CBSE DISSECTION: Everything You Need To CRUSH The CBSE - with @doctorgallagher & @brandonaxelrod

Right, here we go. We're on. Let's go. Axe. It's been. So it's been so it's been too long. I'm excited to be here every time we talk. We, uh, we have a great time. We talk about so much stuff. We, uh, I feel like people if they want, yeah. Wait, you know what? Now that I got you on, now I'm thinking about this. If I go into my podcast app, one of the top, what do you listen, I guess, on on the podcast, one of the top, let's see, where is it? Where is it? 93. Number two, it's right under bully tooth guys. The top episodes right here. 93 listen. We're getting there. We're getting it. It's the number two most listened episode. But Brendan, that was a, that was like, you there? Yeah. Yeah. I'm here. I mean, you hear me. Um, that was a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now you, now you've accumulated a good amount of followers since then. So I made this whole break the record thing to though is that people go back three years ago when we recorded that, man. Yeah. Yeah. So people, about, um, so look, this is a part two to three, I guess. All right. So let's break it down. So Brandon Axelrod D3 now, Stony Brook, dental school from Cornell. You are at Cornell when we had our first conversation. I was in very early, early stages of the podcast. This is now, let's, let's record some of the conversations you have over time. And now this is kind of a part two, part three, where you're in dental school. And now you finally crushed the CBA C you follow all the things. And now we could take in real time everything I've recommended to you. You know how you crushed it now. And now we could break a diagram over there. I mean, this is going to be one of the most influential and helpful episodes, I think to people getting into dental school into applying for specialty because oral surgery is notoriously the most challenging specialty to get into. Although ortho is extremely competitive as well, they don't have an exam that you literally have to kind of chop your nuts off to focus. I would say that that's, I mean, so they have the GRE, right? Like I, from what my friends are doing, you know, you need two to three month window, you know, of course you could study a longer period of time. But for ortho, I'm hearing you need to build a 50th percentile on the GRE. So you have to remember that all students across all different sorts of graduate programs, they could be, you know, entomology, studying insects, they could be doing this. That, you know, so you have to, the GRE is sort of like you hit the 50th percentile and then you're good because they're not looking to evaluate your score based on, you know, they're not like, it's not like an English PhD where they need you to score 100 percent, you know, 100 percentile on the writing, for example. But I would say the CBSC has as a similar metric in that you need above, you know, the golden zone I'm hearing from many, many different people and for you it was very similar as well as if, you know, ideal is in that 70 range, Roth score, E.K.C. and we'll talk about all of this, of course. But, and there are cases where people do get the interviews and as you know, you're part of a residency where, you know, you see the scores that come by and I'm sure there are people, you know, numbers all over the place. But, yeah, that's, that's what we're at with CBSC versus GRE. But I agree, CBSC is a whole other beast because you're, you froze, you froze, oh, no, all good, okay, there we go. You see the whole other beast because you're learning. Yeah, we go, great, which, what would you like hack into your neighbors? Why? I have, I don't know, it's gone over here to be honest with you. He's like, how did he know? How did he know? What the hell happened? Is it really bad? So I've had fuzzies before. That's just because we're oversized like a separate podcast platform where our data goes there. But you're like the feedback that I'm getting from your recording, it keeps, it keeps freezing. I don't know if you're like too far from your router or you're just like, you got your talk about why I don't know. Listen, I will keep going and, you know, if we cut out, we'll go over what was next. It's fine, it's fine. Because, because the upload is going to be just fine. So, wait, let's, let's, let's actually, this is a great point. Let's start right there. What is EPC? They didn't have this one. I took the CBC. When I took it, they had the regular Converter's work, whereas like, you know, 70, whatnot. So, then there was also the Med School based exam, whereas three numbers and the median was like, 190. That's right. I don't know, but, but, but there was the bell curve and it showed you this region. What's EPC? What are the, what are the, yeah, this stuff is not very easily understandable. It's not really, you know, publicized, you know, it's out there for anyone to see. And when you thought the various residents in different places, they're all familiar with it, but the issue comes with, hope you're there, you're there. Okay. Okay. The, the issue comes with, with how residency program, which scores they're using to evaluate you and your candidacy. And I'm very early now in this process, but I'm just going off of essentially what I'm hearing from others. But the, the three digit score correlates with the three digits for correlates with the older score. So, like, that's, you know, 10 years ago or so. And this is in now in 2024. That is what students and med, you know, med students traditionally would use to apply. And then the step on exam went past FAL for all of U.S medical schools. After that point, to my understanding, the CDFC was still around. And it's always been, it's always been a marker for your readiness for the step exam. So it's an average step one exam where it's less questions, but it's the same content. I want to make sure that you're here. You're still here in the office. Okay. Yes. And one way or another, once the step one and one pass fail, they then change the grading to a two digit score. So there are conversions that exist from the three digit to a, an old now, now it's old, an older two digit score. Because now in 2024, and as of two or three years ago, there's a newer scale because the score report, instead of reporting a three digit number, now reports a two digit number. The other thing, how can programs directors now think about