The Official Post-Test Blues 2009 Thread

[mTOR]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I took the beast yesterday and am still reeling from the blows. Christ.... Got rotations around the corner.. but I swear.. I DON'T WANNA DO CRAP right now EXCEPT DRINK MYSELF INTO OBLIVION until I get my score back!!! ..And I swear, looking at the 2009 Experiences thread makes me absolutely SICK!!!! "It wasn't that bad" "It was just as I expected" "I feel the exam was fair" ..WTF? The hell? Seriously WHO are you people?! THAT EXAM WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!


And what's worse than the feeling I had leaving that place, was the feeling I had as I started looking up the answers to the questions I remembered... malathion (wtf?) Q = WRONG, Hemochromatosis question = WRONG, GH stimulation Q = WRONG, tPA Q = WRONG, renal anatomy q WRONG, calcium blocker overdose Q (omg don't get me started on this one!) WRONG, WRONG, WRONG... most likely wrong, and WRONG. In fact, every question I could recall, I GOT WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What's worse, is the fact that on half of them I chose the RIGHT answer initially, then 2nd guessed myself and CHANGED IT!!! (Those ALWAYS sting the MOST!!!! and yeh I know they say never change your answer... but sometimes you think, damn, I just KNOW there has to be more to this question)


I feel completely dejected and demoralized. 6 wks prep and a UW 70% avg with a 253 on NBME 4 (2 weeks prior) and a 255 on NBME 3 (5 days prior) is ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS if your performance test day is off. And I feel luck has a huge part in that! I swear the NBME's were a BREEZE and NOTHING like some of the crap they threw on my test 🙁


FML

 

[Deferoxamine]

Your experience is not atypical. It seems like people are experiencing this dejected feeling at different points post-exam... some feel it 10 minutes after leaving the exam, while for others i.e. me, we don't feel it until about 1 week later.

Not to mention that the week after my exam, I had the appetite of a fat kid at fat camp, stiff joints from sitting for a month straight, and the personality of a shoe. All this seemed to contribute to the gradual FML feeling.

 

[I wayne]

I took the beast yesterday and am still reeling from the blows. Christ.... Got rotations around the corner.. but I swear.. I DON'T WANNA DO CRAP right now EXCEPT DRINK MYSELF INTO OBLIVION until I get my score back!!! ..And I swear, looking at the 2009 Experiences thread makes me absolutely SICK!!!! "It wasn't that bad" "It was just as I expected" "I feel the exam was fair" ..WTF? The hell? Seriously WHO are you people?! THAT EXAM WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!


And what's worse than the feeling I had leaving that place, was the feeling I had as I started looking up the answers to the questions I remembered... malathion (wtf?) Q = WRONG, Hemochromatosis question = WRONG, GH stimulation Q = WRONG, tPA Q = WRONG, renal anatomy q WRONG, calcium blocker overdose Q (omg don't get me started on this one!) WRONG, WRONG, WRONG... most likely wrong, and WRONG. In fact, every question I could recall, I GOT WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What's worse, is the fact that on half of them I chose the RIGHT answer initially, then 2nd guessed myself and CHANGED IT!!! (Those ALWAYS sting the MOST!!!! and yeh I know they say never change your answer... but sometimes you think, damn, I just KNOW there has to be more to this question)


I feel completely dejected and demoralized. 6 wks prep and a UW 70% avg with a 253 on NBME 4 (2 weeks prior) and a 255 on NBME 3 (5 days prior) is ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS if your performance test day is off. And I feel luck has a huge part in that! I swear the NBME's were a BREEZE and NOTHING like some of the crap they threw on my test 🙁


FML

My first post (of many)..🙂

I'm sorry you feel that way mTOR. I know other people in my class (great practice tests scores also ) that feel the same way you do right now. How was your test? Was it a bunch of topics you were unfamiliar with, or was it more like topics you were familiar with, but just wasn't able to apply the information? I doubt it's the latter, because you had pretty stellar practice scores before going in.

All I can say is to take solace in knowing that the test is standardized, so if you are feeling like this, then most other people with your same test questions (but lower practice tests scores) must also be reeling.

