USMLE Forum - Largest USMLE Community

Hey all, Just to share My experience. Hopefully it can help others, as reading other people's posts have helped me too.
The day b4 the exam I tried to relax. If ur exam center is more than 30mins from ur home, I d suggest you leave a day b4 and check into a nice hotel which was what I did. Sleep!!!. Sleep is most important. Even during my preparation I slept 8hrs everynight. If u are tired, nothing sticks and u are absorbing half of the materials u re studying. So I slept by 10pm and woke up at 6am. Got ready and had a big breakfast at the hotel buffet, then checked out of the hotel and drove to the center. I said a prayer to God to calm my nerves and take control of my whole exam. I d suggest u dress comfortably. I brought advil, hard candy and chewing gum which were all handy at some point. I took breaks after 2 blocks each for a total of 3 breaks of 15 mins each.
The exam itself was doable. They will and can ask you anything so be prepared. There were a lot of diagrams. So be able to interpret diagrams. Unlike myths we are used to hearing, the exam is not meant to fail you. some questions were very very easy while some were impossible to answer. But if u ve studied well, the hard ones shouldnt matter. I got a lot of anatomy which I didnt like cos I didnt study for it. The exam goes pretty fast. I didnt even notice when I got to the last block.
Materials I used in order of helpfulness...
First Aid Organ Systems (1st Edition)
First Aid 2010
Kaplan notes (only for biochem and Immuno)
Pathoma for pathology
Q banks in order of helpfulness:
Usmle RX
Kaplan
Uworld.
Goodluck to everyone. If I can do it with been so busy with hubby and 2 kids, anyone can too. Just be determined. Believe in yourself and more importantly believe in God. God Bless u all.

Congratulations for such a good score. I am glad that your hard work paid off and really happy for you. Could you please provide your NBME scores or UWSA scores if you took them...My exam date is coming closer and it is encouraging to see people getting good scores. Thanks so much.

Pathoma vs Goljan vs Kaplan, which did you find best for your understanding of pathology?

congrats a lot!i knw u did a grt job as i m also a mom.
,my exam is in nxt 3 months.when is the best time to take nbme,uw assmt.and which ones.what is a good score in nbme.,uw assmt.
is it necessary to watch videos?
i m doing fa,uw,kaplan immuno,genetics,bs,goljan rr.is it enff.

how long it took you to be ready for this exam? what was your routine ? any tips for moms?
are you fresh graduate or old?

congrats...i want one thing to be clear a guy tecnodoc scored 248/87 but in your case 219/93 can ?

Congratilations sleek and you have an inspiring story and no exuses for us moms anymore...Thank You for your experiance..
Cio,
Antonella

@mfandtr" No I didnt take NBME. However I took UW=221, and kaplan 225

@ mfandtr, I took 2 full simulated kaplan exams, which is 8hrs each, two weeks b4 the exam. I will highly recommend it cos it helps with endurance for the real day, so it seems like u ve done it b4. so 1st kaplan exam= 225, 2nd one= 228, then UW=221. Thanks and Goodluck.

@ docbybayl: I did only pathoma for path.

@Notym: I started the assesment 2 weeks b4 the exam. If u score above 220 on your assesments, then u are good to go. As for the videos, i only watched the ones I was weak in. It will take a lot of time if u want to watch everything. Dont do it...lol

@dr.mommy, I m a fresh graduate. I usually woke up at 7am, took my daughter to school, then I will be in a library at around 9am. I usually get about 10hrs a day then I go home, watch an hr of two and half men, spend time with the kids and go to bed by 10pm. Goodluck to u.

@Alex162... I m not sure why a 248 would be an 87. Are u sure he didnt make a typo? I was under the impression that above a 230 is a 99 percentile. It doesnt sound correct that a 248 is an 87. But then percentile is based on the people who took the exam around the same time u took ur exam. So maybe he took with some geniuses. I dont know, but I can tell u that many friends of mine who didnt even have up to 248 had 90's as their 2 digit score.

Thanks Antonella. Goodluck to u.

How can I get the full simulated kaplan exams.I could not find it on the web page of kaplan.