utility of practice nbme tests

[sheehan]

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Are the those tests worth spending 4 hours and $ on? From a purely educational perspective, would my time in the last week before the test be better spent on FA or UW than on those tests?
Do questions come up in the real test that are in these practice tests, that I wouldnt have have come across in UW?
Is there any other purpose other than to gauge progress?

 

[peter90036]

do at least 1 nbme to see if you "get" the nbme question style which can be different than UW or FA or Kap, and more closely resemble how the real test Qs are made.
and also to see any weak areas to focus on in the last week.

 

[UditNarayan]

I had 1-2 questions from NBME exams on the real deal i think...i thought they were excellent predictors for my score and since i was managing to score well on them they also turned out to be confidence boosters for me. overall, yea, they are kind of expensive but so is everything that we do. overall: great for score prediction (in numerous cases, see experriences thread) and a closer look at the real deal than many other review sources out there. good luck

 

[LadyWolverine]

I didn't take a single NBME, and I did OK. Especially if you only have 1 week left and still have a lot of review to do, I think that your time is better spent actually reviewing and not taking practice tests. Besides, I was growing tired of spending money - you probably are, too.

Still, it would have been nice to have a baseline idea of what it was like to "pass." During the 3 weeks I was waiting for my score, I honestly didn't know whether I had even passed the exam, because I had no basis for comparison. I guess it would be worth taking an NBME for that reason.

 

[KillingMeSmalls]

I'd say do one just to see where you stand. It isn't going to be an exact score, but it will be a good ballpark prediction. For steps 1 and 2, the NBME test was within a few points of my actual score. As far as studying and NBME go, I never used the NBME tests as a direct study tool. I used them only for score prediction and to identify my weaker subjects.

 

[lankysudanese]

I had 1-2 questions from NBME exams on the real deal i think...i thought they were excellent predictors for my score and since i was managing to score well on them they also turned out to be confidence boosters for me. overall, yea, they are kind of expensive but so is everything that we do. overall: great for score prediction (in numerous cases, see experriences thread) and a closer look at the real deal than many other review sources out there. good luck

👍

I did ALL the available NBMEs, and (in retrospect), that was $180 well spent. with only 1wk left though, I would recommend that you do a couple, just to get a feel for what the real test is like (in terms of content and question difficulty and length), to get an accurate prediction of what your score, and to identify any weaknesses that you were not aware of.

Good Luck

 

[basupran]

I did NBME 3 and 4...used them as a gauge of my performance for the upcoming exam...ie, was my plan of attack working? I wound up scoring 4 points higher than my last NBME...pretty accurate if you ask me.

 

[chef]

here's my 2 cents

do one ONLY if you are pretty confident about your knowledge and preparation. with a week to go, you don't want to bomb one and kill your confidence & go into a panic mode. by confident i mean you know FA front to back COLD. otherwise, i'd spend the 4+hr studying FA.

unless you can postpone the test date by a few wks..

goodluck

 

[igottaquestion]

Any other opinions?

If nothing else, is it worth going through a couple just to look at diagrams and pictures that might pop up on the real thing?