Stupid Mistakes on Exam

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MoscowAbe

MoscowAbe

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Thinking of some of the stupid mistakes I made on the test gives me a headache. Was hoping to compare with fellow test-takers how many mistakes they usually recall after testing.
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long time lurker here. let me join in on the whining.

took my test last week. i was fairly calm while taking the test, but the moment i left the test center, i started to re-live all the stupid mistakes that i had made.

to echo someone else above, what really really gets to me isn't necessarily the really difficult questions or the random anatomy BS that they spring on you, but the STUPID, DUMB mistakes that you make because your brain just can't pull out simple facts in the heat of the moment. i forgot MOA's to SIMPLE SIMPLE drugs and made lots of "well, it can't be that easy" errors that, in retrospect, really were that easy. all the simple facts that i took for granted seemed to have escaped me when it mattered the most, and i would realize that i had missed a queston halfway through the NEXT block, which sure didn't help me.

it's seriously haunting me every single day, and the more time that goes by, the more i remember and the more it gnaws away at me. I already know i missed ~25-30 questions, about half of which were incredibly stupid. Then there's all the other stuff that is so "out there" it's impossible to look up. And all the stuff that I have already blocked out of my memory. I'm estimating at least 50 questions wrong. I think overall fatigue did play a big factor for me, because it seemed like the further into the test I got, the more questions I was marking, and the less clearly I could think/reason. I actually did do an NBME followed by a Free 150 a couple weeks beforehand, but I feel like its a whole different ballgame when you actually get there, because you take it a little more seriously.

i was scoring in the 250's on NBMEs/UWSA's, but i can't imagine scoring that well on the actual test. i KNOW when i perform well on a test/block of questions, and i certainly didn't feel that way walking out of my exam last week. UGH. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

i hope my score gets lost and never comes out. i dont think i could face the reality. at this point, i really hope for a > 230.
 
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i'm estimating missing 50 Q's at minimum. probably more along the lines of 60-70, and who knows how many questions i mis-read or mis-interpreted that i don't even realize. i was marking 15 Q's easily in the last 3 blocks. the stupid anatomy, embryo signaling genes, skin path, and random molecular bio was killing me.

like i said, i know when i do well and when i don't, and i could tell i was no longer thinking straight by the end. i kind of wish i stuck to doing more UWORLD (incorrects) in the week leading up to the exam to build stamina rather than trying to do another pass of FA. i think i got rusty with questions and lost steam toward the end.

i'm not mad at myself for missing the really hard stuff. just missing the stuff that i really should have known. i swear i read the word "diphenhydramine" and no longer had any idea what class of drug it was or what it was used for. i forgot basic coagulation cascade factors, etc.

AHHHH. i do feel better that everyone else seems to be in the same boat. i guess it's just hard not to beat yourself up after 3 months of hardcore studying. it's not like i didn't expect to miss stuff. i just didnt expect to miss stuff i usually could recite in my sleep.
 
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happypuppet said:
i'm estimating missing 50 Q's at minimum. probably more along the lines of 60-70, and who knows how many questions i mis-read or mis-interpreted that i don't even realize. i was marking 15 Q's easily in the last 3 blocks. the stupid anatomy, embryo signaling genes, skin path, and random molecular bio was killing me.

like i said, i know when i do well and when i don't, and i could tell i was no longer thinking straight by the end. i kind of wish i stuck to doing more UWORLD (incorrects) in the week leading up to the exam to build stamina rather than trying to do another pass of FA. i think i got rusty with questions and lost steam toward the end.

i'm not mad at myself for missing the really hard stuff. just missing the stuff that i really should have known. i swear i read the word "diphenhydramine" and no longer had any idea what class of drug it was or what it was used for. i forgot basic coagulation cascade factors, etc.

AHHHH. i do feel better that everyone else seems to be in the same boat. i guess it's just hard not to beat yourself up after 3 months of hardcore studying. it's not like i didn't expect to miss stuff. i just didnt expect to miss stuff i usually could recite in my sleep.
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That's pretty much the same boat I'm in. I'm expecting to miss at least 40, plus who knows how many more I misread. And about the feeling of "can this question really be that easy," it really is a double-edged sword. Sometimes, thinking they are just testing something easy leads you to the wrong answer. I remember I had an anatomy question where somebody had pain over a certain part of their shoulder, and they were asking about muscles involved. So I thought they were simply just testing if you knew the muscle that you find over this part of the shoulder, but no, once I got out, I realized (after looking it up, I know, cardinal sin), that there is a common injury that actually "refers" pain to this part of the shoulder. It's these types of questions that I thought were "easy" that I breezed through and don't remember that I am worried about. Why I remembered this one specifically I don't know, but I'm sure there are a ton of others just like this that I am not remembering.
 
