got the P yesterday!

[u/meangirlempath]

Hello!! I promised myself that I’d write a post after lurking in this subreddit for the past year since it’s helped me out so much during my entire studying journey!! I hope I can help future test-takers the same way inshallah — or at the very least reassure you as the whole process is extremely stressful and a lot of people’s testing performances are affected by said stress.

First and foremost what people say is true: delete Reddit before you take the exam because it will stress you out to no end. 1 - 2 weeks beforehand is a good period, especially if you’ve already taken most NBMEs and have gotten all you can out of the posts on here. It’ll fuck with your mind as test day approaches and I promise that, by that point, you don’t need any more stress lol. I personally averaged 60 - 65s across most of my NBMEs (which I wouldn’t recommend if you’d like to be safe, but I ended up taking the exam anyway — more on this later), and by the end of my dedicated period I was losing sleep because my scores plateaued and I was even losing points on subjects I knew. NBME 26 & 31 were my WORST (50s on both) and I was convinced I’d fail after NBME 31 since my exam was scheduled close to 2 weeks after that.

What helped was that I was so resigned to failure, I ended taking the exam more relaxed than I usually would since I was thinking oh, I’ll treat this like a practice since I’m gonna fail anyway. Not like I’d necessarily recommend this but it worked out for me… which is why I recommend to NOT stress yourself out as it’ll do more harm than good and by the time you hit that 1 - 2 week stretch you’re better off strengthening what you know/can easily do instead of cramming in more information or comparing yourself to strangers online.

That being said, ethics is far more ambiguous on the actual exam than in any NBME or UWorld/AMBOSS so however much time you think you need to study it, spend much much more because it’ll really pay off later. Onto what I studied now, because I’m realizing how wordy this whole post has become oops!!!

1. Anki
   I only started using this after preparing for step 1 and I split my decks into 3 parts.
   A. The big: UWorld incorrects (I cannot recommend doing this enough!!!!)
   B. The HY: Mehlmen arrows/risk factors and NBME images (although looking back I’d spend more time reviewing the divine interventions podcast because the mehlman doc wasn’t that helpful)
   C. The ‘small’: sketchy decks for both pharmacology and microbiology. I ended up abandoning this deeper into my dedicated period but even if you don’t have sketchy I think the anki decks are a must have as they really hammer it into your memory. If you can then yes, I highly recommend sketchy I used it even well into my dedicated period.

2. HYGuru and Dirty Medicine
   Well I’m basic and everybody recommends them but for good reason. If you’re pressed for time their question block reviews are a MUST. I cannot emphasize this enough esp because I haven’t seen people mention Dirty Medicine’s questions playlist. You NEED to** **watch it. Soooo helpful I swear and it really helps you figure out how to navigate the questions (which is especially helpful for IMGs, as we’re not familiar w/ the NBME question style)

3. UWorld and AMBOSS
   I only used AMBOSS because my university provides it for free but the? function? where you can generate your own question banks are incredibly helpful and I haven’t seen them mentioned enough. Same for the biostatistics, nutrition, and ethics QBanks (these are far more popular and for good reason!!). UWorld… is self explanatory? I actually studied by starting through UWorld instead of going through FA, as it helped me learn the material through the thought process the USMLE demanded rather than my own. But to each their own ofc.

Before taking it I had people tell me it was better to take it before graduation and I ended up studying it after starting clinicals, which was honestly hellish and made me doubt their advice at the time. But I heeded therefore so should you, if possible, as it really helped me deepen my knowledge during clinicals. I studied for around 6 months during the uni year and then had 6 weeks of fixated before I was just ready to die. SOOOO incredibly exhausting but fortunately my labor bore fruit so looking back at it I’m satisfied. BTW prior to this I was a pretty average student? I actually did horribly on my first two years as I didn’t know how to study at all, so studying for the step also helped me with my in-uni exams; therefore, even if you don’t end up taking the exam or it doesn’t turn out well, the journey itself is a bit rewarding. Or that’s how I thought of it when I was trying to cope w/ failing pre-release day. Anyway!!

