- Joined
- Aug 17, 2007
- Messages
- 75
- Reaction score
- 1
Thought I would chip in my (albeit unusual) experience: I'm a second-year resident in Europe, native speaker, and I was 7 months preggo when I took CS.
-Prep: I am in a specialty field, so I started reviewing CS twice/week for 2 months before the exam, also to re-familiarize myself with the English abbreviations and all that, then I did some practice casees the week before (had no study buddy, used the dog and husband)
-It was soooooooooooo tiring, but I'm glad I did it before Jr. is here. As far as extra snacks go, I literally had to file a "personal item exception" (a.k.a. PIE- which I think is funny) and they thoroughly inspected my granola bar at the test site
I asked what would happen if I had to use the bathroom (emergency) - they told me my file would be marked with "unusual behavior" and be followed up on.
Well, I nearly broke down, but made it to the break (ahhhhh)
-9/12 cases were totally straightforward, textbook, super easy- I ended up finishing early on most of them (let's just say I'm a VERY "focused" history and phys exam person). 3 were really, really wierd. Either 1 wierd aspect with the SP or really vague symptoms- or in one case, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I'm really hoping that was the experimental one. (Won't get my scores back till Dec.)
-Overall the atmosphere was surprisingly good- everyone was nice and we just chatted about whatever during lunch and it felt like a day in the clinic- so don't stress! Good luck everyone!
-Prep: I am in a specialty field, so I started reviewing CS twice/week for 2 months before the exam, also to re-familiarize myself with the English abbreviations and all that, then I did some practice casees the week before (had no study buddy, used the dog and husband)
-It was soooooooooooo tiring, but I'm glad I did it before Jr. is here. As far as extra snacks go, I literally had to file a "personal item exception" (a.k.a. PIE- which I think is funny) and they thoroughly inspected my granola bar at the test site
I asked what would happen if I had to use the bathroom (emergency) - they told me my file would be marked with "unusual behavior" and be followed up on.
Well, I nearly broke down, but made it to the break (ahhhhh)-9/12 cases were totally straightforward, textbook, super easy- I ended up finishing early on most of them (let's just say I'm a VERY "focused" history and phys exam person). 3 were really, really wierd. Either 1 wierd aspect with the SP or really vague symptoms- or in one case, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I'm really hoping that was the experimental one. (Won't get my scores back till Dec.)
-Overall the atmosphere was surprisingly good- everyone was nice and we just chatted about whatever during lunch and it felt like a day in the clinic- so don't stress! Good luck everyone!
