(alternate title: If Anyone Else Emails Me, I’m Just Going to Cut/Paste This Post)

while the grades are still out (but the queries are coming in), here is my short & sweet list of criteria to do well on NBME Subject Examinations…

i have no secret to scoring well with little effort. if you’re looking for a magic formula or confidential inside information, you’ll have to do another Google search. the only way i know how to do very well is to work very hard. which probably sounds like complete and total common sense to most folks. it is. nothing i have to say in this post is unique or ground-breaking. in fact, the same advice could apply to just about any exam.

because preparing for any exam is the same: you reap what you sow.

1) start early.
like, early. if you know you’re going to be writing a shelf exam at the end of the semester, start reviewing Step 1 supplementary material from the very first day.

2) use a variety of resources.
everyone and their dog has an opinion on how well Kaplan or First Aid or BRS or Rapid Review or Road Map or a variety of other “high-yield” textbooks prepare you for Step 1 and shelf exams. other than aesthetics and presentation, i can’t really claim i prefer one over another. some people say “memorize everything in First Aid from cover to cover and you’ll be fine.” that might be true. i have no idea. i just know that i don’t like to put all of my eggs in one basket and feel best prepared by reviewing and comparing several resources. depending on your school and curriculum, relying on in-class notes and PowerPoint presentations probably won’t be enough (see #1).

3) accept what you don’t know.
in some ways, preparing for a 125 question multiple-choice exam on a subject base covering every conceivable system in the body (ie: physiology) is a lot like searching a zillion haystacks in Saskatchewan for 125 needles. this is why starting early is important. knowing 50 or 60 haystacks really well probably won’t get you the grade you want. but you still have a limited amount of time to cover a TON of material and it’s important to accept the fact that you won’t know everything about everything. there will be stuff on there that you don’t know and have never seen before. take a deep breath. guess. and move on without letting it break your confident pace. do NOT make yourself short of time by dwelling on a question you don’t know and limiting precious seconds for questions you DO know.

4) don’t let the exam psych you out.
it can be intimidating! writing retired Step 1 material after only one or two semesters of Basic Sciences is sort of scary. it’s an “official” process. there are rules. before the exam, people will be talking and whispering and freaking out all around you. don’t get sucked up in their whirlpool. breathe. anchor yourself by remembering the many hours of work you have invested. be confident in your success. if you go in expecting to do miserably, you probably will.

5) don’t dwell on it afterwards.
unless you’re the type of person that can go home and remember all of the questions that stumped you, write them down, look them up, and learn from your mistakes before Step 1 (which i most definitely am not) — let it go. avoid the people on campus that are moaning and complaining about how horribly they bombed. revel a bit in your hard work. take a nap. get up and move on to the next class or exam or assignment. this is especially important if you have another shelf exam coming up. dwelling on the fact that you very-probably-might-have failed one is bound to influence your confidence for the next. once the bubbled scantrons are in, they’re in. worrying about it now can do harm, but not a single ounce of good.

all that said, Kendra has a nice list of specific study tips that might be more along the lines of what you were looking for. good luck!

“Visualize your success and move towards it.”
~ Joyce’s mom

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