I've always read experiences of others on this forum, so I thought I would contribute back to you all now. I needed a couple days to relax before posting... but now I will share with you my detailed experience.

Before I begin, let me say that I feel like I have either barely passed... and if I did fail I don't see it being lower than 183. I can see myself between 183 and 190, and if I had to make a pinpoint guess - I would say I scored 188!

I knew about half of the questions for sure, everything else was between educated guesses or not knowing what the heck they were talking about at all.

I arrived two hours early to the center, and since it was indoors and a multi-story building, I was able to go inside before the center opened and sit there and study a bit to get the juices in my brain flowing. They tried to offer me locker #13 (and mind you, its halloween!). I jokingly requested a different locker saying that its bad luck especially on this day, and they gave me 14. I had no problems at the testing center but one thing I must mention is that it was freezing cold with the AC! I wore a jacket and I was still cold. I had sandals on though and my feet were so numb from the cold air that I had to sit "indian-style" cross-legged on my chair to keep warm while answering questions.

They provide you a few sheets to do scratch work on in case you need them during the exam. I actually used one of the sheets to write out 7 rows (one for each block), and keep a tally of how many questions I knew 100% for sure. I only marked on the sheet if I was completely positive its the right answer, otherwise I didn't. At the end, I counted up how many questions I knew for sure overall. If I end up passing, maybe you guys will want to use this same idea just to see how you compared to me and that way you can tell if you passed that way... so you won't have to wait 3 weeks crossing your fingers if you passed or not.

The exam was very well divided in all subjects. It seems like the question stems had most of the pathology, but the answers were of anatomy, physiology, molecular, behavioral, etc. The only time I got a direct pathology answer choice was if it was some "not-so-popular" diseases. I knew First Aid very well, but everytime I was reading a question.. I knew that the topic is in First Aid but the answer they wanted could not be found in First Aid. I feel like they did this on purpose because they know many people study that book as a shortcut. Its a great book as a checklist or outline tool, but it only scratches the surface and doesn't always get you the right answer. I would say only 25% of the answers can be found in First Aid, but 70% of the topics can be found in there. So be careful when you study it and not to use it as your top source, but rather as a backup.

My study sources were: Kaplan Lecture Notes, First Aid, USMLERX, and Kaplan Qbank. I did try out USMLE World for a bit but I didn't find it as helpful to me.. but I know its the #1 choice for many of the other students out there.. everyone is different. I think USMLE World is great for preparing you for complex questions, but what I really wanted was a question bank that tests out topic more likely to show on my exam.. I don't have trouble breaking questions down, I just want the knowledge to answer them. USMLE World had a lot of fluff points that I didn't expect to see in the exam, and I didn't. USMLERX was a bit too easy because half the questions are straightforward, but I think my biggest help was the OTHER HALF of the USMLERX questions. About 1400 of them are medium to hard difficulty, and those were right on the nail for the actual exam. I had many rephrased questions matching USMLERX. And I have to also say that USMLERX doesn't simply re-itterate the First Aid in those other 1400 questions, it does go beyond the book for those ones. That is just my feeling from my own exam.. By the way, I also did the NBME exams, but not to test myself, but to rather analyze all the concepts so I knew them a sufficient amount of time prior to the real exam.. that way I can think in their ways.

Block 1: This was a tough block for me. After I completed this block I felt like I am going to fail the exam. I tallied up that I knew 20/50 questions for sure, the rest were educated guesses.

Block 2: This really changed my perception of the exam, as this was easiest block. I knew about 32 questions for sure in this section, so overall at this point I knew a little more than half of the questions I answered for sure.

Block 3, 4, 5: These blocks were all very similar in difficulty for me. I knew about 26 to 27 questions for sure in each of these sections. I felt like if I knew a little more than half on avarage in this exam that I should pass (175/350 for sure, then educated guesses on top of that should put me over the 185 mark)?

Block 6: This block crushed my confidence completely. I was dying in this block. Out of the first 18 questions I only knew 3 of them for sure. Eventually by the end of the block I knew 18/50 for sure.

Block 7: This block was tough too, but it was not as bad as Blocks 1 and 6. Eventually, I ended up knowing 23/50 questions for sure.

Overall: The exam was well rounded in every subject and system, and basically there are no shortcuts to study for this exam. I feel Kaplan's Lecture Books are the way to go with this exam, First Aid only as a review resource since its incomplete based on the new question pool added after this summer, and any question bank of your choice as long as you are confident of your knowledge from the Kaplan material. I knew 172/350 questions for sure, which is an avarage of about 24.5 per block, and just short of knowing half the questions confidently.

When I get my score I will gladly post it here so you can see what all these numbers will mean for you when you go and take your exam, and you can use them as a comparison. I bought the 2007 Kaplan Lecture Videos to study for this exam, so if anyone needs them I would like to sell them off to get my money back for what I paid (200). I also have the Kaplan Self-Assessment 10 diagnostic exams that are only available in the actual $5000 Kaplan course (I didn't take it, but my roommate did and shared with me). You can e-mail me at abmd2b07@aol.com if you have any questions about the exam itself or are interested in this stuff I used for my own exam.

Good luck, and take care guys! I hope my exam experience was helpful, and I will update you on November 21st it looks like.

Hi.

Thanks for the kind remarks. As I mentioned in the above post, I didn't take the NBME's for scoring.. I used the downloaded versions and just researched all the questions and tried to understand them.

Kaplan Qbank I did the same thing.

However, for USMLERX I paid for a subscription. What I did was go through all 2660 questions and mark the easy ones with the right answer. Then after that I selected to only see unused/incorrect questions and went through about 1400 that I found to be 2-step and 3-step medium to hard questions. My cumulative is skewed because of all the right answers I marked for the easy ones, but in the medium/hard ones I was averaging 62-70% on various sections. I do remember it was above the average students were getting on those same questions (USMLERx provides you this info per question).

congratulations on finishing the beast and sharing your experience!

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Thanks for ur reply baby doc..is there anything that you would do differently to ace the exam? Or are the kaplan books, if you knwo them really well, enough to do that..? I guess what im asking is what else you can do to really rock the exam since it seems you did a LOT and still feel like you just passed.. Thanks for ur help!

I would use the same approach I used now, except get thru the material 2 more rounds (as I only got to go through everything 1.5 times). I was required by my school to take this exam by Oct 31st and I did so. It took a month to organize out all my notes, another to go through so many questions, then another month to just re-read everything once. Then I had a week review to go and see anything in my studies I needed to rejuvenate in my mind.

I think getting through the material 2 more rounds would have definitely boosted my score up but it was not in my hands...and honestly..I know most people aim for a high score.. I rather pass and waste less time than beg for an extension I might not get and take it 3 months from now. If I fail I will have to do that anyways and will have my chance for a high score, but I knew I had the chance to pass even now, and since the school wanted me to take it I went ahead and gave it my best shot.

I had another question for everyone...these kaplan 2007 videos, are they actually all new and re recorded or are they same ones that look like they're from the 80's..? I didnt realize there are multiple copies of these videos going around. My school seems to have the older ones..

The 2007 videos are dvd format, not the 80's type. They were all re-recorded this past year.

I'd like to congratulate you for taking the exam and for sharing your experience so honestly.
At first I thought why you did not do this or that. then I realized that you did great in regard with the time table and deadline you had.

Where ppl get those videos?

again thanks for sharing

HEY GUYS!

Here's an update on my exam score, got it today.

195/79

Its a bit higher than I predicted, but nonetheless it looks like my technique of estimating your score works (at worst you will get a little higher than anticipated with my strategy).

Hope I helped you all as much as this forum has helped me!