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I had to suppress any thoughts of looking up answers to questions from the test because they constantly seemed to jump back into mind throughout the past 2 weeks since i took step 1. the biggest one that is gnawing at me was a question that basically asked, what enzyme breaks down glycogen (in a roundabout way), for some reason i convinced myself they couldn't be asking me such a straight-forward question! i also missed a simple renal phys question showing relative conc. of various solutes (urinary space/filtered conc.) and asked which one was K+ in a person with a high K+ diet. i could probably have picked it out in my sleep most days but i choked on the actually exam. i think its pretty naturally to have some blunders in a 322 question test. i'm just hoping i can get anywhere near my UWSA practice exam scores (which were 260's), in fact, within 20 points would make me a happy camper. we'll see! good luck to everyone!
 
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MilkmanAl said:
I missed one question that plain asked what you could see if you had a camera at the level of the laryngopharynx. I also missed another asking what drug would be contraindicated in glaucoma.
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I had this question, answered epiglottis and then asked an ENT about it after the test. He said I was right.
 
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runnerdoc7 said:
I had this question, answered epiglottis and then asked an ENT about it after the test. He said I was right.
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According to Clinically Oriented Anatomy, epiglottis is not a part of laryngopharynx but oropharynx. So, it can't be epiglottis. I'd say it would be either false or true vocal cords.
 
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yeah i was thinking it would be the false vocal cords (not true cuz those are inferior). who knows w/o reading the question though.

i missed a bunch of questions, but the one that stands out the most was about the composition of mucin (oligosaccharide, peptidoglycan, glycoprotein, etc). it was especially annoying since i had the right answer and changed it in the last 2 seconds of the block :rolleyes:
 
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anumama said:
yeah i was thinking it would be the false vocal cords (not true cuz those are inferior). who knows w/o reading the question though.

i missed a bunch of questions, but the one that stands out the most was about the composition of mucin (oligosaccharide, peptidoglycan, glycoprotein, etc). it was especially annoying since i had the right answer and changed it in the last 2 seconds of the block :rolleyes:
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the mucin one sounds like its a hard question
 
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Like someone who posted above, I had a difficult time trying to remember much about the long tiring test. But with each passing day, random questions would come back to me and I'd look up FA etc only to realize I had made some mistakes that were beyond silly. So I stopped looking up answers altogether.

Now, I am going through that hell all over again. Having recently taken the CS I am going through the same phase of random things coming back to me and making me realize how stupid I was at the time.

ahh the agony of waiting...
 
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kryptik said:
like they say, everything in FA is fair game, 2010FA pg 313 #3 under "Salivary secretions"
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i would have overlooked that i'm sure, but what were the other answer choices?

were they like glycoproteins, gags, proteoglycans, etc?
 
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Oh god....you guys have no idea how happy (sorry) reading has made me. Ive driven everyone around me insane agonizing over the stupid mistakes Ive made. The more I think about it the more I feel I come up with 'wrong questions...and the thing that bothers me THE most is the questions that were SO easy yet I still got them wrong because my brain just couldn't pull out the fact...or the stuff that ive refused to read because I thought i knew it cold, yet in the exam i 2nd guessed myself....AHHHHH....

im expecting my score tomorrow, this is honestly THE WORST....i think ive counted atleast 30 mistakes. My nbmes and uworld were all in the 250.s At this point, breaking 230 will be a miracle. GOD help me! This thread has made me feel so much better ...more than alcohol...who thought huh lol
 
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If the easy ones were weighed heavily then most ppl on this thread would have failed....I'm in the same boat, made some really dumb mistakes..
 
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Regardless how much u think u did awful stupid mistakes in exam ,there ll b someone who did worse stupid mistake,listen to this guys.
I had 99 in step1,and was well prepared for.step 2,i got 75%in UW.
Anyway my problem is tht i got anxious at exam night and i just cant fall asleep,i just lie in the bed all night.
Anyway in exam day,i finished.7 blocksout of 8,i did them well BUT somehow my stupid brain cancel my last block,all 44 questions were gone,not answered ,not even read.
I dont knw wut came to my mind at that second.or how i skipped whole block of questions.
Now all my chances of getting.to residency r screwed.
I wish they let me fail so i can take the exam again but i think i ll pass ob 79 or something.
Bottom line,dont be upset guys if u miss couple of easy questions.
I just hate myslf now! I prepared so hard for tht exam. . .
 
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earth86 said:
Regardless how much u think u did awful stupid mistakes in exam ,there ll b someone who did worse stupid mistake,listen to this guys.
I had 99 in step1,and was well prepared for.step 2,i got 75%in UW.
Anyway my problem is tht i got anxious at exam night and i just cant fall asleep,i just lie in the bed all night.
Anyway in exam day,i finished.7 blocksout of 8,i did them well BUT somehow my stupid brain cancel my last block,all 44 questions were gone,not answered ,not even read.
I dont knw wut came to my mind at that second.or how i skipped whole block of questions.
Now all my chances of getting.to residency r screwed.
I wish they let me fail so i can take the exam again but i think i ll pass ob 79 or something.
Bottom line,dont be upset guys if u miss couple of easy questions.
I just hate myslf now! I prepared so hard for tht exam. . .
Click to expand...

so sorry to hear that brother.. How did the block end? Did you accidently click on end block? Maybe you can talk to them about the accident and see what you can do ?
 
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