Just took Step 1! It was a tornado of integration!!

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Wings4Marie

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Man, it was soooooooo crazy...

I've been studying a LONG time and I'll just say a few things about the exam.

Where to begin... All the subjects were blended in such an odd way. For example, you get classic descriptions of personality disorders yet your asked about GFR, or serum K! You get pictures of Gaucher cells and get asked what the PCO2 is!!! There were so many tripped out questions like that. Man, edema edema edema edema, infiltrates were all over that thing. My test wanted to know everything about edema. There are so many questions with classic presentations however they would ask you for information that goes above and beyond what you find in Kaplan/Goljian...

PHARM PHARM PHARM. I love pharm by the way its my best subject. All over this thing. All presented with graphs and numbers and charts and diagrams. Drug X mixed with drug Y titrated with drug Z would yield which of the following?? uhhhhh... your mother!

Path... hardly any.. I know you dont believe me but I don't care. Most of it was what people call Pathophysiology, or what I would call "Pharmopathology" if that could ever exist. Not a lot of straight path, it was truly just integrated into PHYSIO questions. Yep that's right. You get descriptions of infamous stuff like Pneumonia but then asked about Afterload or TPR. Uhhhhh... WHAT??

I feel like there were so many questions like that. Also, the biggest thing the test likes to do is HIDE EASY QUESTIONS. Yup, the question is easy so what they do is throw tons of lab measurements, data, graphs, numbers at you and then they hide what they really want to know in different WORDING. Yup, all of the processes were disguised in odd language twists... the answer usually pops into your head after you disect all of this sludge...

DO NOT NEGLECT PHYSIOLOGY. You will not get a high score if you don't have a good grasp of this subject its all over the place.. EVERYWHERE! YOU'll see! GFRs, filtered loads, Flow, tpr, MAP, CO, percentage occlusions of major vessels and their effect on all sorts of different physiologic processes! THE THREE P's BABY!

BEHAVIORAL: HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE part of my exam. SOme easy questions, some super hard ones that I feel only a good clinical experience can actually prepare you for that. Stuff like what kind of specialties would normally get referrels from primary care physicians. WAACK! HUge twisted integrations like hematological effects of Sleep Terror Disorder and Restless Leg Syndrome.

Molecular: I dont know what the fuss is, most of the stuff is in the Kaplan biochem book, hopefully you have it, but i doubt its worth buying HY. Not too much on my exam.

Path: like I said... i hate to say it, Im a huge Goljan fan, but I have a feeling the question writers have copies of his notes and start writing stuff that they know is not in there. BUT MAYBE IM PARANOID.

USMLEWORLD.. seriously.. honestly.. i got 11-15 word for word questions. I wonder if they are breaking any copywright laws but I got an odd x-ray that I ONLY saw in USMLEWORLD. I hate to promote a product, I should get paid for that... but let me tell you.. even though I got 11-15 exact repeated questions, I got pretty much 40-50 repeated concepts that they emphasize. If I could go back I would do USMLEWORLD 3 more times, slowly!!!!

Q bank... I wish I never bought it. Nothing like my exam.

Biostats.. thank goodness mostly 'give me' points! There were 3 per block.

Freebies/Give me questions... I assume everyone gets these right, and there are give me questions but I feel the only reason they are on the exam is to keep you from throwing in the towel. After 5 back to back Acidosis questions I wanted to just go home, but then they tossed me an easy G6PD question, so I stuck with it.

Okay look.. the concepts from Goljian notes are there.. but the way its presented is going to be most students downfall.. It's all hidden.. the average student is going to go "WTF???" after each question but the above average student thinks hard, thinks hard, thinks hard, and BAM.. OH YA.. THATS IT.. I SEEE THROUGH THE ILLUSION!!!!!!

Many questions were also just flat out impossible. Hopefully experimental but I could just see the questions writers stairing right back at me through that computer screen saying "We know you don't know this.. THAT's WHY WE'RE ASKING IT..MUHAHAHAHAH!"

First Aid... uhh.. as of today I'm not a huge fan. HA.

NBME... helpful as everyone says. Graphs/charts are presented the same way. Questions on the real exam are way more surreal and integrated.

Anatomy... dont neglect it! Many LUMBAR PLEXUS questions asking specific nerve roots. Neuro, FA is not enough for sure.

Embryo... HUGE. HUGE. Not stuff in FA, like what pouch is this or what arch gives you that. Theoretical embryological malformations that you get presented with. Also one liners like patient comes in with X, what was the defect. Tons of questions on infants with malformed brains, or even weird stuff like, 1/4 of this region was malformed embryologically, what happens.

