I took another nbme.. need advice - lorna_doone

[ArchivalUser]

I took nbme 11 about 2 months ago and got 224. I just took it as a baseline. About a month ago I took nbme 15 and got 239 on it. I was expecting to score higher because I studied my ass off. Yesterday, a month later, I took nbme 16 and got 258. This time I wasn't expecting such an increase because even though I studied hard I was told that the score doesn't tend to increase so dramatically toward the end when there is not left too much room for improvement. Or maybe that's not true...

Would you guys say that nbme 15 is harder and it sort of underestimated my score at the time? It definitely felt hard. Or is 16 easier than average and it overestimates? Should I take 17 right now to see how I will do on it and maybe even get an average of the three or should I take it 1-2 weeks later after I review fa again + finish uw? What do you recommend? Thanks a lot.

[ArchivalUser]

Honestly i feel you are good to Go man. Every single minute counts what you learnt before between 224 and 239 contributed and same with what u learnt between 239 and 258. The duration and how hard you studied doesnt matter but what you have learned and what you built on it. i feel if you take nbme 17 you score is still going to be in the 250 range so dont worry

[ArchivalUser]

Hey lorna have you been studying with a sp or all alone? Can you shed a little light about your study schedule.. I would like to score higher but I'm stuck in the 220s..

[ArchivalUser]

17 is not very hard. Maybe if you plan to take the test in the near future you should go with 18. But 239 and 258 are very good scores so I don't think that both were flukes. You are probably good to go lorna

[ArchivalUser]

@kcbutterfly228, thanks, I will take 18 instead then, just in case.

@amirmurlik, thanks for the advice. I agree that duration doesn't matter. I studied on and off for the last 4 months. The last 2 months I tried to minimize distractions and was able to get some actual work done.

[ArchivalUser]

Great score! can you share some study tips?

[ArchivalUser]

@yohimbine8, I discovered that studying with a study partner is not my thing. I gave it an honest shot but every time I tried to study with someone, it took at least twice as much time as doing it by myself. And I also figured that if I need a sp to keep me motivated then I am not really serious about this . But it totally works for some people.

Initially I was using a LOT of different resources and so it was taking too much time and good results were not readily noticeable. Then I decided I would just read through fa no matter how hard it was. I read it along with 2 books - Basic sciences general principles and organ systems. They add to fa and minimized the need to keep googling every other thing from fa. Like many people have said on this forum, as long as you really know and understand whatever is in fa, you are more than ok. I also did pathoma. I am currently almost done with uworld but only reviewed about half. Definitely need to do that. I was contemplating maybe doing some old nbmes just for practice but I am running out of patience and energy, I can tell. Mainly I just wanna be done with this thing.

[ArchivalUser]

Thank you very much for the insight Wish you the best you are doing great!!

[ArchivalUser]

Also, if I need some more information, of course I would use Kaplan or do an extra search on the internet. Wikipedia is quite an invaluable tool to get some quick idea on what you are looking for.

But again, fa is the key. Just understand that each phrase in there could be a question-worth information. So never ignore anything. If you ignore it, that's probably because it is a harder to understand information or something vague and I guarantee you you will absolutely get a question on it at some point during your preparation. Happened to me a few times until I just learnt to never ignore anything in fa.

[ArchivalUser]

You are welcome. Good luck to you as well.