 

[ACSurgeon]

I took the beast yesterday and am still reeling from the blows. Christ.... Got rotations around the corner.. but I swear.. I DON'T WANNA DO CRAP right now EXCEPT DRINK MYSELF INTO OBLIVION until I get my score back!!! ..And I swear, looking at the 2009 Experiences thread makes me absolutely SICK!!!! "It wasn't that bad" "It was just as I expected" "I feel the exam was fair" ..WTF? The hell? Seriously WHO are you people?! THAT EXAM WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!

I think this depends on what you expect the exam to be. I walked in with the following attitude: 10-20% of questions COULD be experimental and you can miss an additional 10% and still be in (more than) passing shape. so, in a block of 48 questions, you can lose up to 15 questions and not worry about failing. Luckily I don't think I had more than 15 per block that I was unsure of, so I walked out thinking it was fair, just as expected etc. However, if you walked in expecting it to be like any other med school exam, where you can potentially get most questions correct, then you walk out feeling like you failed. Either way your end result does not change, just how you feel about the test as you take it and afterwards. Personally, I need the extra (false?) confidence to avoid panicking, so I ignore the part of my brain that tries to remind me how many questions made me go WTF as I took the test. Try to rest before 3rd year starts, and as many other students are doing, use your old friend SUPRESSION until your score comes out. Enjoy whatever free days you have!

 

[FractureFixer]

I cant even remember what was on my exam to look up the questionable questions. Does that mean I failed?

 

[kdburton]

I took the beast yesterday and am still reeling from the blows. Christ.... Got rotations around the corner.. but I swear.. I DON'T WANNA DO CRAP right now EXCEPT DRINK MYSELF INTO OBLIVION until I get my score back!!! ..And I swear, looking at the 2009 Experiences thread makes me absolutely SICK!!!! "It wasn't that bad" "It was just as I expected" "I feel the exam was fair" ..WTF? The hell? Seriously WHO are you people?! THAT EXAM WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!


And what's worse than the feeling I had leaving that place, was the feeling I had as I started looking up the answers to the questions I remembered... malathion (wtf?) Q = WRONG, Hemochromatosis question = WRONG, GH stimulation Q = WRONG, tPA Q = WRONG, renal anatomy q WRONG, calcium blocker overdose Q (omg don't get me started on this one!) WRONG, WRONG, WRONG... most likely wrong, and WRONG. In fact, every question I could recall, I GOT WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What's worse, is the fact that on half of them I chose the RIGHT answer initially, then 2nd guessed myself and CHANGED IT!!! (Those ALWAYS sting the MOST!!!! and yeh I know they say never change your answer... but sometimes you think, damn, I just KNOW there has to be more to this question)


I feel completely dejected and demoralized. 6 wks prep and a UW 70% avg with a 253 on NBME 4 (2 weeks prior) and a 255 on NBME 3 (5 days prior) is ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS if your performance test day is off. And I feel luck has a huge part in that! I swear the NBME's were a BREEZE and NOTHING like some of the crap they threw on my test 🙁


FML

So thats like what... 10 questions wrong? 326/336 is pretty good for this exam I'd say 😱 If you got 250+ on some NBMEs leading up to it then I'm sure you did just fine on the real thing. Just sit back and wait now.

 

[mTOR]

Got score back. Turns out I didn't do that bad. Yeh yeh yeh looks like I fall into the category of annoying whiney SDN cry babies who think they failed everything :-\

Lookin back, changing those right answers to wrong answers last minute put me through some needless turmoil (missed almost 10q's from doing that... Never again.. I can't even begin to tell you the unnecessary stress, anxiety, and sleepless nights that caused.. never hurts when you get it wrong to begin with, but it stings like a ho if ya changed it)

 

[a winner is you]

I sorta had a similar feeling coming out of my exam, but I ended up scoring higher than any of my practice exams. Part of it is that you have to remember that your questions are scaled against how other people do with the same question, and that the questions you don't know usually stick out but those 10 questions out of 336 is really not that many in the big picture.

 

[doogoshly]

Got score back. Turns out I didn't do that bad. Yeh yeh yeh looks like I fall into the category of annoying whiney SDN cry babies who think they failed everything :-\

Lookin back, changing those right answers to wrong answers last minute put me through some needless turmoil (missed almost 10q's from doing that... Never again.. I can't even begin to tell you the unnecessary stress, anxiety, and sleepless nights that caused.. never hurts when you get it wrong to begin with, but it stings like a ho if ya changed it)

soooo what'd you end up getting?

