I've had to pinch myself a few times in the last 2 days because it has hardly sunk in that USMLE step 2ck is over!
Day 0, I was 45mins flight away from home, totally psyched up, ready as I could be and knowing that my loved ones were back home praying for me. I got up early, prayed, exercised, got dressed, made sandwiches for my breaks, read 1 or 2 pages of MTB to wake my brain cells and had a good proteinous breakfast. On my way out of the hotel, I sat down for about 10mins at the computer station and just scrolled through week 2 of this mental map (the week with the highest number of posts), nodding along. Those highlights bounced back and forth in my brain as I did the 10mins walk to the exam centre.
Generally, the exam went very well save for the intermittent drilling noise coming from outside the window at the prometric centre. It was distracting at first but when I talked to the proctor after block 1 and learnt that there was nothing they could do about it, (not even to change my seat to one farther from the window!), I told myself :" You can do this, the noise is now part of the exam and you just have to surmount it!" After that I wasn't as bothered by the noise. Nine hours went by quickly and before you knew it I was on my way back to my hotel room saying "thank you God" and telling Hubby (on the phone) how it went.
Well, the 4weeks wait is on...
I prepared for this USMLE step using U world, MTB, Kaplan Qbank, a few Kaplan videos and many online resources. One tool which was however extremely useful to me was this blog which I started about a month to the exam, when I was feeling like I needed some form of 'decongestion' or was it 'info organisation'? Whatever it was, trying to put down the most important facts about each condition or concept was really helpful in consolidating what I knew well and identifying what I didn't know enough about. Also, the product of my mental mapping (this blog) was good for quick revision anywhere internet was available. I hope someone else will also find it useful.
To all those at the stage that I was when I started this blog, good luck!
