1. Yes, I was so nervous, I did what I knew would calm me down. I had a Sky Blue bottle from a plane ride left over from when me and the former SGA president (IAUinsider) had a very exciting flight consisting of kicking luggages and screaming in tongues in the middle of the airport.
Side note - I know what works for me, don't do mess a good routine if you got one.
2. Case study - During my stay, case studies wasted too much time. I always argued case should be a privilege, not a right because people who didn't want to or know how to present always did a bad job and wasted valuable time out of our already shortened scheduled. My test was VERY detailed and required a deep understanding of the underlying theory and/or concept. In my opinion, time is better spent reading and having a great teacher OR developing a revamped version of case studies that involves more than just presentation, but true interactions and testing. However to end on a positive note, I did have several graphs and images that did strike a memory of the disease and/or pathway presented in case.
Use Google images or scanned graphs whenever possible.
3. There's no need for clinical exposure. Even though some of my questions started with a patient in a clinical setting, it always tested the fundamental understanding of the normal, responsive, or disease process and/or testing of it.
Again for me, nothing replaces hard core studying, reading, and practice questions.
4. Thanks SG/iauinsder, RS, and iaupremed for the support but I didn't do the best, I hope one of you all score 240+/99 (at least one IAU student, right?). DON'T NEGLECT FIRST AID!!! Everything subject tested was in FA, but not all answers were clearly out of it.
UW, FA, and qbook/qbank are the best LAST resources.
5. IRONICALLY, A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE UPPER-LEVEL PERSON WHO ACCUSED ME OF CHEATING, IT WAS ONE OF THE MAIN MOTIVATION TO STUDY.
Here's my breakdown for individual subject in relation to my test as a review
after hard core basic science studying I CAN'T EMPHASIS HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO STUDY FOR DETAIL:
Anatomy/Neuro/ Embryo - FA, UW
Most were instant recall but asked/shown in creative ways I haven't seen before. You had to know it cold.
Physio - Kaplan and FA, UW
I bombed the respiratory portion (the only one i failed, on back side of report) and did borderline in GI. I guess that's what cost me a better score.
Path - Golijan, Kaplan, and FA, UW
Nothing unusual, but the pictures rarely helped me. Actually, what was more irritating was being told the disease and asked some detail I had no idea about.
Micro/Immuno - FA and High Yield, UW
Instant recall mostly. There was only one question I distantly remember where I couldn't recognize any of the answers, I swear they made it up.
Behavioural/Biostats - FA, UW, Kaplan
Had more biostats over behavioral. Both easy.
Biochem - Kaplan & FA for the genetics and nutrition portion
This was so hard, but some how I scored well in this area. I had lots of DNA, RNA, translation, transcription crap.
Pharm - FA
Pretty straight forward, but not easy. Mostly ANS and chemo, no side effects/interactions/calculations/etc though.
Hopes this helps, just keep studying! I kept feeling like I was going to fail due to low kaplan and UW scores. Actually, I was so sure I failed after the test I even signed a contract to work 3 days after the test (as an RN, it's easy to get picked up quickly), that's why I just gave up the day before and submitted resumes and watched a movie (i watched juno and felt better about myself by saying i will probably fail, but at least i'm not ugly and pregnant).