a three digit? Now there's like a new two digit. You know, there's basically two steps from the new to get back to the old. So there's a three digit, an old two digit, and now the new two digit. And the new two digit is called ETC or a percent estimated percent correct. So if I wanted to translate my score to your score, which is a three digit, or maybe, did you say it was two digit or three digit at the time? Submitted two digit/three digit. I just submitted them both. Hey there. I hear you're not. Was your, was your score two digit or three digit at the time? Keep it in three digits. And then I converted it. But then I just did one slash the other on my resume and I thought, yes, I could now go back and get a three digit number. If I wanted to, but you need two conversion tables that are on student up to network, you get five things, but that's, that's the rundown. It's very confusing. And so it doesn't help when you're applying because, you know, they say you need a 70, but like, does that mean an old 70 new 70? You know, there's, there's some I think you're doing. All right. Next is, let's get into so CBC prep, right? Let's talk about the timeline. So ultimately, you got to remember that when you're applying to an oral surgery residency program or any residency program for that matter, it starts at the end of your D three year and then you submit your applications, hopefully by around that September, October time, preferably by, definitely by October. I hope, but preferably by mid September, I submitted everything on September 1st and everything was fine. So probably by October is good, but for a surgery, you want to get in as early as possible without compromising your application for whatever purposes, whether it may be getting in more externships or submitting another test score, if you will. So that being said, interviews come in fall of D for you, but the bottom line is you really have what is it to for you have six full chance six full chances are. I if for the CBC chances. Yeah, I think it's six. It's six, right? Because the first time it would be Dura in the middle of D one year after summer D one year during D two, F summer, summer D two, D three and summer D three. So you've six full chances to take in fact, I think the limit is six now. Yeah, it is, it is six, limit six. So I always recommend take it without studying for it. You have six tries. You're going to, that's more than enough that you need, but you got to get an idea of what that test is like first, right? So actually we went through this together and I was like, look, take it after D one year. I wouldn't recommend studying for it though, because you want to know what you're studying for before you just go all willing, nearly trying to prepare for something. You don't even know what what it looks like. Then you had, so that's that was after you one year. And then the second time I took it was after D two year and that's when I studied hard for like three, four months. Most of the time not doing what I need to do, which was you world, but nonetheless didn't get the, got a decent score. I could have applied with didn't get what I wanted to took it again. Winter of D three year. So what, you just took now and you crushed it. That's when I got it. Still think of the score. I wanted got what I needed to apply to everything that's fine. So acts now let's split the script. I want to, that was my recommendation to you. That's what I did. What's going to you. So I mean, just so everyone knows, Brendan was my number one resource when it came to strategy and planning because, you know, going into this test usually needs to know that you're really interested in oral surgery. It's hard to study for this exam if you're not fully, you know, if you're if you're not fully in the water. In a sense, you know, yeah, you can dip your toes in D one, but if you're not fully committed, mentally, it's a really hard test to stay locked in for. But yeah, so I think With everything you said, there are a few changes I made in terms of structuring how I was, you know, which exam to on this hit for, and I would do it differently now. I think a big factor is if your dental school is integrated with the medical school and then if you take NVME exams. So to my knowledge, it's places like Stony Brook and then there's like Colombia and Harvard and there's a few other schools that are integrated and you take the NVME exams. So I think in my purposes, it might have been a slight waste to take a sort of dry run of the exam because I know what an NVME is like. You know, you do the U-world, but I've seen the interface many, many times on the screen. I've been on a lockdown browser in a testing center. And so, you know, if you're thinking ahead in terms of the resource, you know, where you want to spend your money to best prepare for the exam, I think a $350 just that I've taken in basically saying, well, that was a big failure. Here we go back to studying. You know, for me, like, I didn't really gain anything from that because I knew it's after what I was wanting into and I was just sort of like upset by the fact that I knew I wasn't even close to ready. So that's how I got picture of that. Oh, yeah. Did you use U-world during, so D1 year, your medical school classes NVME exam based exams, if you will, did you use U-world while you were D1? Because I didn't know about it. I knew about it, but I didn't use it. I didn't even look at it once. I used it. We had like a shared account. So, I didn't use it to the extent that you really needed for CVS. So yeah, I've sort of studied the class slides and then I used U-world as like the three days before sort of thing. But I strategy could be for someone who's in D1 is using U-world consistently to do your first pass as you go through medical school. And then of course there's lots of topics that aren't covered in dental, in the dental version of medical school. So you go into you learn immunology really, really well. But then the thing is you don't learn the cardiac physiology and EKGs as well as you need to for CVFC. Yes, you've got like a basic overview of course, but you know, this is a strategy that you can consider. But to answer your question, yes, I use U-world. I was familiar with that interface too. And that thinks a bit of adjusting because these questions are like second or third-order questions where they sort of give you a vignette and then you they're not just asking