Genetics...one word...HUGE. weird Pedigrees left and right...stuff you never see but you know they made up just to mess with you. Strange incestuous matings between cousins and uncles :eek: :eek:


All right, I'm a little exhausted right now after having a huge conversation with my father about how much life will be better when I'm actually a doctor doing clinical stuff rather then sitting in a dank hole 20 hours a day stairing at Kaplan books and First AID. ITS NAP TIME!! ;) ;) If anyone has any questions, JUST ASK!

Conclusion:

All in all I feel, really the only way to do well is to have kicked ass 1st and second year. The test felt more like an IQ test meant to separate the intellectually elite from the average student. Know concepts and how to apply them to very weird unimaginable situations and graphs....and then be able to think 2 steps beyond that. And again I HATE to promote stuff, I feel like Im making some greedy corporation RICH.... but I would get Usmleworld, the questions are at the same difficulty, but mostly harder. SOme were "word for word" exact replicas. I wonder how they got away with that.
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My exam is next Wednesday, any suggestions for how to spend my last week? I'm having trouble staying on task when I review FA or Goljan, I was thinking of just doing USMLEworld to identify specific deficiencies and then work from there.

Congrats by the way.

Also you're freaking me out with the Gaucher cell thing, I don't see how it would effect metabolism that much.
 
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You just scared the bejesus out of me. I'm taking the test in june and doing 30 USMLE world questions a day w/a few hrs of lecture review and organ system review, but I think I'm just gonna stop the organ system after I finish teh last unit, up USMLE world to 40 q's a day and do neoplasia general principle review.
 
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Your post was like a good movie--it made me laugh, then kept me at the edge of my seat, then I let out a sigh of relief, only to suddenly shirk back in horror! :p

Cheers, mate, I am sure you did well. Thanks for the post!
 
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congrats on being done...that post scared the crap out of me...i'm echoing was TAUS said in that i hope your test was some sort of exception!!!
 
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Wings4Marie said:
Man, it was soooooooo crazy...

I've been studying a LONG time and I'll just say a few things about the exam.

Where to begin... All the subjects were blended in such an odd way. For example, you get classic descriptions of personality disorders yet your asked about GFR, or serum K! You get pictures of Gaucher cells and get asked what the PCO2 is!!! There were so many tripped out questions like that. Man, edema edema edema edema, infiltrates were all over that thing. My test wanted to know everything about edema. There are so many questions with classic presentations however they would ask you for information that goes above and beyond what you find in Kaplan/Goljian...

PHARM PHARM PHARM. I love pharm by the way its my best subject. All over this thing. All presented with graphs and numbers and charts and diagrams. Drug X mixed with drug Y titrated with drug Z would yield which of the following?? uhhhhh... your mother!

Path... hardly any.. I know you dont believe me but I don't care. Most of it was what people call Pathophysiology, or what I would call "Pharmopathology" if that could ever exist. Not a lot of straight path, it was truly just integrated into PHYSIO questions. Yep that's right. You get descriptions of infamous stuff like Pneumonia but then asked about Afterload or TPR. Uhhhhh... WHAT??

I feel like there were so many questions like that. Also, the biggest thing the test likes to do is HIDE EASY QUESTIONS. Yup, the question is easy so what they do is throw tons of lab measurements, data, graphs, numbers at you and then they hide what they really want to know in different WORDING. Yup, all of the processes were disguised in odd language twists... the answer usually pops into your head after you disect all of this sludge...

DO NOT NEGLECT PHYSIOLOGY. You will not get a high score if you don't have a good grasp of this subject its all over the place.. EVERYWHERE! YOU'll see! GFRs, filtered loads, Flow, tpr, MAP, CO, percentage occlusions of major vessels and their effect on all sorts of different physiologic processes! THE THREE P's BABY!

BEHAVIORAL: HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE part of my exam. SOme easy questions, some super hard ones that I feel only a good clinical experience can actually prepare you for that. Stuff like what kind of specialties would normally get referrels from primary care physicians. WAACK! HUge twisted integrations like hematological effects of Sleep Terror Disorder and Restless Leg Syndrome.

Molecular: I dont know what the fuss is, most of the stuff is in the Kaplan biochem book, hopefully you have it, but i doubt its worth buying HY. Not too much on my exam.

Path: like I said... i hate to say it, Im a huge Goljan fan, but I have a feeling the question writers have copies of his notes and start writing stuff that they know is not in there. BUT MAYBE IM PARANOID.

