Remembering subjects or questions from exam

[ntxawmx]

Hi All,

Do you think it's a good sign if you remember alot of questions after you took your exam?

I know everyone has their own definition of "doing well" on the exam. But for those who thought they did well, did you find that you remembered a lot of questions? I know some people just forget about the exam regardless of how they felt afterwards. Did anyone bother to try and recall any questions and did it correlate at all to your results?

I started to write down as many questions as I could recall (about 150). And of those that I wrote down, I am certain about getting over 80% of them correct. Should I be happy about that or not get too overly excited?

Just wondering

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[Kalel]

You probably have a selection bias in being able to recall questions that you really understood, and not being able to recall the questions that you weren't sure about. 80% is very good, I'm sure that you did fine. It usually only takes ~3 weeks to get step I or II scores, so you don't have to wait very long to find out how you did. Make sure that you don't share the questions that you recall with other students too, it's one of the criteria for the USMLE people to void your score and never allow you to take it again (essentially destroying your entire medical career).

 

[ntxawmx]

thanks for the reply. i thought twice about even posting my question for that reason, i think i'll be fine as long as i don't share the exact questions with anyone right? : )

 

[jed2023]

Selection bias, inevitably, plays a role with recall of test questions. There's no way around that, but the thing is, most people's recall bias leads them to remember the most difficult questions they got, which they agonized over (and therefore stamped into their memory), rather than the easy or moderate questions.

I know this is the case with me all the time. My last med school exam, I finished knowing that I was totally bogged by 2 problems. I went home and looked up the answers, finding that I had missed both of them. These happened to be the only 2 I missed on the entire exam. Talk about recall bias!

Something like this also occurs with most people taking the USMLE. They walk out remembering the ones they missed or guessed on. Which is why some of my friends that thought they did poorly/possibly failed actually did extremely well.

As far as posting exact questions, that's obviously a bad idea, since the NBME has recently been "policing" internet boards. But you can still relay your experience of the exam and topics you think people should focus on. You just can't give exact questions.

 

[Idiopathic]

Originally posted by jed2023
I know this is the case with me all the time. My last med school exam, I finished knowing that I was totally bogged by 2 problems. I went home and looked up the answers, finding that I had missed both of them. These happened to be the only 2 I missed on the entire exam. Talk about recall bias!

I have done this exact same thing many times...

 

[Homunculus]

Originally posted by Idiopathic
I have done this exact same thing many times...

me too. especially during boards, i will remember all the ones i missed. the only trouble with this is that if i miss 20, to me it seems like i did miserable but in reality out of 200 questions only missing 20 is 90% right, lol. as a general rule i don't remember the ones i breeze through. to help alleviate this on paper exams i put a small tick next to questions i'm not sure about-- as long as the majority of most of the columns are clean, i feel ok this would be a bit harder on a computer i think, unless you feel like writing down question numbers or something.