The deed is done...

[Idiopathic]

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There is no review book that can prepare you for this exam.



My breakdown:
About 60% of the exam were questions I felt like I had seen before. Usually the answers were very far removed from what I was looking for, but doable nonetheless.

About 25% of the exam were questions that I was somewhat prepared for, but required intricate thinking.

About 8% of the exam were questions that I did not expect.

The rest (15-25 questions) were truly, WTF?-type questions. Sometimes you could narrow it down to 2, sometimes 3.

Surprises: Pharm was a beast, at least 1/4th of it. Anyone who says "FA is enough for Pharm" is lying or just isnt getting it. Katzung wasnt even enough for Pharm, in my opinion. I had three obscure drug interactions tested and one question made me choose between 5 antibiotics as to which was most likely to interfer with oral contraceptive use.

Behavioral science was okay, which was better than I expected. I did have some really ridiculous questions on there (to be expected) and only 2 or 3 calculations, one of which was stupid-easy.

There was more Biochem/Cell Bio (hell, there was even a Gen Chem II question) than Micro, even, which is I shame, I think. Micro was very lightly tested, nowhere near 10% of the exam. There was more than one prokaryote protein synthesis question (DireWolf), and two very famous operons were discussed, although one was more a general knowledge question.

The anatomy was cake. Three upper extremity questions and three lower extremity questions (yawn). The brachial plexus can officially go **** itself. One picture was lame, for me, as it was a schematic of an embryo at about 30 days ( 🙄 ). The rest were doable, without too much trouble.

I was not expecting them to hammer certain topics but they did. I even got the same picture twice(!) but on different blocks. It made me want to go back and change my answer to the first one. I did not get the infamous cell bio explosion, but I did have a rather stout endocrine experience.

Path was path...

About me:
FA (3 times)
Goljan High Yield ("the 36-pager") about three times
Lange's Pharmacology Review (Katzung and Trevor)
Lange's Microbiology and Immunology (Levinson and Kawetz)
USMLE Step 1 Secrets
Goljan's Pathology
Skimmed through Step Up
Princeton Review "Cracking the Boards" as a general systems-based review
QBank - 50-84% (finished at 71%).
NBME assessments - 640 and 680

I will be ecstatic if my USMLE correlated with my NBME score. I do not anticipate this.

 

[imtiaz]

i'm sure you did fine idio, people tend to remember what they did bad on. you were well prepared and i'm sure you did great! now go party!

 

[daisygirl]

Congrats!!!!! You knew your stuff (as apparent by your very much appreciated help on this board). Go out and celebrate!!!! No more impatiently tapping your foot outside the center 😀

 

[Idiopathic]

So, I finished what I thought was my 6th block, anticipating another one, and the test told me I was done. I freaked out for about 30 minutes, until i realized that I probably did 7 blocks. But there is no way of checking. I certainly didnt skip one, but I cant guarantee that there was no computer malfunction either. Oh well, life goes on regardless.

 

[coop528]

Harder or easier?...similar or different?...than the NBME-SA's?

Thanks for all your your input.

 

[mountaindew2006]

hey man congrats!

i'm sure you did fine. you've been the spirit/help for many on the board and many people appreciate it! Including myself! Your an asset to SDN.

Lol...enough of the sappy $hit...now go get traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa$hed!

peace

 

[CANES2006]

For those few of you out there that haven't taken the exam yet. If you can't remember how many blocks you have done just quickly tap on the clock and it will display an * next to every block that you have completed already. This way you can manage your time better.

 

[Idiopathic]

Harder or easier?...similar or different?...than the NBME-SA's?

Thanks for all your your input.

I think it was harder, no question. It could just be the pressure of the situation, though.

 

[obecalp]

Hey Idio, just wanted to say thanks for all the info/advice you've been giving us the past couple of months. I'm sure you did fine! RELAX and go have FUN!!!

 

[FoxyDoc]

Congrats on being done Idio! You seemed very well prepared for the exam, so I'm sure you did great. Thanks for all of the advice and comments 😉
Now, take a well deserved break and PARTAAAAAAY!

 

[pxz]

Idio, congratulations!! I think you probably rocked the first two blocks so USMLE gave you the harder ones (pharm, biochem. etc) later. Last year, an SDNer was also given tons of pharms Qs and ended up 250+.

