questions per day

[medicinehopeful]

hey all,
about how many questions are you doing with your question banks each day? i would like to do 200 questions per day once school is out. i would also like to continue reading path/phys/fa. so my question to you is....how many hours are reasonable to do 200 questions and review them? I was thinking doing 100 in the morning and 100 at night, while reading in between. Is this a good idea, or does that seem like too many questions to tackle in one day?

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[Medikit]

hey all,
about how many questions are you doing with your question banks each day? i would like to do 200 questions per day once school is out. i would also like to continue reading path/phys/fa. so my question to you is....how many hours are reasonable to do 200 questions and review them? I was thinking doing 100 in the morning and 100 at night, while reading in between. Is this a good idea, or does that seem like too many questions to tackle in one day?

It took me about 1-2 hours to review 50 questions. I ended up breaking it up into blocks of 30 throughout the day. I think the most I ever did in a day was 150. Typically I did 80-100 a day the week before the exam.

 

[doctorp82]

Did 120 yesterday, 100 today, going to try to raise things to at least 150+/day until June 2nd.

 

[rice_boy]

Did 120 yesterday, 100 today, going to try to raise things to at least 150+/day until June 2nd.

How much time do you spend reviewing the questions each day?

 

[doctorp82]

How much time do you spend reviewing the questions each day?

I've been starting sometime between 7 am and 8 am and working on nothing but until about noon. I try to keep FA right beside me with a couple other books, and will annotate anything that seems significant into FA, and if I'm really unsure look it up in another book. I don't look up details to every question though, since I'm getting a good knowledge base built I feel and that helps move faster. I can do about 30 questions + explainations/hour now. I have also tried to do a last question set of the day, like 20 - 30 questions at night after I'm sick of reading, and that usually caps 100+ questions.

I've heard from enough people to not worry over your percentage score on QBank. Use it to learn from (same with any other question source). I might not feel completely comfortable with a subject before I start questions on it. I may only read the FA chapter before doing those, for instance. That way I am reading and doing questions at the same time, and I've found when I've seen a question on something I later read about, the reading sticks better. That's not to say you shouldn't try your best with QBank or anything else, though. I get great practice at pure test-taking skills with it, too. My scores have gone up greatly from slowing down and taking a little more time per question to think through ruling out wrong answers. Learning how to do an effective ruling out of an answer choice will help immensely with questions where you might not know the answer straight off. Don't just try to find the right answer, be very deliberate about why others are NOT the answer!

Now with the whole not-caring-about-your-score thing, thats my learning style. I need to be far more active, which is why I need to jump in a lot earlier. For some people, they can read for 5 hours and retain it all. I might keep only 30 minutes if it's say, biochem or behavioral But when I do questions, they force me to be more engaged and I don't lose focus as easily. I think the better strategy is to worry about NBME tests and the released items scores, as they are the real predictors of your performance.

 

[blz]

I plan on doing 350qs/day in a simulation board exam style. need to build up that endurance. i also don't spend crazy amounts of time going over questions like most of the people here do - i learned all my info from books so the questions for me are used more as an assessment tool. plus, i have no trouble studying 16hrs straight so this strat wont work for everyone.

 

[doctorp82]

i have no trouble studying 16hrs

I have no trouble thinking this sounds like a brain drainer. I'm peaked at about 10-12 hours.

 

[blz]

I have no trouble thinking this sounds like a brain drainer. I'm peaked at about 10-12 hours.

power bars at regular intervals helps. but i guess it's really not 16 straight hours, cus i gotta have a coffee break and lunch break.

 

[doctorp82]

power bars at regular intervals helps. but i guess it's really not 16 straight hours, cus i gotta have a coffee break and lunch break.

Well, today I took a 3-hour golf break. That kinda interrupted respiratory system studying.

 

[mudphudwannabe]

I think you're cheating yourself out of a good learning experience if you don't spend a reasonable amount of time reviewing the explanations after you do questions. If you don't do this..what exactly are you learning from doing all those questions? Maybe you've refined your test taking strategy, but there's a lot more to be learned. If your going to do 200 questions, you can figure on 4-50 question blocks at 60 minutes each to simulate test conditions, then 4 hours to review the answers (even the ones you got right, especially if you guessed). That's a lot of time for questions..but if that works for you, go for it.

 

[cubsrule4e]

I think you're cheating yourself out of a good learning experience if you don't spend a reasonable amount of time reviewing the explanations after you do questions. If you don't do this..what exactly are you learning from doing all those questions? Maybe you've refined your test taking strategy, but there's a lot more to be learned. If your going to do 200 questions, you can figure on 4-50 question blocks at 60 minutes each to simulate test conditions, then 4 hours to review the answers (even the ones you got right, especially if you guessed). That's a lot of time for questions..but if that works for you, go for it.

I agree. Although i guess it depends on your learning style. For me, doing questions and then reading specific facts about why each answer is right or wrong is immensely higher yield than just mindlessly reading First Aid or BRS...when youre just reading youre not really applying the information whereas doing 2 and 3 step questions, youre actually using the information you already know and reinforcing it, and learning the small pieces of information that you didnt know.

 

[cdql]

I started out doing 50 questions a day and it barely took an hour. (I'll have to fix my methods though. I am just screaming right thru the explanations. I'll eventually have to slow down and read those through)

I've now gotten up to a 100 and will try for 150 tonight. The problem isn't getting thru the questions. It's finding time to squeeze in time for the explanations as well. I think 200 would be too much though.

(I allot myself 2-4 hours for questions and explanations but I usually find it to be closer to two. That is, if I can wake up early enough to fit those 2 hours in )

 

[Law2Doc]

I started out doing 50 questions a day and it barely took an hour. (I'll have to fix my methods though. I am just screaming right thru the explanations. I'll eventually have to slow down and read those through)

I've now gotten up to a 100 and will try for 150 tonight. The problem isn't getting thru the questions. It's finding time to squeeze in time for the explanations as well. I think 200 would be too much though.

(I allot myself 2-4 hours for questions and explanations but I usually find it to be closer to two. That is, if I can wake up early enough to fit those 2 hours in )

The explanations are the most valuable part. There isn't much point in doing problems if you don't learn from them. It's the topics you will see repeated on the real test, not the specific questions, so if you don't really know why your answer was right or wrong, you aren't really any better off than you started with.

 

[cdql]

The explanations are the most valuable part. There isn't much point in doing problems if you don't learn from them. It's the topics you will see repeated on the real test, not the specific questions, so if you don't really know why your answer was right or wrong, you aren't really any better off than you started with.

Yeah I know. I've gotta try harder to stop glazing over them

I think I might start moving these sessions to the evening as I seem to be more alert then.