you, "Oh, what drug to do you use for this disease?" It's like, first of all, they won't even tell you the disease they're talking about and then they'll say, "What is the mechanism of the drug you would use to treat it?" So you need to know two things to get the answer right. And you're very familiar with this of course. Yeah, yeah. And so one thing to also the push-up. So yeah, you were using your world during that time because you did have NBN basic sense of Sony Brook. Exactly what you said. Columbia, I think even UConn has that a bit too. Some of these Ivy League schools, U-PAN I think is combined for at least several months. Like, so over case. Yeah, but that is big. I see what you mean. If your school is based on that, yeah, then why not? Why? But then you could also make the argument then why would you utilize that opportunity to take that after G1 year? Hey, look, you know, bottom line, you got this horror you needed. Oh, that's one one less thing I wanted to put on. A lot of this, a lot of what I'm taking is from my experience when I learned, but even more than that acts. I mean, and you probably know this by now, I've literally mentored hundreds of students and many of which have gotten into or served you by now. And I asked them, "Hey, what work for you? What didn't work for you?" Even my run, I got everything I got got from Ian. He had a 98 on the CBSC that year. Ian, Ian, he's at UConn, all my tests now. I was one of my buddies in dental school and he was the one that kind of made for me and taught me what, how to study for this exam too. So I'm compiling a multitude. You know what I mean? We're about to see what score I got, regardless of what I knew here and that. It's like I'm finding out what is the best thing and trying to make sure that we can prepare that on a nice platter for other students to listen to. And I think it listed this episode for all eternity, right? Hopefully the quality comes out better than it was in the beginning. Now next thing, should we get into what materials we should study for and how should we study? We're at 16 minutes. Yeah, I just want to say one quick thing. What do you say? That's the next thing we should have to do. Absolutely. But I felt that once you start taking those practice MBA needs that are posted on the MDME website and I'll talk about this extensively when we get into it. But I my strong believer that like if you put in the work, you'll get to a certain point, a certain numerical value and then anything above there is really due to chance. Like you really depends on the questions that you get that day. Like let's say you know reproductive the reproductive system is not your number one. But like you know you're at the end of the day we're all deafness and you know if there are certain things that we might resonate with a little bit more and reproductive the reproductive system is not yet. What do you mean as you don't have to deliver babies? You don't know the fun. Yeah, I'm not you know to prepare this step in the OSCE such as for anyone I think I'm soon but but the point of what I'm saying is I think there is a bit of luck and chance when it comes to getting your actual score because you can you can surprise yourself on the day of but if you know that you're in a certain range you're not going to fall too far off from that. That's all I want to say about that part. But I think yeah let's talk about resources and I know that there's some differences in terms of what we use. So you'll go first you sort of break it down. I think you have a very traditional route and a very you know trident fruit method. So maybe talk about that and then I'll talk about maybe some of the newer things that you integrated. Yeah definitely and you know it is it actually is pretty surprising the difference in exam content that you actually get on that day of the exam. I remember the maximum times you're only going to take this as six right before and you'll see one six months to another because there's only over 20 year very there can be you can get a vastly different exam each try. So access a really good point there's only so much you can do you know and like you said it's up to chance. All you can do is study the hardest you can and then the score you get is the score you get. Okay let's get into studying materials. So first things first everyone knows this you world is like the holy girl the question not the holy girl it's the question bank that you need to study for the success and basically right and there's that new boot camp program now I and I think you agree with this ex you can replace you world with that. That's an adjunct. I agree in terms of question bank. Yes right it's an adjunct and then you also have ambos I didn't use boot camp boot camp didn't exist when I was in ambos it was still in its earliest stages I think it only been around for maybe a year or two maybe three. It was a question bank but it was like no you world you world had over 2000 quite there's like 2100 questions at the time and it was like get through that twice and you're about good to go. So the only Bible for starting for that exam is the step one it's first aid first aid for the US Emily step one I got right over there so I'm looking at it's like a red white and yellow sorry red blue and yellow book and that's kind of got all the information the pile really condensed the all the high yield info. So there's you world question bank right and that's going to kind of lay out the structure for the studying structure we'll go into the first let's just go into resources first right so we can kind of ask the back and forth. First aid you assembly you world question bank path homo for pathology and I do I didn't get to to boards and beyond but I do recommend doing boards and beyond sketchy micro god of you god of you sketchy micro and then sketchy farm that was the other one I used to some people you sketchy pants I didn't get sketchy cap I mean you world is the Bible it still is it's the it's the if you're gonna have if you're gonna have two things it's you world and it's first aid so that is like if you're not looking to spend a lot which is very understandable this is an expensive exam of the prep materials are not cheap this is what you need yeah but but I I use all the resources you mentioned I then I narrowed in so you know in terms of total transparency I took the exam one time when I was you know sort of doing the test wrong I didn't expect