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Study outline?
CBSE - February 2024
- Thread starter FosterWallace
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DA has so little programs I feel like at this point your score checked the box and now it’s all about networking. But idk anything about DA so ask others
Congrats on the amazing score! Had very similar scores, however didn't break into 70. Exam def felt like it hit me with my weak points.
msfinecanine
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Do you feel like this NBME was reflective of any old NBMEs?
Tbh I didn’t do any NBMEs… definitely my biggest mistake.
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It was a combination of things: getting use to NBME exams, finishing uworld, and doing one last run through of all the material. Definitely think I under performed on test day though because it was my first go and lots of nerves. Best of luck!
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When you went thru uworld, would u make anki cards or anything and stuff u got wrong, or just read/internalize it and continue on
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That score is fine for DA programs
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I went through 4 NBME's and Uworld I did 75% of it
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Can anyone who scored well help me out and give me like a way they studied? I know what resources to use but kinda just dont know how to structure it all since theres so much material. Thanks!!
I asked a program director and he said anything above 69 with a non cat is very competitive!
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There is no short cut or trick. You need to learn new content while reviewing old content. A lot of people like anki. Anki is a major grind that will consume your life, but it works and forces you to see info again. Your other options are practice questions, and frequent review of notes.
I spent my first 35 days of studying going through all the videos of Pathoma (1hour of video time per day) plus Dukes deck for the videos I watched that day and review cards. And all of sketchy micro/pharm (1.5 hour of video time a day) plus pepper deck for videos and review. You will spend 2-2.5 hours a day watching videos and ~5 hours doing anki.
After that period I dropped anki and started doing practice questions by topic. getting through All 1-3 hammer questions on AMBOSS. I was still reviewing sketches when I missed a question. Was still reading through first aid when I missed a question. And watching bootcamp videos by topic as well for continued review. If I could go back I probably would’ve just done UWorld and not used AMBOSS since I only ended up getting through 30-40% of UWorld.
Then I switched to UWorld. Did 2-ish blocks a day. Reviewed. Continued to check first aid and read about topics I was missing. Started taking NBMEs every other weekend. Then dropped UWorld for only NBME questions. Retaking blocks. Taking old NBMEs. Retaking. Continued review of sketchy, first aid, Pathoma in the mornings. If I struggled with another topic I would spend a day rewatching all of bootcamp and memorizing pathways or whatever as needed.
When I started studying I spent a full saturday making a schedule. How many hours of what resource each day. Which videos for that specific day, how many sketchy pictures to review each day. How many new anki cards for the videos I watched. How many pages of first aid each day. How many questions, etc. very structured and organized. once I finished my stuff for the day I was done. If it was 11pm and I still had to finish 25 UWorld question I usually would just go to bed and not stress about it and just make sure I got my 80 the next day.
Figuring out how to study for this test is half the battle. You’ll feel like you want to jump to a different resource or find an easier path or something. There is not an easier path. You just have to grind and commit to the grind. You’ll quickly start chipping away at resources. And then you just keep reviewing and reviewing and practicing and practicing.
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Not sure that the way I did it is the best. I started in July, but actually completely changed up what I was doing around November. Initially my goal was to watch all of the bootcamp videos while doing Anking and annotating first aid, and then rip through Uworld and NBMEs at the very end. I did this for a few months and then stopped.
July - November: Basically started off very carefully watching biochem, genetics, pathology (bootcamp + Pathoma 1-3), annotating/highlighting in first aid, and unlocking anking cards by subject as I went. I ended up doing most of the tagged anking cards for biochem, immuno, genetics, pathoma 1-3, and sketchy pharm. In November I realized that time was running out, I had done none of Uworld yet, and I havent even watched bootcamp for organ systems yet. I was literally just spending all day doing anki and making sure I knew the general principles well. This paid off in the end, but I was kinda studying as if I had way more time left than I did. If I could do it over I would have finished this by September. Definitely could have, no reason this should have taken this long.
