‘Twas the night before the Shelf exam…
tomorrow we write the NBME Subject Exams.
The primary mission of the NBME Subject Examination Program is to serve medical education by providing high-quality assessment tools as well as information and assistance to medical educators.
NBME subject tests are achievement tests in a broad sense, requiring medical students to solve scientific and clinical problems. Although students’ performance on the tests will reflect the learning specific to their course and clerkship experiences, their test scores will also reflect educational development resulting from the overall medical school experience.
~ from the NBME website
for those of you that don’t know, the National Board of Medical Examiners is the organization responsible for the United States Medical Licensing Exams. as such, these “shelf” subject exams are usually made up of questions from previous board exams.
this is a pretty big deal for all of us. these Officially Super Formal With Lots of Rules exams are relatively new for MUA and our MED 1 class is the first to write the Anatomy version and have it count toward our grade. MED 2 is writing a Medical Psychology shelf. MED 3 is writing either a Neuroscience or Microbiology shelf. and MED 4 is writing Pharmacology. scores are officially reported and will obviously reflect on the caliber of our academic institution and our preparation as students for life in the North American board-ruled system. the exam itself is only worth 25% of our final block grade (more or less in some of the other MED terms), but exposure to the format and material of the USMLE is invaluable.
there is really no better way to find out how much USMLE-relevant material we have learned and retained in the last 3 months. as someone that has consistently supplemented her class material with a couple of USMLE prep books, you can imagine…
i am SO excited.
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December 6th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Best of luck with the exam! Know you will do excellent with the amount of time you have put in studying.
December 6th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Good luck! Have fun and enjoy it! (I think you’re the only person in the history of my life I’ve ever been able to say that to…and actually mean it).
When you have a few minutes to breathe, I would LOVE an earplug tutorial. I use the orange shoppers ones too, but I have to press them so far into my ears and hold onto them for so long while they expand…and I never seem to wake up with both of them in my ears. Do you have the same problems or is it just me?
December 7th, 2007 at 8:21 am
good luck on your anatomy shelf exam! but be prepared for a little frustration. they do change your actual score based on everyone’s performance. i walk out of most shelf exams thinking i did absolutely horribly, and then find out later that i did exceptionally well. no one told me this, so i had to learn it the hard way! i have taken two shelves this week, and now only have to more to go! :)
December 15th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
HEY,TAKE IT EASY. SHELF DON’T PROOF ANYTHING. I HAVE DONE GREAT IN SOME OF THEM AND FLUNK IN OTHERS. JUST DO YOUR BEST AND GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.
SARAH HERE’S A HINT EAR PLUGS GO ON THE EARS THOSE ARE IN THE LATERAL ASPECT OF YOUR HEAD. IF YOU HAVE A CT-SCAN OF YOUR HEAD PUT THE EAR PLUGS AT BOTH SIDES OF THE AIR MASS
April 7th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
[...] as mentioned last semester, the National Board of Medical Examiners provides a set of subject examinations to medical schools for standardized testing of Basic Science course material. the exams are basically made up of old USMLE Step 1 questions. [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 6:03 am
[...] [my previous shelf exams: Anatomy, Biochemistry and Behavioral Sciences] [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 7:13 am
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March 17th, 2009 at 8:21 am
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