Hey peoples I just wanted to throw my story into the frey:
I consider myself to be a very "blue collar" student, nose to the grindstone, study hard and to exhaustion but demanding rest when sanity is at risk (i.e. not gunner by any stretch of the imagination and especially since gunners are smart- lol). Sub-3.0 GPA, etc.
I know I'm not the sharpest and my brain doesn't retain nearly as much as what it seems like everyone else's does but I was/am determined (more now that ever before in my entire life). I had a very ugly MCAT experience and standardized tests are the bain of my existence. I need to pass my boards at all costs (I know many of you feel this way too)... so I devised an "all-costs" plan:
The day after classes were done Mid-May-ish I drove 6 hrs to a "certain city", got there at 11pm with the ink still wet on my ACLS card I just got that day, got up the next morning and studied every weekday from 8am (sharp) until 3-6pm. No laptop, no toys, just me and my books in the library, I knew I had to stay focused or else there was no way I'd be prepared for the USMLE and the COMLEX, I'm just too mediocre and too unskilled at standardized tests.
Because I'm not totally insane I took the weekends off for the most part over the next 16 days of studying, which worked out well.
Our school bought us the kaplan books and my plan was to stress them first and then toward the end fill in the gaps with FA. I targeted my weakest areas like Biochem (omg so bad- and genetics- ugh), Micro and Pharm. I did some anatomy and some physio (just endocrine and renal cause those are 10,000% most important) but for the most part made it through cover to cover, studying (not skimming), those books. I went to FA after the Kaplan book and was not impressed, the information provided there is too first tier, and I felt like it really wasn't going to help me answer the 3 step questions. Pathophys for boards and wards is priceless. Pharm cards and lippincott pharm are fantastic too.
Here's what I learned: FA is crap but FA is a must. FA is crap because it's basically a fact book, not (come on lets be honest) a book of really tiered understanding of concepts. FA Is a must because, well, everyone studies from it and like it or not they cloak you with that bell curve just like everoyne else. Also the USMLE is not all 3-step questions, there was definitely a damn big share of one or two sentence questions about which amino acid is this or which enzyme is that.
I thought Qbank questions were right on if not a little harder (in some aspects) that the actual test. THE MOST VALUABLE PART OF THE QBANK IS NOT THE % SCORE.
*******if you only read one part of this post read this********
IMHO- if you are doing qbank only to see where you stand you're misusing it- STOP. IMO the TRUE value of the QBANK is 2 things: 1.) tell you what subject areas you are WEAK in (eat your ego, bite the bullet and go after these areas HARD) and what you are strong in (save your time-skim) and 2.) ENDURANCE- there are many reasons why not to do 5-15 questions at a time but the biggest one is you're not giving yourself a good sample size to guage from AND more importantly you're not building up any kind of endurance. This test is just as much endurance as it is knowledge. Building up to the USMLE I did two major things to prepare myself for the day and I can say 100% that by the time I was doing my 300th question I was maybe 10% down stamina wise from where I started and I didn't realize it until I walked out the Prometric door. I was/am very pleased.
Study during the day at the same time you'll be taking the exam (i.e. 8am-4pm) AND whenever you do questions do them 50 at a time, that way when you click that OPEN BLOCK button on exam day you won't be like- UGH another 50. I studied until 3 or 4 each day then ended my long study days with one block of 50 questions- while I was at my tired-est to make sure my brain didn't tank toward the end and do the classic "just click buttons to get it over with". As I said in the beginning, I am far from smart or skilled at test taking and I needed to get all of my points possible at all costs.
Sounds scary, may sound gunnierish but I'm just like many of you here, I would scour the forums here hoping for some glimpse of light, hope, something because my qbank was bringing me down and my confidence was never my defining trait. If/when I get my scores they're at least acceptable I'll post a screen shot I took of my USMLE Qbank final results as of March and my COMLEX final results as of June. The numbers are not impressive I can assure you.
And finally, many of you are probably thinking- man he's not a normal struggler like us, well all I can say to you is my qbank numbers probably dictated that I was a good chance of failure but after following the study schedule and techniques I set out above, if I still failed (or barely passed) even after all of that, I can say I did the very most possible I could do and really that should be your primary goal: no regrets. I'd rather fail because I studied incorrectly than fail because I didn't put in the effort or time. I think thats the most important lesson from this entire post for people like me (us).
Good luck everyone, keep ur fingers crossed for me...
Since I took the USMLE just yesterday I can't tell you "I was scoring XX% and I got XXX on the exam". Another problem is I did USMLE qbank from Janurary through March then COMLEX bank between March and now, so the USMLE qbank scores I post would be skewed since I took most of them not even having all the systems under my belt. I'll be here for questions and updates...
) that made me feel like throwing myself or something significantly heavy out of the window and then today I get a 76%....these scores are making me go bipolar 
