suresubabu wrote:
Hi Guys

Here is some advice on reducing the anxiety.While readily acknowledging that some of these tactics are wellknown to every one , it might not totally out of place to mention all of them together in one go. May be this is useful to at least one!

1.Practice the FSMB cd. Not only for the questions(which you must know as the back of your palm), read carefully the instructions also. One natually tends to read the instructions while doing the exam, and this makes you lose valuable seconds, if not minutes. If you totally skip the orientation on the exam day, you feel tensed and unsure whether you have missed anything.Knowing the content of FSMB cd 100% makes you confident that you have not missed anything and you can skip the orientation alltogether with out any worry and guilty.

2.Know your CIN number bi-heart .This saves you fewseconds everytime you login and saves a lot of anxiety.You feel totally in command.

3.Allways, allways practice questions in timed mode.This keeps you under pressure, and your performance will be below your potential.However, that is what exactly going to happen! If you keep doing untimed tests and keep giving you concessions and then asess yourself, you will be cheating yourself and your exam scores will be less than you think.

4.Also practice questions in Mixed subjects mode.Dont do subject-wise. This gives you clues in answers and you will be invariably end up getting higher scores in practice exams. You will tend to overestimate yourself. Dont do questions again. This will give false sense of security.

5.Practice typing , if you dont know that skill. Also know the abbreviations for all the tests , like CBC for complete blood count, BMP for the basal metabolic profile, HIV I & ii for ELISA & WESTERNBLOT, CXR for chest x-ray. This may sound too primitive and bordering on non-sensical, but it is true that some failed because they wasted toomuch of time on typing with just one finger and also typing the full forms only knowing that it is not recognised by the computer.

6.As Conrad Fischer of Kaplan puts it , Step 3 is a test of testing and treatment. It is not about diagnosis. Only 10 to 20% of step 3 questions are "Which one of the following is the most likely diagnosis?" .(These are almost 30 to 50% on step 2). As we prepare for the exam, we feel that it is easy, as we are familiar with the diseases, but the diagnoses are rarely asked. The most common questions are as follows:

a. WHAT IS THE BEST INITIAL TEST?

B.What is the BEST test?/Most accurate/ Most specific test?

c. What is the BEST INITIAL THERAPY?

d.Best initial therapy is (too obvious, like aspirin in MI,) instituted, and now What is the NEXT BEST step in management.

Caution: Usmle likes to play with words. Next step in therapy is differnt from Management. Management involves both investigations and treatement. So be careful.

d.What is the best therapy?

5.What to study? Focus on Kaplan step2 and 3 materials and that is more than enough to guide through the exam. Do tons of questions though.

6.Take regular breaks. 5 minutes break will turn out to be 10 minute break if you come out of the exam room. Stay put, but dont answer questions. Take few deep breaths and start again.Two more minutes outside the exam room may make you more anxious than required, and if you find two more applicants ahead of you signing the sheets, and the devil-may-care attitude of proctor may further frustate you. After every block take a break , but do not venture out. When it is three blocks already then take a 15 minutes break and eat some thing sugary. Dont drink toomuch, the cold weather coupled with this load will require you to take an unauthorized break.Stay informed that every unauthrorized break will BE REPORTED as IRREGULARITY.

7.Keep your finger on the mouse so that every time it appears that" computer is going to lock in 30 seconds because of inactivity" you can just click. While it is important to realise that every question carries equal marks, and you should not spend toomuch of time on any question, Statistics typically require more than a minute and half to conquer.If you are 100% sure that you are going to get this correct, it is worth spending those extra seconds on this question, since it gives you definitely the mark. Unlike Ethics , where you never know,the answer, even after the exam.

8.A week before the exam, do 2 blocks of brand new questions every single day in the morning. Do it in timed mode and all subjects. This will make you get used to the exam tension and you will be tension free during the actual exam.

9.On the day of the exam, do atleast 50 questions before going to exam. Never mind if these are the questions if you have already done, but do them any way.

10.During the exam , read the question for comprehension, but try to read the question in a jiffy and compulsively answer the question. Resist the temptation of stimulus , response kind of thing. Most questions are not that type. Read, ensure that you have not missed minor details, (especially if question appears too easy) and answer the question. Keep an eye on the no.of questions you have done , so that you wont get hurried during the end.

All the best!!