as we went, but as far as I can tell it is the most complete resource there is. I reset the deck and did the whole thing. With fairly normal settings, it's impossible to keep up with the reviews, so I used my discretion on how many passes I needed for any given section. For example, with several blocks I just made a pass or two through the physiology, but reviewed the path several more times. I'll warn you right now that the two big sand traps in the deck are metabolism in biochemistry, and the MSK anatomy. Basically you can try to memorize the entire anatomy of the body to get one more question right, or you can save yourself days of studying and just plan on guessing on the one or two pure anatomy questions you're likely going to get. I could manage about 2000 clicks a day on average, about 250 an hour. So that's 8 full hours of nothing but cards every day. It's rough, but possible. And you'll need the rest of the hours for...
  2. Uworld- Also important, I did it block-by-block after I'd seen the Zanki cards. I hate doing questions I don't have a clue about, I don't think it builds any connections to guess wildly. If you have enough knowledge on the topic to think hard about it, that makes things stick. I ran out of time to do my misses, which I would have liked to do. I had to do about 65/day to get though, which meant at least 2 hours with thorough review. I read all the info, unless I thought it was a really easy question. My final percentage was 70-something, keep in mind I was making at least a partial pass of the cards before I got into a topic.
  3. Sketchy- Micro and Pharm, I watched all of them, and did the corresponding zanki cards. I tried skipping the videos and just doing the cards and it was not as good. It's time consuming but worth it. I don't see how pharm is possible without it.
  4. NBME practice tests- This guy's unpopular opinion, screw those things. They take about 2/3s of a day to do and review, provide no explanations for their answers, and lots of the questions are just utter ****. The real test looks more like uworld. Now, you're probably going to do them anyway because it's hard to get away from and everyone else on here told you to do them. But just one guys anecdote, my forms went 164, 198, 213, 225, and then I got a 246 4 days after that last one. Had I not wasted my time to get that very disappointing 225, I'm confident I would have done even a little better, since in the time it took to do it, I would have knocked about about 1600 cards. I would do the uworld sims preferentially over the NBMEs, since they at least give you explanations. In my experience the NBMEs are neither an effective learning tool, nor an accurate predictor, also the NBME doesn't deserve your $60 when that website looks like it was made in 2001 by a guy named Gary in his mom's basement and they can't even be fussed to write up a blurb about why they think you got their ****ty question wrong.
Getting this done took all day, every day, for the ~50 days. I did truncated days twice, on Christmas and my birthday. Other than those, I think I went out to dinner once, and never did any rec activities really. I usually watched a show or something before going to bed, just to try to get my mind of it before falling asleep. Honestly, much of it was an absolute nightmare. I slept terribly because of the constant anxiety about what I had to get through the next day, I dreamed in Zanki cards, and repeatedly fell apart and had to get it together again, especially after every disappointing NBME form. It's a **** time, but that's pretty much by design, and you will learn that you're capable of pushing yourself more than you thought. So I hope some of that is useful, best of luck!
Click to expand...
This is pretty motivating. Thank you for sharing.
 
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Do you guys make your own cards when going over UWorld or just unsuspend/add cards from pre-made decks?
 
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Wonder if y'all can help me work this one out.
Got a 228 on NBME 18 about three weeks ago, but 85 (237) on CBSE last week, which I heard typically underpredicts quite dramatically. I'm 4 weeks out from my test but would really love to move that date closer if I can feel confident in ~245.
I'm having a hard time reconciling these two signals of being ready (CBSE) and not (18). Finishing UW this week with 73%. Thoughts?
 
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jesie said:
Wonder if y'all can help me work this one out.
Got a 228 on NBME 18 about three weeks ago, but 85 (237) on CBSE last week, which I heard typically underpredicts quite dramatically. I'm 4 weeks out from my test but would really love to move that date closer if I can feel confident in ~245.
I'm having a hard time reconciling these two signals of being ready (CBSE) and not (18). Finishing UW this week with 73%. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I would take another NBME now. Judge based on that, or come back with that score and ask again if you’re still unsure.
 
