What was your strategy when studying for the LMCC?

[Karma]

Would be great to get some input from those who already did the exam.

[NLengr]

Every section is worth 1/6

IM

Surg

Psych

Obs

Peds

Stats/Ethics/Canadian Medical System

 

Study only the 4 small ones. Do not study IM or surgery. They are too long and not worth the investment of time. Concentrate on studying for the other 4, that's where an investment of time will make a real difference. You will draw on your clerkship and med school for IM and surg. Do not waste your time with studying them.

 

Use T. Notes. Do some old questions, but don't knock yourself out with them.

[Karma]

THANKS SO MUCH!!!

 

I am doing that exactly and wasn't sure if it was a good strategy. It's great to know that people who passed this exam did the same:))

[rogerroger]

This exam is not talked about much on these forums. But wait until you need to do part 2... There is even less stuff out there about that exam.

 

I wrote a bit about studying for the MCC exam here: http://www.premed101.com/forums/showpost.php?p=807877&postcount=7

[ontariostudent]

I just wanted to share my strategy for the LMCC since I ended up doing really well with what I consider to be very minimal effort.

 

First of all, doing well on the LMCC is about playing the game. The exam is not made to pick out the experts from those who aren't. Rather, it's about figuring out who is minimally competent. It's scored out of 900, with an average around 500 (the average reported with my score was actually 496) and a standard deviation of 100. A pass is usually 390. If you do the math the pass rate should be about 85% (lowest 25% fail), but if you look at the stats you will know that only about 2% of Canadian grads fail per year while 40-50% of IMGs fail per year (http://www.medicine.uottawa.ca/sim/data/MCC_Pass_Rates_e.htm). That means the bar is set REALLY low. It has been speculated many times that most of the people who fail are people who struggle with English.

 

With all that in mind, the first step in studying for the LMCC is to NOT freak out. Stay calm and don't overwork yourself because it won't be worth it. The second step is to keep in mind that they really aren't expecting you to know that much so if you find yourself analyzing what a question is trying to get at, you're overthinking it. Just take everything at face value and think of the question in the most basic terms. If they tell you a patient has lung cancer, don't try to analyze which type it is. Just take it for what they say it is and don't try to apply all that specialized knowledge you got in your 3 week Respirology elective.

 

Now, as for how I actually studied: First, I attended all of our (U of T) review lectures and I paid attention. For many of the topics (surgery and medicine) I knew that it would be my ONLY time going through the material so I made sure to listen and take notes. Second, I read each of these sections of Toronto Notes exactly twice each: OB, GYNE, Peds, Psych, Ethics, Pub Health. I also read ER and FM once each. I did NOT touch any of the surgical chapters (except if they were cross-referenced from Peds) or any of the medicine chapters. I highlighted and took some notes in the margins while I was reading. One other thing that I haven't mentioned is that I made sure to get at LEAST 7 hours of sleep a night for the 2 weeks before the exam and I never sacrificed sleep for studying. I realized that it wasn't worthwhile to choose studying over sleep, since I decided studying was so low yield anyway.

 

What I did not do: I did not take any notes outside of the Toronto Notes margins. I also didn't use any resources other than Toronto Notes. I did not pay for or use any question banks. Lastly, I didn't overstudy. I took my exam in the first few days that it was offered.

 

How long I studied: U of T has 2 weeks worth of review lectures. I would say that I read through the 6 TN chapters (the chapters listed above) once before the lectures began (let's say in the couple weeks before) and once in the 2 weeks of review time. Those 2 weeks are also when I looked at the FM and ER chapters. I never had time to read through the notes I took in the review classes. In the couple days before the exam I finished reading the chapters I mentioned above and I did some old exams that I was able to get my hands on for free. I also did the free LMCC on their website but that was weeks before I actually started studying.

 

In summary, I feel that I took a pretty relaxed approach to studying for the LMCC. I basically did the few free exams that I could get my hands on and I read a total of 6 TNotes chapters (4 of them I read twice, and 2 of them I read once). I also attended review lectures and I wrote the exam in the first few days that it was offered. During the exam I made sure to just take the questions at face value and I didn't overanalyze anything. I also didn't try to read into whether the questions were getting harder or easier. The most important thing is to take it easy and keep calm, because the pass rate is about 98% for CMGs. As I mentioned at the beginning I ended up doing really well on the exam and I think it was because of the things I mentioned above. Like everyone else, I thought it was a ridiculous exam and it was brutal to take. I'm sure the fact that I did well had little to do with my medical knowledge and was mostly a result of the fact that I am a good test taker and optimized my conditions as much as I could leading up to and on the day of the test.

[A-Stark]

I went to all the Dal review lectures and mostly tried to read the purple LMCC Essentials book. I also started doing questions from the First Aid USMLE Step 2 Q&A book, trying to cover some from at least every section.

 

I got through most of the purple book. I reviewed every review lecture at least once. And I did something on the order of 250 USMLE-style review questions.

 

In the end I did very well and scored a 603. However, I can't say that the USMLE questions were really that helpful as preparation for the LMCC, as they tended to be much clearly and better written. The CDM section was a big head-scratcher, but apparently I did pretty well there too.

 

My one real regret is that I didn't write Step 2CK at the same time, as I probably would've been fairly well prepared.

[mcater2006]

I wrote it cold turkey.

[medston]

like a boss

[Starling]

My plan was to read Toronto Notes, but I was fairly relaxed about studying and got about halfway through. I didn't buy any practice exams or any other test prep materials. Got a 606. Also, I left the exam feeling like I for sure failed (as did most others I spoke with), so don't freak out if that's you.