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My Ck experience-245

5K views 21 replies 10 participants last post by  shilpapraveen 
#1 · (Edited)
First of all I want to thank my friend who helped me and inspired me and this forums really helped me.I hope this post is useful to atleast a few ppl.
My effective preparation time- 5 months
Materials- Kaplan, MTB 2 & 3
Qbanks- kaplan and UW
nbme 4-198 (5 weeks before the exam)
UWSA- 228 (1 week before the exam)
Free 150 practice questions- 90%
REAL EXAM- 245

I know my scores do not match my real exam score but I did few things which really helped me improve my score.I know its not an awsome score but I hope my advice helps.

1.Be thorough with all the concepts of UW. Really try to absorb every concept from UW. Consolidate the whole UW, by writing notes, or revising it again.Be throrough with MTB as well.Revise it as many times as you can.I was able to revise the whole MTB in 4 days before the exam.

2.First identify your weak areas and target it , focus on that first and make sure your clear about every concept in that topic.

3.Don't panic when you get low scores in NBME's or UWSA we write these exams to know our weak areas, once you know where you have to improve just don't waste time going through the topics which you already know, focus on the weak areas.My weak areas were cardio, psychiatry and biostats and peads which I got high end performance in the real exam.

4.Be thorough with biostatistics, as you will have less time to think .Time management is the key . I had 8 - 10 min to go through the marked questions except for the drug ad blocks.practice your time from the UW, by doing questions in timed mode.

5.This is the most important - a day before exam just relax , sleep effectively,
BE CALM. when the mind is cool :cool:, it actually functions beyond our imagined limitations.So just keep the cool and you are going to do just fine.I have observed that i was little worried when I was giving my step 1 , I literally got a headache by the time I reached the last blocks. In Ck I was really calm and I was just enjoying the questions and I really had the energy to do more blocks after the last one.:)

Believe in yourself and Keep getting better every day :)

If anyone has specific questions about preparation ,I will be more than happy to help.

I have my Step 2 Cs soon....so PRAY for me please....:sorry:
 
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#16 ·
congratulations for gr8 score..

my weak areas is pediatrics and psychiatry...i got less score in it in both nbme's i did....
what did you study for it?...(i did mtb2 and 3 for psychiatry and mtb2,3 and kaplan LN for peds, but still find difficulty answering questions..)

any suggestion..?
thanks and goodluckHappy-2[/QUOTE
Can u tell me the subjects for which mtb's should be studied in step2?
 
#10 ·
Uw is enough..Infact I feel there is so much information in UW, really getting to know everything and consolidating it , in itself will need some effort..
Drug abstarct questions are doable, but the tricky part is the time, I got drug add and abstarct in the same block so had infact little time but manageed it.I left it for the end , and came back to it.Practicing UW is enough for drug ad questions.Try to understand the concepts of biostats.
 
#12 ·
Hi great score and post! Congrats. :)
I just started my ck prep now and trying to read Kaplan. Do you think it helped and was worth the time to do either Kaplan lecture notes or video or better to skip that and get straight to MTB? I would appreciate your help. Thanks and good luck for CS! :)
 
#13 ·
Hi
I would say take one step at a time, you have to study kaplan inorder to master MTB and UW.. depends on your choice again.I know ck can be very overwhelming but you need the "grit" to keep moving forward.customize ur study according to you , no one can know that better than you.
 
#22 ·
this may sound a stupid question but how do you use the NBME to diagnose your weak areas?

also how many times did you read MTBs and UW?

I plan on taking NBME 4, 5 weeks before exam and UWSA 1 week before exam. my exam is on July 5.

Thanks.
well if you see the assesment performance analysis in nbme you will notice the subject wise bars, so the one which is wide is inconsistent performance and also you can see the borderline , high and low performance areas. low performance and wide bars are the areas you need to work on ...

Revision is the key I studied MTB 2 & 3 , 3 to 4 times.
 
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