I'm about 8 weeks out from my DMD boards and honestly not sure if my timeline is realistic. I've been doing 4 hours a day but the material keeps expanding.
Biochemistry and pharmacology are killing me. I can memorize drug classes fine but then the mechanism questions trip me up every time. Anyone else struggle more with the "why" than the "what"?
I started working through practice questions last week and I'm hitting about 62% which feels low. Wondering if that's normal at 8 weeks out or if I should be panicking.
Four hours a day is solid. I'd say shift more toward active recall around week 5 — less reading, more question blocks. Your brain needs to practice retrieving, not just absorbing at that stage.
Mechanisms were my weak spot too. What helped me was drawing out pathways by hand rather than reading them — takes longer but it actually sticks. For pharmacology I made a one-page chart per drug class with mechanism, side effects, and one clinical pearl.
62% at 8 weeks is pretty normal, don't stress it yet. Most people I know were in the 55–65% range two months out and ended up passing fine. The score trends up fast once you stop learning new material and start drilling.
Don't underestimate anatomy. A lot of people think they have it from preclinical years but the board questions hit weird edge cases. Spend at least 30 minutes a day on head and neck through week 6.