really anything out of that beyond the experience like we talked about I then really locked in at that time and I and I finished you world and I cast the exam in terms of the del curve but I knew I could do better if I had more time and then I essentially did a lot more after that and I'll go into the specifics with that but basically what I did is I think I've devised a new method and maybe we'll I'll tell you know reveal it and then see if other people through feedback from the podcast will find it useful as well but I'm gonna coin at the 175 55 method so it's four numbers you have to remember 175 55 okay so the first thing is 100% of you world needs to be completed you're not going to get a score you're happy with unless you get at least one one pass to you will for you agree with that so a one four hundred percent you completed it to the point where you reset it you get one free reset on you world when you purchase an account I wouldn't recommend using any sort of bootleg you world account resources because you need to engage with the question and get it and cross things off and see your progress so that's sort of probably very much agreed upon in terms of everyone who takes the CVC absolutely absolutely I would even call that the men that's that's there been a more you know there are some people that can really swing a high grade with a one single pass I don't think that's possible okay so so that's the hundred right so remember the hundred that's uh you know you take it after the hundred and then you'll get a score that you're like okay this is where I'm at but you're not you're not even close to done unfortunately and it's a lot and it's helpful school as we know but then you're at 75 so it was 175 the next number you want to do 75% of new world over again this is where you're going to start making these connections about, like that's what, you know, I've heard a hard failure 30 times, but when you see it again in different ways after you've covered everything that you could possibly see, that's when you start making these real distinctions between all these pathologies. I know it's not going to come the first skill around and if it does, you know, it could lose to you, but again, you need to do 100% of you will reset it to 75%. Now the next number I mentioned was 50. So you want to do 50% of amballs. Reason being, the next 25% of you world that you had remaining, you're going to start remembering things, you're sort of like, I think, infleating your scores and a sense over the course of doing you world a second time. You know, you're not really going to remember every question and every even yet, but you might remember a diagram and it's sort of an arrow to an odd structure and then you kind of know what they're talking about or, you know, there's, I think you need to be seeing the newest, you knew content all the time and not get cut. And just pretty flea, sometimes you do need to inflate those scores a little bit to keep you, keep you motivated, you know, it's like Christmas time, you're starting for these, it's like two weeks later. I get it. And it's like my first 75 on you world, yeah, you know, sometimes, but yeah, keep going, keep going. I do get that and listen to the component. You need to have these confidence because it's sort of like just constant, misery sometimes. You just, you just think you do so well in a block and you get a 45 and you're like, oh, here we go again, like, I don't know. All right. So then you do 50% of amp-offs with the purpose of now we're going to learn, see the same concepts presented differently. You know, you really learn a lot when you're like, I didn't even know that Nephotic Syndrome can present like that, for example. And then that's what amp-offs is good for. Am-boss is not a good resource for a learning phase. I think it's meant for students who have learned it. They've done their clinic, they've done their preclinicals, their meds too, they did preclinicals and they go to do their clinical, whatever, their, their, what's it called? They're all, they're all very services and whatnot. You know, they're getting information reinforced in so many different ways, all different angles. That's why Am-boss is really meant for, okay, now I've gone through everything. So you need to do that after you world. And then we've done 100, we've done 75% of you world again, you know, we did 50% of Am-boss and the last thing is five. You want to leave five weeks for MBMEs. That's what I did. I think if you can knock out four MBMEs over the course of those five weeks, I think you're in a really good spot and I think you're going to get this or you want to. I thought the MBMEs were just so much easier than you were. Well, do you have that too? It should be if you put in the work and I think that's that'll be your confidence, because you'll feel as if they're easier because you've done so many questions. You world is like 3500 questions and boxes like 3000 something I think, you know, you've done thousands of questions. So, you know, when you get to these MBMEs, sometimes you're automatic and you're like, oh my god, wait, was I supposed to think about this more? And it's actually, no, they're not trying to trick you. Like the answer, the answer is what the answer is in the whole point of board exams are, is that like these are non-controversial answers. Like there's really only one answer. You world and Ambas, they trick you a little bit because they know where students struggle. So they'll make you pay between these things that are very similar. The MBMEs not like that if you put in the work and can kind of sip these through to sip through these things. Like that. I like that. Now you in your in the 17550, I'm going to use this too. I'll make sure I shout you out for it. When you go through you world section by section to learn each top, or you just say, go off the whim, go off the fly. So you're saying, you know, like specific topics, right? Yeah, because now remember, keeping the right a lot of students come from down the schools that might not be integrated at all whatsoever with men's schools, and they got to learn these topics. I had to learn these topics even after being able to do. