Struggling with exams, UWorld doesn't seem to help

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Ukdavis23

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Hey guys,

I'm a third year student, I've been struggling with academics and exam taking in med school since I started back in 2014. I had to repeat a year, failed a couple didactics, passed COMLEX level 1 with 492 but failed USMLE step 1. Our school has us take shelf exams of old USMLE step 2 questions and makes us score above 5 percentile. I found out today I failed the OB shelf and now I'm back in the same rut I've always been since starting med school of what my problem is.

I spend the OB rotation studying mostly off Kaplan and UWorld Qbank, but honestly I think Uworld doesn't really help me, it just overwhelms me because of how difficult and beyond the scope of the exam their questions are. I got by in med school by condensing notes into my own form and studying notes more than Qbanks, and I'm wondering if that style would work better for me on shelves then doing Uworld? I generally study very differently than most of my classmates and I don't really think doing tons of Uworld questions really helps me as much as other people.

My question is, does anybody else feel this way about Uworld? And if so what resources do you use? I'm very frustrated with how I've continue to just scrape by in med school and I'm literally at the bottom of my class and its too the point I've failed so much I almost expect stuff like this to happen... Any advice would be appreciated, especially with Level 2 COMLEX and shelf studying.

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You're probably taking NBME shelf exams rather than COMATs. Uwise is the gold standard for Ob/gyn NBME shelf. Find an MD friend and hopefully they will give you an access to it or pay for the subscription yourself. On top of that I see that you're not doing OnlineMedEd or Case Files and both are very resourceful for the shelf. After doing all of these, you should be able to find Uworld Ob/gyn more manageable. Moreover, there are also NBME OB/gyn practice exams that you can buy to gauge of your weakness. The answers you can find are here on SDN in clinical rotation forum.
 
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Test taking anxiety issues?

Are you second guessing yourself by overthinking?

How is your grasp of the material?

Maybe I have test anxiety, but I don't panic before tests, I think my grasp of medicine in general is very poor, I'm bottom 5% of the class and considering all my failures I can probably only get into something primary care like FM or IM
 
You're probably taking NBME shelf exams rather than COMATs. Uwise is the gold standard for Ob/gyn NBME shelf. Find an MD friend and hopefully they will give you an access to it or pay for the subscription yourself. On top of that I see that you're not doing OnlineMedEd or Case Files and both are very resourceful for the shelf. After doing all of these, you should be able to find Uworld Ob/gyn more manageable. Moreover, there are also NBME OB/gyn practice exams that you can buy to gauge of your weakness. The answers you can find are here on SDN in clinical rotation forum.

Thanks! Yeah I'll have to try that out. A lot of my classmates just do UWorld questions and they say that's enough but I think the background reading will help prior to doing those questions
 
This plus OnlineMedEd was my usual strategy too.

I know people who went UWorld-only, but that strategy isn't for everyone. I personally needed content review as well-- maybe you do too.
OME was pretty highly regarded by my classmates. Never used it myself.
 
Maybe I have test anxiety, but I don't panic before tests, I think my grasp of medicine in general is very poor, I'm bottom 5% of the class and considering all my failures I can probably only get into something primary care like FM or IM
All I can offer is keep doing as many practice exams that you can and find out where you are weakest. Then fill in those deficits.
 
Don't buy the hype that practice questions are the golden key to med school. Everyone is different. Only after I read a review book and watched OME videos did I touch Uworld questions. I'd have been sunk if I only relied on Uworld.


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