This is what worked for me, so it may not work for you, but I wanted to give back and write a post because I found (most of) this subreddit to be helpful during my dedicated.
We start medical school as an M2, so we were formally taught cards/pulm/gastro/endo/repro/renal. I had to relearn neuro, msk/derm, anatomy, micro, heme/onc, biochem, biostats and psych, I just read FA and started hammering Uworld questions. Started Uworld doing 1 block a day around Thanksgiving. ~ 2 blocks a day of Uworld for dedicated.
Mid-February, school CBSE: 61%EPC
Mid-March; NBME 25: 70% EPC
Mid-late March: NBME 30: 76% EPC
Late March: NBME 31: 74% EPC
Late March: Old Free 120: 78% EPC
Early April: NBME 32: 73% EPC
5 days prior to real deal: NBME 33: 72% EPC
3 days prior to real deal: Old Free 120: 71% EPC
Exam April 14: Pass
I stopped Uworld altogether 2 weeks prior to my exam, 74% completed with 66% correct, random blocks, untimed, tutor mode.
I lowkey started getting burned out and my scores went down a bit, so I stopped looking at all information 2 days prior to the exam, did super light review (ie: 1-2 dirty medicine review vids) and then rewatched the Lord of the Rings.
Real deal felt like the Free 120 + NBME 33 for sure, with more questions (obviously) and 10-20% more obscure diseases/path/concepts/wording that I felt confused about. Said wtf out loud maybe 15 times. I flagged roughly 10-15 questions per block, either I had no idea, or I somewhat narrowed it down to a couple answer choices and was forced to make an educated guess.
Not a lot of buzzwords, but some, the SOAP questions either were straight-forward or were tricky. Ethics was also similar, either 1 answer choice was the obvious answer or there were 3 choices that all sounded the same to me lmao. Biostats had 2 calculations. Images were garbage, didn’t help me truly narrow down any answer choices but had a repeat from Free 120. My best advice is learning how to pick-up clues/content and recognize classic buzzwords but reframe the wording in your mind to describe it. I feel like this is learned from doing constant practice questions.
Required: UWorld, First Aid, NBME/Free 120
1. UWorld – The gold standard for question banks, acted as my active recall in place of Anki, helped master confidence in recognizing concepts and being able to eliminate incorrect options. (Also has built in flashcard feature which I somewhat used)
2. First Aid – The encyclopedia of information that you need to know prior to the exam summarized. I would annotate into the pdf with extra information ie: med school classes or concepts/information that I answered incorrectly from Uworld or NBME.
3. NBME’s/Free 120 – The more you do the better. I had 1-2 verbatim repeats from the previous exams on the real deal. Images tend to repeat as well. The concepts on the exams released do not change as much. Knowing the vernacular and terminology that NBME uses is different from Uworld so if you can decipher it, it’ll provide a sense of confidence and stress reduction on the real deal.
Adjuncts that I highly recommend: Pathoma, Sketchy, Randy Neil, Dirty Medicine, Mehlman, Boards and Beyond
1. Pathoma – Dr. Sattar is the GOAT. Used as an adjunct for patho/pathophys I was unfamiliar with.
2. Sketchy – Almost required for microbiology, I did not watch any pharm/path.
3. Randy Neil – The GOAT for biostats. Watch his YT series.
4. Dirty Medicine – The GOAT for mnemonics, and easy explanations on garbage topics in a condensed and HY format.
5. Mehlman – The GOAT for NBME content review and HY review, I would say nailing the topics in his PDF’s helped me on the real deal. Would recommend Arrows and Immuno. Any other section you’re weak in, do that section.
6. Boards and Beyond – Dr. Ryan can be overkill at times but if you need to be taught by lecture and ie: can’t read the info from FA and grasp it, his videos are clutch.
Resources available that I did not truly utilize: Physeo, Bootcamp, Anki, Pixorize, Amboss
1. Physeo – Didn’t use
2. Bootcamp – Didn’t use
3. Anki – Can count the number of times on one hand I used Anki for learning information, clicking through a deck of 30,000 cards just sounds wild to me, plus all the reviews, no way.
4. Pixorize – Didn’t use
5. Amboss – I did the “200 concepts that show up on every NBME” was okay, I don’t think it helped me for the real exam though.