Monday, May 23, 2011

Like a Fiend

So . . . how're you all doing? It's been almost a month since I last blogged. o_O

Been a brutal month, of sorts. Finished finals (passed all my classes, phew!), took the weekend off (mostly), then began studying like a fiend for the behemoth known as Step 1 of the USMLE Board Exam.

I've been slowly pushing past the burnt out phase - that lasted about 4 days longer than I could really afford. As is, I study probably about 6-8 hours a day, on average. That's not enough. I need to get upwards of about 12 hours a day. The exam itself is 8 hours long. Ugh. Only 2.5 weeks away, eep! I must resist the urge to reschedule my exam for a later date.

Other than that, nothing special. Took a couple hours off from studying to celebrate my b-day with a few friends a couple days ago. Had teppanyaki for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. It was good. :-) Now, what do you think 9 med students talk about when they're all studying for the same beastly exam? The exam, of course. That dominated our conversations. Yeah.

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On a completely unrelated note, I saw the following commercial on TV today:


I thought it was pretty sweet.
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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you thought about taking the NBME simulation exam. They are half length exams and cost about $50, as I recall. You can find them on the NBME website. Our med school dean recommended them as a part of the step 1 prep, because the correlation between the simulation exam score and actual step 1 score is quite close.

Basically, if you cannot get a 200+ on the simulation exam today, then you should reschedule your step 1 by 3 to 4 more weeks.

Mike said...

Good luck!!! Don't get too burnt out!!! Find some time to relax!!!

Happy Belated Birthday!!!

Seth said...

Hai there! Belated very happy birthday!! :)

Knuckle down and get that studying done - but don't totally fry yourself for the next couple weeks. Good luck with it.

Cheers :)

Kaplan Medical said...

Hello! You seem to be on the right track with your prep! 8-10 hours of study time is reasonable. If you do work your way to 12 hours, be sure that some of that time is devoted to question practice. 12 hours of straight study time won't be very effective! We also agree with "anonymous" that the NBME is a great assessment, once your self-testing scores are where you want them.

Best of luck on the exam!

Aek said...

Anonymous: I have two 4-hour practice exams that came with my UWold qbank. I intend to do one this Thursday and one next Thursday. I took an NBME exam that our school required us to about a month and a half ago and was only about 10-15 pts below passing then, so surely I must be better now!

Mike, Seth: Thanks!

Kaplan: Are you really Kaplan? Why's Kaplan reading this blog? Lol. Right now I go through 2 blocks of questions a day (so 92/day). I will up that to 4 in a couple days.

Anonymous said...

Just for the record the NBME the school gives you is different from the one available to students on their website. There were two questions on my internet NBME that showed up on my actual step 1.

Also, everyone in my study group had a sensitivity or specificity question, so be very clear on the formula for each.

Aaron said...

I love that ad! :) Have used it several times in my presentation.

Aek said...

Anonymous: Yeah, I know that the NBME the school gave us isn't the same. I'm not worried about not passing - I know I'll pass. It's just a question of hitting my target range.

According to the self-assessment practice exam I took, I'm right about where I want to be (just gotta up that a little to be sure). I don't think I have the time or energy to take an NBME on top of all I'm currently doing.

I should be fine with sensitivity/specificity, as that was pretty key when I was doing epidemiology. Thanks. :-)

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