USMLEWORLD.. seriously.. honestly.. i got 11-15 word for word questions. I wonder if they are breaking any copywright laws but I got an odd x-ray that I ONLY saw in USMLEWORLD. I hate to promote a product, I should get paid for that... but let me tell you.. even though I got 11-15 exact repeated questions, I got pretty much 40-50 repeated concepts that they emphasize. If I could go back I would do USMLEWORLD 3 more times, slowly!!!!

Q bank... I wish I never bought it. Nothing like my exam.

Biostats.. thank goodness mostly 'give me' points! There were 3 per block.

Freebies/Give me questions... I assume everyone gets these right, and there are give me questions but I feel the only reason they are on the exam is to keep you from throwing in the towel. After 5 back to back Acidosis questions I wanted to just go home, but then they tossed me an easy G6PD question, so I stuck with it.

Okay look.. the concepts from Goljian notes are there.. but the way its presented is going to be most students downfall.. It's all hidden.. the average student is going to go "WTF???" after each question but the above average student thinks hard, thinks hard, thinks hard, and BAM.. OH YA.. THATS IT.. I SEEE THROUGH THE ILLUSION!!!!!!

Many questions were also just flat out impossible. Hopefully experimental but I could just see the questions writers stairing right back at me through that computer screen saying "We know you don't know this.. THAT's WHY WE'RE ASKING IT..MUHAHAHAHAH!"

First Aid... uhh.. as of today I'm not a huge fan. HA.

NBME... helpful as everyone says. Graphs/charts are presented the same way. Questions on the real exam are way more surreal and integrated.

Anatomy... dont neglect it! Many LUMBAR PLEXUS questions asking specific nerve roots. Neuro, FA is not enough for sure.

Embryo... HUGE. HUGE. Not stuff in FA, like what pouch is this or what arch gives you that. Theoretical embryological malformations that you get presented with. Also one liners like patient comes in with X, what was the defect. Tons of questions on infants with malformed brains, or even weird stuff like, 1/4 of this region was malformed embryologically, what happens.

Genetics...one word...HUGE. weird Pedigrees left and right...stuff you never see but you know they made up just to mess with you. Strange incestuous matings between cousins and uncles :eek: :eek:


All right, I'm a little exhausted right now after having a huge conversation with my father about how much life will be better when I'm actually a doctor doing clinical stuff rather then sitting in a dank hole 20 hours a day stairing at Kaplan books and First AID. ITS NAP TIME!! ;) ;) If anyone has any questions, JUST ASK!

Conclusion:

All in all I feel, really the only way to do well is to have kicked ass 1st and second year. The test felt more like an IQ test meant to separate the intellectually elite from the average student. Know concepts and how to apply them to very weird unimaginable situations and graphs....and then be able to think 2 steps beyond that. And again I HATE to promote stuff, I feel like Im making some greedy corporation RICH.... but I would get Usmleworld, the questions are at the same difficulty, but mostly harder. SOme were "word for word" exact replicas. I wonder how they got away with that.
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This sounds oh so similar to the one that I had a few weeks ago. Integration is HUGE! 2-3 steps. Know how to connect the dots. Some were one liners and easy, but most were hidden among sludge.
 
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winsicle said:
OP:

You definitely just made UW a ton of money
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lol no ****.......I was gonna sign up for the one month deal but after this - I am getting the 3 month plan and aiming to do the qbank 3 times thru


wings, any recommendations for biostats? is FA enough?
 
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Hey

Just woke up. I'm a lot less flustered now, and I think I had serious serious tachycardia starting with BLOCK 1, QUESTION 1 leading all the way through Block 7, Question 50! In fact, the ladies at the testing center were very very amused at how nervous I was and how many times I ran to the bathroom. For me this is a good thing by the way because I only work well under that kind of stress, but I can see how outside parties may find my behavior amusing.

Sorry to scare those who are taking it soon but I mean, wouldnt you rather be prepared? The first block was the worse because I kept saying to myself "holy crap, this really is hard just like everyone says."

Man, you know there was this micro question that showed a gross photo of a patient's face with an infection. Now when I say gross, I'm not talking "gross anatomy" Im talking B RATED HORROR MOVIE GROSS! This guy had some infection on his face and he was squinting in pain with bloody pustules and green stuff oozing out of the whole right side of his face. It was so disturbing, his one open eye was stairing right back at me, he looked like Freddy Krueger. They obviously put that question there to traumatize students.

I will give them credit though. Those questions are like little works of art. The writers tie completely unrelated subjects together and all of a sudden disease X is now a new major sequela of disease Y.