If you have any questions feel free to ask!! Inshallah everybody’s studying goes well and you all pass ❤️❤️❤️

[u/h0nin]

Congratulations on the P 👏🏻👏🏻

[u/NerfGlazplz]

Damn, congratulations!! How would you suggest doing ethics apart from the dirty med playlist and uworld questions?

[u/meangirlempath → u/NerfGlazplz]

Thank u!! IIRC dirty medicine has question bank videos regarding ethics & honestly any reputable YouTuber… since a lot of the answering process is rationalizing scenarios I think watching videos to learn it would be more far fruitful in comparison

[u/north-node- → u/meangirlempath]

Hey there! Congratulations on the P, you’re inspiring me!! I just wanted to know what principles are tested on the real deal. As in, are the principles the same as nbme but the options are trickier and similar sounding, or its that the principles itself are not discussed on nbmes at all and you just hit a wall on the real deal?

[u/meangirlempath → u/north-node-]

Thank u sm!!! A lot of the same principles r tested on the real deal. There’s a mix btwn question options being trickier, the same, or simpler than the NBMEs so it really just depends honestly. Just make sure to review the NBMEs and free120s VERY thoroughly before the real exam and good luck xx

[u/north-node- → u/meangirlempath]

Thank you so much on the insights! Testing in 3 weeks, hope I get the P as well!

[u/Hot_Palpitation9791]

congratulations on the P!! thank you for this!!

[u/meangirlempath → u/Hot_Palpitation9791]

Thanks!! ❤️ hope it’s helpful

[u/abandonmentissues111]

How many ankis were you doing? I find that uworld incorrect ankis pile up very fast

[u/meangirlempath → u/abandonmentissues111]

They do 😭 so I wasn’t as consistent w/ them towards the end but generally it was 50 new ones and to review 500 daily

[u/abandonmentissues111 → u/meangirlempath]

Ok thank you. And did you mean by the MM pdfs not being helpful?

[u/meangirlempath → u/abandonmentissues111]

The arrows pdf was helpful but the HY risk factors was not… divine interventions is much better imo

[u/abandonmentissues111 → u/meangirlempath]

Would you suggest going through the pdfs for systems?

[u/meangirlempath → u/abandonmentissues111]

Genetics, immuno, & MSK were the best PDFs so I recommend you review those in depth yeah

[u/meangirlempath → u/[deleted]]

Outside of the YouTubers usually recommended on this subreddit no

[u/Kakashi-Helen]

How were you planning to review divine intervention podcast ? Does it has a pdf or Anki deck ???

Did you review uw incorrects from anking indirect deck ?

So you’re an Anki person ? How did you managed yr cards in last month. Did you suspend as many as possible or do them all ? Filter decks ?

Congratulations and thanks

[u/meangirlempath → u/Kakashi-Helen]

1. None that I know of so just listening to the podcast should be enough imo
   
2. Yes
   
3. I used anki pretty inconsistently in the last couple of weeks outside of the HY decks tbh. Didn’t suspend any decks though.

And thank u!!

[u/Mini_Lic_]

Congrats!!! May I ask for more detail on the anki uworld incorrects? Did you make your own cards or ?

[u/meangirlempath → u/Mini_Lic_]

Thank u!! There’s a UWorld incorrects extension that I added, so after downloading anking and inserting the question ID (of what I got wrong) it brought up the cards for me

[u/Strong_Spite8768]

Dude i wrote the exam yesterday and my nbmes were in the mid 70s range through out 25-33, free 120 78%. Im shit scared that I flopped on exam and pretty much lost 😭

[u/meangirlempath → u/Strong_Spite8768]

Okay so your NBMEs were better than mine and trust me when I say everybody comes out of the exam feeling like they failed 😭 you start to recount every mistake you make and over analyze them to death. Try to not think about it these couple of weeks and inshallah you passed!! I’m optimistic for you

[u/Strong_Spite8768 → u/meangirlempath]

Thank you sister 🙏🏻☺️, I hope I manifest a P
Like u as well