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Totally unrelated but @sunshine02 I always feel like this when I see you in the same threads...
ABFB5B6E-F6CB-493F-B491-70BDE915230E.jpeg
 
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Hmm...so I have an 8 week dedicated. I'm doing the 5 new NBME's + UWSA1 UWSA2 and Free NBME. That leaves me with one more of the old NBME's to do, which I would be doing first to set a baseline. I was thinking of doing 19 (set the bar high and destroy my ego) or 15. Any input guys?
 
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JooceMan137 said:
Hmm...so I have an 8 week dedicated. I'm doing the 5 new NBME's + UWSA1 UWSA2 and Free NBME. That leaves me with one more of the old NBME's to do, which I would be doing first to set a baseline. I was thinking of doing 19 (set the bar high and destroy my ego) or 15. Any input guys?
Click to expand...

Im doing the same starting this weekend with 19! Destroying my ego and hopefully coming out of it motivated to study lol
 
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Can anyone comment on how predictive the USMLE-Rx score predictor is? Or if Kaplan % correct is a good predictor?

Most people it seems like tend to go by NBME scores, but anyone have reliable data on Qbanks? Maybe even a UWorld % correct?
 
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sunshinefl said:
Totally unrelated but @sunshine02 I always feel like this when I see you in the same threads...
Click to expand...

I didn't even realize you were two different people until now

Epicurusall said:
Can anyone comment on how predictive the USMLE-Rx score predictor is? Or if Kaplan % correct is a good predictor?

Most people it seems like tend to go by NBME scores, but anyone have reliable data on Qbanks? Maybe even a UWorld % correct?
Click to expand...

Results of 2018 USMLE Step 1 & COMLEX Level 1 Correlation Survey

This should be helpful. Use it as a ballpark estimate only, since all these surveys have a certain degree of bias. Besides NBME averages, UWorld 1st pass % is the most helpful, I wouldn't really rely on the others.
 
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delimitedtab said:
Keep up the good work! Is that a 40 q block?
Click to expand...

Thank you, yes those are random timed blocks of 40.

To be honest, random blocks make reviewing a mess as you 're jumping from one topic to another. I used my previous two Qbanks system-wise and at first it was a bit overwhelming. But that's how it's gonna be on test day, so we have to prepare accordingly.
 
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Diphyllobothrium latum said:
Thank you, yes those are random timed blocks of 40.

To be honest, random blocks make reviewing a mess as you 're jumping from one topic to another. I used my previous two Qbanks system-wise and at first it was a bit overwhelming. But that's how it's gonna be on test day, so we have to prepare accordingly.
Click to expand...
I was worried it was like a 10-20 question block. But you're looking solid then. I think random Q is the only way to do it. That's how I did it. subject confined blocks of questions inflate your scores and progress and you're likely to go long periods without seeing a q from a topic when you move on unless you build in extra revision of old topics.
 
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Diphyllobothrium latum said:
Thank you, yes those are random timed blocks of 40.

To be honest, random blocks make reviewing a mess as you 're jumping from one topic to another. I used my previous two Qbanks system-wise and at first it was a bit overwhelming. But that's how it's gonna be on test day, so we have to prepare accordingly.
Click to expand...
Ws wondering if you could quickly go over your daily study routine. I assume you wake up, do a block of 40, and review. How long does this take you? What do you do afterwards?
 
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Is anyone doing that free AMBOSS assessment? I'm considering doing it, but only if it has some good explanations. I never really checked out AMBOSS too much
 
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watermelon master said:
Ws wondering if you could quickly go over your daily study routine. I assume you wake up, do a block of 40, and review. How long does this take you? What do you do afterwards?
Click to expand...