Patients always presented with the same symptoms every question starts off with male/female coming in with fatigue weakness and high blood pressure. But then you'll see something like "His grandmother used to eat peanuts every day." Now somehow you're going to have to tie in her love for peanuts and his presenting illness. EVERY micro question had spots/rash of some sort. Again, very ambiguous.

To those who havent taken it or are taking it soon, just be prepared to stand your ground. You know your stuff, don't flip out when there's things you've never heard of. Your core knowledge will save you. You just have to know what the hell they are talking about, and then the question melts in defeat right on your screen. You know Huntington Disease has those CAG triplets right? Well its so funny because they will show a DNA sequence that was 6 or 7 lines long and you had to look so closely for a long time and then you see like 4 repeated CAG's that you never even thought were there. But... if you didn't notice it, you would be screwed indefinitely. Hopefully you know the English language well because there's tons of ways of saying something without really saying it. Like, the question writers most likely have Fiction Authors giving them advice on new ways to say "foul smelling sputum, or pyknosis, etc." without really saying it. CRAZY RIGHT??????? Another thing know your PHARM cold. Pharm is great for them because 1 question can easily test physiology and pharmacology AND cell biology at the same time. There were NO side effects on my test, however every single pharm question had graph data or table data that you have to interpret on the fly. Know all the classic path diseases but then ask yourself..."OKay... I understand this... but how would I treat this?" A question will have paragraph after paragraph of a detailed description about a patient with Fragile X, but you never thought about what would you actually do to help someone with it, or what would you tell the patient during a consultation. On a side note, I thought I had Fragile X, but its just natural machroorchidism. HAHAHAHA..jk.

TO those taking it very soon:

In Conclusion: Best advice for those taking it soon, like i said, dont fluster, stand your ground. I would seriously read through Kaplan Biochem (best biochem book EVER...has all the genetics you need too) and Kaplan Physiology (its long but i mean.. ITS ALL OVER THE EXAM). Do 4-5 blocks of usmleWorld a day and sit there and read through every explanation. Its a hard read, I know, it hurts. Thats life. So much of Behavioral was from my Kaplan book. Also, find a good embryo book if you have the time. Embryology is a subject I cant stand. Its not that I dont like kids, its just.. IT MAKES NO SENSE. Why the hell does the stomach move this way and why are there 2 pancreatic buds, and beans, and stalks, and horseshoe kidneys with Sonic the Hedgehog Homeobox genes? Well, frankly, the more confusing a subject is, the more likely you will see it. Like acidosis/alkalosis can be very confusing if presented with tons of lab data... and then on top of that the patient is on thiazides and beta blockers!! Pretty hairy.

Hopefully the CEO of Usmleworld is reading these boards and knows who I am. Hopefully he'll send me patients when Im in private practice. PLASTIC SURGERY IN BEVERLY HILLS BABYYYYYYY! Or if this test score sucks, then I guess its Family practice in Butte Montana or something. :D
 
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KNightInBlue said:
lol no ****.......I was gonna sign up for the one month deal but after this - I am getting the 3 month plan and aiming to do the qbank 3 times thru


wings, any recommendations for biostats? is FA enough?
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Ya, FA is enough, but remember. All a question will require you to know is how to calculate something extremely easy like the median. But you'll be reading through tons of p values, confidence intervals, power, relative risks that have absolutely no use to the question. Read the end of the question first and then read it from the beginning. In fact, DO THAT FOR ALL THE QUESTIONS!! it will save you tons of time, and heartache.


i cant believe its spring already. I cant even remember what the weather was like when I started studying. The whole world has moved forward, new shows on tv, friends getting married, my favorite bands have new albums out. I'm 26 now...so crazy.
 
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What about the NBME's? wich one is more similar?
So you say that you only saw like 50 questions based on the concepts of USMLE WORLD, ehat about the OTHER 300 QUESTIONS:scared:

paradox question:

So if we are able to master that stuff from UW concepts we might have a chance?


what about the UW+GOLJAN+FA is that enough to pass with a good grade?

You got a 500 on NBME 3 suposlly the hardest of all, and you are making this post, talking about scaring, I just found out I had new tonsils, wait no its my testicle that by reflex went WAY up here:eek:

You might want to "donate" some stuff to UW, for the people behind you:rolleyes:
 
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Wings4Marie said:
Man, you know there was this micro question that showed a gross photo of a patient's face with an infection. Now when I say gross, I'm not talking "gross anatomy" Im talking B RATED HORROR MOVIE GROSS! This guy had some infection on his face and he was squinting in pain with bloody pustules and green stuff oozing out of the whole right side of his face. It was so disturbing, his one open eye was stairing right back at me, he looked like Freddy Krueger. They obviously put that question there to traumatize students.
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jesus, what the hell was wrong with horror face guy??
 
