![]() You might not be giving yourself enough time between practice exams. Write these things down on a flash card or notepad. Find a new resource and try to commit to learning 1-2 new things each hour, and test yourself at the end of the hour. Reading the same things over and over often means you are just remembering (and not remembering) the same pieces of information, no matter how much of it is high-yield and solid review for the exam. Many schools have strict deadlines by which a student must sit for the exam and pushing the exam too long might not be a valid option or could even hurt your score.Įven though you are probably studying just fine, sometimes you need a change of pace. Students’ NBME scores often improve significantly when they finish the qbank and complete the key resources.īy contrast, if you have thoroughly made multiple passes through the key resources and your NBME scores are still below your goal, it may be time to re-evaluate your goal score (see below). If you haven’t at least completed one full pass of UWorld, you should not sit for Step 1. For example, I often encourage students to push their test date if they simply didn’t have time to get through the key resources. In the case of a student who has flexibility in their study schedule and perhaps didn’t prepare well (see above), this may be warranted. Many students are tempted to push back their exam when their NBME scores are continuously below their goal score. Be realistic about your Step 1 study timeline.Ī big question students ask is whether or not they should push back their Step 1 exam. Also, use a computer timer or stopwatch rather than your phone for timing! When studying, your phone should be silenced and you should be disconnected from social media.Ģ. Focus on each question in a short time period and move on. Try forcing yourself to focus by picking up the pace. Use a timer when reviewing UWorld questions.If you feel yourself drifting off while reading, switch to flashcards or practice questions for a while. It is also great to constantly mix up your resources. Turn passive studying into active studying. When reading First Aid, summarize some of the main, high yield points after every couple of pages.If you are nodding off continuously throughout the day, you aren’t truly absorbing those high-yield pathoma pearls or thoroughly attacking that UWorld qbank. Get a decent night’s sleep. When I create study schedules for students, I rarely have them work beyond 10 pm or before 8 am.If you can’t keep up with your USMLE study schedule or aren’t seeing improvement in your scores, focus on your efficiency in the following ways: Five hours of solid, focused study are better than ten mediocre hours of studying. The fact is, quality always surpasses quantity. ![]() In fact, the students who score the highest often aren’t the ones who are glued to First Aid for 24 hours, 7 days a week. Why aren’t my scores improving?” The truth is that time spent studying does not guarantee a good score. In my years as a tutor, perhaps one of the most frequent comments I hear from a student is: “But Lauryn, I am studying ALL the time. Be honest with yourself about your USMLE test prep methods. Read on for more on how to break through NBME practice test score stagnation! What do when your NBME practice test scores are not improving:ġ. That said, we have some tips to help you break through score plateaus for your NBME practice exams. Most students will interpret stagnation on NBMEs as a sign that they haven’t been studying the right information or that they are inefficiently studying – this is usually not the case. Often, we underperform on exam practices because they aren’t as important as the real test. You could also have a bad testing day, or just have not been up to taking a practice NBME when you just want to get the real one over with. You could be at a 250 level but get a 235 – that’s how much variability you could have by nature of being tested on a finite, specific body of knowledge. There is no way for an exam to adequately test you on your specific growing body of knowledge, so there will be huge amounts of variability from exam to exam. Everyone experiences score plateaus on practice tests, and there are numerous reasons for this. Many students see this as an opportunity for improvement, but what happens if the NBME scores don’t continue to rise? What happens if you truly aren’t scoring where you want on NBMEs before your step 1 test day?ĭon’t worry. Most wonder: Am I truly prepared? What happens if my score prediction is much lower than my goal Step 1 score?įrequently, the answers to these questions may initially feel negative (it’s common for students to receive an early NBME score or two that’s below their ideal score). Eli Freiman contributed to this post.įor most students, the anticipation leading up to their first NBME practice test is the same.
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