- Wake up at 7:30am, breakfast etc
- Study from 8am to 3pm - I use the Pomodoro technique with 50 minutes of work time, 5-10 minutes of break after every session - I have a slightly bigger break between the 4th and 5th Pomodoro session and grab a snack
- Lunch time, surf the web
- 4:30-6:30pm 1-2 Pomodoro sessions (optional)
- Hit the gym - If it's a day-off, I'll just do an extra 1-2 Pomodoro sessions
- 1-2 Pomodoro sessions after that
- Finish studying by 10:30pm, try to get to bed between 11:30 and 12:30.

Minimum of 7 Pomodoro sessions (I always strive for at least 8 though), maximum of 11 per day. Done 12 like 2 times but it's a burn out recipe after 11.
6 days a week x 8 months so far. Sundays are off - I work on research for 2-3 hours, and take the rest of the day off.

Right now I am trying to hit 60 questions per day. So I alternate between 1 and 2 blocks per day, always solving the Qs in the beginning of the work day so I am fresh. Then I start reviewing, trying to hit anywhere from 6-10 Qs per Pomodoro session, depending on how many new concepts I come across.

FA is always open as a reference in front of me. I skim the question stem, then before reading the explanation, I try to give a good explanation why every option is incorrect (same process should be followed when solving the block). I also try to actively recall any relevant info regarding the general concept. Then I read the explanation, annotate any new info onto FA. If I feel somewhat unfamiliar with the topic or haven't reviewed it in a long time, I also read the corresponding FA chapter.

I 've done 3 passes of FA already, so I also keep a small notebook, where I put all the small details that I haven't learnt by now so I 'll be able to review them periodically. Eg Today I reviewed a question about the side effects of SSRIs. There was an option related to SNRIs, so I reread the corresponding FA chapter, only to find out that I had no memory of venlafaxine being used for diabetic neuropathy or duloxetine for fibromyalgia. These two info bits were both underlined with two different colors - meaning I forgot this info by the time I did my 2nd pass and 3rd pass too and it still didn't stick by now. So onto the notebook it goes.

Hope that was somewhat helpful.
 
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delimitedtab said:
I was worried it was like a 10-20 question block. But you're looking solid then. I think random Q is the only way to do it. That's how I did it. subject confined blocks of questions inflate your scores and progress and you're likely to go long periods without seeing a q from a topic when you move on unless you build in extra revision of old topics.
Click to expand...

I'm still not a huge fan. I am big advocate of timed blocks because you should learn to manage time from day 1, but I'd say it depends on your situation about doing random blocks.

Your first pass should have somewhat of a structure and logical continuity. I think it's absolutely necessary to try and leave as few gaps of understanding as possible in that phase, as they will eventually catch up with you at a later stage. You can only really achieve that by building information on top of previous concepts.

Learn about the hearts anatomy, then its physiology, then the ECG and only then the pathology. If you learn about Afib the 1st day, just because you stumbled into a question about it, you will have a poor understanding about its EKG findings, the possible hemodynamic consequences in an elderly patient and why pulmonary isolation ablation is a treatment choice - sure you can memorize this, but you will forget it quickly, unless that info is built on info you already know - you can memorize the absence of P wave on an EKG or you can logically deduce and understand it by just applying your knowledge regarding what the P wave represents.

I believe the sheer amount of knowledge involved in this exam is gigantic and by the time you 're finished with doing your 1st pass, you 've already forgotten a lot of info - doing random Qs might lead to just mixing everything up and ending up with a big mess. On the contrary, doing the corresponding Qs after you 've finished reviewing every FA chapter, seems like a really efficient way to solidify your concepts.

I'd say random timed truly works when you already have a good command on all major topics. Even at the later stages of one's prep, one could even do cycles of system-wise blocks, hitting a different system every day and cycling between all of them every couple of weeks.
 
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getfat said:
Have any of you guys/gals taken an AMBOSS self assessment yet.

