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step 1 with zero sleep :)

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5 Posts

C5a

Forum Senior

Topics: 8
Posts: 138

Aug 24, 2006 - 9:26 PM

try that, it's lots of fun!!!

i took 3 sleeping pills, but my adrenals decided to kick out enough catecholamines to keep me buzzed until 7am the next morning. crap, now i was getting scared. i think they ran out around 7:30am, too bad the exam lasts 8 hours. what's the solution. first, pray a lot. second, get other people to pray for you, wow, it really helps guys, and trust in God, He will come to your aid if you are prepared.

Now about how I stayed up for all that time, I drank Tab energy drink, the little 10.5 ounce cans, like Red Bull. There was actually an AOL ad on which energy drinks are the best, and they rated this one higher than Red Bull, and a couple others. It really lasts a long time. I had 2 in the morning, another around block 3, another around block 6. I knew what it was like to have diabetis insipidus all day, with all the ADH suppression from Tab, I had to pee after every block, a lot. 1/2 my break time was peeing.

I was also stressed b/c I had diarrhea in the morning, and a pounding headache. Not a good way to start a long exam. Just took some Immodium and naproxen, and everything was fine. Man, you don't know how hard it is to relax until you're really there. I thought I had my nerves all calmed down, but I didn't. In the first block after I answered the first 5 questions correctly, I wasn't nervous any more after that.

well my brain was 100% there, and i was able to completely focus on the exam. i finished each block in 35 minutes, so i had 25 minutes to review, more or less on each block. these are how i'd rate the blocks...

block 1 - easy (40+/50)
block 2 - easy (40+/50)
block 3 - medium (>35, <40/50)
block 4 - medium
block 5 - medium
block 6 - medium
block 7 - medium

i kept expecting some big hard block to show up, but it never did.

now of course, i will respect the NBME and not post anything from the exam...

i could tell when i was faced with an experimental question, not all the time, but sometimes you just know. it's kinda funny, i just laugh at it and pick c or whatever. just out of this world questions. i sit there and say, "you can't ask me that, i have my rights." and move on. after a while in your studies, you realize how much stuff they can really ask you, and you know how comfortable you are with that material. some more, some less, but when they ask a "fair game" question, and you don't know the answer, well, ya got it wrong and it counts.

1/2 questions A-E, many A-J, A-H, A-I, some A-M, nice huh? it's not so bad though, you already know the answer, just go find it.

i read first aid 10+ times, memorized it mostly. did the kaplan 2000 dvd lectures, the 2002 subject based books (i like the way these are organized), and the 2005 organ based review books (lot's of info here). i went through weak spots 2X in the 2005 ones, 10,000+ questions, blah blah blah, it's over, so happy, so relieved.

you have no idea how nice it feels to finish that last question in block 7. like a huge weight lifted off your back.

my scores are USMLE CD block 1,2,3 38/40/40
NBME 2 - 6 weeks out - 460, 2 hours of sleep, no Tab, ha!
NBME 3 - 5 weeks out - 500
NBME 4 - 2 weeks out - 570

hoping for 90s

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