November - January: At this point, dropped anki and bootcamp, and just went straight into Uworld, by systems and tutor mode. I really liked doing it by system, bc I felt like seeing the same stuff over and over for the few days that I was doing that system really helped reinforce it. Tutor mode is nice because its easier for me to read the explanation right after I get smn wrong vs. having to slog through 40 explanations in a row if I had done it timed. Make sure you read all of the explanations, wrong answers too. This is vital IMO, and was so helpful, this way I ended up using Uworld as a learning resource rather than a way to assess myself. I would have first aid open on another monitor and find the topic of the question that I just did, that way I ended up seeing all of first aid, and kind of burned some pages/facts into my brain by seeing them over and over. If there was something I kept getting wrong or couldnt understand even after that, I would go watch the video on it on bootcamp, but this was rare -- UWorld explanations are amazing and will teach you almost everything you need to know.
I would do UWorld it kind of like a game. When I first started a system, I knew I didnt know anything so I did the first ~80 questions open book, and tried to get as high of a score as possible on blocks. After that, I did the rest of the questions without "cheating". After I would almost finish the system, I made sure to leave about 10 questions and then move onto the next system. This allowed it so that at the end of my studying I would able to do a few blocks of mixed systems, to get some review in.
I finished about 75% of UWorld, but I didnt do any questions on biostats, psych, etc. and only did half the questions of biochem/immuno/path. Would have done it all but ran out of time, and knew I was strong on these subjects I missed anyway. I finished 100% of the questions for each major body system though, and I reiterate that this was vital and the single most important part of my prep imo. I had a goal of doing 40 questions a day minimum. Some days I would come back from clinic and be so tired that I did nothing. Some days I had off and was really energized and did 120. Doesnt matter too much, just make sure youre on track to finish it. Once you finish and understand UWorld you should be able to get 70% or higher EPC.
January: At this point I had about 4 weeks left. I ripped through NBMEs 25-31 and the free120 and reviewed the answers the next day. This was really good bc you need to get used to these questions. Biggest difference I found is that I was always second guessing myself on Uworld because it seemed like they were trying to trick me. I had to unlearn that for the NBMEs and CBSE because they dont really do that. If you see something that seems "too easy" or obvious, its probably really just that easy. When I first started I kept talking myself out of the right answer because of UWorld paranoia lol. UWorld is the king for learning, but NBME/CBSE is straight forward and easier. Dont overthink. Once you get through the NBMEs you should get that boost to get at or above 75% EPC.
Last week: Last few days were really important to me. I never studied before taking NBMEs. I knew that before the real deal I would have to do a big review though. I went through a bunch of NBME questions I got wrong, and made a big google doc, and just wrote short little facts about the question/why I got it wrong. Kept it concise and terse so it would be easy to review.
The last few days I read over the document I made, did Mehlman neuroanatomy and HY arrows (highly recommend both of these pdfs-- I did more of his pdfs but these are the only ones I finished). Actually all mehlman pdfs I used were very helpful. He breaks down stuff just how they will ask it on NBME. I also watched some DirtyMedicine videos on stuff I was consistently getting wrong because I just didnt know it (HIV drugs, antifungals MoAs, etc.) This was extremely HY as it took me only like an hour and got me a few questions right on test day.
In summation, I dont think how you do it is that important. Just find what works for you. Its more about that you just need to make sure you get through UWorld and get through the NBMEs 25-31. This is the key. Even FA isnt mandatory, its just a good reference. The test is a lot though, and there is no shortcut. The last 6 months, I made this exam my life. Everything else was put to the side. Dental school was an afterthought. When I was in clinic or school, I was doing anki or UWorld on my phone every free minute. When I was on public transit, same thing. When I was tired at night and burnt out from Uworld, I would watch Mehlman videos on youtube to get to sleep instead of netflix. It sounds sad and it kind of is. If you can do it without such a sacrifice I commend you, but thats what I had to do.