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you know, but like you need to learn it at some point. I think the best way to learn it is to actually go through a question, a question section by section topic by topic, learning it via that phone or is it beyond first date, of course, sketching micro sketchy form after the pathology. Now you're going to learn the form of college to reverse these things into treatment. Then then once you finish all the sections for cardiovascular, let's summarize it with all of the your question bank blocks for cardiovascular, if that's and then you move on to Palm and then, you know, renal and I think just summarizing it with all the questions doing them at that point, that's a really good way to reinforce it in your memory. But that's the first pass, right? Going by section and then you still need to go through the second pass. And you're saying that pass will be the second time. Yeah, so I think the first pass you can do whatever your heart desires. Basically, like if you if you learn better doing section by section, I think that's good. I think it's always useful to do that. I think there is always something to be said by doing mixed question blocks, even when you're uncomfortable with the material because it trains your brain to chop quickly between systems and it sort of gives away the question when you know you're doing a cardio block. You know, sometimes sometimes you need to be a little uncomfortable not even knowing what system they're really trying to target. That's why I so yes, your first class, your first pass, that's the learning phase, you know, you can supplement with boards of beyond. I really like bootcaps and I'm sure I'm happy to talk about it more. But bootcamp videos were excellent and short they had, you know, a now-rater on the screen. The boards of beyond are very boring and assessed, you know, Jason Ryan who is the creator of that is very, very knowledgeable of those, you know, thousands of students have used these materials. But I think bootcamp is the new kid on the block and I think that they integrate in terms of telling you this is high yield for the NVME exam. This is, you know, they'll stop the video, say, you know, think back. What are the three, you know, drugs in this class that increase the QT interval or something like that? And so that's why I think it's like a little more interactive and engaging and memorable. So in your first pass, use whatever you're comfortable with in terms of learning and yes, you can do section by section. But on your second pass, and if you do amboffs or when you're doing everything else, you know, you got to be doing mixed questions. It's a common pitfall. I see I it really made the difference between when I passed very, you know, I barely passed to when I got what I wanted. And it's because I said, you know, listen, I'm never going to feel comfortable with all the content all of what. So it's not worth spending a week on, you know, present a preview where it's like the, you know, it's like I have to keep moving and I have to like train my brains and be able to like jump around like I was saying. So that's where I'm that's right out of that. Yeah. Second pass. Just 100%. And did you even did you even get down to the nitty gritty on that second? And this is you role, by the way. But actually, that's a great question. Or do you get other passes on boot camp or loss? Yeah, you can keep taking the exam. But I'm glad that I finished my during my halfway point of D three. But you couldn't take it up till the summertime of D three as well. Oh, no, I mean, I mean, none of the passes, the pet like because you were always talking about first best I can best are there passes through boot camp or other passes? Do I mean, there are people that can do it. It depends on this. I think how they're supposed to study strategies. But I like just to clarify, I did basically like I said, I'm a percent of you world 75% on a second passive you world. But then my my ambos my ambos only 50% one time. And then boot camp, yes, they have a question bank. But I really thought the videos were more valuable than the question bank. And I didn't really give it much of a try. So that's what I'm saying. You I think good. Excellent job of teaching it to you. I think it's like unmatched. So if you were to take this again, maybe we would implement you did. So you said boards and beyond great, but not as I like. But every time I watch one of those videos. So yeah, no, that's no, but this is such a valid point because you just did a 10 hour day in school. You probably got up for a six a.m. That morning to get some studying in. And now you're trying to stay awake on a 15 plus hour day. And you're just trying to get another half hour because you need to know you can't be fall asleep. I can't be a question, right? And you can just always have more coffee when you need to get up in five hours, right? So no, now here's my question. For that first pass, so you were when you're learning everything, quite section by section, what if we were to take out boards and beyond and switch it with the bootcamp material? That's pretty much what I did after a few months, the trying boards of beyond. I realized bootcamp was the way. So that's I would recommend that that is the new way of learning content alongside the U.R.O. explanation. I'm good. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna everything after today. I'm switching my recommendations on on the CVC. So now this is this is really big. This is really now. Let's get into that second pass to you. Okay. So so we're talking PEP. I used it here and there. You know, I didn't it wasn't you used it a little more than me. It seems use bootcamp. You used sketchy micro sketchy phone, right? Both of them. Did you sketchy pass? The videos are a little too confusing and long. Listen, I it's hard to remember so many things. The sketchy for people who haven't seen it. The sketchy farm, I think, is excellent. The sketchy micro is excellent. But just you know, the videos once they're going over 20 minutes, it's sort of hard to like, you know, remember that the you know, the the guy dressed in a bumblebee costume is like holding a Coca-Cola and that means like, you know, if you lose the sight of what you're really doing. Actually, do you do like balloon molding? But whoever does not know this acts does kids parties where he does like the So, balloon fall, you? - I'm not gonna talk about what bubble bees is stuff, no, it's not bubble bees. - I'm not gonna talk about bubble bees. - I'm a little bit bigger than figure that I can't make, but just to put that out there, I'm very confident in saying so. But yeah, there is some overlap with the visual, you know, it helped me with my PAT for that, I was able to visualize like shapes and whatnot. - Actually, yeah. - Yeah, that's actually a really good problem. Sure, that would really help for the PAT. - We shouldn't make a sea bass, he study guy using only, we'll just do a sketchy knockoff with just balloons. