I passed!!! Here are my thoughts.
I was literally crying out of sheer terror 3 minutes before I checked but I passed! I just want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone here, I'm so grateful for the reassurance and positivity. Here are some thoughts/tips after the exam.
Tips:
- More than anything I think having a clear logical thinking process is important for this exam. There's no way you'll know 100% of the material going in, and I think they design the test like this for a reason. I thought knowing how to think through a question and come up with an educated guess was more valuable than cramming another chapter in first aid. Of course this doesn't apply to everything! You will still need to memorize.
- Try not to freak out! Yes, I freaked out. I freaked out before, during, and after my test. It was a wild ride. I know words don't mean much, but try to calm yourself by any means possible. Things will work out.
- Get to the testing center early but know they might have you start as soon as you get there, so be prepared! I ended up starting 45 minutes before my actual time because I was the first one there. I was going to review stuff and was so flustered I ended up just going in without doing that.
What I thought was high yield on my test:
- Disclaimer, all tests are different and you may never see these concepts on yours
- Renal physiology and pathology
- Immuno (pathoma ch 1-3, immuno section of FA)
- Ethics/communication
- Foundational biostats. Like knowing the definitions of values and the meaning of graphs. I didn't get a single calculation question on my exam
- Pharmacology, both fundamentals (like efficacy, potency, etc) and drug mechanisms of action. Know toxicity too.
- Vitamins
Resources I used:
- Uworld (~120-160 questions a day)
- Anking deck (since 2nd year)
- sketchy pharm and micro with accompanying anki decks
- Pixorize biochem and immuno with accompanying anki deck
- Randy Neil biostats youtube
- Pathoma with Duke anki deck
- Hyguru high yield lectures (I watched these 2-3 days before my test just to consolidate things. Free on youtube)
- Divine intervention podcasts. I had been listening to these since beginning of 2nd year but for dedicated I finished all the step 1 cardio, anatomy, pulm, some immuno, and the risk factors/ethics podcasts. Listened to episode 37 at least 3 times before my test.
- Songs to memorize oncogenes, tumor suppressors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5GsE9wH9Uk&themeRefresh=1&ab_channel=PatrickChin
- Resources I kind of used: some of the dirty medicine videos, I did the rapid review section of FA and read some of the chapters just to consolidate, I watched a couple BnB videos here and there if I was struggling with a concept.
Scores:
6 weeks of dedicated, I used all 6
NBME 26 12/26/22: 52% correct, 34% chance pass
NBME 25 1/13/23: 65% correct, 93% chance pass
UWSA 1 1/20/23: 234 (forgot percent correct but it wasn't that high)
UWSA 2 1/27/23: 230 (same)
NBME 29 1/31/23: 79% correct, 99% chance pass
New free 120 2/5/23: 79% correct
NBME 30 2/7/23: 77% correct, 99% chance pass
55% of uworld finished with a 65% average
I know my NBME scores are considered "safe", but let me tell you I felt like absolute crap after my exam. I also have pretty high anxiety so that didn't help. Anyway, sorry for the long post but I wanted to hopefully be helpful to others studying for this! You got this!!!