chileno
Forum Newbie
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Awake by 6:00am...feeling good after a good night's sleep. Hitting the flashcards after oatmeal and my usual tasty coffee. Again I will mention that the walk yesterday evening really helped to calm my nerves and clear my mind and tire me out for good sleeping.
Today I plan on going through:
* Pathology flashcards
* Immuno flashcards
* Pharmacology flashcards
* Microbiology flashcards
* Vitamin review
* Biochem reactions
* Cytokines and tumor markers
* All the images from FA 2007
Update after dinner...
Here goes the last push!!
--chileno
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What doesn't kill us makes us stronger...including the USMLEs
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| Kalyann
Forum Elite
Topics: 4
Posts: 525
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Behind that last push , u will find my prayers for u to do well on the exam
U worked hard for it
U deserve to get a High Pass Score
So just go for it
Happy Exam Experience.
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| antidepressant
Forum Guru
Topics: 29
Posts: 557
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All the best chileno, you will ace it, our prayers with you!
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Step 1 can not defeat me!!!!!!!!
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| ShweHope99.9998
Forum Fanatic
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GL chileno , u have studying hard eveything as ur best , so sleep well nt b4, calm & go for it , u can do it , fight it well .
We all will pray for u
GL
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| drsaima
Forum Senior
Topics: 6
Posts: 149
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Hello chileno,
May God help you in every step of life and after-life.
Stay focused! everything will be just fine.
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| hottie99
Forum Elite
Topics: 30
Posts: 552
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my advice, breathe... 
and when u get there, before u click start, write down all watever u watn to recall like formulas/endo arrows/lung capacities graph/renal calcs etc... on those wipe boards they give u, tha way u dont take any time off u exam, u write down wat is on u mind and u can refer to it throughout without worrying u 'forgot' it, i did that for step 2, and thank god i had!! maybe u dont need to, u seem very well off.. good luck again, and enjoy tomorrow evening!! peace my friend!
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| match2010
Forum Senior
Topics: 3
Posts: 178
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ALL the best chileno...go annihilate the exam and you will be fine cuz you have worked very hard for it.
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| milee99
Forum Guru
Topics: 36
Posts: 777
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hi chileno
all the best!!!
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Do not pray for easy lives,Pray to be stronger men; Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, Pray for powers equal to your tasks; Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.
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| drsaima
Forum Senior
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waiting....
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| chileno
Forum Newbie
Topics: 1
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I can now exhale!!
I finished the exam around 4:00pm today and then went back to the motel to sleep for 30 minutes before picking up my wife and kids for a night out at an outdoor cafe with some live music for the kids to enjoy and play on the jungle gym nearby. It was nice to be reunited with them.
As I was leaving the motel to take the exam this morning I felt like I was exiting a time capsule after two months. I just looked around at "life" around me that was going on the whole time while I was sitting in my chair, studying, doing questions, walking around answering flashcards, and everything else that I put into this period of "self-isolation".
I would like to thank all of the fellow physicians that sent in their good thoughts and positive vibes...it really was nice to read your comments this morning before heading to the testing center. Thanks very much!!
At this point I will describe the order of my day and my impression of the exam and what I would recommend to those of you who will be sooner or later taking the same exam. So here goes...
I took a walk last night for 45 minutes (8:15-9:00pm) around the neighborhood to tire out the body a bit. In spite of trying to get to sleep by 10:00 last night, I covered some last minute renal and hepatic pathology, so I had lights out by 11:10 and was asleep by 11:30pm. No pills, no alcohol, just an adjusted routine and real tiredness.
The alarm went off at 5:20am and I was reading the same renal and hepatic flashcards that I had finished with just a few hours earlier. I maintained my same routine (very important for me on this particular day): 3 packets of oatmeal, strong coffee, orange juice. Jumped in the shower and checked this journal page (THANKS AGAIN!! it was great to read the positive messages!!)
Looked over a few biochemical reaction charts on my walls and drove off to the testing center. Checked in, got assigned a locker, and put on headphones and listened to some energizing music while I waiting for my name to be called for a computer.
I started right at 7:47am...wrote a few thing down on the wipe boards (THANKS hottie99, said my prayers and got started.
--First block was not too bad. Took a 5 minute break.
--Second block was harder. No break.
--Third was even harder. Took a 10 minute break with music, 1/2 sandwich, orange juice for the brain, some dried fruit, and cold water.
--Fourth block was even harder. 10 minute break with music on my headphones, other 1/2 of sandwich, banana, water.
--Fifth block was even harder. 10 minute break and a Powerbar plus cold water.
--Sixth block was even harder. 10 minute break outside with sunshine, headphones, dried fruit and cold water.