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^^haha, no clue but I put that it was a fungal infection superimposed on a Clostridium infection.

Gogetta,
You can't fully trust any of these question banks. If these question banks really had everything on the test, then everyone would get a 240. Of all the banks the only thing worth my time was World. However its not ALL of your exam so dont just rely on that.

If you can somehow do every NBME and look up all the answers for every question, I could see someone get a 250+ if they did that.

From the beginning this has been a weed out process. I remember asking a school official about the MCAT once... I asked "So what kind of score do we need on the MCAT to get into medical school??" He replyed "HA.. the MCAT is not really designed to get you into our programs, its to keep you out."
 
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wings4 marie: out of curiosity, why did you say that looking up the answers to the nbme's would help? did you study the nbme questions and see that there were concepts from the nbme's on your test?
 
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It seems like you came out of the exam with some great respect for the ingenuity of the test writers. I wonder if they are secretly having wagers on which of their questions gets the most post-exam "Hey, wow, what did you put for that?"
 
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Wings4Marie said:
Embryology is a subject I cant stand. Its not that I dont like kids, its just.. IT MAKES NO SENSE. Why the hell does the stomach move this way and why are there 2 pancreatic buds, and beans, and stalks, and horseshoe kidneys with Sonic the Hedgehog Homeobox genes?
Click to expand...

:laugh: :laugh: :thumbup:
 
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^

Incidently, Sonic the Hedgehog was an answer choice for some question. I was told by the Kaplan people that If I see THAT or NK4 something (for immuno) just PICK THOSE AS THE ANSWER, it always is.

doctalk, Mucor was a choice.. Sh%t, maybe I should have picked it.

hotchocolate, If you look up all the NBME questions starting with form 1 all the way to form 4... basically thereafter everytime you read a review book, all that is high yield suddenly pops out at you!!! u know what I mean?? You ever sit through 500 Q bank questions and then read a review book? well you know whats important after sitting through 500 questions. Same principle.

I'll admit, I went to Kaplan retreat in Dallas and had Goljan and all the other folks. Well if you guys have the time and or money, I would do it. Number one reason, Dallas has the hottest girls I've ever seen in my life. sorry I digressed...

The Kaplan staff do the following: You get the books, you go to class, and well basically, they tell you whats on the test. You don't pay 4 grand for nothing. I mean think about it. Well basically a few of the professors have these "review sessions" where they tell you whats been asked recently. I'm not sure about the legality of things but we all sign wavers saying that we wont distribute this information.

Man I cant remember the words on the contract I signed it was all twisted, but basically it was a confidentiality agreement. If you want a complete review of the retreat and all the professors Id be more than happy to write one up. The pharm guy is funny as heck. He's so into pharm.. basically because hes on so many drugs!! He'll get to a drug and be like "Ya Im on it, it feels great!" Hes one of the authors of the Kaplan book, not Trevor, the other guy Davis. He puts little hearts :love: on his slides. Those hearts are things that get repeatedly asked on recent exams. Well sure enough they showed up, and I asnwered those questions in less than a second.

The guy who does behavioral was THE MANNN. Daughterty, ahh Daugherty, he was just simply the man. He gave this speech at the beginning that inspired us all to study. He said things like, "The world may end, your friends may die, war could happen.... basically dont care about those things anymore.. just study." We were all so moved. Well then he leaves and the session starts but then he comes back at the end to do behavioral, and Ill tell you if anyone is an expert on stats/behavioral he is. and he knows whats on the test... these profs have "additional slides" if you know what I mean.

anyways, if u want a complete review it'll be my pleasure. I seriously need to find something to do between going to the gym and going to THE BAR:thumbup: :thumbup: :D
 
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Wings4Marie said:
If you look up all the NBME questions starting with form 1 all the way to form 4... basically thereafter everytime you read a review book, all that is high yield suddenly pops out at you!!! u know what I mean?? You ever sit through 500 Q bank questions and then read a review book? well you know whats important after sitting through 500 questions. Same principle.
Click to expand...

I believe someone else, I think p53 also mentioned this as a great way to start your preparation.

So W4M, if you could go back and do it again, would you for sure start by doing the 4 NMBE's first and looking up the answers?

Would you rather use them up so early in studying, or save them for later?
 
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I would do it for sure, but think about how long it takes. I mean 4 blocks each exam 4 exams is a lot of questions so you would have to start doing that pretty early in preparation I would say. But here's the benefits:

1. USMLE questions have the same thinking process as the NBME questions so you would have a feel for what your up against.

