ramo7
Forum Senior
Topics: 15
Posts: 126
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took my usmle today. teh day had finally arrived. have been preparing for this on and off for a year now...then finally decided to face it and started study for it seriously for the past 4 moths or so inbetween a busy work schedule. had to take many days off esp the last week to finish all the study.
thought the exam would be as hard as the qbank but to be honest it isnt. i didnt get too many of those long winded clinical cases that i really dreaded i woulod get as they eat up a lot of your time. got a couple but they were easy to read and stright forward.
you might have heard from many people that reading the last line of the question is teh best way to approach the exam. if you ask me it isnt. i did that and found that it didnt help me atall.most of my questions in my exam were of the double switch type where they try and make you think of something that you recognise and think mught be in teh answer choices but then when you read the last line the question would ask you somehting totally different. the best thing to do is to read from the start of teh question and not from the end. NEVER try and answer the question just by reading the last line, most probably you will pick the wrong answer. i surely did and found myself having to go back and correct my mistakes all for the sake of saving a few secoonds on the clock which then ended up costing me more time then the amount i had saved.all the questions were evely spread between teh subjects and no one block got a preference. some of my firends got all neuro in just one block which really scared me. most of my questions which suprised me were short one liners with jsut 5 short choices so if you know your material well tehn you can really fly thorough them. i had about 5 miutes at the end of each block. but i didnt use it to add to my break but instead went over the few marked items which i thought i might have to spend more time on. see if you dont move on when you think you dont know the answer then you will be stuck for time. but i was lucky as on my 3 block trhere were a lot of calculation questions so i took a lot of tim eto reach the halfway mark of 25questions. but luckly the rest were all one liner tyoe so i could finsih in time. but if they were of the clincial type i would have been so dead as i know i wouldnt have finshed them on time. see my point, its better to just mark the questions your unsure on by just selecting soemthing and then if you have time at the end you can review them.now here is my brief breakdown of what i was faced. im sorry its not very detailed as im really exhausted. my exam was int eh afternoon which means i spent the whole afternoon stdying and the next 8 hrs doing the exam and now its nearly midnight, hence sont mind the spelling mistakes too..anywayi'll try and write as much as i can remeber for you guys...firstly,
patho- there were a lot of them on my exam. and they werent straight forward too, then were all of the double switch type.my exam was littered with genetics. downs, cri-du-chat, chromosomal deletions, ad diseases. congestive cardiac failure,
as far as the pictures goes there were a couple of straight forward ones but some were impossible to tell what was going on especially ont eh histology sections.
pharm- suprisingly i didnt get as many questions as i expected in pharm from doing qbank i knew that this was was weakest area and spent nearly half the day before teh exam revising for it but the questions that came up were not that hard. didnt get any neoplastic drugs or viral drugs. got hypertensive drugs question, anit-arrythimics, gi drugs and renal drugs.thats about it.know all there is to know about warfrin, gastric drugs, and autonomic drugs.
physio- this was really weird as i am sure that they were 2 questiosn on my exam that were very similar. i couldnt believe it for a second but yes there it was. there were worded differently but they were looking for pretty much the same answer. know your muscle phys well. and those pressure volume loops which i hate. i was hoping none of those reanl volume changes diagrams would come up and luckilyu they didnt as i can never figure them out. got a few of drug velocity and enzyme velocities graphs. so know how to figure them out. got a lot of gastric phy which i love as they are so easy to learn. just have to know the functions of the differnet enzymes and hormones. know how to do a few simple calculations like gfr, clearance, and plasma flow
micro- got a few tricky onjes of these which i hope i got them right. most were of the food poisoning type and they didnt give enough information in the case to clearly point ot which organis, they just said watery diarrhea after attending a picnic. no cysts in stool..i mean what the hell can anyone make out of that, well i sure cant so just picked something and moved on. didnt get any helminths. got malaria question, lot of gpositive bugs amd meningits and pnemonias.
