NAVLE Study Tips

NAVLE Study Tips📚📖📓💻✍️ 

1) MAKE A STUDY PLAN:

I started casually/ intermittently studying about 4-5 months prior to my exam and I started more intensely studying 2-5 days per week about 3 months prior to my exam (although I wish I started a month or 2 earlier to not feel as rushed/ stressed at the end). During the last 3 months leading up to my exam, I went to a cafe for 5-6 hours every Sunday to focus, and tried to study at home for at least 2 hours another 2 days a week. VetPrep can make a study schedule for you, but I decided to make my own to correlate my study topics with my rotations at that time (ie review cranial nerves and neuro localization power pages/ lectures while on neuro rotation and review large animal content while on the ambulatory rotation). I made a schedule for which pages and lectures Ii would review each week from July through November, aiming to finish all of them 1 month before the exam date (But I wish I had finished the lectures and pages 2 months before the exam so that I had more time to go through the questions after as a review). Most students take the NAVLE sometime between November-December, with a chance to retake it if needed in April. 

2) VET PREP POWER PAGES AND POWER LECTURES:

I studied differently from most of my other classmates. I know that I’m a visual learner and making study guides has helped me prepare for exams throughout vet school, so I continued to do that for the boards. I made a study guide from each power page and power lecture, trying to use lots of diagrams/ images and highlight the important information. It would have been faster to just skim through the pages and watch the lectures on 2x speed, but I don’t retain information that way. I need to write it down, organize it into a study guide, and add visuals to really learn it. So, even though I was going through the material slower than many of my classmates, it was more effective for me personally and how I learn best.

3) VET PREP QUESTIONS:

I recommend starting the questions AFTER you go through at least half of the power pages.  I felt like the power pages helped me build a base knowledge so that I could then go through the questions more efficiently. The questions are overwhelming and daunting because there are soooooo many in vet prep, but they’re a good way to test your knowledge. You need to get 80% of the questions correct if you want to ensure that you won’t have to pay for vet prep a second time if you need to retake the exam. However, I DID NOT hit that 80% mark, so do not stress too much if you don’t either. It doesn’t indicate how well you will do on the exam as long as you are studying in other ways as well. 

4) ICVA PRACTICE TEST:

I highly recommend doing this! ICVA sells several practice exams prior to the NAVLE, but only one came with answers. So, I only did this one. It was a 4 hour exam (essentially half the NAVLE) but it got me used to the timing of the exam and it gave me a score showing me above the passing range, which gave me a much-needed confidence boost. I highly recommend doing this between 2 weeks to 1 month before your exam so that you have enough studying under your belt already, but you also have time to review your weak points and adjust your studying if you’re not yet in the passing range.

5) QUIZLET WALKS:

I had always made quizlets from my study guides throughout vet school. The NAVLE has wayyyyyy too much material to make quizlets for everything. But I did try to make them for main concepts or material that I was having difficulty getting to stick in my brain for dogs, cats, cows, horses, pigs, and one very condensed set for exotics (focusing on the main species for the exam). I would wake up at 5am and walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes to scroll through my quizlet. This way, if I came home late and exhausted after clinics with no energy left to study at night, I’d know that I at least got a bit of studying done that morning. I could also scroll through this Quizlet while walking my dog, which was so nice to “kill two birds with one stone” in a sense. 

6) SUPERBOARDS: 

Tufts sent out a “superboards document” which had the top 10-60 diseases laid out for each species with the presentation, etiology, diagnostic tests, and treatment for each. I loved making notes on my iPad on the sides of this document when reviewing vet prep questions. I focused on dogs, cats, horses, ruminants, and pigs for the majority of my study time. Since exotics make up a much lower percentage of the overall exam, I didn’t want to spend excess time on them. I felt like this worked well for me, but I do wish I spent a bit more time on non-species specific/ vet business related questions leading up to the exam, as there were more of these questions on my exam than I anticipated.

7) FIND WHAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU:

 Look up other people’s advice (Instagram, Youtube, blog posts, talk to older students, etc) to find lots of different ways many students study so you can pick and choose what works best for you! Podcasts can be an excellent resource as well. I personally looooved listening to veterinary podcasts on my way to and from school. (Some of my favorites include the cone of shame, clinicians brief, vet girl, and the veterinary clinical podcast.) Finally, even on days when it feels like you don’t have time to study VetPrep, you’re actually preparing for the boards by learning all day from hands-on cases you see during clinical rotations! Look up your patient’s conditions, medications, surgical procedures, etc. 

8) DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS: 

This is my #1 tip! It was so hard not to compare myself to others, especially when other students hit 80% of vet prep questions over a month before the exam and I was still at 20%. But I reminded myself that vet prep does not include pages/ lectures in the progress percentage, and I had already completed 100% of those! We all study differently! Focus on doing the best you can for you and your dream! Feel free to message me if you have any questions! Good luck!!

\