hey everybody welcome back to my channel

and my step 1 series breaking down the

various aspects of studying and
preparing for step 1 in order to really
rock this exam today's video in the
series is going to be a little shorter
but it's gonna be about how to more
effectively use the nbme practice test
when it comes to preparing for step 1
don't forget to subscribe to the channel
and check out the rest of the videos in
this series about step 1 and let's talk
so the step 1 practice tests are the
nbme exams can be one of the most
helpful points in your studying to help
kind of gauge your progress and your
improvement as you progress through
preparing for step 1
the tests can be a little bit expensive
and so it's always nice to check and see
if your medical school helps provide any
funding or helps provide some tests for
you before you just go out and fork over
all the money to take these practice
tests but even if your school doesn't
help pay for them I think you should
definitely at least take two of them at
some point while you're doing your step
1 preparation the first thing I would do
is I would take one at the beginning of
when you're really starting the majority
of your practice and of your studying
doesn't only matter which one you take
just take one of the newer ones that are
available on the website and take it at
the beginning of your dedicated periods
that you can have a really good
benchmark of where you're starting off
and sort of what you can expect moving
forward if you take your first practice
test and you almost fail it then that's
fine a lot of room for improvement but
it'll tell you kind of where you're at
and then you really need to kind of pick
it up a little bit if you take your
first practice test and you do really
awesome then it's gonna give you some
confidence that hey you know like you
can handle this you can do this going
forward and then if you're only gonna
take two total I would take another one
about a week or so before you take the
actual test to see how much progress and
improvements you've made and just give
yourself another little bit of
confidence or another little bit of
motivation before you actually take the
real test now I personally did more of
them our school helped pay for him and
so I think I did three or four and I
tried to kind of space him out on the
weekends throughout my study period I
knew that if I just sat and did the same
thing studying for like 14 hours a day
seven days a week I was gonna get really
burnt out and so I kind of like the idea
of taking my Saturday every so often and
just doing a practice test I will say it
takes a lot of time and so I would
devote the entire day just to the
practice test but simulate the actual
test
in the test environment so get up at the
same time that you're gonna wake up for
the real exam go somewhere sit and use
like an actual desktop computer try to
use the practice test to really simulate
engage what the actual experience is
gonna be like when you go to the test
center take it on the same time to pace
as you're gonna take the actual test so
that once again you can sort of help
condition and train your brain to what
the actual test day is gonna be like you
know similar to an athlete going out and
practicing for a sporting event you
should be training your brain as well
for this test because it's really
different sitting for an 8 hour exam
compared to just sitting and doing you
know an hour long question of you world
and then getting up taking a 15 minute
break you need to get that experience
with really that endurance and that
mental stamina to get through the longer
test day so whenever you do your
practice test I'd encourage you to try
to make it as realistic as possible I
know you don't want to sit at the big
clunky desktop computer but do it it's
gonna be different having a mouse than
having your trackpad with your laptop
it's gonna be a little uncomfortable but
it's important that you simulate the
actual environment that you're gonna be
in when you take the real deal the other
part of using the actual practice test
is I don't know if it's very helpful to
try to learn material from them one of
the challenges is you don't actually see
what the right answer is whenever you
finish the exam you only see which
questions you got wrong and so I
sometimes wouldn't even really review
them I would just click back through to
see which ones I missed but they don't
tell you what the right answer is and
there's really not that much value and
going and trying to find the right
answer because chances are it's some
random little fact that you're gonna
waste more time trying to find the
answer to so I would encourage you to
not use the practice tests as like a
resource for studying but use them as a
resource to help practice and simulate
the actual test day and test environment
so that you can get your brain and get
your mind more trained to what it's
actually gonna be like on test day try
to not get too discouraged about your
scores on these tests but also use them
as a realistic predictor of how you
might do if you're not making any
improvement on your practice scores and
you're barely passing then use that as
an indication that you're doing
something wrong and you need to adapt
and change what you're doing
the tests are intended to be very
realistic in terms of the score that you
get and how that relates to the actual
exam so use that information accordingly
and if you're not doing very well
adjust your study habits in your study
schedule until you start to see
improvement in those practice scores
while they can be expensive those
practice tests should be a very crucial
part of your step 1 studying because
it's the best way to simulate what the
test is actually gonna be like in terms
of both the duration and the actual
questions themselves use them
effectively make sure you spaced them
out well throughout your study schedule
to get the most out of them and overall
use them to just add to the overall
strategy that you're using to attack
step 1 thank you for watching the video
guys I hope you enjoyed it check out the
rest in the series again about you know
how to use question banks your overall
strategy how to come up with a studying
schedule and some others I hope you
enjoy them and I hope it's helpful when
you're going through your step 1 prep
let me know any comments about how you
studied your step once and other tips
that we can share with the rest of the
viewers and we'll talk next time Thanks