2. They may only repeat a few questions but they repeat most likely ALL of the topics.

3. The concepts never change. I mean if you see 3 questions on all 4 forms about Cardiac tamponade you know for sure that you better look up the signs and symptoms.. I had 2 tamponade questions on my exam.

4. The charts and graphs are in the same style. In fact, some of the same ones.

5. If they are so magical in assessing your actual Step 1 score, theres gotta be tons of similarities on the real thing.

6. Plus while your researching each question you can always look up other things that are linked... like if you have a question on flow, well not only should you grasp the concept of flow, but I would check out resistance calculations, series circuit, parallel circuiuts (i had one of those on my exam too, and I kept getting some weird answer but then with 2 seconds left on my block i figured it out and picked it!)

whats so strange is that im going through some of my books and picking out some high yield sections and apparently those tests called "Pathology and Pathophysiology" at the end of Qbook has a lot of similar questions I had on my exam regarding acidosis and resp. I wish i looked at those and went through them. i dont know why they made it that way but qbook is way higher in quality than q bank.
 
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first off, congrats on getting through the marathon. it sounds like all your hard work paid off. hopefully you'll end up with that plastics position in cali, or whatever your ideal match is.

btw, can u explain how the nbme exams work once you buy them? i mean, i'm guessing they're online assessments for $45 or something, but can they be assessed multiple times once you pay the fee? printed somehow (i doubt this is possible, but just asking to make sure)? I'm just trying to see how one could go over the exams thoroughly, after taking them.

oh yeah, and since you mentioned the 3P's, what would your ideal resources be for these sections (besides tons of q's of course)?

thanx in advance. PS dont party too hard tonite. Wait...that doesnt make sense....Actually, you could party extra hard and make up for lost time :)
 
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Wings4Marie said:
^

Incidently, Sonic the Hedgehog was an answer choice for some question. I was told by the Kaplan people that If I see THAT or NK4 something (for immuno) just PICK THOSE AS THE ANSWER, it always is.

doctalk, Mucor was a choice.. Sh%t, maybe I should have picked it.

hotchocolate, If you look up all the NBME questions starting with form 1 all the way to form 4... basically thereafter everytime you read a review book, all that is high yield suddenly pops out at you!!! u know what I mean?? You ever sit through 500 Q bank questions and then read a review book? well you know whats important after sitting through 500 questions. Same principle.

I'll admit, I went to Kaplan retreat in Dallas and had Goljan and all the other folks. Well if you guys have the time and or money, I would do it. Number one reason, Dallas has the hottest girls I've ever seen in my life. sorry I digressed...

The Kaplan staff do the following: You get the books, you go to class, and well basically, they tell you whats on the test. You don't pay 4 grand for nothing. I mean think about it. Well basically a few of the professors have these "review sessions" where they tell you whats been asked recently. I'm not sure about the legality of things but we all sign wavers saying that we wont distribute this information.

Man I cant remember the words on the contract I signed it was all twisted, but basically it was a confidentiality agreement. If you want a complete review of the retreat and all the professors Id be more than happy to write one up. The pharm guy is funny as heck. He's so into pharm.. basically because hes on so many drugs!! He'll get to a drug and be like "Ya Im on it, it feels great!" Hes one of the authors of the Kaplan book, not Trevor, the other guy Davis. He puts little hearts :love: on his slides. Those hearts are things that get repeatedly asked on recent exams. Well sure enough they showed up, and I asnwered those questions in less than a second.

The guy who does behavioral was THE MANNN. Daughterty, ahh Daugherty, he was just simply the man. He gave this speech at the beginning that inspired us all to study. He said things like, "The world may end, your friends may die, war could happen.... basically dont care about those things anymore.. just study." We were all so moved. Well then he leaves and the session starts but then he comes back at the end to do behavioral, and Ill tell you if anyone is an expert on stats/behavioral he is. and he knows whats on the test... these profs have "additional slides" if you know what I mean.

anyways, if u want a complete review it'll be my pleasure. I seriously need to find something to do between going to the gym and going to THE BAR:thumbup: :thumbup: :D
Click to expand...


I'd like to hear more about your experience with the Kaplan course. I'm signed up for the chicago retreat and would love it if you could share your study schedule. I've learned so much just by reading your experiences so far :)
 
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Good luck!