--Seventh block I was struggling to keep up with the long questions, fatigue setting in, and brain was VERY tired.
Got through it though and answered all the questions with 15 seconds to 45 seconds to spare in each block. Although I had done NBMEs in one sitting at a time with no more than a few minutes break between each block, the intensity of the exam does different things to you and demands 10X more concentration, energy, and cortisol. My exam was incrementally more difficult in a stepwise progression from 1st to 7th block. I have friends who claim that they got their hardest block in the 1st block which demoralized them and took them totally out of their element. Depends on perspective I suppose.
I felt good afterwards, not because it was a relief to get it over with, but more because I felt good about my answer choices and didn't feel totally overwhelmed or totally clueless. I felt like I was able to recognize a lot of the distracters and recognize the basic science questions buried within the "complicated" or "overly descriptive" experiments or theoretical questions. Afterwards, I called my wife and told her that I felt good walking out of the exam...NOT that it was easy, just that I did recognize and react to things that I had seen before.
Specifically I would say that there were more than 5-7 questions each on:
1. Female GU pathology
2. Neuro imaging interpretations
3. Long experiments with unheard of terms, but one little keyword that would help you make a parallel with basic science.
4. Physician-patient relationship stem that then asked you best way to explain a delicate ethical generalization for US medicine.
5. Unknown drug interacting with "wacky" enzyme causing a genetic alteration that made a parallel with basic science.
My own experience during this journey leads me to suggest the following:
1. Clear out distractors from yourself as much as possible and have a daily routine that stresses CONTINUITY, CONTINUITY, CONTINUITY. I would have lost a lot of steam if I had taken 1 week off or even a couple days without studying or reviewing.
2. Do as many questions as possible and understand the question style. Don't wait to dominate a subject before answering questions. You must train the brain to do 50 block questions in random order...this way your mind begins to shift between levels of information stored in your mind and makes connections. Random questions in blocks of 50...this is the way to go. Use the question banks to learn from, not to compare yourself to others.
3. Goljan Rapid Review of Pathology and his lectures I found to be exactly right for the exam. I also did the entire book of questions (1100+) from Robbins Review of Pathology which has great images and well written questions.
4. I found that the "new improved" Kaplan Qbank was well worth the money and very similar to the real exam. I have read many other journals where they go back and forth between USMLEWORLD and Kaplan Qbank, but I really found that Kaplan was very informative and good preparation. I have used UW before, but still found Kaplan to be more comparable. The real USMLE had so many questions written in a very clear, straightforward, and concise style. Sometimes both Kaplan and UW can get to be too "clever" in their style and focus on very small details that USMLE did not seem to be asking for.
5. My exam made it clear that PATHOLOGY, PATHOPHYSIOLOGY, BIOCHEMISTRY, NEURO and IMMUNOLOGY were heavily tested. I just don't think that I would have been as comfortable if I had not spent so much time on Goljan's Rapid Review of Pathology and Robbins Review of Pathology.
6. If you consider yourself to be a visual person, which I do, then I would recommend putting together biochem diagrams and micro flow charts in your own handwriting that make sense to you and either put them on all of your walls or keep them handy where you can spread them out on a bed or a table and pick them up to review over and over again.
In the end, anyone's exam will only cover a fraction of what they actually study, so the idea in theory is to not have any weak areas. Well, my weak area is in pharmacology and although I tried to concentrate on it during the last two weeks, I ended up spending more time with pathology, physiology, immunology, and micro. Due to time constraints and a limited study period, I spent time making my bigger strengths even stronger instead of bringing the other subjects down. That was just my approach.
I am exhausted mentally and I will try not to think about the results until I open the electronic scoresheet, so I will sign off tonight in hopes that others can pick up on something that will motivate them or help them in their journey to take this long and demanding exam. Since I don't know what my score will be, I cannot say that my approach is a successful one, but I can say that I put a great deal of energy, commitment, devotion, and focus into being as well prepared for this exam as I could be given that I am a father and a husband and have other commitments that demand my energy and devotion as well.
Keep your spirits high and keep your eyes firmly on the prize.
Off to sleep...
--chileno
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What doesn't kill us makes us stronger...including the USMLEs
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| hottie99
Forum Elite
Topics: 30
Posts: 552
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thx man, u should like u were very prepared for this beast, and glad i could give a person like urself a pointer!! any advice i should do btw now and wednesday?? FA rite?? hehehe.. i guess that's wat i'll do 
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| drsaima
Forum Senior
Topics: 6
Posts: 149
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Congratulations....
Celebrate your family, and exam.. no matter what will be the outcome (I know it will be very good)
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| meouth26
Forum Newbie
Topics: 1
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congratulations!! thank you for your detailed experience!! Good luck with your score!
