redo an NBME?

[StrongIslandDoc]

Is there any good sense at all in doubling up on an NBME, even if it is a repeat?

I did NBME12 at the onset of my dedicated prep - scored around a 220 or so. That was....late April/early May-ish....I'm doing NBME17 in the AM, and I'm wondering if I can rely enough on a re-take to (1) index improvement further (2) simulate a full length.

Good idea or bad idea?

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[lymphocyte]

Is there any good sense at all in doubling up on an NBME, even if it is a repeat?

I did NBME12 at the onset of my dedicated prep - scored around a 220 or so. That was....late April/early May-ish....I'm doing NBME17 in the AM, and I'm wondering if I can rely enough on a re-take to (1) index improvement further (2) simulate a full length.

Good idea or bad idea?

Just a general suggestion about NBMEs: take a screenshot of the questions you missed or guessed and paste it into a PowerPoint document. (You can easily do this by hitting the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard and then "Alt-Tab"ing to PowerPoint.) Voilà! Now you have a go-to, high-yield source of stuff to review. No concerns about making the same mistake twice.

That doesn't answer your question though. Any repeated NBMEs are off the table for diagnostic purposes. They simply won't be reliable, especially if you're not careful to track your "guesses" from your "definite" answers. I can't speak to simulating a full length exam, but I would imagine a true simulation would include doing questions you've never encountered before.

 

[StrongIslandDoc]

Just a general suggestion about NBMEs: take a screenshot of the questions you missed or guessed and paste it into a PowerPoint document. (You can easily do this by hitting the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard and then "Alt-Tab"ing to PowerPoint.) Voilà! Now you have a go-to, high-yield source of stuff to review. No concerns about making the same mistake twice.

That doesn't answer your question though. Any repeated NBMEs are off the table for diagnostic purposes. They simply won't be reliable, especially if you're not careful to track your "guesses" from your "definite" answers. I can't speak to simulating a full length exam, but I would imagine a true simulation would include doing questions you've never countered before.

Yup that's why I'm struggling with this, but that's an excellent point that in my whimsy writing this thread, I did not consider. Dear SDN, please let me have the free pass for speaking before thinking this time - my Step1 is in 5 days. I should probably get off SDN for the time being..

 

[lymphocyte]

Yup that's why I'm struggling with this, but that's an excellent point that in my whimsy writing this thread, I did not consider. Dear SDN, please let me have the free pass for speaking before thinking this time - my Step1 is in 5 days. I should probably get off SDN for the time being..

Just study yo. It sucks, and then it's over.