I was debating doing it because its free and you get a score report.

Alot of guys/gals in my class really like it.
Click to expand...

& @Scrubs101

If I didn't have a final Monday I would do it. Honestly I still might. It's only 1/2 an exam (4 hours.)

At the same time, I kinda wonder if they are going to destroy everybody to scare them into buying AMBOSS or something. Not trying kill my confidence.. not this weekend anyways.
 
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NecrotizingFasciitis said:
& @Scrubs101

If I didn't have a final Monday I would do it. Honestly I still might. It's only 1/2 an exam (4 hours.)

At the same time, I kinda wonder if they are going to destroy everybody to scare them into buying AMBOSS or something. Not trying kill my confidence.. not this weekend anyways.
Click to expand...

I had the same thought about it being purposely rough for that purpose(they even say its harsh in their description), and it gave me flash backs to the baseline kaplan exam for the MCAT lmfao
 
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NecrotizingFasciitis said:
they are going to destroy everybody to scare them into buying AMBOSS or something
Click to expand...
I had a similar hunch. A couple guys i know took it today and said it was really hard but relevent. I wouldn't really use to base my percentile. I feel like the percentile is going to be skewed because only people that are prepared probably will take it.
 
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NecrotizingFasciitis said:
Not trying kill my confidence..
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Personally, my confidence has been at an all time low since NBME 13 like a month ago so I don't think that part will matter haha.

Its got to the point where if anyone asks me anything my go to answer is always "i don't know". Even if i think I know the answer i'm just trained to think I don't haha.
 
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Diphyllobothrium latum said:
I'm still not a huge fan. I am big advocate of timed blocks because you should learn to manage time from day 1, but I'd say it depends on your situation about doing random blocks.

Your first pass should have somewhat of a structure and logical continuity. I think it's absolutely necessary to try and leave as few gaps of understanding as possible in that phase, as they will eventually catch up with you at a later stage. You can only really achieve that by building information on top of previous concepts.

Learn about the hearts anatomy, then its physiology, then the ECG and only then the pathology. If you learn about Afib the 1st day, just because you stumbled into a question about it, you will have a poor understanding about its EKG findings, the possible hemodynamic consequences in an elderly patient and why pulmonary isolation ablation is a treatment choice - sure you can memorize this, but you will forget it quickly, unless that info is built on info you already know - you can memorize the absence of P wave on an EKG or you can logically deduce and understand it by just applying your knowledge regarding what the P wave represents.

I believe the sheer amount of knowledge involved in this exam is gigantic and by the time you 're finished with doing your 1st pass, you 've already forgotten a lot of info - doing random Qs might lead to just mixing everything up and ending up with a big mess. On the contrary, doing the corresponding Qs after you 've finished reviewing every FA chapter, seems like a really efficient way to solidify your concepts.

I'd say random timed truly works when you already have a good command on all major topics. Even at the later stages of one's prep, one could even do cycles of system-wise blocks, hitting a different system every day and cycling between all of them every couple of weeks.
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What you described in bold text is what the first two years of medical school are for and typical "step study"/"dedicated" times are just reviewing with UWorld. I made it through about half of UWorld (in total) using timed, random blocks of 40 question and it worked well for me. I also didn't use FA at any point, so I suppose this all is just a matter of study preference and learning style, which is why many different approaches can work. So glad this is 2 years in the rear view mirror :happy:
 
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Just did the AMBOSS exam, got a 75% which is exactly what my qbank averages were at before my hiatus to deal with school BS. Maybe less than 5 concepts i straight up didnt know or havent ever heard of, most of the stuff i got wrong I just completely forgot and should have known. Definitely made me realize how much information I forgot from not board studying for the past couple months and how 0 progress was made since then lol. Foils were pretty easy to get to the right answer if i didnt know it right away, which was a lot of them as I usually flagged more than half. Gonna lift then go over the q's. From a quick glance at the score report and answer explanations, they look great. Totally worth it for a free exam!

