u/Resident_Dish_156

I did my house job in Islamabad, which unfortunately means I won’t get the full 2.5 marks allocated for house job in the FCPS induction merit. My merit will probably be around 20.8, whereas with those marks I’d be above 22–23. From what I’ve seen, the closing merit for Medicine at most places seems to be around 22–23, so it feels like I’m losing out on induction purely because of where I did my house job, even though it was my parents institute. And I'm sure they didn't have this out of Punjab criteria before

I genuinely want to pursue Medicine, and I’m also preparing for USMLE, so if I eventually go abroad I’d be doing Internal Medicine residency anyway. I’ve already paid the fee for FCPS Part 1 in Medicine too. Does this basically leave private institutions as my only realistic option, or should I seriously consider changing subjects? It’s honestly pretty heartbreaking knowing that if I had those extra house-job marks, I’d probably have a decent shot at getting inducted somewhere. What would you guys do in this situation? Any advice would be appreciated.

Just got done with it an hour ago and giving back to the community I've been frequenting the most the last couple of weeks..

It was hard. Not impossibly hard, but still challenging. I'd say around 30-40 percent were easy, including some absolute brain dead easy questions. The majority were the guessing game, either the concept itself was very subtle and tricky, or the wording was so ambiguous that you could not choose despite the diagnosis being clear. Around 5-10 percent were HARD. I'd say 1-2 percent were near impossible, stuff I hadn't read or seen not only during step 1 prep but my entire medical journey. Probably experimental though lol.

Questions were also mixed in terms of length, from one line questions to one where you had to literally scroll the entire length of the page twice (yes, although it was a lot of labs). I'm a fast reader so I was pretty comfortable on time, and I didn't have too much brain fog at the end too surprisingly, even though I only slept 4-5 hours. Got hungry in between, ate a little bit and was ok. Not too bad endurance wise considering I never sat down more than 4 hour to do mcqs at any point.

Nbmes

26 - 67

27 -70

28 -67

29 - 71

30 -79

31 - 82

32 - 75

33 - 79

New free 120- 87

Just praying for a pass. I went in reasonably confident, but nothing can truly prepare you for it. Still, a good foundation and knowledge DOES carry you, I'm not certain because my anxiety won't let me be satisfied but I hope everything goes well and I get the pass!

I’m kind of stuck on what the best next strategy is and wanted some real advice.

Been studying for a year now, I’ve gone through First Aid at least 6 or 7 (lol) times now and finished all of UWorld, almost finished with a second pass too. I've even done half of Amboss. I’ve also been doing NBMEs for the last few months

NBME 25 – 64

NBME 26 – 67

NBME 27 – 70

NBME 28 – 67

NBME 29 – 79

NBME 30 – 78

I'm the kind of guy who retains stuff when I read, I love going through first aid. But I hate watching videos or doing anki, gave up on both. I retain stuff by just revising first aid over and over, but now I'm not sure what to do as I'm in the final stage of my preparation. Should I do UWorld incorrects and nbmes and mark them in first aid? Mehlman pdfs? I haven't done any of those.

I've been doing all this while working full time in an internship, I just make time to study whenever I can but I can't really dedicate 8-10 hours a day. Only during the last 2 weeks before test day.

Also, I know my nbmes are decent but still I feel imposter syndrome, feeling like I make too many educated guesses. Amboss humbles me a lot.