I hope this helps. Respect to anyone studying for this thing regardless of how you do. It is not easy to teach yourself a med school curriculum while balancing dental school. It is really hard, but its doable.
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mga12161216
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Appreciate it…You could never be certain of course but just dont want to retake that exam if I really dont have to
mga12161216
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I agree that this exam will consume your life. Every moment you are not studying for it, you will feel guilty and to be honest, you should feel that way as you should be giving every possible spare moment you have to study to potentially never retake the exam again.It is that absolutely horrible to prepare for but you must understand that it is absolutely doable. You have to go in believing you can do it. Not only that, you have to remember that is exam is no where near as difficult as the actual residency. If you believe you can survive residency than you have to know that you can conquer this exam—and you can.
In terms if study material, I ONLY used UWORLD. I studied around 2.5 months-ended with a 73 EPC with it being my first time taking it. I come from a non-med school based curriculum so all this material was essentially starting from zero. I went by organ system rather than random as I had no initial foundation. I thought the explanations in Uworld were really thorough in helping me understand the concepts enough. I would use the search function built into Uworld to review concepts that were confusing, etc instead of first aid as Uworld had better explanations.
I went through each explanation before moving onto the next question. The concepts will start to repeat helping to reinforce your understanding. Dont proceed to the next question without understanding the prior question. I did not have time to use other resources such as FA or pathoma. First aid is not very digestible and I didnt plan on reading it even if I had more time-probably would have just gone through uworld again if i had 5-6 months alongside another question bank like Amboss or something. Theres tremendous value in answering questions and is a much more active form of learning. Get through as many questions as you can.
Got a mid 80's score. My study schedule was very simple. I did the Mnemosyne anki deck from start to finish. I thought Anking was too long, and I already had a good base overall I think, so I opted for a deck that was only 14k cards to do after clinic each night. This took about 4 months. After that, I watched youtube videos for biostats (Randy Neil). I ended up having about a month to do Uworld and ended up doing about 25% of Uworld. Out of this 25%, my % correct was 75%+ per block, so I knew I had a good grasp of the material. There were sections that I didn't make it through thoroughly in Anki as in I didn't do my reviews daily (psyc/pulm/neuro, mainly). Overall, I have used Anki for all material in undergrad and dental school, so I didn't want to emphasize questions as I knew for me this was probably not the right move.
I would make a card or two for any concepts in the Uworld questions that were not already in the deck (aka not in First aid), and I would hand write things that were easily confusable (nephrotic/nephritic syndromes, etc.) but were already made into anki cards when I would miss a question on that topic. The day before the test I reviewed all my handwritten notes and biostats for about 3 hours.
Reviewing Uworld questions for me was very tedious and mentally exhausting. I would re-read the first aid, Pathoma, and Costanzo sections for each answer choice right or wrong until I knew that I could at least vaguely recall the HY facts surrounding each answer choice in the question. It would take me about an hour to review 10 Uworld questions, but IMO I think this worked for me because I was seeing all of the material instead of snippets of information intermittently over weeks.
Big picture, I would say 90% of my time was spent purely doing the Mnemosyne deck which is just First Aid into cloze cards and IMO better than Anking for OMFS applicants due to the brevity and HY nature of the cards. The other 10% was spent doing Uworld and reviewing my hand written notes.
This is against most opinions from people that I have talked to online and in person, but for me at least, Anki was more valuable than practice questions because it really drove home the extremely detailed factoids/trivia that you need to break the 75 on the CBSE. I think I could've done better if I had finished Uworld and used other resources like Mehlman's stuff, but the time we have to study is so limited with clinic, you really need to stick to only using one or two things IMO.
Overall, I would say if I only had done Anki I would've scored badly, but 25% of Uworld allowed me to see how the information was going to be asked and on test day I simply just applied all the facts that I had learned through doing Anki. I didn't use any other resources or NBMEs. Only anki and Uworld with First Aid/Pathoma (didn't watch the lectures)/Costanzo as references and a single afternoon of watching and taking notes on the Randy Neil biostats videos.
