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Old 10-14-2006, 08:23 AM
marcus "the gun" pupil marcus "the gun" pupil is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 200
My Experience

Okay, i promised to talk about my experience and i also told captain i will put it in his thread. I will start off with saying that i dont think it is our med schools fault for not touching certain topics because Med school material is just so broad and i think a lot of those questions are set up to find out who can really think. Some times you eliminate and boy you have to know how to eliminate. I think Zedpol gave an example in his post a while ago which was helpful.

NBME 4 - 600 (1 month out)
NBME 2 - 610 (3 weeks out)
NBME 3 - 640 (3 days out)
USMLE CD - 88% (43/50, 42/50, 48/50)
Q BANK - 80%

I think this was a tough test. It is really set out to find out if you understand the CONCEPT not just memorize. Yes, you do have to memorize details but in order to do well u have to understand the material. U need to exercise good test taking skills to survive such an exam. Get some gatorade to keep you from fading off in the seventh block! For instance (this was not a test question): if they said a pregnant lady had polyhydraminos and you want to know the cause, the answer choices might be
a. esophageal atresia
b. failure of the ureteric bud
c. complete pyloric stenosis
d. anencephaly

if you are used to flying thru you might click a. and move on (ala first aid), not knowing that the stem told you that there was also abdominal distention. Well now a. doesnt sound so good anymore because the pathology should be more distal. And you know that d. is sequelae and b. is a distractor. So even though u never associated c. with polyhydrominos, u have no choice but to pick it. Notice it said COMPLETE. Yes, it is fair game, because it is the only one than explains the pathology.

That is how i answered 75% of my questions. It forced me to apply knowledge. Overrall i thought it was a tough test. Kaplan helped a bit, q bank helped a bit and first aid helped a bit, but no single source really impressed. Captainwada and I went back and forth the entire time on phone and actually a few concepts we discussed was on exam. It is good to have someone who has your dedication that you can call up if you dont understand certain material. Kaplan IV might be a little help now that i think of it. well i will keep you all updated in a month when my scores come in. ONLY THE LORD CAN SAVE ME!!!

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OASIS worked on the 4th thursday --- passed

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got the score - 249/99

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been getting a lot of PM's and havent been answering cause I have been really busy. So I will edit in my study materials

BRS path
BRS phys
FA pharm
High yield biochem
Kaplan for the rest of the subjects
All Q bank and Q book
Most rapid review questions
Web path for my path weakness ( I did nephro, female reproductive and i think derm)
Did the pharm questions from board review series cause my pharm was weak (obviously noting my choice of text above, lol).

Last edited by marcus "the gun" pupil; 10-01-2007 at 10:55 PM. Reason: update
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