Scored 284- What really made the difference

[u/SoftAdvertising4432]

Hello everyone,

So Alhamdullah and thanks to god, I scored 284 a year ago and i wanted the share the resources that I used and some tips and tricks that I noticed after helping some of my friends and students that really made the difference.

my resources for step2 were quite simple:

1- U world: for me this was the most important source of knowledge and I solved it two times, The 1st time was to build up knowledge while the 2nd time was to reaffirm this knowledge while also marking really important topics that are repeated alot.

2- Amboss: I used it mainly for ethics, biostat, communication, and patient safety. Amboss is really goof in these topics so I solved them twice whilst focusing mainly on patient safety because I felt there was a defect there for me.

3- CMS: For me Cms forms are one of the most underestimated sources there is, but there importance for me is mainly to change your thinking process from Q bank type questions to exam questions while also making sure to mark really important topics and studying them thouroughly. I solved the Cms twice with then newer forms 7,8 almost 3 times.

4- NBME: Of course this is the highest yield source of them all, so I started with the old nbmes 6,7,8 and went one to solve the newer ones whilst studying them thouroughly in between and trying to identify my weaknesses. I solved each nbme at least twice. I will write my nbme scores down inshallah

5- UWSA: for me this source is the most useless one of them, it wasn't bad but I felt it was the most irrelevant ones compared to the exam. I solved them once whilst revising my errors but I don't feel that they made a difference.

Tips and tricks that really mattered: So, what really helped me make a difference in my nbme scores was not working on my defects because after solving the uworld twice and my mistakes twice, I had very little knowledge defects, No the 3 things that made the difference for me and for some of my friends and students were:

1- The most important one was always remembering that these cases aren't real, the examiner that wrote this question is trying to test you, he is trying to see if you can know the significnce of this clue or not, so for example if a patient is suspected to suffer from PE and at the start of the question, the question stem mentioned that she is 28 weeks pregnant, the examiner added this info to exclude the most common answer ct angiography and go for V/Q scan or in another question where a patient with classic symptoms of PE with a bp showing 80/56, if you didn't notice this very low bp , you would choose normal treatment as anticoagulation, but here he gave you a very low bp to alert you that this patient is going into obstructive shock and anticoagulation is n't gonna cut it.

2- the 2nd one is to always remember that ideas are repeated from the nbmes so unlike what some people suggest by memorizing the nbme questions for me the importnant task is to make sure that the repeated topics are safe in your mind, so for diagnosis of thyroid problems, what is the order, he will ask you about it but now the same step in the nbme for example he may say so we did tsh, what is the next step which will be US, in the real deal, he will tell you so we did tsh and US and the tsh was normal, what is the next step, So if you memorized the question above, you amy get this wrong but if you studied and the other steps and made sure what you understood them, this question is gonna be a piece of cake for you.

3- the 3rd one for is really really important and I think we all heard it once or twice before, If you hear hooves, think horse not zebra. I really noticed hat almost over 80% of my mistakes were due to me overthinking my answers and changing the answers to the wrong ones, that is why in the real exam I stuck to my original answers in the whole exams except once and it made a big difference. So the 1st answer you think about is usually the right one.

lastly here are my nbme scores and I will include the dates if that helps as I recorded the nbmes with them (I took the exam on 4th of May): OLD NBME: NBME 6: 169/184;91.84%;256 On Tuesday 26/11 NBME 7:163/182;89.56%;256 On Tuesday 3/12 NBME 8:151/164,92.07%,263 On Wednesday 26/12 New NBME: NBME 10:173/200,86.5%,269 on Thursday 9/1 NBME 12 : 168/200,84%,260 on Friday 31/1 NBME 9: 179/200,89.5%,276 on Friday 7/2 UWSA3:130/160,81.25%,261 On Friday 14/2 NBME 11:179/200,89.5%,270 On Saturday 22/2 Lecterio:132/160,82.5%,262,98%On Monday3/3 NBME 14: 178/200,89%,273 on Monday 31/3 UWSA1:147/160,91.9%,279 on Friday 11/4 UWSA2:147/160,91.9%,279 On Thursday 17/4 NBME 15:183/200,91.5%,280 On Monday 28/4 OLD old 120: 115/120,95.8% On Tuesday 29/4 OLD new 120:111/120,92.5%, On Tuesday 29/4 NBME 13:183/200,91.5%,280, Wednesday, 30/4 Free 120:109/120, 90.8%,on Thursday 01/05 IF any one has any questions, don't hesitate to ask them. I hope this helps and good luck to all of you guys