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| chileno
Forum Newbie
Topics: 1
Posts: 34
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Woke up after sleeping 8.5 hours. Feel a bit sluggish, but I wasn't able to sleep 24 hours after the exam like friends have claimed. Today was the first day that I didn't pick up a bunch of flashcards and walk around the room with coffee in hand.
Feels nice to have given a very solid effort and feel proud that I did my best...
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hottie99: Since you have already done an NBME to assess your status and passed it, then assume that you will pass the real thing. You should now concentrate on your state of mind (thinking positive and feeling positive)...treat yourself to one nice moment or break this weekend before 3 full days of studying before the exam.
Secondly, you should casually go through FA...don't worry if you don't get all the way through, just make sure that what you read or review is understood completely and is not just skimmed. Take a 5-10 minute break for every hour of studying.
Thirdly, make sure to get up earlier than usual for these next several day (if your exam is early A.M.) and demonstrate, by example, to your brain what it will have to be doing at a certain time.
Fourth: Do what was suggested to me and don't do any more questions two days before your exam. Just be in the mindset that you will pour all of your remaining energy and focus on the only questions that count...on EXAM DAY!!
So...stay positive, visualize a nice PASS on your pdf file when you open your score report, and realize that your state of mind will always be a major determining factor in how well the information flows from your mind to the mousepad during those 350 questions.
Energy, energy, energy...you are almost there!!
--chileno
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What doesn't kill us makes us stronger...including the USMLEs
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| Boy_wonder
Forum Newbie
Topics: 1
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Great thread chileno. It's a major achievement to even sit the exam imo.
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| simon73
Forum Newbie
Topics: 2
Posts: 162
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Hi Chileno.
Thank you for sharing your exam experience. it was very informative. I wish and pray a very good score for you in the exam. All the best.
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| ShweHope99.9998
Forum Fanatic
Topics: 12
Posts: 2,505
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Congratulation , you did well , exm done .
Have fun with family !!!
Now pray , we all will too though we all sure u will do well , just to push better to best
Thanx for detail sharing , exm experinces too .
If u do not mind may I have the ISBN # , name , link for the cards of the subjs u used for exm, with which one is really help , which is help still for exm for busy working parents with family .
u can pm me or here at ur convenience .
Glad to find some one as 1000 path Qs fan, not doing seriously yet , but got it in hand sinec book looks beautiful as I love to collect nice books , Fl cards .
Now time to celebrate & rest till next one
GL 
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| chileno
Forum Newbie
Topics: 1
Posts: 34
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Well...I have slept almost 12 hours a night the last two nights and feel more human... Either one of these USMLE Step exams are completely and totally unnatural for someone to sit in front of a computer for so many hours, trying not to lose focus during all of those questions.
Took my kids out to a park and they certainly are enjoying having their Papi back in their routine. They call my name about every 4 minutes to show me something or tell me something.
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ShweHope99.9998: Thank you for the nice comments. I didn't use any pre-printed flashcards that I can give you ISBN/Company information. I made my own flashcards, using mostly FA 2007 items (micro, immuno, pharm, genetics, etc) that I was finding hard to remember from the book as well as from Goljan Rapid Review of Pathology and Robbins Review of Pathology. I have purchased pre-printed flashcards in the past, but found that I did better with my own handwriting and my own word descriptions.
I certainly recommend the repetitive nature of using flashcards so that your brain develops its own "muscle memory".
--chileno
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What doesn't kill us makes us stronger...including the USMLEs
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| ShweHope99.9998
Forum Fanatic
Topics: 12
Posts: 2,505
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You're welcome & thanks "papi " .
Thanks , got it , be ur self, do repeat , visual for own notes , cards , u can publish urs & by time give me the ISBN , b sure will b out soon , or u can scan , post here like one time edie fr this forum did, she post her hammer time in subj b4 put away her notes , just kidding .
Enjoy the family fun time , in between we all will wish u to get the best score of ur dream,
oh more than that
Till next time my curious Qs pop up
GL
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| GoodGirl
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Topics: 92
Posts: 1,189
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Hello Chileno,
How are you doing? Any good news? Please, can you share with us.
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| Kalyann
Forum Elite
Topics: 4
Posts: 525
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Your exp = super writing
Your Prep = Unmatchable Determination.
Your Score = 99
All the best.
I am prayign for u
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| study499
Forum Elite
Topics: 2
Posts: 327
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Chileno,
Your preparation was outstanding...I feel like I watched a beautiful true story movie and learned a valuable lesson.
Thank you and wish you a happy ending
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| Melu
Forum Junior
Topics: 6
Posts: 59
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Chileno,
Thanks for writing down your exam experience.You tips are priceless!!
All the best for your results!
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle
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