 

[mjl1717]

Now you can take a little break. The word doable is a key word. YOU've been
very helpful to all of us. Were you able to finish in 4 or 5 hours? Thx. 👍

 

[mycin1600]

rifampin is the antibiotic that interferes with oral contraceptives. that's in first aid pharm in the high-yield points at the beginning. rifampin REVS up P450 so it interferes with oral contraceptives. d'uh. 😀

 

[lindyloohoo]

congrats on finishing the exam. I completely understand your pharm stance. mine was the same way 😱 ah well. it's done. That's awesome that you got easy anatomy. I was sincerely kicking myself in the butt for not making the DOs i hung out with this summer teach me more anatomy!! You guys have it easy (well except for having to learn it the first time 😀 ) when it comes to that on this test. You sounded like you were very well prepared for this test. I'm sure you did great! Thanks for all the advice, info and encouragement!! Good luck next year.

 

[Idiopathic]

rifampin is the antibiotic that interferes with oral contraceptives. that's in first aid pharm in the high-yield points at the beginning. rifampin REVS up P450 so it interferes with oral contraceptives. d'uh. 😀

Yeah, I know. But so does anything that kills your gut flora, genius. You want to make a list of those drugs? In fact, they are more likely to cause you to have an OC 'accident' than a cyp450 inducer.

 

[mycin1600]

well they obviously wouldn't give more than one choice. either they give a P450 STIMULATOR (rifampin; not an inhibitor) or something that wipes out the gut flora and hence interferes with clotting, oral contraception, etc. ahh, well you edited your post now fixing it from inhibitor to stimulator, so i might as well edit mine.

 

[Idiopathic]

well they obviously wouldn't give more than one choice. either they give a P450 STIMULATOR, not inhibitor (rifampin) or something that wipes out the gut flora and hence interferes with clotting, oral contraception, etc.

I thought I 'knew' what they wouldnt do, as well. And yes, rifampin was a choice, and no, I didnt put it, for reasons previously explained. But I am man enough to admit that I got it wrong. One wrong aint too bad

 

[mycin1600]

yeah, sit back and get ready for your 290.

 

[mycin1600]

Yeah, I know. But so does anything that kills your gut flora, genius. You want to make a list of those drugs? In fact, they are more likely to cause you to have an OC 'accident' than a cyp450 inducer.

actually, to argue with you once again, i think p450 stimulators are actually more likely to cause OC problems than gut-flora destroying drugs. because, griseofulvin (an antifungal, obviously) and basically all p450 stimulators are also associated with reduced OC effectiveness. find me evidence that shows otherwise and i'll concede graciously.

 

[Jalby]

Congratulations idiotpathic. I'm sure you did a lot better than you thought you did on it. Only 84 more hours for me to go.

 

[mycin1600]

whatup jalb. you're taking it exactly 1 week after me, on a tuesday. tuesday is a lucky day, hope you rock it. 260!!

 

[Resident Alien]

Congratulations 🙂

 

[Stinger86]

Don't be hard on yourself; you probably won't make anything below the 250s.

And if you think taking the test is challenging, try waiting 4-6 freakin' weeks for your scores to come back!! 😡

Congratulations! You've got the whole forum pulling for you 😎

 

[Idiopathic]

Aww, shucks...well, everyone except mycin1600. But I am pulling for him. And I hope he gets that stupid OC question and doesnt blank out completely

: pounding head on table smiley :

 

[kedhegard]

Mine was incredibly hard. I must have had at least 20 imaging studies. And probably 20 more anatomy questions besides that. My path was not bad, some of the gross samples were very indistict. I had tons of vague drug interactions questions, and virtually no micro (which was my strongest subject). My biochem was a few regulatory enzyme questions, but even more cell bio and molecular bio...dna/rna, protein manufacture and other such nonsense.

I finished almost 90% of qbank, and towards the end was getting around 80% on the tests, mostly because I got acquainted with their question style. The actual test was WAYYYY harder though. I think Kaplan needs to rewrite about 90% of their questions, because the board exam always seems to go one "step" or level of information further than whay qbank was asking for. Their micro section was good, and most of my physiology looked like it was right off qbank. Seriously, I felt like I had seen about 20 questions before. So, it's good for that, but not nearly enough for pharm, biochem (especially), and cell biology. I probably would have done better on the anatomy also, if I had relied on something other than just first aid and qbank. Everything in first aid was great for qbank, but not nearly enough for the boards. Or for my test anyhow.

