drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 146
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Hi everyone,
Sorry if I am a day late in writing my exam experience…. I was busy enjoying the spoils of a hard won mental & physical quest the yonder world calls USMLE step 1!
Prep time : 4 months with a full time job for the first 3 months.
I had joined Kaplan full time 6/12 in London. Finishing work at 6pm weekdays would travel into charring cross & see video lectures from 8-10. Some days when I was on a week of night on calls… managed to study from 2pm until 6pm before I got back to work at 8pm till next morn 9am. So basically it was more physically stressing rather than mental torture with the subject matter. Also I tried to read whatever I heard on tapes the same night.. which was excellent as it goes very fast. Finished reading Kaplan notes once by the end of 3 months.
Managed to finish Kaplan lectures. ( Left out genetics as the bloke was just reading what was written in the notes..very very slowly!)
Last month of prep… quit job..only did weekend locums. So had a good 8 hrs studying where in I revised Kaplan notes second time in 2 weeks.
PATHOLOGY : Kaplan notes twice. Q book, Q bank & USMLEasy ( the freebie in the month of May) Think this was enough judging from the real exam questions.
PHARMACOLOGY : Kaplan notes 1.5 times. Stressed more on things I didn’t know i.e endo, anti cancer. (Sob not much came from them anyway!) Q bank twice q book, USMLEasy
MICROBIOLOGY : Kaplan notes once. Revised only last 4 pages of Kaplan notes microbio. They are the best as they actually give everything what you really need to know for the exam. Q bank. USMLEasy.
ANATOMY : Kap notes once. USMLEasy as & when the questions came.
BEHAV. Sc : Kap notes once. Revised stats twice as I wasn’t particularly happy with BS Qbank. I think this was the best part of prep as it covers entire BS in the questions. Trying to prep for doctor patient relation ques is difficult as they NEVER ask ques again & again like other subjects so didn’t bother with that.
IMMUNOLOGY : kap notes twice, q bank
BIOCHEM : Kap notes twice. Qbank.
PHYSIOLOGY : kap notes twice. Q book, Qbank ..left the last block.(no time)
So in short… 3 months of studying. Then 2 weeks of revising. Then 2 weeks of solid questions & reviewing diificult topics.
Scores : USMLEasy … 70%
Kaplan Centre simulated test 74%
Kaplan CD 72%
Q bank didn’t test my score as for me.. q bank was still
gaining more knowledge rather than testing my
knowledge.
NBME form 1 630
Form 2 610
EXAM EXPERIENCE
First 3 blocks then 15 min break. Then next 3 blocks & 15 min break. & then last block. Couple of kingfishers on way home cheers!
NONE of the NBME questions! Q were slightly tougher than NBME.
Qbank 1 que! Definitely more difficult than the actual exams.
USMLEasy Q.. no where close to board que
Most of the exam was a test of your core knowledge.
Very few questions were asking a yes or no… most of them one had to apply clinical knowledge.
BS 3-4 que which were pretty straightforward.. types of personality disorder, child development. 10-15 doc patient relation. But fairly ok. You could guess the answer as out of 5 only 2 were remotely close to being right!
Anat… anatomic relations in exposure of right renal artery….embry –thyroglos cyst.
LOTS of histo slides & freeze fracture images.. but if you read the que you would know the answer anyway.. didn’t need the pics!! So I would suggest.. read & the que & guess the ans & then see the image… it will look like the real organ!!! The eye sees what the brain knows!
Pharmac ..Lots of charts… but ok ok… one was of a chart with sine wave of NE & besides it was a similar smaller curve & they asked which drug was added to the person to give that new curve. Don’t know what the ans was. ANS ques.. lots. 1 was antiarrhth… ok ok. Epinephrine reversal que.
Patho….lots of pics & slides. Same strategy as anat. Bone healing. Cause of hypercalcemia & Increased Ace in Sarcoidosis, MEA II a features in mom & child & asked what was she predisposed to. Renal patho..3-4 que. SLE HLA association.
1 Que I thought was pretty sadistic! They had give chemical structure of 5 chemicals in C, H., NH2 & rings & they expectred lil me know which one resembled neural fat!!!!! Took me 2 sec to ans as I blindly clicked on one of the answers as I had NO CLUE of the answer so no point in wasting time!
Biochem… enz deficiencies.. orotic acid , HMP.. but all the q were indirect ..eg. they gave a complete chart of carbohydrate metab with ALL pathways.. in short & the q was which of the above pathway metabolite is used to create a compound that Lovastatin blocks!