anantomy- these were a rare sight. i spent time studying for anatomy as the questions on qbank were really hard but on my exam i hardly saw a few. got a question on facture of the femur and assoc complications, some on the medican nerve and kidneys all very straight forward. hy is very good and was a great help to me in this area/
bs- this was tricky. the problem i foud with these questiosn onteh exam is that i could almost always only narrow it down to 2 choices. there were 2 choices which both ring true but you have to pick the best one which leaves you with a dilema. first of all i found that these questions took up teh most time during the exam as you have to read a long clinical case anf then the choices for the answers which were also long. so they took up a lot of time and tehn when youahve 2 make a choice between 2 answers which youfeel are both right you loose more time trying to justify why on eis more right than the other. the ironic thig is there is nothing you can do about it. no matter how much bs you do you will be faced with a few answers that ethically sound right that you just have to use your own judgement in picking them
biochem- this was very annoying as again a lot of genetics cam in and started throwing me off. there were questions on different messengers and how they fuction, dna, rna etc...the first few pages in first aid i think covers all these in detail so it would be worht your time to cover these. then ofcourse got questions on gluconeogeniss, glycolysi and enzymes involed in teh various biochemical processes.
overlal i was glad it wasnt as complicated as i expected it to be. im just very glad that i finally got it out of the way and now it feels like a big burden is off my shoulders. ok this is getting very lon...thank you al for your advise im sure i will need it again to face part2. wish you all teh very best whoever is taking their exams and i will get back to you guys with my result. i hope i get a good result for al the hard work i put in.
ps.. if anyone is looking for goljan audio or notes i will be happy to forward mine to them, im not going to set eyes on them ever again anyway...but there is a nominal charge as i dont have a computer at home and have to go to the local internet center to email them to you so its just to cover that...but dont worry its not too much...if you are interested just email me a request at ramo7@hotmail.com
best of luck everyone!
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| vanshita
Forum Guru
Topics: 31
Posts: 935
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thank you very much
GOOD LUCK for you score and other exam
for biochemistry from which book you study
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| usmle4life
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 52
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Thanx for all your advice! I really appreciate it! I'm sure you did excellent on your exam! I'm studying the goljan notes hardcore..did you think a lot of information was from the goljan notes..cuz goljan notes covers a lot of stuff and not just path..and i love his audio lectures and his notes..my exam is soon and I have been spending a lot of time with this notes,pharm,physio,biochem,micro and immuno..im just worried about neuroanatomy and behavioral science..do you think I'll be ok?? Please reply soon when you get a chance..I would really appreciate it!
Again GOOD JOB to you with taking this exam! 
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| tolito
Forum Fanatic
Topics: 119
Posts: 2,174
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wish you great scores. thanks for writing your experience. it justs confirms to me that genetics is an important subject. it is my weakest point so ineed to buckle up cos i cannot wish it away. what text did you study for genetics?
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| goodgod
Forum Senior
Topics: 3
Posts: 80
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Thanx or sharing ur experience! wish u a great score...
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The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
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| raves
Forum Elite
Topics: 23
Posts: 248
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thanx for sharing this wonderful post.m sure u gonna score just greatall the best.
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| snake0613
Forum Elite
Topics: 97
Posts: 194
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glad to hear your back
could you please make an outline for your rest time druing your test?
I want to know whether only one chance to leave the test place for the rest outside?
thanks
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| farjoudi
Forum Junior
Topics: 8
Posts: 40
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Thanx for sharing your experience.
please let me know about complete
References you used for exam
and tell us about your experience about these references in your eaxam
thank you so much
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| robin082006
Forum Hero
Topics: 471
Posts: 5,123
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Thanks for sharing your experience,
Good luck.
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The Key to Succeed is Patience.
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| vasorum
Forum Newbie
Topics: 5
Posts: 47
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good luck on ur score...
tell us, did u use kaplan dvds?, and which
of them r the best ones??
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When you abandon your dream, you'll know you are dead.
