What to do in remaining time?

[adoniah]

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I take my exam a week from Friday (on the 24th). That leaves me about 9 days to study (Sat I've got an obligation all day, unfortunately...). My question is this. I spent most of my study time working on Rx questions, which I'm now realizing might have been a foolish idea. The questions are way to convoluted, and while they do ensure you know FA inside and out, I just don't feel they're very realistic or similar to the real deal. I bought a subscription of uWorld a week ago, and have been trying to go through as many of those as possible per day (and I see why everyone says uWorld is superior to the other questions banks...it's night and day).

My dilemma is this: I plan on taking NBME 7 next week sometime and uWorld 2 on Sunday. But, do I take a day and do uWorld 1 too or do I just keep marching through the qbank? I've looked around on here and there seems to be a general consensus that world2 tends to be a tad more predictive than 1, but is 1 still worthwhile to take? Is it worth giving up a day of qbank ?s to go through the sample test? I'm just worried I'd give up a day of the qbank in order to take a practice test that perhaps isn't so predictive anyways.

I figure there's got to be a few people on here that can offer me some advice. Just wishing I had started uWorld earlier... Thanks in advance!

 

[SirGecko]

To be honest with nine days left the things I would do are:

USMLE world questions.
Final pass through first aid. (in the last five days or so)

That is about it. Other things I might consider are doing review in another source on something you are weak on. (I did a bunch of pharm flashcards because I suck at pharm)

Why are you thinking about doing three (!) predictive exams with 9 days to go to the test? If the predictive exams don't predict the way you want are you going to postpone the test? If the answer is yes, go for it. Take all three. Knowledge is power. If the answer is no I wouldn't waste my time with them. I would only do one of those exams if you haven't done any predictive exams already (the NBME) and make sure you do it with plenty of time left before the exam. (so tomorrow or the next day) At the very least I wouldn't do three.

 

[MrAgreeable]

To be honest with nine days left the things I would do are:

USMLE world questions.
Final pass through first aid. (in the last five days or so)

That is about it. Other things I might consider are doing review in another source on something you are weak on. (I did a bunch of pharm flashcards because I suck at pharm)

Why are you thinking about doing three (!) predictive exams with 9 days to go to the test? If the predictive exams don't predict the way you want are you going to postpone the test? If the answer is yes, go for it. Take all three. Knowledge is power. If the answer is no I wouldn't waste my time with them. I would only do one of those exams if you haven't done any predictive exams already (the NBME) and make sure you do it with plenty of time left before the exam. (so tomorrow or the next day) At the very least I wouldn't do three.

This is what I am doing at T-6 and doing UWorld and reviewing FA is really helping me feel more comfortable with the material and concepts.

 

[adoniah]

To be honest with nine days left the things I would do are:

USMLE world questions.
Final pass through first aid. (in the last five days or so)

That is about it. Other things I might consider are doing review in another source on something you are weak on. (I did a bunch of pharm flashcards because I suck at pharm)

Why are you thinking about doing three (!) predictive exams with 9 days to go to the test? If the predictive exams don't predict the way you want are you going to postpone the test? If the answer is yes, go for it. Take all three. Knowledge is power. If the answer is no I wouldn't waste my time with them. I would only do one of those exams if you haven't done any predictive exams already (the NBME) and make sure you do it with plenty of time left before the exam. (so tomorrow or the next day) At the very least I wouldn't do three.

Really the only reason I wanted to do 3 is because of previous scores. I took NBME 6 and 11 early on; passed, but only in the 190s. Took 12 2 weeks ago and got a 203...my goal is a 220+. After the 203 is when I made the switch to uworld because I felt like Rx wasn't doing anything for me other than confusing the living crap out of me from how convoluted their questions get. Last weekend I re-took 11 (I know, neurotic)...I didn't remember too many of the questions, so maybe my score is skewed a little bit, but got a 219 on that after a week of uworld (about 350 ?s in). I guess I wanted to do 3 more (at least 2) to sort of prove to myself I've made progress and I don't need to worry about failing too much. I feel like uworld is really helping; I just want a way to prove that, I suppose.

Which of those three are the most helpful, in your opinions? (NBME 7 vs UWSA 1 vs UWSA 2)

 

[medstar21]

I would say don't worry about UWSA1 and just do NBME 7 and UWSA2. I took NBME 7 earlier, and for me it was not a good test for me personally, but people on here seem to say its a good one to do near the end. UWSA2 sometimes overpredicts for some people (big debate I'm sure you're aware), so that can potentially be a confidence booster in the end.

Other than that, like SirGecko said, do some UWorld questions, and go through first aid again. I'm taking mine saturday, and this is what I have been doing with my last week. I've also been taking some notes from FA about the things I tend to forget, and plan on going through that as a one last final review on friday.

Also, if you haven't taken the free 150 yet, I would recommend doing that as well. I've heard it can give you a nice confidence boost at the end. Taking mine tomorrow. The only pain is that it only works on windows computers so if you don't have access to one search around on here for some other options 🙄