Micro.. Child with ring on scalp-> which fungus? 2/52 baby with meningitis & bug cultured fancied charcoal yeast agar. Preg mom gives birth to meningitis baby.. which bug.. obvious choice was strep B… as all else would never be in the vagina! Fungal cause of UTI in prolonged catheterised chap. Immuno was a bit tough. There was a diagram of something that “they called immunoglobin”..& asked if isotype isotype switch occurred.. which part would change. i.e the heavy chain.
Physio lots of endo.. they love thyroid 3-4 que. Uvula deviated to right.. where is the lesion. Gaze palsy que.
*****MOST IMPORTANT TIP***…if the boards see this then they will probably cancely all the tests on that day at that centre!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t know if other people who have done the exam before found this.. one que I was tussling between 2 choices as the right ans.. & then I clicked the lab value button.. after I checked the value & closed the lab value box.. THE ANSWER WAS ALREADY MARKED!!!! & reasoning it.. it WAS the right!!!!!! It worked for another BS question.. unfortunately it worked only on the first block.. after that it didn’t..I don’t know if it really happened or I inardvently clicked on that answer while trying to open the lab values & that’s how the anwer was “already marked” God alone knows
Hope this has helped. I will be more than happy to solve any specific questions. & all the best for the studying…. GO GET ‘EM !!
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| tasneembanu
Forum Guru
Topics: 96
Posts: 545
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hope ur chilling out after ur exams,it was very nice of u to write in such detail ab't ur preparations and the exam
it has really given me the confidence since im also not using any other books other than Kaplan,i have my exam on july 31st,have finished one reading of all the Kaplan notes,have to start revising and then do Qbank and other questions,other than the kaplan r there any other specific books u recommend?
all the best for ur results.
tasneem.
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| docarjun
Forum Elite
Topics: 11
Posts: 334
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Thanks Drkjigs!
Its a real great help.
I really get inspiation from such postings on this forum.
I am doing q bank and will be giving my exam soon.I am done with my revisions.After reading ur strtegy, I think i am going in a right direction now.
Good luck for ur results!!!
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| drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 146
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Dear Tasneembanu, thanks for the wishes. I wish I could recommend any other books.... only if I HAD read other books!! However .. I must say that I recently passed the MRCS.. so I had kinda prepared surgery (anatomy ), from Pastest, pathology (from David Lowe) Physiology from Pastest, however these were pretty surgery related so was not in that much depth which the USMLE requires. I must however admit that being a surgeon I did not read much of the anatomy for USMLE & still was scoring near 90-95% in all practise tests. There were few topics covered excellently in teh pastest books .. but then just those few topics I dont think it is worth the time scanning through all of them. If you however live in teh UK I dont mind sending you some photocopies of fetal circulation chart, excellent way to remember relations of anatomic structures & few other topics...
However I am sure you will be fine with the normal USMLE stuff... take care & all the best
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| tasneembanu
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Topics: 96
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thanks for ur prompt reply,i guess i will stick to Kaplan notes,i just graduated last year from chennai,India,curretly residing in NJ,usa.hope to do my exam well,
all the best,u would surely get excellent score
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| drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 146
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"DOCARJUN" wrote:
Thanks Drkjigs!
Its a real great help.
I really get inspiation from such postings on this forum.
I am doing q bank and will be giving my exam soon.I am done with my revisions.After reading ur strtegy, I think i am going in a right direction now.
Good luck for ur results!!!
Thanks DOCARJUN ... about the right direction...hmmm........hehe I would rather wait till my results... 
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| kalsam
Forum Elite
Topics: 31
Posts: 361
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Thank you so much for your great feedback after the exam..indeed it helps a lott for us who are still on the way to go..and to revise our plans ..and makes us feel confident in some way!!!
Hope you get a great score!!!! All the best!!!
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| dr.shar
Forum Elite
Topics: 38
Posts: 236
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hi drkjigs
you are very helpful. my exam is on 16th of this month. your experience gave me confidence. did you encounter any questions like consolidation, pneuthorax, fibrosis, murmers, egophony that they will give clinical findinds and asked about diagnosis.
please give me some details about figures you got exam.
thankyou
dr.shar
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| drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 146
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"kalsam" wrote:
Thank you so much for your great feedback after the exam..indeed it helps a lott for us who are still on the way to go..and to revise our plans ..and makes us feel confident in some way!!!
Hope you get a great score!!!! All the best!!!
Thanks Kalsam....wishes much appreciated.
