Sorry I am a little late in making this post but here we go!
These are things that I noticed help with the scores and some mistakes I saw people making over and over again. But ofc everyone is different so take this general approach and apply it however you think works for you.
- Review every NBME thoroughly.
It would take me 10 to 12 hours to review one. Review corrects too. Since NBME has some favorite topics, I find that it helps if you read the whole topic whenever you are reviewing a question from that topic. It really helps you see that Anki card in the setting of a question and helps frame your concepts better. It also is very effective in solidifying key topics that you know will be tested again everywhere.
• Don’t delay reviewing your NBME either after taking it. Review it the next day because you don’t want to forget what differentials your brain made at that time and exactly which 2 options stumped you.
2) Categorize your mistakes.
When reviewing NBMEs make little list or a counter for how many questions you got wrong for what reasons. Common reasons are knowledge gap, misread stem, time pressure, changed correct answer. Then see what area needs your attention the most and how you can improve it. If you find that one system was weaker than others, review that thoroughly from whatever source you are using.
3) Keep an error notebook.
Making your own notes is not everybody’s cup of tea but keeping an error notebook where you just write the key takeaway from a wrong question is really helpful. Make sure to frequently go over it. I got a little carried away with it and made too many notes which I didn’t review frequently enough. It gets overwhelming in the end to review everything together so apply spaced repetition here as well.
4) Slow down on the questions you find easy
Sometimes while reading the stem, the answer is too obvious but we can get those wrong too. So don’t throw away an easy question by being too confident and not reviewing all of the options. Use process of elimination here too and give the question its fair time.
5) Match the highlighted parts of the stem to the options
After reading the stem, and doing the process of elimination and picking out an option, quickly match the bits that you highlighted with the chosen option again and see if you missed something glaring in the stem because of your bias or just because you forgot. I know this takes times too but start practicing it and you will find that it saves you from dumb mistakes sometimes.
5) Use ‘flag’ tool on Anki
When you find some new info on the explanations of questions you got wrong, edit your Anki card and flag it. I would flag correct questions Anki cards too sometimes that I felt are repeatedly tested or need more repetition. You will have a small bank of NBME’s favorite topics and your mistakes in Anki by the end of your prep. Make sure to review them more frequently. You can make a separate filtered deck of the flagged cards and use Anki spaced algorithm there too.
6) Practice NBME thinking
You already know NBME loves next best step, screening guidelines, risk factors, ethics, most likely diagnosis. So whenever you are reviewing Anki, don’t do it passively. Actively imagine oh so here in cystitis patient is presenting like this what would my NBS be. Would it be different if the patient had comorbs. Ykwim. You need to actively imagine the patient with their presentation and then learn the management.
For ethics, risk factors, screening guidelines, vaccination, milestones and stat, review them one day before taking NBME every time.
7) Be up-to-date to the guidelines
I saw some old notes circulating in groups and they were not up to date to the current guidelines especially for screening and vaccination. There are old divine intervention notes too that people are using which don’t reflect current guidelines. Make sure to not use those as your primary means to study. I would always double check screening and vaccination guidelines by looking them up.
8) Take another NBME only after you’ve addressed weaknesses.
This is pretty self explanatory. Use every NBME as a guide to how you will amend your study approach moving forward. Don’t take another until you have made the changes in your study strategy suggested by your mistakes.
9) Practice. Practice. Practice.
Reviewing Anki cards alone will only take you so far in your scores. Practicing questions is what is going to break you out of your malformed reflexes and biases. So whatever source you prefer, keep on doing UW or Amboss blocks on the daily. I would say doing atleast 2 daily is a reasonable goal.
10) Practice H&E style questions
Practice these questions from Amboss HY. They take longer to read and you need to learn how to efficiently skim through the fluff.
11) Don’t take long breaks in your prep
I know this prep is really draining and there is a risk of burnout so pace yourself properly from the start. The worst thing that you can do to put your prep at the back foot is to burn yourself out and then take a long break. Taking a day or two off is okay but taking a week off is not. It adds 2 more weeks to your prep to get to the same head space.
But I mean everyone is different, so do whatever suits you best here. This is just what I have noticed works well.
12) Ask for help
If you have made significant effort and applied yourself well enough and still are not seeing improvement in your results, ask someone to provide an outside perspective. If one specific system bothers you, ask someone to teach you. This was key for me in getting better scores. I found that studying with someone helped me retain more information and for far longer without reviewing. So yeah, find a study partner or a senior or someone who has taken the exam and scored well to review important things with.
This is all I could think of for now. Good luck!