I would make a card or two for any concepts in the Uworld questions that were not already in the deck (aka not in First aid), and I would hand write things that were easily confusable (nephrotic/nephritic syndromes, etc.) but were already made into anki cards when I would miss a question on that topic. The day before the test I reviewed all my handwritten notes and biostats for about 3 hours.
Reviewing Uworld questions for me was very tedious and mentally exhausting. I would re-read the first aid, Pathoma, and Costanzo sections for each answer choice right or wrong until I knew that I could at least vaguely recall the HY facts surrounding each answer choice in the question. It would take me about an hour to review 10 Uworld questions, but IMO I think this worked for me because I was seeing all of the material instead of snippets of information intermittently over weeks.
Big picture, I would say 90% of my time was spent purely doing the Mnemosyne deck which is just First Aid into cloze cards and IMO better than Anking for OMFS applicants due to the brevity and HY nature of the cards. The other 10% was spent doing Uworld and reviewing my hand written notes.
This is against most opinions from people that I have talked to online and in person, but for me at least, Anki was more valuable than practice questions because it really drove home the extremely detailed factoids/trivia that you need to break the 75 on the CBSE. I think I could've done better if I had finished Uworld and used other resources like Mehlman's stuff, but the time we have to study is so limited with clinic, you really need to stick to only using one or two things IMO.
Overall, I would say if I only had done Anki I would've scored badly, but 25% of Uworld allowed me to see how the information was going to be asked and on test day I simply just applied all the facts that I had learned through doing Anki. I didn't use any other resources or NBMEs. Only anki and Uworld with First Aid/Pathoma (didn't watch the lectures)/Costanzo as references and a single afternoon of watching and taking notes on the Randy Neil biostats videos.
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Absolutely not. Enjoy your life.
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Does anyone have an opinion on the best way to utilize my summer break for studying for the CBSE? I only have 40 days off for summer and I’m looking to build a solid foundation/maximize learning for my full time CBSE grind in December.
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carabelliscusp
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NBME 20-31 take them timed and review them it can take a few days to really review your wrong answers from each exam and understand the concepts behind them
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Would this work without any sort of medical foundation? I just purchased sketchy and I’m using it for micro and physiology this semester, but that’s as far as I’ll be by the time summer starts.
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No, you will be absolutely lost. You take the NBMEs after you’ve learned all the stuff. They won’t reach you much if you haven’t seen it before.
carabelliscusp
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NBMEs are the final thing you should do. Save them for the end. They should be to really to refine test prep and concepts not just learn material.
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Oh I think I wasn’t clear in my initial post, I was hoping for ideas for this summer on the best ways to start studying for the cbse in about 40 days and then pick back up in December full time. My wife works full time and I’ll have 9 hours to my self everyday, so I thought I’d use it to watch BnB or grind an anki deck or something else. Just wanted to hear what others would do.
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Probably try to finish as much of Anking as you can
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Is duke pathoma a good one?
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Which ones?
carabelliscusp
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I believe theres a high yield anking floating around that cuts down on the number of cards by like 50%
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That would be nice to have. Along those lines, does anyone know if there's an Anking deck that has updated Sketchy Pharm cards? (Without paying for Anking v12). I'm going through Anking v11 and it'd be nice not to make separate cards for the new info in the updated Sketchy videos.
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That would be totally awesome - I’m unsure of where to look.
I know Stakes on Reddit made an updated anking deck; it’s Anking v12 with UWORLD explanations, however it doesn’t have the sketchy/first aid sections of the card that are normally in Anking.
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There is a HY tag on Anking. You can suspend everything and only unsuspend those if you want to do that. Another way to do it is to unsuspend only pathoma, sketchy micro, and sketchy pharm. since those are most conducive to being memorized with flash cards.
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The uworld tag is also great