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm down. - This is called brandini's balloon. - Yeah, I'm laughing, I'll also workshop that name, I'm pretty for sure, but. - Okay, all right. - Well, we're gone, we're gone. - That's our three levels episode. - So I like this. - Bores and beyond is done, and if they want us to recommend their programming, then they could pay her. - Yeah, yeah, works for me. - So good, so Pathoma still decent for pathology, no sketchy path, good, I didn't do that either, I thought it was too much, but bootcamp. How was bootcamp's pathology so? - This is the month, that was the money question of this episode, because it's very easy to fall into a trap of doing you world all day, doing, I think the average number that you should be doing is 40 questions, once you're really in a good study, schedule 40 questions a day, ramping that up slowly over time, but whatever, we can talk about that more. This is bootcamp, was the answer for the physiology? I can't stress this enough. Yes, it's very easy to be like, duh, this patient has diabetes, but then when the question is asking you, what is the underlying mechanism of a certain aspect of diabetes? It's not good enough just to know the disease, and as dental students, and we're just looking for the quick ways to learn this stuff and study, you're not gonna do as well as you want on the CVSC, if you're not really understanding what's going on behind the scenes at a higher level. The amount of times that I would do a B cell and T cell question on U-World, and honestly get it wrong, it was just frustrating because I was like, I thought I knew this, this is like basic, B cells, where are they gonna be in the lip nodes, first the bone, I was like, I knew this, and then you got the question wrong, like why am I getting these things wrong? And then you watched the bootcamp video, and they explained it in a way that it's like, no, like, reveal, you just feel like, oh my god, no, now I get it, now I can explain it to someone. - Really? - Now I can make connections. Before you're just like making these words-- - What? - Association's part of the test, the strategy word associations, knowing which antibiotic you need for what, micro, whatever. But the bootcamp was like, this is your foundation for the information. It's not just the end result, oh this is the answer they have, they have some disease, but you see what I'm saying. - I do, that was Pethon, what for me? So if you're saying bootcaps, and I can see the program being better than Pethon, you know what I mean? Pethon was just like the first, you know what I mean? By the way, we need to talk about that idea because I don't want to stay made into next. And I have an idea, speaking of Ian, we'll discuss that later today, because there's a lot more coming with the special standardized exams as such, licensure, there's like, we need more study materials because there's so many exams, and unfortunately I don't see them, I think we're only gonna have more standardized exams over the next 50 years, honestly, honestly, as things get more and more specialized, specialized on the right ear versus both ears, like stuff like that, but anyway, nonetheless. So let's get back into, so that's huge. So that's huge, I would totally be willing to, I think Pethon was still just being there, but you're saying bootcamp for that part. Let's get back to, and so Ambos is just a tube, I didn't realize that bootcamp was more so for the learning portion, you're saying that that's moves better for you for, and then Ambos, I didn't know as a question bank, I didn't know that they had, if they had an explanation, that's fine. So now let's get into the, I think we've covered all as far as the materials and such resources, we're up to strategy. - Yeah. - Timing, test timing, matching it with Pethon, you know, the strategy, I think we, we covered that. - We're up to that to that, I'm not talking about as well, like what your dial school day looks like when you're doing CVSC. - Yeah, yeah, and yeah, speaking of, speaking of really quickly, there, okay, let's just summarize it, let's take a summer, as we're throwing information out here, this is actually an ultimate episode for CVSC. So take a setback, you need to do two passes through world, and I would still recommend that first pass through your world, breaking everything up section by section, access saying get through your world, twice the second one being 75% done, so no matter full twice, I still think, I would recommend, I mean, if you can't do it, do it, if you can't, well, there you go. And then you're saying 50% of the question bank of Ambles, and then five weeks. - Five weeks? - Five days, and then-- - Five weeks ahead is when you wanna start them. So you can integrate, so this is what I'm gonna want, because each exam, you need to sit down for five hours, you wanna simulate these out, you don't wanna get to the CVSC and be like, oh, I'm tired. Like, you don't want that to be the factor as to why you're doing poorly. You want it to be the questions are harmed. So anyway, so yes, you do an MBME on Saturday or Sunday, then you give yourself, each there's four blocks of 50 questions. So you do a 50 question review Monday through Thursday, and then on Friday, you hit some incorrect questions on your question bank of choice, you like reviews as topic that you are on comfort. You know, you're Friday night, five weeks off from a test, unfortunately, you're not gonna be going out to the city and like, you know, you gotta make the sacrifices and I'm sure everyone listening is ready to do those things. And then you wake up Saturday morning and you do it all again, and then you also have to have school throughout the week. So that's why, and I think doing four exams is like really where you wanna be. You've covered basically MBME's 31, 30, 29 and 28. Those are the most agreed upon in terms of similar, you know, questions for the current CVSC is. So that's just my take on this whole thing. - I wouldn't you just wake up on that Saturday and five weeks out, five in the evening exams. Every