Round one of UWorld done - thoughts.
I just completed my first round of UWorld. Maybe 300 questions were things I was currently studying in class, but everything was random otherwise. I felt decent about scoring roughly average given that I haven’t seen a lot of this stuff in a long time, but I’ve certainly heard myths that you have to score at least a __% on your first-pass UWorld or else you will definitely fail STEP and have just wasted the past two years. That’s BS.
What I would do differently for first round UWorld:
1. Never let myself get lazy about reading rationales. I’ve been keeping this composition book of “test corrections” that I write as I review the exams, then later add anything needed to my relevant notes. Unfortunately, I opted to write something like “see question 4 on exam 22 for god chart on ___”. Going back to exam 22 and reading question 4 when I have 6 weeks to study SO MUCH is probably not going to happen, which means I’ve done myself a disservice. Write things down, re-read them the next day.
2. Don’t sweat a bad test or two. I had this one test that was the opposite of Slumdog Millionaire in that it asked all the things I’m bad at. I scored below a 40%, felt terrible and hopeless, and learned very little. Luckily the next day I realized that the topics on that test could easily show up on STEP and I’d be a fool to not take advantage of getting a test that focused so well on my weaknesses. What a blessing in disguise.
3. Keep track of questions I miss for test-taking reasons like self-doubt or misreading a question. UWorld keeps track of what questions you change the answer on and whether it was from right to wrong, wrong to wrong, etc, but I know that there are lots of questions where I eye the right answer for a good minute or two, review other choices, make a BS reason to choose something else like “this answer doesn’t make the most sense, but I bet its picking up on some nuiance that my stupid brain just doesn’t know; I was probably wrong about that one I just spent the last two minutes trying and failing to think of a reason not to choose.” All of this only to find out that my gut was right.
I think those are the main things. Class finished last week, so I’m officially on my dedicated study period and there’s so much more time now... Although this is awesome, I feel so much more pressure to be making the best use of this gift. However, I don’t think it makes sense to get back to UWorld until I study at least my weak topics, which leaves me staring at the array of testbooks and handmade notes that bedazzle every room in my apartment with their shiny density.
Anyways, I started part 2 videos for Doctors in Training today and am not disappointed so far. It’s nice to have some form of structure right now. Since this is a new-ish resource, I’ll hopefully be able to provide a more thorough review in a week or so.
