Post Board Post
First thing I did after parking my bike was take the stinking trashcan from under the stairs out to the curb. Next thing was to take a big fat dump. I feel better having gotten all that out of my system. =-]
The exam was given in two parts, 100 questions in 2.5 hours each time, before and after lunch. I signed a form saying that I would not reveal the content of the exam, and so I shall not. I can say that the best study aids, ie the ones that caused me to gain the most answers, were the Goljan lectures and the practice test at the end of the "blueprint" book given out by NPLEX. The blueprint book was useful mainly because the distractors (wrong answers in practice test) were similar to the actual test. I looked up every single distractor in the practice test, and so I was able to quickly include or dismiss the familiar distractors. The long lists of pathologies in the "blueprint" were overkill. And the list of "know everything about this system" advice was worthless. My advice to myself for the next exam is to focus on the more common diseases down to the cellular level, to know the pathophysiology better than I did this time. And there were areas of first year anatomy that I wish I had more thoroughly reviewed. Especially histology. What layer is on top of what? That sort of thing, not muscles.
Still, my sense is that I probably passed. I counted up questions in each section, and out of 100 I was sure of 75 answers on the first part and 72 answers on the second part. I need a score of 75 to pass. It is likely that a couple of the ones that I was "sure" of I got wrong. And it is also likely that some of my "unsure" answers are correct. I've already established a few of each set from talking with classmates after the exam. There were also a few poor questions. I am surprised that their proofreaders didn't catch the poor wording more of the time. I think they may need some help with editing, and after I finish my second exam I will see if they might be interested in recruiting one more person to help with the exam. It would keep me up on things. One last tidbit: the prof who provided me with the most information relevant to this exam was Dr Miller. He taught pathology. I have a shift with him now. He's good.
On the scoring, the poor questions will supposedly get dropped, and then there is the cut score. The cut score has to do with review by practicing physicians, and rating of each question as to its clinical significance. Clinically important questions will receive higher ratings, and be scored more heavily. This is to my advantage. Because while I may not know the embryological origin, second messenger, and molecular composition of every tissue, I do know the clinically important stuff. I latch onto it. I plan to use it someday.
Now to get the REST of the backed up shit moving in my life again!! I'm going to clean some house!