Hello everyone, I just got home from my exam about 3 hours ago.
My exam was scheduled for 10 AM but I showed up at 9 AM and they let me start around 9:15 AM. I feel that the exam was fair and was comparable to Kaplan Qbank.
The breakdown of my exam was as follows (and I was a bit surprised):
40% path, 20% physiology, 15% biochem/genetics/molecular biology and the rest was an even mixture of neuro, behavior/biostats, pharm, immuno, micro. I would say that i had about 15-20 pharm questions, 20 microbio, 25 neuro, about 15 immuno, 10 embryo and 20 behavioral.
I was a bit surprised about the pathology, because mostly everyone I have talked to said that most of the exam was pathology. There was more physio than I expected, KNOW YOUR ENDOCRINE PHYSIOLOGY and HOW HORMONES WORK!
Also there were your typical arrow questions. With biochem I had quite a few questions on enzymes and key steps in the pathways, as well as vitamin questions, and about 7 genetics questions. With regards to molecular biology I was asked questions on collagen synthesis, identifying where steps in pathways occur on a picture of a cell, and also some questions on the biochemistry of hematological disorders (i.e. sickle cell and B-thal). Also I had about 3 questions on the glycogen/lysosomal storage diseases.
I also had LOTS OF IMAGES! For each block of 46 questions, I would say I had 6 images for every 46 questions so about 40 images on the whole test! The images were not necessary to answer many of the questions. For neuro I had 2 images of an epidural hematoma, 1 image of a brain stem and being able to Identify a Cranial Nerve, and an image of the Anterior cerebral artery and being able to identify what an occlusion would due (contra leg paralysis)
For pharm the questions were straightforward, also for micro i felt the questions were fairly easy. embryo wasn't too bad either. Anatomy was mainly focusing on the brachial plexus (about 5 questions), lower limb, and GI blood supply.
Immuno questions were more vague, and I felt there were a bit more difficult. know ur CD markers and all of your immunodeficiencies.
I had 3 heart sounds, and the stems didn't help much and the sounds were tough, lol...so i took a best guess.
I had 3 calculations: Loading Dose, Filtration Fraction, Cardiac Output using Fick's Principle.
Some questions were only about 8 words long, and some questions were the entire screen along with tables of blood data and gases.
For my preparation I used the entire Kaplan series and FA. I say Kaplan is absolutely necessary for BIOCHEM and PHYSIOLOGY. I also used Kaplan Qbank, U world, and the free 150 questions. The exam is NOT AS HARD AS U WORLD, DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED...I am usually good at pharm and on UWORLD I FELT THE QUESTIONS WERE SOO HARD, so please don't get discouraged by UWORLD, Kaplan Qbank was a closer estimate to how the real exam is.
I know a lot of you have questions, so please feel free to ask them, and I will try to respond as soon as I can.
Finally, I would like to personally thank all of the fellow users, especially: Haisook, Seetal, ArunJose, Ashishkabir, Faith, LEE USMLE and the other moderators. If there is anyone else whom I forgot, I do apologize and would like to thank everyone. I hope that the exam went OK, It was not impossible and it was doable. I felt some questions were very simple and some were utterly hard. But overall I am feeling good. I realized I made 5 stupid mistakes, and for each block I counted about 10 questions I was unsure about, so If anyone knows if this is good or bad, lemme know LOL.
My exam was scheduled for 10 AM but I showed up at 9 AM and they let me start around 9:15 AM. I feel that the exam was fair and was comparable to Kaplan Qbank.
The breakdown of my exam was as follows (and I was a bit surprised):
40% path, 20% physiology, 15% biochem/genetics/molecular biology and the rest was an even mixture of neuro, behavior/biostats, pharm, immuno, micro. I would say that i had about 15-20 pharm questions, 20 microbio, 25 neuro, about 15 immuno, 10 embryo and 20 behavioral.
I was a bit surprised about the pathology, because mostly everyone I have talked to said that most of the exam was pathology. There was more physio than I expected, KNOW YOUR ENDOCRINE PHYSIOLOGY and HOW HORMONES WORK!
Also there were your typical arrow questions. With biochem I had quite a few questions on enzymes and key steps in the pathways, as well as vitamin questions, and about 7 genetics questions. With regards to molecular biology I was asked questions on collagen synthesis, identifying where steps in pathways occur on a picture of a cell, and also some questions on the biochemistry of hematological disorders (i.e. sickle cell and B-thal). Also I had about 3 questions on the glycogen/lysosomal storage diseases.
I also had LOTS OF IMAGES! For each block of 46 questions, I would say I had 6 images for every 46 questions so about 40 images on the whole test! The images were not necessary to answer many of the questions. For neuro I had 2 images of an epidural hematoma, 1 image of a brain stem and being able to Identify a Cranial Nerve, and an image of the Anterior cerebral artery and being able to identify what an occlusion would due (contra leg paralysis)
For pharm the questions were straightforward, also for micro i felt the questions were fairly easy. embryo wasn't too bad either. Anatomy was mainly focusing on the brachial plexus (about 5 questions), lower limb, and GI blood supply.
Immuno questions were more vague, and I felt there were a bit more difficult. know ur CD markers and all of your immunodeficiencies.
I had 3 heart sounds, and the stems didn't help much and the sounds were tough, lol...so i took a best guess.
I had 3 calculations: Loading Dose, Filtration Fraction, Cardiac Output using Fick's Principle.
Some questions were only about 8 words long, and some questions were the entire screen along with tables of blood data and gases.
For my preparation I used the entire Kaplan series and FA. I say Kaplan is absolutely necessary for BIOCHEM and PHYSIOLOGY. I also used Kaplan Qbank, U world, and the free 150 questions. The exam is NOT AS HARD AS U WORLD, DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED...I am usually good at pharm and on UWORLD I FELT THE QUESTIONS WERE SOO HARD, so please don't get discouraged by UWORLD, Kaplan Qbank was a closer estimate to how the real exam is.
I know a lot of you have questions, so please feel free to ask them, and I will try to respond as soon as I can.
Finally, I would like to personally thank all of the fellow users, especially: Haisook, Seetal, ArunJose, Ashishkabir, Faith, LEE USMLE and the other moderators. If there is anyone else whom I forgot, I do apologize and would like to thank everyone. I hope that the exam went OK, It was not impossible and it was doable. I felt some questions were very simple and some were utterly hard. But overall I am feeling good. I realized I made 5 stupid mistakes, and for each block I counted about 10 questions I was unsure about, so If anyone knows if this is good or bad, lemme know LOL.
n that is a feat post I'm planing on taking my exam in feb n I just started doing questions n I feel like I donno nythong even though I studies all subjects twice ....is this normal ? As I do questions will I pick up ?