Saturday, you wake up at six, say seven eight o'clock, say eight o'clock. Make you realistic. Start that exam. You said you have five hours, 200 questions, four blocks of 50 questions. You finish about one, two o'clock in the afternoon. You take a break, you go to the bathroom, you know, you look at the birds, you have lunch, and then you get back, why can't you review the entire test the rest of the day? - Okay, I think good question. I think for me, I don't think I have that sort of, like, academic stamina, but either way, like let's say you're a me, you can do like 12 hours straight a day of studying, okay? I think you need to let the questions marinate in your head a little bit, and then you come back to it the next day, with like a fresh mind. You know, you wanna be like, oh my God, I should have gotten that right. You kinda want that, right? You sort of wanna be like, (crickets chirping) you know, you wanna be sharp when you're going over these things because you're not getting much and I'm doing a question and not knowing you're getting right. You're getting the most out of, okay, I'm gonna sit down. It's not just 50 questions scrolling through, like yes, no, yes, no. It's like, you know, like you know, you review every choice, you say, why did I get this wrong? What did I confuse it with? What did I miss in the question? You know, a question can take 10 to 30 minutes of review, honestly, I mean, I've been at it for 30 minutes for a long time, but you might need to do a deep dive. It's just like the rule of four is when you're talking about strokes and like, if it's midbrain or lateral, whatever, like though, now those five weeks, it's like, all right, let's lock in, like what do I, what do I, what do I consist at least struggling with? Because if you put in the time and review those 200 MBME questions over the course of a week, you're gonna see anywhere from probably two to five points improvement on the week after. Just based on the work that you do understanding the questions you got wrong, I would say. Interesting. Interesting. No, that's a good point. The reason why I was bringing up, he condensing it to one day's a lot, right? I used to have to do that. And you're right, though, you do want it to marinate if you have the time to, because you also don't want to just not review it at all. And the way I always thought was, 'cause look, if you're doing 50 questions that they were reviewing throughout the week, that's cutting into all their studying things you need to do throughout that week. That's why, I don't know, that's why I'm bringing up, maybe not that same day, but maybe that's what you do the first thing and that's the answer. - Yeah, that could be doable. - I don't know, listen, you could definitely do the whole thing at review in a day or two. I think that's doable for me. - It just, I, you know, my day looked like waking up super early, sometimes getting up at 4.30, like not even exaduring, you know, so like that's just the way I am. Like I'd rather, I'd wake up that, I'd rather wake up that early than stay up that much later at night, personally. And so, you know, I'd go to bed at night and look not like I was like staying up like till two and then doing that, of course. But, and then, yeah, so then I would just, I would just review those questions, certainly those last five weeks. And then I would also try to, if I had energy after down school, I would then hit some questions on the question link. Like at the end of the day, you wanna say, what do you wanna say? I wanted to say personally, I did as many questions as physically possible and that I was always challenged and I always, like, you know, it's too easy to sit back and watch four or three on our bootcamp videos. Like, yeah, it's needed, but I think like when you're so close to the exam, you wanna be like hustling and you gotta be doing those questions. - Of course. - Oh, you got it, you got it also. - And like you said, the closer you get to the exam, you need to start prepping your strategy, your attention span in your body, waking up at the right hours, to take that exam on test day. So now it's, so first pass, learning the material, section by section is where I recommend, forget words of beyond, they could figure their stuff out, and get back into 24 and 4. But can I still recommend for pathology where we're talking bootcamp, also pathology, physiology and such, staging like Ristetchy Farm, everything into. first date, of course, right? And then you were all to summarize it up and reinforce that learning with questions to make sure for you for now. Now we're entering second pass. You're saying do 75% of you world on that second pass. I would say try and go for all of it if you can, right? And then you're saying 50% of ambos. I mean, that just sounds great to me. I mean, again, that's if you can't get the whole thing in. And then the last five weeks, five NBMEs, I like that. I like that. I think more studying could be done somewhere along the way there, but but that's great. Now, second pass to you world. Do you remember when I had recommended to you the first say you're getting up on a Saturday. I used to do four to five blocks on a Saturday. It's just how I thought I had to get that studying before the exam. First block when you wake up in the morning or even on a weekday, I would get up at like 530 by 6. I'm taking the first block timed, not to the time mode. Do that all in an hour by 7 a.m. You're done. Quick, maybe shower breakfast, whatever. Head off because then you have class at 8 to 10 clinic 10 to 1. One to 2 in the afternoon was lunchtime. As I review that block, as much as it could. 