 

[mTOR]

252.. lol i'll take it over the 50 pt score drop I thought I was gonna be hit with. guess I'm officially a worry wart. Still thought the testing experience felt like a curve ball compared to the NBME's... but it could be the fact I unintentionally pulled an all nighter for it (Ha don't ask, couldn't sleep + I'm notorious for having disgustingly bad sleeping habits which I failed to get in order before the exam cuz I suck)

 

[ENThopeful]

ive been thinking over my test way too much in the last 24 hours and i officially can say I have severe post test blues. my test was very weird and I had a hard time answering alot of questions. most of the time, I was making educated guesses that I really had no idea on....... hopefully my fate is like yours mtor, I can only pray...

 

[Yakko]

ive been thinking over my test way too much in the last 24 hours and i officially can say I have severe post test blues. my test was very weird and I had a hard time answering alot of questions. most of the time, I was making educated guesses that I really had no idea on....... hopefully my fate is like yours mtor, I can only pray...

You're not alone. I feel EXACTLY the same way. I have this weird funk after it, where I don't know what to make of what. I'm not exaggerating when I say that easily like 60% of my answers were educated guesses, at least that's how I remember it. I'm still waiting for the score and will probably get it on 7/29. I've already had multiple all-too-real-feeling nightmares where I fail or get some score like 207. Not exactly my ideal.

 

[doogoshly]

252..

i knew it! you were one of those "woe is me" USMLE takers that ended up rocking the test. i sometimes i wish i wasn't so confident walking out of it so i could get a few extra points.

 

[SeminoleFan3]

ive been thinking over my test way too much in the last 24 hours and i officially can say I have severe post test blues. my test was very weird and I had a hard time answering alot of questions. most of the time, I was making educated guesses that I really had no idea on....... hopefully my fate is like yours mtor, I can only pray...

I felt the same way. I definitely thought I could have failed. I had quite a few things that I just had absolutely NO IDEA on. I felt like that for weeks. July 15th would show me that the feeling was incorrect, and I did perfectly fine.

 

[Glaxo]

You're not alone. I feel EXACTLY the same way. I have this weird funk after it, where I don't know what to make of what. I'm not exaggerating when I say that easily like 60% of my answers were educated guesses, at least that's how I remember it. I'm still waiting for the score and will probably get it on 7/29. I've already had multiple all-too-real-feeling nightmares where I fail or get some score like 207. Not exactly my ideal.

hah i felt the same way found out i got a 266 yesterday.... neuroses. i got them. sometimes they work for you. i was replaying all the questions i looked up and know i got wrong after i got home over and over.

 

[Lamborghini1315]

hah i felt the same way found out i got a 266 yesterday.... neuroses. i got them. sometimes they work for you. i was replaying all the questions i looked up and know i got wrong after i got home over and over.

well there are some i am absolutely sure i screwed up despite how easy they were..like changing my answer from t(11,22) to t (2,5) when i was positive i was dealing with ewing's. It kills me to think that i might have lost some easy points..

 

[Whats_up_doc]

well there are some i am absolutely sure i screwed up despite how easy they were..like changing my answer from t(11,22) to t (2,5) when i was positive i was dealing with ewing's. It kills me to think that i might have lost some easy points..

I don't really know how percentiles work.. but I feel my exam today was kinda hard, but doable. Definitely not getting an SDN score... I am also writing in this thread to see if I get a 252...

 

[sgod34]

what a better time to become supersticious... I am really worried about the same thing. I've been marking all my questions that I changed the answer to so I can see the trend. Well, let's put it this way, if I'm down to 2 questions odds have been I pick the wrong. In the last 7 weeks I have done a little over a 1,000 questions, getting roughly 350 incorrect. Out of those 350, 75 were orginialy the correct answer that I changed, and a 100 of them I were down to 2 answers, but ended up picking the wrong one 70% So I guess it would be smart to do just opposite of what I think, but I'm not ballsy enough to pic the answer I don't think it is. Juct hoping on test day, the stars alighn and I get some luck with me. I usually get one really lucky exam per year where I get a grade I had no business getting, hopefully it can be the usmle.