I took my friend's advice at got a normal night's sleep. Actually, that's not 100% true. I got 6 hours of sleep instead of my normal 7.5 hours. But since I used to get 1-4.5 hours of sleep the night before the exam, I'd say this is a great improvement! I wasn't a super crazy person, I promise. I would get a great night's sleep two nights before the exam because that's when it really counts, but Katie's right - with having a good amount of sleep the night before the exam I'm better able to think through the questions and problem-solve.
So, I slept from 12:15am-6:15am and then I didn't want to get out of bed. It was so warm under the covers and I was dreading studying, but I knew I had to do it, so I threw back the blankets, grabbed my glasses, and headed to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth.
I had left my study materials on the dining room table so that they'd be all ready to go in the morning. Since my exam was at 1pm, I knew I had approximately 6 hours to get through whatever I wanted. I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish: Kaplan Qbank questions, practice quizzes from this year, reviewing from First Aid, drawing my virus chart again, looking over toxins, reviewing the independent projects, and trying to memorize treatments (my greatest weakness besides virulence factors of bacteria). I was fairly on task all morning, but I got sick of reading through the independent projects and thought my time could be better spent doing something else.
I made sure to eat normal meals...uh...I mean...pizza for breakfast, yogurt for snack, and more pizza for lunch. Pretty awesome if you ask me. And I drank lots of water. Sitting through a two hour exam dehydrated is not fun. This was actually one of our shorter exams in med school; generally they are 3 hours long (but when we sit for Step 1 it's a 7-8 hour exam). Anyway, I ate and replenished my H2O supplies throughout the morning.
The best part of Exam Day is definitely the pump up music. Last year, I would ride/drive to exams with my friends, Sam & Scott. Somehow, this is the song that I have come to relate with those times in Scott's Prius:
So today, I pretended like I was in Scott's car and I jammed out to this song during my final moments in our apartment. Then, I grabbed my ID, #2 [mechanical] pencil, and headed to school. Only upon my arrival at school did I realize I had forgotten my wallet. Oops. But I had my game face on and was ready to rock'n'roll.
The exam was ok. There were a lot of questions I knew the answer to immediately. There were a decent number of questions that I had to think through, and then there were some that I just couldn't decide what the right answer was - which means I didn't know it. Here's to hoping that the ones I didn't know, I actually do know. And by that I mean: I hope I got them right. I guess we'll see on Monday!
When I came back to my apartment, the kitchen table still looked like this:
And now it kinda still looks like that, but the papers are condensed into less stacks. I guess I should clean that up before I head to Chipotle for some deliciousness with friends. Kyle's still not back from Michigan yet (I don't even think he's left yet) and I am really looking forward to seeing him tonight. Hopefully we'll have enough energy to watch a movie, but I know he's really exhausted from his work and I'm really exhausted from studying. Oh the joys of being an adult.
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