2 to 5 is clinic. Maybe you could squeak out of there a little bit early. Get over to the library or I went to Penaire Red at Penaire. Sit down immediately and it's quickly possible finish reviewing that block from the morning and then get right into the second block. Now, this is where it comes into different. I wouldn't do another time block. I would do tutor mode. And for those of you listening that don't know the difference between time and tutor, time is when it's a timed test. Tutor is when it's not it can be timed. That's not necessarily it's not necessarily time, but it's actually take question and then you review it immediately after the rest of the day or night. I would recommend because it worked for me because the attention span acts exactly what you're talking about. Do the question and then review it immediately after so you know why you got it wrong and just clarify what you were confused about. Right? Now if that now I want to go back to you. Did you do this strategy? What strategy did you use for your second pass to your world? That's 75% of your world's second time going through it. I'm the second time I'm going through it. I was doing this fully tutor mode. I didn't feel that timing personally was ever something I was worried about. The MB&E questions are designed so that students spend anywhere from 60 to like 90 seconds on a question. And sometimes it's point blank. Sometimes it's like what is you know they have this issue. They give you a range down and they point to different things and they say which you know structure are we talking about. So those are those are questions that you could make up time for. So when there is the questions that present you know 10 lab values and you have to go through you know what strategy is always learning a lab value and knowing them cold but that's not always possible with some of the the lesser scene like you know that you know whatever. Yeah so I personally timing was an issue so I just felt if I only had you know if I'm going hour for hour in terms of productivity I'd rather say that I did 15 questions and reviewed and know why I got the wrong as opposed to doing 40 questions that I don't know if I got the right and granted there's so many ways to look at this. I think your method is very very good. I think it keeps you sort of on the right time frame moving across the entire exam and I like that you switched it to tutor mode later in the day. I think that's great. But like this is a preference and I think it's all based on. Oh yeah. And people need to know everyone's preference right because maybe you're going to line with one well one and the other. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Excellent. And then five weeks out in the evenings I like that. Although I would probably try and keep the ending in just a Saturday maybe spilling into Sunday for the marinating in the end of the day. So conscious while you're sitting at night Saturday night. And then I would go right back to to you world or an boss. I like that. I said it presents things presents things in new ways and honestly an boss is very hard. It is not fun. It is not enjoyable. You think, you know, first I see a lot of questions. I feel a lot of things on there that I had never even seen on my passes through you worlds. And then they would show up on the CVFC. So I can't say that it wasn't worth it. You know, when I just did the my first attempt of you world and my second attempt. Sorry. My first and second attempt of the CVFC again, the first one was sort of just a guy around the second one. I really put some good work into it. It was a good amount of stuff. I was never I never saw on the question bank. And then I sprinkled in the ambos and I was even in those scenarios. I was more familiar with the concept they were trying to get at. So I don't know like if this is something that's consistent across exams or what, but I just felt like ambos trained my brain in a different way. And to add on to that, there's another resource that is sort of interesting. It's an audio question bank. It's by Melmond Medical. He's on YouTube. He has his own website. He's all of his resources are free. But this like trained in my training to like think about the questions the right way as now students, we're not like challenged in these ways with these like mental obstacles as far as my students are. We're challenging other ways like doing like having excellent hand skills and whatever patient interactions. But you know, for this test, you have to learn to think like a doctor. And that's what this podcast did for me because he would read a question that he came up with. And he has like years and years of experience doing this and he would go through each answer as to why it's wrong and how you know it's wrong. And I think this was something I did in the car, you know, in the shower, I would put my phone up on my little ledge by the window in the shower. And I would like play this guy, you know, his YouTube videos. There are anywhere from like three to 10 minutes. So that's something else that I think was important as well. And I'm sorry for mentioning it's a late, but it's good that I did pretty good. No, but again, it's like kind of an ass. Right. Right. Right. Not your main. Yeah. Well, we're approaching. We hit everything on this, right? And then less, but not least, like you could always take that test one less go through even when you're applying in that summer. The only thing that I would want you to consider though, if you're thinking about it in that it's like July, August, after D3, you're right before you start your fourth year and your application is in or it's about it's about to be in because you're waiting on that test to be done. But one thing is then that might interfere with it's going to conflict with externships. That's where I'm going to. But what hey, like if you need to take it, you got to take it again. If you don't, I would focus on those externships. Get it, do it, externship trail on there and go from there. So yeah, we're at 50 minutes now, man, this was this is the by far the ultimate CBC studying. I'm going to call it the CBC dissect, dissecting the CBC with with with. I approve that. I'm going to do sure. 50 minutes, 50 minute dissection of the CBC. We're going to do that. That's going to put in there. Hopefully it helps some people out there and this will be so great. You want me to because you want you wanted to talk about your next steps in the application process. You want me to clip it down. We can sort of go into that. I think, you know, once you finish this out. Let's do it. I mean, that's everything. That's everything. Usually just. Yeah. And then the last thing is that I'm sure you'll put in the bio. You know, yourself, me and you were always willing to answer questions. You'll pull by like Instagram and there and yours always, you know, so so great thing that you guys have. You know, if you reach out and yeah, that's that's what I think. I think we fleshed it off everything. Certainly did. We certainly did out. This was this was a good one. Yeah, that's it. All right, I'll end it now and then let me get let me call you so this is how we're going to face the whole down. Sure, yeah. All right.