Please give me some advices on how to improve score?

[watermen]

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I have only about 3 weeks to my exam. I have finished revising BRS pathology, Katzung&Trevor Pharmacology, Lipincott Biochemistry, Letwinson Microbiology and Immunology at least twice. I also revised BRS behaviour science and BRS physiology at least one round. And reading the FA especially the anatomy section at least once. I am also doing Robin Pathology q book now.

I am having a very depressing problem now, I tried a few blocks of Kaplan Q bank, my average score is only around 50-60%. I tried so many ways within these two weeks to improve my score, mainly revising those books again, unfortunately it doesn't seem to work, and my score doesnt seem to improve. I have only 3 weeks left, it is not possible for me to go over all these books again, except FA, BRS path and BRS physio.

By the way, I understand every single concept that is in the books. But, I have to admit that I can't memorize so much, no matter how hard I try, I will tend to forget it after sometimes, especially those drugs' side effect, some of the not so common diseases...

Is 3 weeks really enough for me to improve my score? I hope to get at least 240 and above. Can someone kindly tell me is there anything wrong with my study method? Thanks.

 

[Trader56]

Based upon what you've said, I really think you should seriously consider postponing your Step 1 exam.

Have you gone through all 3000+ questions in QBank?
Have you gone over the questions you missed in QBank more than once?
Are you taking notes on the questions you get wrong?
Have you taken the NBME Self Assesments?
If so, how did you score on these?

If you truly understand the concepts, then it seems like the next step is application of those concepts to the QBank questions. I have a bunch of the older BRS books and can tell you that the questions don't approximate those on Step 1 - at least not those I've seen in QBank, or the NBME Self Assesment.

The people I've talked to who've done very well - the 240+ you are aiming for - have ALL said that the more questions you do, the higher you score. The concensus on QBank seems to be that if you're looking for 240, you'd better be getting around 70% or better on QBank questions.

Hope it all works out for you, and I'm sure others will have good suggestions.

 

[watermen]

Based upon what you've said, I really think you should seriously consider postponing your Step 1 exam.

Have you gone through all 3000+ questions in QBank?
Have you gone over the questions you missed in QBank more than once?
Are you taking notes on the questions you get wrong?
Have you taken the NBME Self Assesments?
If so, how did you score on these?

If you truly understand the concepts, then it seems like the next step is application of those concepts to the QBank questions. I have a bunch of the older BRS books and can tell you that the questions don't approximate those on Step 1 - at least not those I've seen in QBank, or the NBME Self Assesment.

The people I've talked to who've done very well - the 240+ you are aiming for - have ALL said that the more questions you do, the higher you score. The concensus on QBank seems to be that if you're looking for 240, you'd better be getting around 70% or better on QBank questions.

Hope it all works out for you, and I'm sure others will have good suggestions.

Thanks for replying.

So far I have only done 6 blocks, 300 questions for the past two weeks. Average is 50-60%.

I haven do NBME, because of the poor result I have on these Kaplan questions. Should I do it now?

During the meantime, I am also doing question in Robin's Pathology question book. My average score is around 75-85% here.

Just did USMLE free CD 150 questions, I got 35, 28, 35

I only started taking down notes of those questions I answered wrongly since yesterday, as I realized that I need a change in my study method.

By the way, you said there are 3000+ questions in the qbank, but I have only seen 2150 questions in my qbank, where are the rest of questions?

 

[Trader56]

Hi Watermen,

I called Kaplan, and you are correct- there are 2155 questions in QBank. I'm not sure where I got the 3000+ figure, but 2155 is what they told me this morning.

Please realize that I am studying for Step 1 also right now, so can not give you first-hand experience in having taken the test. What I can do is tell you about my experience so far in preparing, and what the MANY people (classmates and online) have told me about how best to prepare. Some of these people did VERY well, other just barely passed.

It might be a good idea to take one of the NBME tests now, as most everyone feels this is the strongest predictor of your Step 1 score. On the NBME site, there is an article that compares NBME Self-Assesment scores to Step 1 scores. To get a 240 on Step 1, the comparison is saying you'll need a 600 on the Comprehensive Basic Science Self-Assesment! To just be fairly safe in passing, you'll need around 380.

I can't say anything about the 150 free USMLE questions, as I haven't done these and have no experience with them.

So, I'm probably not the best one to offer advice, but if it were me, I'd take one of the NBME Self-Assesment exams now. Based upon your score, you can probably decide if 3 weeks is enough time to get your score where you want it.

If you want, PM me and I'll send you the study schedule I'm following based upon the advice of someone who did very well. The one thing that everyone said was, the more practice question you do, the better your score is likely to be.

Best wishes!