I however was under the impression that we got scores back right away, so I guess waiting till the 14th for a score will prepare me mentally for the real waiting period lmfao
 
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Diphyllobothrium latum said:
I'm still not a huge fan. I am big advocate of timed blocks because you should learn to manage time from day 1, but I'd say it depends on your situation about doing random blocks.

Your first pass should have somewhat of a structure and logical continuity. I think it's absolutely necessary to try and leave as few gaps of understanding as possible in that phase, as they will eventually catch up with you at a later stage. You can only really achieve that by building information on top of previous concepts.

Learn about the hearts anatomy, then its physiology, then the ECG and only then the pathology. If you learn about Afib the 1st day, just because you stumbled into a question about it, you will have a poor understanding about its EKG findings, the possible hemodynamic consequences in an elderly patient and why pulmonary isolation ablation is a treatment choice - sure you can memorize this, but you will forget it quickly, unless that info is built on info you already know - you can memorize the absence of P wave on an EKG or you can logically deduce and understand it by just applying your knowledge regarding what the P wave represents.

I believe the sheer amount of knowledge involved in this exam is gigantic and by the time you 're finished with doing your 1st pass, you 've already forgotten a lot of info - doing random Qs might lead to just mixing everything up and ending up with a big mess. On the contrary, doing the corresponding Qs after you 've finished reviewing every FA chapter, seems like a really efficient way to solidify your concepts.

I'd say random timed truly works when you already have a good command on all major topics. Even at the later stages of one's prep, one could even do cycles of system-wise blocks, hitting a different system every day and cycling between all of them every couple of weeks.
Click to expand...

THIS

I completely agree with you. I never understood how people jump straight into "random" blocks of information. How do you synthesize the information in a coherent way? I did well in all my classes but I'm not a superhuman and forgot the minutaie. Doing a quick review of FA then the corresponding UW section is the only way I know how to "learn" from UW.

For example I got a high A on our endocrine block but then tried doing the questions without reviewing 3 weeks later and got simple histo questions wrong pertaining to the various thyroid cancers in my first set. Went back and reviewed the FA chapter for maybe 45 minutes, came back and was not only able to get those questions right, but then read the UW explanations and gain a further understanding of how all those concepts linked together. This wouldn't have happened if I did these questions randomly.

I guess everyone learns a different way but seeing everyone on SDN posting how they just start random blocks out of nowhere always confused me
 
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Took UWSA1 today for a bit of a boost after not doing as well as I wanted to on NBME 18 last week. It worked:


But also:


Still had the same problem with fatigue, half of my wrongs came on the last block, which has been pretty consistent across all my test. That pattern has been too consistent to ignore at this point. I think I need to change up how I'm studying to deal with this or it's going to kill me on test day.

My current schedule is: 1 hour of cards after I wake up/have breakfast, 1 block uworld, review that block, general content review, gym or run, lunch, second block uworld, review, finish cards. That schedule has kept me very fresh for all the questions I'm doing, but I'm realizing that it's not realistic for how the test will be.

For the next week, I think I'm going to try doing alternating days like this:
Day A - Wake up, breakfast, 2 UWorld blocks back to back, 10 minute break, 2 UWorld blocks back to back. Then gym/run/lunch, then content review.
Day B - Do all Uworld question review and cards that are due. No content review because reviewing blocks takes about 1.5 times as long as doing them.

This way I'm still working through about 2 blocks per day, but my brain is getting used to the longer sessions. I'll see how it goes, though I'm expecting my percentages to drop a bit.
 
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subdural_hematoma said:
THIS

I completely agree with you. I never understood how people jump straight into "random" blocks of information. How do you synthesize the information in a coherent way? I did well in all my classes but I'm not a superhuman and forgot the minutaie. Doing a quick review of FA then the corresponding UW section is the only way I know how to "learn" from UW.