Also, the visual imagery of a "tornado of integration" is quite evocative. Nice metaphor :)
 
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nasdr said:
first off, congrats on getting through the marathon. it sounds like all your hard work paid off. hopefully you'll end up with that plastics position in cali, or whatever your ideal match is.

btw, can u explain how the nbme exams work once you buy them? i mean, i'm guessing they're online assessments for $45 or something, but can they be assessed multiple times once you pay the fee? printed somehow (i doubt this is possible, but just asking to make sure)? I'm just trying to see how one could go over the exams thoroughly, after taking them.

oh yeah, and since you mentioned the 3P's, what would your ideal resources be for these sections (besides tons of q's of course)?

thanx in advance. PS dont party too hard tonite. Wait...that doesnt make sense....Actually, you could party extra hard and make up for lost time :)
Click to expand...

once you submit each block of the NBME assessments, you have no access to the test anymore. All you get is a graphical representation of your weaknesses and strengths. Apparently they are correlated with the means of American graduates. THere are NBME's floating around, several people in my class had them, but I wouldn't ask for them on a forum since its illegal.

The three P's...

Like I said, there wasnt much straight path on my exam, I really wish there was since I went over Goljan's notes so many times. Every path question ended up being a physio or pharm or biochem or histo question. My best question source for pharm was Rapid Review. I don't have the book, but i have the CD in the book that had tons of questions were most like my step exam. They do A LOT of autonomic, and cardiovascular graph questions. Plus there's 6 or 7 different questions on Epinephrine reversals using alpha blockers or different adrenergic drugs. There was so much of that on my test.

There was so much of up arrows down arrows side to side arrows. There was so many visual diagrams with A B C D E F G H I being labelled all over the place. Like a neuron was drawn with presynaptic and postsynaptic receptors and you had a clinical scenario then you had to select where on the neuron the MOA of the drug was located. Parts of the arachidonic acid pathway was asked in about 4 different questions. I knew that was coming, not a big deal, extremely high yield.

For Physio I would do Kaplan if you can. The difference between Kaplan and BRS is that BRS makes it really easy to understand. The Kaplan book is a little more confusing and in depth but it had all the diagrams and graphs that I saw on my test. Have you seen the Dr. Dunn Kaplan Physio videos? He's really nerdy and talks through his nose but he will teach you physio if you don't know it. He repeats points over and over, his trademark saying is "THE BOTTOMLINE POINT IS....!" You'll see if you watch the video. And he goes along with the physio book so you can annotate it with his "bottomline points" If you just use BRS you'll be fine too I mean, its critically acclaimed and just as popular as First Aid. If you notice, physio is rarely talked about on these boards. Everyone's all about PATH PATH PATH PATH. But Physio is medicine. Its the subject that requires the LEAST memorizing and the most understanding, and mathematics.

You either understand the concentrations of inulin and PaH in the nephron or you don't. There was a lot of that on my test as well. Be able to visualize in graphical format the concentrations of inulin, pah, Na, glucose, creatinine, etc. as you move along the nephron. Know Tm gradients, back leak, phosphate buffers, the creation of new bicarb versus the recycling of normal bicarb stores. All of this was asked on my test. Know where everything happens on the nephron. Know what happens when there's a bladder obstruction and all of a sudden Bowman's space now has a positive hydrostatic pressure. That was on my test as well. So were shunts and dead spaces and diffusion gradients in resp physiology. And finally, know acidosis alkalosis like a mofo!

Endocrine... KNOW IT ALL. Know craniopharyngiomas and prolactinomas and what they do to gonadotropins. Know that HCG can act like TSH and make a patient Hyperthyroid.
Finally, know FUNKY BETA BLOCKERS. Some Beta blockers have intrinsic sympathomimetic activity... some are B1 selective.. some are nonselective.. and some even have Alpha 1 blocking activity. All of that was on my test.

The highest yield Goljan lecture in my humble opinion is "Fluid Dynamics". Its his most physio intense lecture and he goes into the ionic details of each part of the nephron. I listened to that one a bunch of times. If you have any inhibitions about Osmolarity, sodium, ADH, and SHOCK, he'll clear it all up for you. Its the lecture before neoplasia.

On my exam the heart was tested too much at all but VESSELS were. Constriction, dilation, arterioles, venules, flow, resistance. This can get hairy too.

rock on, ill write up a good review of the dallas retreat within 2 days. Man, the more i look at Qbook the more I wish I went through it before my exam.
 
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helpful advice...your thread made my favorites/bookmarks, or whatever it's called.
 
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Holy macarena Batman:eek:

I have been one of the followers of Goljan, and in some of the lectures, I was like you were berfore your test, now the joke, now the coment, etc:cool:.

