01-20-2010, 08:18 AM
Thank you, forum members for your input, attitude, and prayers! Thank you, drsfkhan, toha, okt3, drbkc, fcbarcelona, waynerooney (where have you been lately?), drstrider, and many others from whom I have learned during this year 2009 while being an active member of this forum! It helped me a lot!
My result is better than UWSA (248) and NBME4 (242). And I know exactly what I screwed up: ironically, the psychiatry questions that were TOO easy (like for clear dg of agoraphobia I marked wrongly GAD because I thought it's too easy to be just agoraphobia, screwed up acute dystonia with haloperidol and, in social anxiety disorder, I marked alprazolam instead of paroxetine!!!) And those 3 skin diseases: tinea corporis, tinea versicolor and pytiriazis rosea-remember, one of them has oral treatment only!!! Overall, I had probably like 10 questions that weren't too hard but I know I screwed up!
Really hard questions were not more than 4-5, I think.
I haven't really done Biostat and there were not more than 5-6 q.
Time-wise, I was OK during the exam, usually the concepts they test are easy to recognize while one skims the q-stem. So I had like 10 minutes spared with each block, in only one block I had like 18 minutes and I thought something was wrong. So I checked my answers that I marked, but haven™t changed many of them
My preparation was about 1 year; I made my own notes, organizing the material I thought it was the most relevant; I looked up Kaplan Notes but perhaps because I am an old graduate, they weren't enough for me.
So, the core of my notes were Cecil Medicine, Harrison for Hematology, and reference books from MD consult. I used e-medicine for newest information, USPSTF, the guidelines that are posted on the professional associations websites.
As Q banks, I used Kaplan (but haven™t finished it) and UW. Also, I did Cecil Qbank they have with their online edition and Harrison Qbook.
Used Qbooks that I borrowed from Public Library, like Pre-Test series, Blueprints (has 100 MCQ at the end of each book), Clinical Vignettes for Step 2, FA Step 2 CK, Lange Step3but I think the most important is to practice with questions that are NMBE type.
It took me too long to do my own notes and for this reason, the pure œreview time was too short: probably 1 month! If it was to do it again, I should cut the time for writing down notes and do more review of the concepts!
The good thing though about these notes was that I summarized some important concepts regarding screening tests by age, chemoprophylaxis for different conditions, timelines for psychiatric disorders, etc, in general, all the contrast-and-compare tables were really helpful.
In general, I guess it helps if we try to anticipate what we are going to be tested, concept-wise. Because they reasonably do so; it is like a must-know information that these people are looking for.
So, GL to all of you! And thank you for your help!
My result is better than UWSA (248) and NBME4 (242). And I know exactly what I screwed up: ironically, the psychiatry questions that were TOO easy (like for clear dg of agoraphobia I marked wrongly GAD because I thought it's too easy to be just agoraphobia, screwed up acute dystonia with haloperidol and, in social anxiety disorder, I marked alprazolam instead of paroxetine!!!) And those 3 skin diseases: tinea corporis, tinea versicolor and pytiriazis rosea-remember, one of them has oral treatment only!!! Overall, I had probably like 10 questions that weren't too hard but I know I screwed up!
Really hard questions were not more than 4-5, I think.
I haven't really done Biostat and there were not more than 5-6 q.
Time-wise, I was OK during the exam, usually the concepts they test are easy to recognize while one skims the q-stem. So I had like 10 minutes spared with each block, in only one block I had like 18 minutes and I thought something was wrong. So I checked my answers that I marked, but haven™t changed many of them
My preparation was about 1 year; I made my own notes, organizing the material I thought it was the most relevant; I looked up Kaplan Notes but perhaps because I am an old graduate, they weren't enough for me.
So, the core of my notes were Cecil Medicine, Harrison for Hematology, and reference books from MD consult. I used e-medicine for newest information, USPSTF, the guidelines that are posted on the professional associations websites.
As Q banks, I used Kaplan (but haven™t finished it) and UW. Also, I did Cecil Qbank they have with their online edition and Harrison Qbook.
Used Qbooks that I borrowed from Public Library, like Pre-Test series, Blueprints (has 100 MCQ at the end of each book), Clinical Vignettes for Step 2, FA Step 2 CK, Lange Step3but I think the most important is to practice with questions that are NMBE type.
It took me too long to do my own notes and for this reason, the pure œreview time was too short: probably 1 month! If it was to do it again, I should cut the time for writing down notes and do more review of the concepts!
The good thing though about these notes was that I summarized some important concepts regarding screening tests by age, chemoprophylaxis for different conditions, timelines for psychiatric disorders, etc, in general, all the contrast-and-compare tables were really helpful.
In general, I guess it helps if we try to anticipate what we are going to be tested, concept-wise. Because they reasonably do so; it is like a must-know information that these people are looking for.
So, GL to all of you! And thank you for your help!