For example I got a high A on our endocrine block but then tried doing the questions without reviewing 3 weeks later and got simple histo questions wrong pertaining to the various thyroid cancers in my first set. Went back and reviewed the FA chapter for maybe 45 minutes, came back and was not only able to get those questions right, but then read the UW explanations and gain a further understanding of how all those concepts linked together. This wouldn't have happened if I did these questions randomly.

I guess everyone learns a different way but seeing everyone on SDN posting how they just start random blocks out of nowhere always confused me
Click to expand...
The UWorld questions are sufficiently descriptive to answer a single question in isolation and read the explanations (and really, you've been through at least 2 years of medical school). I take learning to mean developing understanding rather than fact retention. Answering questions randomly sits more with the former as you don't know the question's answer must be cardiac, for example, and you have to see the question in the same manner it will appear in the real exam and in real life. That is, you don't know what broad category the answer is in, so you can't rely on that when selecting an answer choice. This helps learning subject matter and understanding how the material presents differently for the same diagnosis or similarly when the diagnosis is in a different class. I think it's easier to autopilot an answer choice when you're doing questions from a subject area versus random.

Overall, probably a function of learning style.
 
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FindersFee5 said:
Took UWSA1 today for a bit of a boost after not doing as well as I wanted to on NBME 18 last week. It worked:


But also:


Still had the same problem with fatigue, half of my wrongs came on the last block, which has been pretty consistent across all my test. That pattern has been too consistent to ignore at this point. I think I need to change up how I'm studying to deal with this or it's going to kill me on test day.

My current schedule is: 1 hour of cards after I wake up/have breakfast, 1 block uworld, review that block, general content review, gym or run, lunch, second block uworld, review, finish cards. That schedule has kept me very fresh for all the questions I'm doing, but I'm realizing that it's not realistic for how the test will be.

For the next week, I think I'm going to try doing alternating days like this:
Day A - Wake up, breakfast, 2 UWorld blocks back to back, 10 minute break, 2 UWorld blocks back to back. Then gym/run/lunch, then content review.
Day B - Do all Uworld question review and cards that are due. No content review because reviewing blocks takes about 1.5 times as long as doing them.

This way I'm still working through about 2 blocks per day, but my brain is getting used to the longer sessions. I'll see how it goes, though I'm expecting my percentages to drop a bit.
Click to expand...

Do you take full length (back to back) practice exams or only halfs (i.e. a single NBME/UWorld at once)? Doubling up once or twice will probably benefit your stamina. Always did for me.
 
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delimitedtab said:
Do you take full length (back to back) practice exams or only halfs (i.e. a single NBME/UWorld at once)? Doubling up once or twice will probably benefit your stamina. Always did for me.
Click to expand...

I've done NBMEs + 2 Uworld blocks. I just took UWSA1 in isolation today because otherwise I would have been overwhelmed trying to review 6 UWorld blocks tomorrow.

I think I really just need to change how my brain approaches question sets. I'm training it to handle every question set like a 1600m race - Sure, it's mostly aerobic, but it's still about 20% anaerobic. That's the optimal way to run a 1600. But the real test is more like the 10k (which is like 95% anaerobic), and I'm running out of steam before the final legs. Hopefully working with 4 question blocks as my standard unit will correct that.
 
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Question, in vWF disease we should expect PTT to be abnormal correct? Because it helps stabilize Factor 8? Or is this not a significant effect?

Question was a "pick the most likely" ish. Stem of the question just said "PT and PTT are normal" , bleeding time was abnormal. So i picked the only other phase 1 of coag cascase option, bernard soulier, because I expected PTT to be slightly effected in vWF disease. I understand it's a rare disease so i probably should have picked vWF, just unsure whether or not I should consider the effect of factor 8 stabilization and it's effect on PTT.


edit: should have kept reading, BS disease apparently has thrombocytopenia as well and this guy didnt have this. oof
 
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