Advice Needed To Improve Score Asap

[jaywalk81]

there is hardly ever a chronic condition of hep A, so i would say go with the FA info

[iaustudent06]

I agree with IMGsurvivor in that making notes with UW helped. I also redid the notes into my FA.

Use FA and correct any mistakes with Errors in First Aid for the USMLE (2007) the rumors were true

Have you tried the Rapid Review Series?

[drsc]

Originally Posted by iaustudent06

I agree with IMGsurvivor in that making notes with UW helped. I also redid the notes into my FA.

Use FA and correct any mistakes with Errors in First Aid for the USMLE (2007) the rumors were true

Have you tried the Rapid Review Series?

No I havnt done rapid review. Would it help?

I am the type of person that gets bord with the same material and than look into other books. I know this is bad because it will only confuse me. So right now I am trying to stick with KAPLAN, FA 2008, UW.

[iaustudent06]

I think many people find Golijan's Rapid Review for Path very helpful. If this is your 3rd time, you might need a different and fresh start on reviewing the material properly because you are cutting close to the limit of many states for taking the exam and residency programs.

[IMG SURVIVOR]

I think this will help you. read it all
What to do?- ask ASKDOC

I hope this helps

[drsc]

Originally Posted by iaustudent06

I think many people find Golijan's Rapid Review for Path very helpful. If this is your 3rd time, you might need a different and fresh start on reviewing the material properly because you are cutting close to the limit of many states for taking the exam and residency programs.

You might be right that I need a fresh start. When you say rapid review do you mean the book or the CD or both?

[iaustudent06]

Sorry, I never used the CD. Maybe someone else can shed some light with experience using that material.

[drsc]

Originally Posted by IMG SURVIVOR

I think this will help you. read it all
What to do?- ask ASKDOC

I hope this helps

Thanks for this great info.

Im Still in the procress of reading it. Alot of info is covered. I wanted to put a quote here for anyone else that might also be having trouble.

"Framework for analyzing Weak points throughout Review.

We can divide our whole preparation into 3 parts,

1. Knowledge Acquisition(KA) - This is where you put information into your Knowledge Bank(KB) Most new graduates are extremely fine here (Except if you're one of those who barely made it. Crammed for every test and promptly forgot everything afterwards. Most Old graduates and some IMG graduates usually have problems here. If your deficiency is primarily here (like me both old and IMG), I'm sorry, I don't think there can be any successful prescription but to hit the books.

2. Knowledge Recall or Review(KR) - This is how well you extract information from your KB. Most new graduates have some problem only here. FA and the QBank makes a fantastic tool for improving Recall. So people with problems here usually give fantastic ratings to FA and Qbank.

3. Test Preparedness (TestPrep) - If you are not familiar with CBT, MCQ or clinical slant to questions, this is where your problem is. Problems with sitting for 8 hour exam is also classified here. Difficulty in answereing 2 to 3 step thinking questions also fall here. This is where QBanks are the most effective.

If the problem is primarily in KA, answering 100 thousand Q's will not help, IF your KB is full and you have problems only with KR and TP, hitting the books will be a waste of time. QBank, FA, HY and Flashcards should be the way to go.

How do I know where my primary problem is?

Well a quick way to know is to use an evaluation examination, preferably one that's very near like to the actual exam. (The Kaplan CD examination comes to mind)

If you find while answering the questions that either the choices, the question itself or the pictures makes you think out loud "What the Heck is this?" You have a KA problem.

If most of the time it is, "I know this, but I can't recall how you differentiate between drug A and drug B (or symptoms, presentation, treatment, mechanisms,etc.)" You're having a KR problem.

If you thought you had the answer, then find out it's wrong, but after reading the explanation, you are surprised that you had misunderstood the question, It's a TP problem. Running out of time answering questions is also a TP problem.

As the medical adage goes, from the Diagnosis all things flow. After you've correctly diagnosed your problem, then the treatment is routine. "

Please note: The above was not written by me and I do not want to take the credit of someone's hard work. The whole post can be found at What to do?- ask ASKDOC and the link was also posted earlier by IMG SURVIVOR.

[drsc]

Originally Posted by iaustudent06

Sorry, I never used the CD. Maybe someone else can shed some light with experience using that material.

So than from your experience the book would be good?

I think I do have the book and the cd but Dont really use it.

I have listend to Goljan and have the notes but for some reason during the test I didnt think it helped much. They might have been asking the same material but I guess they might be asking it in another way.

[iaustudent06]

Yeah, I agree with you that golijan didn't help all that much. As a matter of fact, I thought the new Kaplan path instructor (barone, romone or something like that) was better.

But it seems like a lot of people who scored higher than me (91) used Rapid Review for Path. Besides, throughout my exam, I felt that a lot of questions could not be answered by simple question banks but through hard core studying for details.

I still think memorizing FA helps alot. Before I started my test, I also wrote out some biostat and pharm equations, ANS drugs, and a few endocrine and biochem pathways which helped me stay calm, instead of getting nervous and blanking out.