I don't want to waste your time writing paragraphs of crap I did because I think it comes down to some simple concepts.
1) Work hard--my motivation was this is a once-in-a-lifetime test. Other students in my class finished early and went to the beach but I can do that later! No distractions!
2) It comes down to what you understand. A buddy of mine was top 10% in the class (I am not), and he scored a 236 (which is good). Somehow he did better on tests during med school than I, and he did for the most part understand what he learned. But I feel like I really struggled with concepts more (I sat next to him every day), and the stuff in FA then became basic, so I just used it as reference as I went through Uworld, never sat down to read FA actually. Which beings me to
3) ...I did Uworld ~2 1/2 times. So what. I don't think that is necessarily the most efficient and I think I may have wasted some time doing it. I did it 1. once, 2. all the ones I did wrong, then 3. once again.
Then I did most of kaplan Qbank, tried to stick to "high-yield, hard" only--which actually gave me some pearls.
4) I took a total of about 8 weeks just for these exams (studying for class IS board study). Our school gave us the kaplan prep course, and I went to it. For me, I think this was great to know how much focus I needed in certain areas, but overall optional. Barone was clutch.
Good luck! I can elaborate more if you want.
Chris
1) Work hard--my motivation was this is a once-in-a-lifetime test. Other students in my class finished early and went to the beach but I can do that later! No distractions!
2) It comes down to what you understand. A buddy of mine was top 10% in the class (I am not), and he scored a 236 (which is good). Somehow he did better on tests during med school than I, and he did for the most part understand what he learned. But I feel like I really struggled with concepts more (I sat next to him every day), and the stuff in FA then became basic, so I just used it as reference as I went through Uworld, never sat down to read FA actually. Which beings me to
3) ...I did Uworld ~2 1/2 times. So what. I don't think that is necessarily the most efficient and I think I may have wasted some time doing it. I did it 1. once, 2. all the ones I did wrong, then 3. once again.
Then I did most of kaplan Qbank, tried to stick to "high-yield, hard" only--which actually gave me some pearls.
4) I took a total of about 8 weeks just for these exams (studying for class IS board study). Our school gave us the kaplan prep course, and I went to it. For me, I think this was great to know how much focus I needed in certain areas, but overall optional. Barone was clutch.
Good luck! I can elaborate more if you want.
Chris