Medicine Shelf !!

Internal Medicine Shelf exam: I felt like this was the worst exam I've ever taken in my life !

How to prepare: probably doesn't matter, but just in case, I guess I would just read whatever everyone else recommends, but just limit the number of sources you study from because you won't have time to look at them all. The question/answer packet that we're required to memorize for the written exam is helpful for the shelf. One resident (who scored above the 90th percentile on all her shelfs, she's also really smart) recommended reading baby Cecil's from cover to cover a few days before I had my shelf exam. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. btw, she also had 12 weeks of internal medicine rotation (I had 7 weeks because the first week was vacation/orientation). fyi, most schools have 12 weeks of internal medicine as well as 12 weeks of surgery. She also recommended NMS books which were the only books she used for shelf study.

What books I used: MKSAP for students 3, Kaplan Q bank internal medicine, boards & wards
(note: would recommend doing 25 Qbank questions a day - I didn't finish it myself because it takes forever just to do 10 questions and on some days, I don't feel like doing anything. I did have case files & pre-test on hand, but didn't bother looking at it due to lack of time.

What you use on rotation: penlight, reflex hammer (btw, I noticed that no one seems to have any reflexes in the hospital), stethoscope, Maxwell's pocket book, PDA, pocket medicine, Sanford's guide to antimicrobials (don't have to have, but wouldn't hurt), notepad

Question: Is it true that if you score above the bottom 5% who take the exam, you pass?