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Super helpful updates! Nice spot to have it all consolidated, thanks for this!
0Great advice, Dan! I personally always recommend to my students just what you said in the last paragraph – weekly NBMEs (or every two weeks based on how much time you have) during dedicated, and typically waiting until the end to get the UWorld exams, as those tend to be best predictive. At the end of the day though, if you have to prioritize just a few exams, UWorld and NBME 18 or later are best.
0Another slightly different perspective I will add — sometimes, its worth it to just skip it! On the real exam, you will definitely get some more nit-picky questions asking about the specific mechanism of a certain protein in this one different environment of the body… and while you could maybe spend time logic-ing your way through the question and using your principles of biochemistry to work through it, it’s often not worth the time you are wasting at the expense of other clinical questions. Each question is worth the same amount!
With extra time at the end, by all means, go for it! But on first pass through a question set, just keep on moving to get through and not miss easier points down the line.
0Totally agree, David. I personally didn’t make a card, but I find if you look up the CBC/BMP enough times while doing questions, you just learn them anyways without having to memorize formally too! But will definitely be useful and important for third year and beyond to have a general ide of the most commonly ordered labs.
0Totally agree, David. I personally didn’t make a card, but I find if you look up the CBC/BMP enough times while doing questions, you just learn them anyways without having to memorize formally too! But will definitely be useful and important for third year and beyond to have a general ide of the most commonly ordered labs.
0I actually don’t think it would make too much of a difference — I wouldn’t change your plans based purely on whether Step 1 is P/F or scored. I will say that Step 1 is not a *typical* standardized exam in my own experience. My students who have done well in class, typically do well on the exam. I would also say, as David noted above, Step 2 is skill scored, so it might not make that much of a difference in “protecting” you from the effects of residency assessment. I would probably advise you to still apply now – especially if you don’t have another compelling reason to pause for a year!
1+Couldn’t agree more! I still remember two days before my own exam going into a panic because I couldn’t recite from memory all the pages of First Aid, haha. It becomes so easy to doubt all the progress you’ve made in those last few hours. Another useful “confidence boost” can be to quickly flip through some of the “Rapid Review” at the end of First Aid, and to also do a quick question block to see how much progress you’ve made and how much better of you are than when you started!
1+Totally agree with you — I always tell my students to save 18 for last, and it seems like most of them agree, it’s the most representative for content and difficulty compared to all the others! One additional point I’ll add is to save the UWorld ones for the end — the length of those prompts and complexity of questions seem to be a bit closer to the real exam too!
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