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| ramo7
Forum Senior
Topics: 15
Posts: 126
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i read mostly from the first aid and did pretest biochem and glojan hy which was ver good as he had all the essentila items tested on teh exam and it was very hight yeild for me to study it before the exam. i also did clinical vignettes biochem...i think this is more than enough as you would have gone thorugh teh same topics over and over agin that you will be able to mange the questions on teh exam.
vanshita wrote:
thank you very much
GOOD LUCK for you score and other exam
for biochemistry from which book you study
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| ramo7
Forum Senior
Topics: 15
Posts: 126
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uslme life...yes goljan is very hy as it has all teh most commonly tested items on teh exams condensed into his notes. i highly recommend covering his notes well and also listening to his audio. i did both...its not a waste of time to do his notes i think...
tolito...i didnt studied any special book for gentics...to tell you teh truth teh more books i thought i had to read the more stressed out i would get. i just made sure i knew the topics in first aid well...but most of the genetics questions on my exam were near impossible to figure out in 72seconds maybe i did a research paper on it...im hoping they are the experimental questions that they usually have on eth exam. since i did goljan notes the gentics that i need to knwo were covered in his boook,...i also did pretest biochem and genetics...
snake...my test center was screwed up as there were other people doing some theory tests unrelated to the usmle and so teh proctors were busing attenting to them that i lost most of my break time standing around waitng to sign out. this was my intial time managemnt. i skipped teh tutorial which i highly recommend you do as that will give you an extra 15mins of break time... so now i have 1 hr. so my plan was to spend 5 mins of break after the first block and then again after teh second. since my exam was in teh afternoon..i decided to have my lunch break after my third block for 30mins. now i only have 20 mins left and 4 blocks to complete. so i planned to take 5 mins of break after each block. but since the protors were busy i lost some time here and there which meant invariable i had to complete the last 2 blocks back to back. i think its better to do the first 2 blocks without break and then take 10 min break after 3 then 30min lunch break after 4th and then 5mins after 5th and 5mins after 6th..this still leaves you with 10extra break time that you can use as yuou want..this is the advise of kaplan...
farjoudi...what references are you talking about?
vasorum...no i didnt use kaplan dvds but used some of kaplan notes but only for reference.kaplan notes are extensive and take up a lot of time. they are good but not if you are rushed for time as each topic is around 500 pages and really was sick of reading more books at this stage coming uop to the exams. i think they are a excellent place to start during your early stages of prep
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| vanshita
Forum Guru
Topics: 31
Posts: 935
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thank ramo7
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| snake0613
Forum Elite
Topics: 97
Posts: 194
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Thanks, I try to find what you said in KAPLAN,but i didn't ,could you please give me that hyperlink for it ,thanks again!
ramo7 wrote:
snake...my test center was screwed up as there were other people doing some theory tests unrelated to the usmle and so teh proctors were busing attenting to them that i lost most of my break time standing around waitng to sign out. this was my intial time managemnt. i skipped teh tutorial which i highly recommend you do as that will give you an extra 15mins of break time... so now i have 1 hr. so my plan was to spend 5 mins of break after the first block and then again after teh second. since my exam was in teh afternoon..i decided to have my lunch break after my third block for 30mins. now i only have 20 mins left and 4 blocks to complete. so i planned to take 5 mins of break after each block. but since the protors were busy i lost some time here and there which meant invariable i had to complete the last 2 blocks back to back. i think its better to do the first 2 blocks without break and then take 10 min break after 3 then 30min lunch break after 4th and then 5mins after 5th and 5mins after 6th..this still leaves you with 10extra break time that you can use as yuou want..this is the advise of kaplan...
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| ralux
Forum Senior
Topics: 5
Posts: 59
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ramo, so everything you have studied is FA and then questions, pretests..etc?
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| snake0613
Forum Elite
Topics: 97
Posts: 194
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hi, ramo7, could please you give me some suggestions about a good arrangement in the last month to the test?
thanks.
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| ramo7
Forum Senior
Topics: 15
Posts: 126
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saanke..the time naagemnt guide is in kaplan qbook. its in the first few pages. check it out. as for the last month before teh test try and do as many revisions of first aid as possible...then questions, questions and more questions, do as much as you can. people say its good to take nbme test as it highlights your weak areas before the exam. its expensive in the sense that it costs $45 dollars per test and there are only 200 questions. although i know people who have done all 5 tests they could afford it. if you ahve ay weak areas its best not to leave it till last. then a few days before the exam you can really concentrate on your strong areas....
raulax...no..during my early prep i started with brs series for patho, micro, physio and pahrm. used hy fro anatomy and bs. then did clinical vignettes, then setp1 secrets(my fav book), then the pretest series, goljan notes and then finally coming towards the exam first aid, qbank, qbank physio, qbook starter kit and robbins review of patho. would have liked to have qbook done too but didnt have enough time...
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