Well that's all. No, I'm not selling my review books now that I'm done. I have a feeling I may need to keep them close by.

:-(

 

[mycin1600]

dude, idiopathic.. i've already taken it.. took it last tuesday, jun 15... oh, and i didn't get the OC question...

 

[Idiopathic]

Sorry...I saw your quote to Jalby, where you said "You're taking it a week after me". Didnt realize you already took it. This is what the test has done to my brain. Must decompress now.

 

[EM Junkie]

There is no review book that can prepare you for this exam.

I totally agree with that! A great many questions on the test make you think beyond the question to reason an answer. No book alone would prepare you for this exam. The best preparation is just as First Aid says under the heading "Years Before The Exam" - do well and study hard in your first 2 years of medical school.

Congrats for having it behind you!

-Scott

 

[Jalby]

whatup jalb. you're taking it exactly 1 week after me, on a tuesday. tuesday is a lucky day, hope you rock it. 260!!

Wow. Old school. How's it going?? I'm sure you are going to beat me, if not get the highest score on SDN, from what you have demonstrated so far. What did you think about it??

 

[phllystyl]

Congrats idio, youve been a big help!

Mycin, congrats to you too... long time since we've gone head to head on #imtiaz 😉

Jalby, yer this week coming right? Good luck! My day (assuming tehy accept my orange form) is Monday. Im freaking the fsck out.

 

[kemc]

Congratulations idiotpathic. Looks like its going to be a great touch down for u. Good Luck.

 

[12R34Y]

I agree that there is NO one review book that can prepare you.

Having said that.....FA for pharm was probably overkill for my board pharm ?'s.

they were very straight forward and quite easy.

just remember for all of you taking the test soon that you NEVER know what you will get. just trust yourself and you'll do fine.

congrats idiopathic!

later

 

[chandler742]

Thanks idiopathic for your post. I think it is fair to say that the veterans on this board were all pulling for you yesterday.

There is no review book that can prepare you for this exam.



My breakdown:
About 60% of the exam were questions I felt like I had seen before. Usually the answers were very far removed from what I was looking for, but doable nonetheless.

About 25% of the exam were questions that I was somewhat prepared for, but required intricate thinking.

About 8% of the exam were questions that I did not expect.

The rest (15-25 questions) were truly, WTF?-type questions. Sometimes you could narrow it down to 2, sometimes 3.

Surprises: Pharm was a beast, at least 1/4th of it. Anyone who says "FA is enough for Pharm" is lying or just isnt getting it. Katzung wasnt even enough for Pharm, in my opinion. I had three obscure drug interactions tested and one question made me choose between 5 antibiotics as to which was most likely to interfer with oral contraceptive use.

Behavioral science was okay, which was better than I expected. I did have some really ridiculous questions on there (to be expected) and only 2 or 3 calculations, one of which was stupid-easy.

There was more Biochem/Cell Bio (hell, there was even a Gen Chem II question) than Micro, even, which is I shame, I think. Micro was very lightly tested, nowhere near 10% of the exam. There was more than one prokaryote protein synthesis question (DireWolf), and two very famous operons were discussed, although one was more a general knowledge question.

The anatomy was cake. Three upper extremity questions and three lower extremity questions (yawn). The brachial plexus can officially go **** itself. One picture was lame, for me, as it was a schematic of an embryo at about 30 days ( 🙄 ). The rest were doable, without too much trouble.

I was not expecting them to hammer certain topics but they did. I even got the same picture twice(!) but on different blocks. It made me want to go back and change my answer to the first one. I did not get the infamous cell bio explosion, but I did have a rather stout endocrine experience.

Path was path...

About me:
FA (3 times)
Goljan High Yield ("the 36-pager") about three times
Lange's Pharmacology Review (Katzung and Trevor)
Lange's Microbiology and Immunology (Levinson and Kawetz)
USMLE Step 1 Secrets
Goljan's Pathology
Skimmed through Step Up
Princeton Review "Cracking the Boards" as a general systems-based review
QBank - 50-84% (finished at 71%).
NBME assessments - 640 and 680

I will be ecstatic if my USMLE correlated with my NBME score. I do not anticipate this.