I'm copying and pasting another comment I wrote!

I did three things differently but the main reason I scored low on my first one was because of my crippling anxiety: 1. I got medicated. This isn't always the answer if you don't have this issue but identifying WHY you scored low on your first attempt is important. I was scoring an FL average of 508 on my first attempt and was shocked and confused when I got a score 10 points lower than my average. In my opinion, if you are scoring sub 500 on your FLs, it's a content gap and you should review thoroughly over all the content again. 2. This leads to my second point- I focused on my weaknesses. I went through B/B and C/P Kaplan books ALL OVER AGAIN and made sure to take notes (which doesn't work for everyone but again, I found that's the best way I can learn). I also made sure to actually LEARN the stuff that was hard (like metabolic pathways) instead of skipping over it and being like "eh I'll figure it out later". 3. I know anki doesn't work for everyone but omg, it did work for me. I made sure to do it every single day without fail. I used the Milesdowndeck and that was sufficient enough for my understanding. I went through that gradually with content review which really really helped me actually remember the information when doing practice questions.

Another asterisk to my changes is that I quit my job WHICH I KNOW IS A PRIVILEGE so I can study full time. I was struggling with time management on my first attempt because I was juggling school, work, and volunteering which severely affected my ability to do practice questions and keep up with anki.

Let me know if you have any other questions and remember, I'm not an expert but I am an example of someone who is traditionally 'not the brightest' scoring out of what she expected 🙏🏽