Hi all. I’m looking for some advice and guidance on how to move forward.
I’m an IMG and I’ve been prepping for more than a year now, I took NBME 24 last week and got 188, UWSA1=190, test was scheduled on Sept. 30th but have cancelled it. I feel like I read all the materials I was supposed to, did all the questions I was supposed to, but have completely failed, literally.
A little background, definitely was a below average student, crammed the night before and barely passed kinda student. Never thought about becoming a doctor, was only interested in the human body, but have decided to go down this route and become a doctor.
I’ve definitely struggled with disciplining myself to sit down and focus, I wasn’t able to focus for months at a time, but there were some days where I was productive. In the beginning I watched Pathoma and did Robbins questions afterwards, then moved on to Kaplan videos and lectures, after that started UW, read every question carefully and annotated. I was going to leave all the memorizations right before the test, I guess to cram it in because I thought if I memorize it earlier then I would forget everything. I thought maybe I would score lower on the practice tests because I hadn’t yet memorized everything (ex. anatomy, pharm, micro etc.). I thought I had understood everything that was to understand, but judging from my scores I guess I still haven’t fully grasped most of the concepts.
So now I feel lost and I don’t know what I did wrong and what was/is right. I think my whole study plan/schedule was a bust, I originally thought I could take it in 6 months, but that was such a naïve thought. My new plan is to do B&B videos, do 1 block of UW everyday, re-watch Pathoma, watch Sketchy micro and pharm. I hope I can get some sound advice on a new schedule and maybe a reality check. Thank you for reading my sob story.
These are the materials I’ve used so far:
1. Kaplan videos w/ lecture notes
2. Kaplan Qbank, did half
3. UWorld 1.5x 53% correct
4. Pathoma
5. Robbins Review of Pathology
Practice tests:
1. UWSA 1= 190 Sept. 2019
2.NBME 24=188 Sept. 2019
3. Kaplan SIM2=50% February 2019
4. Kaplan Diagnostic=37% November 2018