My Essentials to Surviving the Journey to Step 1/COMLEX
Disclaimer I have NOT yet gotten my step score, but this is just a list of things I found absolutely essential on my journey to taking step one. Keep in mind everyone is different, different things work for different people. Here’s what worked for me:
1. USMLE First Aid. Obviously. I had mine completely unbound and hole punched and I put it in a binder. I’m the type of person who needs to rewrite things while I study in order to fully understand them. So having it unbound allowed me to make my own notes and put them in the sections i needed them. I must say, as time went on I had to buy bigger and bigger binders and by the end it was a little overwhelming (and heavy to carry back and forth to school) but overall I’m happy with my decision to use it this way.
2. GIVE YOURSELF A DAY OFF. Every week of my dedicated study period I gave myself a day that I allowed myself to look at NOTHING medicine related. I used this day to reset my brain and get prepared for another week of powering through. For me this was every Sunday. I would make alllll my meals for the week so that I didn’t have to worry about it. I caught up on TV shows and allowed myself to not feel completely isolated from the world. I can’t stress enough how important I find this. All my friends at school who didn’t do this burnt out SO QUICKLY and noticed a HUGE difference once they gave themselves a day to relax.
3. Have a support system. Have a group of 2 or 3 people at school who support each other and allow you to vent about the uworld block you didn’t do well on, to celebrate the NBME you rocked or to just have meals with and take well deserved breaks throughout the day with. Honestly this was probably my saving grace. Me and my friend would pretty much alternate weeks of being stressed out and the other one would always assume the role of being positive and building the other person up. I was pleasantly surprised with how much support we all give each other around this time. Be supportive of other people. You can be the difference they need that day to push themselves further. Plus, I always find being nice to other people makes me feel better. Half the battle of these tests is the mindset you go in with and positivity was something I really used to my advantage. Which brings me to my next point
4. POSITIVITY. Look. I am in NO means a positive person. Ask anyone who knows me. But in the past year, I’ve learned the importance of a positive outlook in achieving your goals. Positivity doesn’t mean being unrealistic, it means being okay with outcomes that may not be what you wanted and being open to adapting to those outcome. If you dwell on a bad score, you will become that bad score. I guarantee it. Look yourself in the mirror every day and tell yourself how amazing you are, how hard you are working, and that you are going to do great. I know, I know, it sounds so stupid. But honestly IT WORKS. I even put post-its around my house when it came down to crunch time so that if I was having any negative thoughts, it was an extra boost to remind me that I can do it. I set an alarm on my phone to go off every single day from before dedicated till now that said “you’re doing great and you’re going to do amazing on your boards”. At first it feels like empty words but you don’t even realize how much it is shaping your brain. On test day, if I felt like I was burning out, I would scribble a “you can do it!” on my scrap paper. It’s these little things that re-shape your brain to be confident in yourself.
5. Listen to your body. There are going to be some days you just feel more burnt out than others. On those days, listen to your body and call it a day early. Sometimes it is WAY more beneficial to have that time to reset your brain than to get frustrated and not even fully absorb the information you’re studying.
6. Exercise. Besides the millions of studies that showing exercise is good for your brain, I found it to be my saving grace stress reliever. Plus it’s good for you! Working out in the mornings would give me a clearer head throughout the day and having it to relieve my stress at night allowed me to sleep so much more soundly and wake up feeling refreshed. Plus sitting around all day isn’t the BEST thing for your body. Make sure you get up every few hours and walk around. I would take a lap around my campus at least 3 times every day. After all I’m an osteopath- mind body soul, my people.
7. Utilize your school staff. Whether thats a therapist, a mentor, academic specialist, the dean... whoever it may be, sometimes you just need to hear from someone higher up that you’re doing the right thing. AND before you decide to change a test day, make sure you consult with someone higher up. We doubt ourselves way more than we should and this could be our own worst enemy. I had a friend who changed his test day frantically after he took his FIRST practice test and now he’s doing amazing on them and still has to wait a whole month for his test day.
8. Don’t study at home. Now this might be a complete personal preference, but I really find it way less isolating if you are in a quiet room with people. Plus on test day, you’re going to be in a room surrounded by other people so you might as well get used to it now. Besides that, I like to use my apartment as my safe haven. When I’m home, it’s relaxation time. I feel like if I studied here at all times my lines would get blurred and I would just constantly be feeling like I should be studying. This allowed me to get good sleep at night and gave me something to look forward to after a long day of studying.
10. GET SLEEP. This one is easy. You can’t absorb anything if you’re sleep deprived.
11. Practice under testing conditions. I bought myself a laptop stand (for the duel purpose of also keeping my posture better and preventing headaches) and a mouse for my laptop so that I could simulate how I would be taking the test on test day. Honestly I really feel like this helped because I felt completely at ease at the testing center and it didn’t take me time to get used to using an old fashioned mouse again. I just hopped right in to it. (It also helps that the study room at my school LITERALLY looks like the test center rooms. Gray walls. gray cubicles.The slight resemblance of prison... anyway, I digress.)
12. Do not listen to anyone else. This is by far the hardest one. Don’t pay attention to how other people are doing on NBME’s. Don’t listen to other people talk about topics they’re geniuses on. and DON’T go on reddit after you get a bad practice test score. (Seriously this will just dig you in to a hole of despair). People tend only to talk about their achievements and not their weaknesses. Sure they know the glycolysis pathway backwards and forwards but maybe they know absolutely nothing else! Try your absolute hardest to have tunnel vision.
13. Let everyone know how it’s going to be. If you’re anything like me, this helped A LOT. About 2 months before my test, I let everyone outside of med school know I would be off the grid. This took so much pressure off of me because then everyone knew that I wasn’t trying to ditch on their birthday celebrations. I was forcing myself to study. (And if you have AMAZING friends like me, they’ll send you love and support while you’re hard at work and give you something great to look forward to after your test day!)
14. Plan your practice tests wisely. This is something I wish I knew before I started. All of my NBME’s and practice tests I would take on Saturday mornings after I studied for the entire week, looked at the computer screen for hours on ends and just read SO MANY question stems. I didn’t realize how burnt out I was on Saturday mornings until I took a practice exam on a Monday after having a Sunday off and ACED it. Although the practice tests are great study tools, the scores you get really do impact your mindset and your confidence level. So make sure when you take them you have ideal conditions to do your best.
15. The day before your test... take the day off. Give your eyes a rest. But keep busy and TRY to keep your nerves at bay. I made a little review sheet of things I know I wanted to remember on test day and glanced at it from time to time when I had those moments of panic that I should be studying SOMETHING. Make sure you know where your testing center is, take a drive to it. Exercise. Eat well. Hydrate. TRY and go to bed at a decent hour. Tell yourself how amazing you are. Breathe. It’s almost over. :)