And now you are telling me that is of no use:confused::confused:, I mean not focus on the real exam like in the past:eek:

So tell me based on Goljan how many questions you were able to say goljan, and how many questions based on what you knew from goljan you were 2/3 from the correct answer?

thanks

Ps I havent review that basic part of pathology:scared:, so today I will start with that

I think my test entirely will be like this:

Many questions were also just flat out impossible. Hopefully experimental but I could just see the questions writers stairing right back at me through that computer screen saying "We know you don't know this.. THAT's WHY WE'RE ASKING IT..MUHAHAHAHAH!"
 
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^^ i mean, Goljan is probably necessary to get the big picture of everything. Listen to the audio and try to fully understand his concepts. He's all about "mechanism mechanism mechanism!" Its just personally, my test wasnt heavily path oriented. Make sure you invest time in all the subjects is what im really trying to say, like physio pharm and anatomy.

You dont want to rob Paul to pay Peter... or however that quote goes..
 
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To all who wrote me privately requesting information on Kaplan, Im going to write a full report tomorrow morning. should be a good read. Good luck to all taking their test soon.
 
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It really looks like from comments from others, that each test is so different from one another. Others swear that Goljan was the bomb and was huge for them, others not. It seems that basically know it all and see what they hit hard on your test. Kind of sneaky if you ask me.
 
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Hi, can you share more of you experience...I am considering going to the one in Chicago....Thannks...


Wings4Marie said:
^

Incidently, Sonic the Hedgehog was an answer choice for some question. I was told by the Kaplan people that If I see THAT or NK4 something (for immuno) just PICK THOSE AS THE ANSWER, it always is.

doctalk, Mucor was a choice.. Sh%t, maybe I should have picked it.

hotchocolate, If you look up all the NBME questions starting with form 1 all the way to form 4... basically thereafter everytime you read a review book, all that is high yield suddenly pops out at you!!! u know what I mean?? You ever sit through 500 Q bank questions and then read a review book? well you know whats important after sitting through 500 questions. Same principle.

I'll admit, I went to Kaplan retreat in Dallas and had Goljan and all the other folks. Well if you guys have the time and or money, I would do it. Number one reason, Dallas has the hottest girls I've ever seen in my life. sorry I digressed...

The Kaplan staff do the following: You get the books, you go to class, and well basically, they tell you whats on the test. You don't pay 4 grand for nothing. I mean think about it. Well basically a few of the professors have these "review sessions" where they tell you whats been asked recently. I'm not sure about the legality of things but we all sign wavers saying that we wont distribute this information.

Man I cant remember the words on the contract I signed it was all twisted, but basically it was a confidentiality agreement. If you want a complete review of the retreat and all the professors Id be more than happy to write one up. The pharm guy is funny as heck. He's so into pharm.. basically because hes on so many drugs!! He'll get to a drug and be like "Ya Im on it, it feels great!" Hes one of the authors of the Kaplan book, not Trevor, the other guy Davis. He puts little hearts :love: on his slides. Those hearts are things that get repeatedly asked on recent exams. Well sure enough they showed up, and I asnwered those questions in less than a second.

The guy who does behavioral was THE MANNN. Daughterty, ahh Daugherty, he was just simply the man. He gave this speech at the beginning that inspired us all to study. He said things like, "The world may end, your friends may die, war could happen.... basically dont care about those things anymore.. just study." We were all so moved. Well then he leaves and the session starts but then he comes back at the end to do behavioral, and Ill tell you if anyone is an expert on stats/behavioral he is. and he knows whats on the test... these profs have "additional slides" if you know what I mean.

anyways, if u want a complete review it'll be my pleasure. I seriously need to find something to do between going to the gym and going to THE BAR:thumbup: :thumbup: :D
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I don't see the point in blatant fiction like "this pt has a personality d/o, what electrolyte is disturbed?" There are no questions like this on the real exam.

I think "tornado of integration" is a good metaphor, however, the whole point is that taking the test itself is a performance as much as it is being able to recall facts. You simply can't prepare for the style of integration that they're gonna throw at you, you just have to rely on your knowledge and go from there.

No use in being "scared" before the exam since, if anything, it's gonna throw you off your game.
 
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wow, sounds like u did really great on the exam. but what i really want to know is what was ur usmle world score ? i just looking for some correlation.
 
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I have been reviweing the "basic" part that Goljan covers , and O WAO a new world has open to me.

You were 100% right those lectures are gold.

By the way are you surviving spring break?:smuggrin:
 
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i know you must be mentally sick of thinking about everything USMLE related, so thanks for taking time out of celebrating to share your advice with us. much appreciated! and congratulations on a job well done. :)

in all, how long did you devote studying to this test?
 
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