Some Great Tips for CS:

1. Practice Cases well.

2. Smile all the time. Smile at the biginning before you greet, smile at the end after you finish the encounter, smile and try to win their heart all the while. Smile before you enter the room. Practice smiling before you go to sleep even from the few days before exam. Practice smiling while you wake up, smile while you go to the rest room. Basically smile all the time.

3. Learn to say 'Thank you' and 'Sorry' for even a pity things. That is one thing we dont usually do being from this part of the world.

4. Be clear while you speak. Not too fast. Some try to finish things without leaving a thing in history and PE. But its more of the efficiency of everything. While you try that, you tend to forget smiling, help or say thank you, sorry kinda stuffs.

5. Learn to counsel the cases. What we did was we used to make a protocol for how we proceeded with it too. I will post it soon.

6. Practice answering the challenging questions. The SPs there in the exam will ask you one challenging questions mostly just after the history, but it can be at any moment. So prepare well for that. You tend to get stuck picking words if you dont practice, and the answers wont be as free flowing as you want, and not exactly what the SPs expect. So prepare well.

7. Try make the SPs feel that you are very concerned about them all the time. Try adding spices to your expressions with few words like 'Oh!' , 'AHH', 'Excuse me for a while','Aww, You must be having great pain' and what not. Whatever you can. It helps to show that you care for them.

8. Respect the SPs. We are used to being respected and not respect the patients. But there its the opposite that counts. They are your real examiners. So think about it. And use all the respectable words and expressions as much as you can.

9. Practice writing patient notes. Its very important how you write. People have flunked in it too. So be prepared to write the cases like here in US.

10. Have confidence. You can do it. Its only the mixture of everything that gets you through it. You dont have to finish up all the cases. But you have to do good in many. You can miss out some history, some physicals but do it efficiently.

The only way through is 'Practice, Practice and Practice'. You dont need to have very good knowledge to pass this exam as other part of USMLE. But you need to have good balance of preparedness and confidence.