Doesn't matter anyway because the Cath Up Predictor™ has you at a 245 with SD +-2, 95% CI 240-250, and it's the most accurate.
Lol thanks bro. That would be amazing
I was having the same problem. I tried to remove my baseline NBME like you suggested to see what would happen to my CI, and it gave me an error message like that. Wonder if it'll work now that I have 18 in there.
It probably will work with 18. I put in a random score for 18 and it worked. Out of curiosity you took NBME 24 like several days ago right? and then took 18 today? I'm wondering because I think we scored similarly on 24 so if I could score near what you did on 18 I will be on cloud 9. 22 basically ruined my entire day I need to just like never do any more new NBMEs
Yes. NBME 24 on Friday, 18 today.
Yeah exactly thats what i was saying lol it completely changes the interval. If i take out my NBME 21 it basically makes my CI 245-255
What have you been doing most days that you think helped you to snag that 247 on 18? Have you just been keeping up with Anki and doing UWorld questions? I feel like my content knowledge is dipping but I don't want to stop doing questions lol trying to figure out how to fit it all in
Pretty much! I do all of my Anki reviews every day, no matter what. It's always been my top priority. I've been doing 2 blocks of UWorld + review. I rewatched all of Pathoma which I think might have helped tie everything together a bit and give me the big picture again, but honestly not sure exactly how helpful it was overall. I've also been watching BnB for my weak subjects which I think really helped. Other than that I pretty much just went with my gut on 18, I didn't let myself second guess too much and I just went with what I thought sounded right. People always say that you should use the NBMEs to teach yourself not to overthink anything, because I think UWorld gets us in the habit of overanalyzing questions and answer choices because they actually do try to trick you sometimes. I also took 5-10 minute breaks in between each section on 18, which I usually don't do. Typically I'm just trying to rush through them and get them done asap, so I kind of took my time reading all the questions and just slowing down a bit since I always finish with a ton of time (still finished with like 15-20 minutes left on each block after review). I think taking the breaks between the sections really helped my brain reset. I'm definitely going to do breaks after each section on the real deal, I really think that made a difference. Lastly.....I think it was mainly just my confidence and my mindset: I found the first block to be pretty easy and it set me up feeling great, and I was right-- I only missed 1 question on the entire block. It got harder after that, but I think I just felt relatively okay while taking it and I was just going with my gut and trusting myself. The more and more questions I do, the more I realize that once you hit the level of knowledge that I think most of us on this thread are at, it really becomes more of a mental game than anything. I realize this is a really long response but you've helped me a ton so I hope this helps somewhat!
Thanks for the knowledge drop I really appreciate it. I think i need to hit my weaknesses gonna watch BnB on them and pathoma sections that are HY. How long does it take you to review a UW block? Im trying to free up more time for my weaknesses without sacrificing questions. for me it takes me like 2-2.5 hrs per block to review which takes up about 7-8 hrs all together plus I do an 30 mins of anki pharm/micro and then 30 mins of my question journal (factoids from my incorrects on UW). You think I should speed up my time reviewing UW and maybe cut down on the micro?
Definitely don't cut down on micro/pharm! I haven't touched micro/pharm for the last 2 weeks and it turned out to be a problem for me since I'm starting to forget stuff I knew before dedicated. I will rewatch sketchy micro and do zanki pharm daily for the following weeks
So when I first started it would take me 1.5-2 hours. Now it's been taking me closer to 1 hour because I just feel like I've read the explanations a million times and so I skim them really quickly if I already feel comfortable with the material and then just read the learning objective part, especially if it's something I got correct. Like mentioned I would definitely keep up with micro/pharm because usually those tend to be easy points just based on memorization and you're gonna be pissed if you miss questions on it imo. I would try to cut back on the UWorld reviews a bit, unless you feel like it really helps you significantly to spend that much time reviewing. When I was re-watching Pathoma, my schedule looked something like this: wake up, 1 hour anki, 2 hours BnB, UWorld block, review block, 1 hour lunch + finish anki, UWorld block, review block, 2.5-3 hours Pathoma. I read ~15 pages of my UWorld incorrects in bed at night, just started this a couple of days ago. Now that I've cut out another pass of Pathoma I have some extra time, not sure if I will fill it with anything tbh except maybe do another block of UWorld per day. I definitely recommend finding time to hit your weak points because it has helped me a lot, and I haven't even gotten to biochem yet which I generally suck at lol.
Thanks for your input! I am reworking my schedule now and going to spend less time on my UWorld reviews (1.5-2 hours absolute max per block). Ill do my pepper decks for micro/pharm for an hr and spend 2 hours doing BnB vids on my weaknesses. Hoping this will bump me up for 18. Feeling more energized today from the ****storm from yesterday. I gotta keep going can't give up
You're going to kill 18!! Seriously, you've basically done slightly better than me on everything lol so I'm sure you're going to perform similarly on 18. 22 sucks so don't let it trip you up.
-Cross - out irrelevant answer choices
I’m definitely not the expert, but I always read the last sentence (the actual question) of the stem first, because sometimes the rest of the stem isn’t necessary, or only certain parts are. And if I’m really not sure the answer, I’ll evaluate each one and strike out the ones I can eliminate. Hopefully someone else can chime in too.
What I do is read the last sentence first, since a lot of times you can answer the question based on that and don't need any other info. Then, I skim the answer choices and try to tell myself what each one is talking about, so that I define the answer choice for myself beforehand. Then, I'll go read the entire stem if I need to. Come back and pick whichever answer choice definition I gave best matches what I think the question is asking. Also, if the question seems obscure or I'm lost, I'll just take a step back and try and ask myself "what is the point of this question? what seems like a fact examiners would be trying to test me on?" and that helps sometimes. Pre-defining the answer choices helped me a lot because things get blurry once you read the stem and you start thinking "oh maybe this could be it".
Thank you, I think this will all really help, especially the crossing out, I always forget to do that and try to just mentally cross them out. So many of my mistakes are not lack of knowledge, its lack of making the connection.
Thanks so much for the encouraging words. I need it lmao and thank you for the advice!
Imma stick with zanki, but 1500-2000 daily reviews is crushing my will to live.
I found the OnlineMedEd OMM videos helpful. Reading Savarese was too dry for me and the videos follow the book pretty closely. The COMLEX exams at the end of Savarese were useful. There are YouTube videos on drawing VS and Chapman's which I wish I would have done throughout M1/2
Well, now I'm afraid of taking it lol. Especially since people say its biochem and cell bio heavy, which are probably my 2 worst areas.
Only difference is I was coming off of a 224 on NBME 21 and you’re working with a recent 245+ on 18. You’re going to destroy it. I’m excited to see how you do.
I would take the exam lol Im so over this.
Except I also got a 224 on 21 so I trust nothing lol. Thank you for the kind words though!
Yeah, it's just all so random it seems. But I think I'm with @ohmanwaddup : I can't keep this up much longer, so I think I'd still test.
People always say that their goals increase score wise during dedicated. Mine have gone down just so I can be done and satisfied lol
i would assume this leaves out the complete bull**** new NBMEs like 20 and 22 that are notoriously insanely impossible. After considerable research they arent even representative of any of the board resources most use. I could see the old NBMEs since for the most part they are actually somewhat more fair. 22 can die in a whole with 20 lol. Few 250+ guys on reddit told me they scored 220s on those two and scored 250s on old NBMEs (including the most representative 18) a week later