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| drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 146
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"dr.shar" wrote:
hi drkjigs
you are very helpful. my exam is on 16th of this month. your experience gave me confidence. did you encounter any questions like consolidation, pneuthorax, fibrosis, murmers, egophony that they will give clinical findinds and asked about diagnosis.
please give me some details about figures you got exam.
thankyou
dr.shar
Dear dr.shar... I did get a clinical scenario wherein a man in RTA , acute shortness of breath, hyper resonant right side, decreased breath sounds & asked which X-ray would help the diagnosis...i.e pneumothorax. I must admit .. like a clinical situation you couldnt illuminate the exray on a high intensity to pick a smal pheumo.. but then the pneumo they had shown.. in reality would be too small to even tap! but anyway... that was the answer as the others were coin lession, consolidation of MZ left side! Pleural eff..(minimal) The quality of radiographic images was rather poor as you couldnt enlarge a CT/MR/Xray & they all were 3cm by 4 cm... !
Murmurs ..yes.. child with continuous machinery murmur
old bloke with CCF.. has a late diastolic murmur.. what does it represent? fixed split S1 or S2 or S3 or S4.
All the best for your exams.. vaguley remembering your past posts with your scores.. I m sure you will sail through... just keep your head on your shoulders & you will triumph!
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| rida
Forum Guru
Topics: 109
Posts: 721
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Congratulations drkjigs for finishing up. All the best with your score. I am pretty much doing what you did also, kaplan stuff basically but the only one i didn't ge to do was pharm, and my exam is in two and a half weeks so i am just planning on going out of First Aid. What do you think abou tthat? Is that a good idea or should i sit down and read kaplan pharm, the only stuff i did from kaplan pharm was pharmacokinetics and dynamics, i figured everything else is just mostly memorization so First aid should be sufficience. Any suggestion??
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| dxtxpx
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great experience post. gave me a lot of hope. good wishes for everyone
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| Ahdy2000
Forum Senior
Topics: 5
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Dr.,
I'm sure you did very well indeed. And I hope to benefit from your experience ). My question is the following
How did the NBME practice tests (form 1 and 2) compare to the real thing? (As I was reading a previous post saying that you would make the comparison when you took it).
Thanks for your insight,
ahdy2000
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| drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
Posts: 146
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"rida" wrote:
Congratulations drkjigs for finishing up. All the best with your score. I am pretty much doing what you did also, kaplan stuff basically but the only one i didn't ge to do was pharm, and my exam is in two and a half weeks so i am just planning on going out of First Aid. What do you think abou tthat? Is that a good idea or should i sit down and read kaplan pharm, the only stuff i did from kaplan pharm was pharmacokinetics and dynamics, i figured everything else is just mostly memorization so First aid should be sufficience. Any suggestion??
I think that is a good plan.. first aid does give all teh points necessary for the exam..of course suplemmented with the q bank... all the best..
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| drkjigs
Forum Senior
Topics: 28
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"Ahdy2000" wrote:Dr., I'm sure you did very well indeed. And I hope to benefit from your experience  . My question is the following: How did the NBME practice tests (form 1 and 2) compare to the real thing? (As I was reading a previous post saying that you would make the comparison when you took it). Thanks for your insight, ahdy2000
The questions in the exam were slightly tougher than NBME... but then that is my view.. q bank was the most close to the level of the exam may be slightly tougher. So q bank scores probably would be more likely to reflect the board scores...All the best for your exams.
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| hiwa
Forum Senior
Topics: 15
Posts: 185
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congrats drkjigs for completion of your exam u really had very hectic period because I am working in the UK having the same situation like u but with different approach. I can tell u have done very well in ur exam and also u had good scores in the pretest self assessment that is encouraging because was from variety of sources.
could you please send ur result when u get it to the forum so that we get rough idea about NBME scores according to the actual exam, I am sure u will be fine
good luck
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| bassel
Forum Newbie
Topics: 0
Posts: 2
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:? can you please tell me what programe do i need to open the downloaded programes from this wed site ,i mean the exam master ? thank you very much.
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| cric1
Forum Senior
Topics: 14
Posts: 40
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Hi
THank you for the detailed account of your exam experience. I am currently in the process of studying for Step 1, and you have given me a really good idea of what to expect. Its really nice reading a personal account. I am based in Nottingham,UK and would really appreciate if you would send me those photocopies of diagrams that you found really helpful. My address is 5 Maldon Close, Chilwell, Nottingham, NG9 5NU.
Good luck with the results!!
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| rida
Forum Guru
Topics: 109
Posts: 721
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Thanx for replying drkjigs, you really helped me a lot!!!
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