Minimize your mistakes

Tennis is a great game. Half of the game you serve the ball, the other half, your opponent serves.

That means, even if you are the best tennis player in the world, but can't serve, you can only win 50% of the time. It is impossible to win. You must learn to serve.

Now, say you learn to serve well consistently, 100% of the time, but are a terrible player. Even if you win all of your serves, you can only win 50% of the game. You will have to win some of your opponents serves in order to win the match.

Now your ability comes into play. You have to learn to win points with your ability and minimize your own faults.

Okay, so you learned to serve consistently, learned to play well and minimized your own mistakes... now what? You need a worthy opponent to gauge your performance.

Another way to look at it is, if you play well, but your opponent makes many mistakes... are you a good player? Well, its hard to say, you didn't earn those points, your opponent merely handed them to you by his own faults. Remember your opponent can still give you 50% of the points if he can't serve. So here you are, no better than you were before you started, still only 50%.

You must find a worthy opponent. The only way to truly gauge your performance is when mistakes are low, both yours and your opponents. What's left is your ability vs theirs.

When playing against the USMLE, the test will make no mistakes. That means you really have to be on top of your game. The only way to win is to be consistent, train your abilities, and make as few careless mistakes as possible. That way, you will be able to perform your best. If still you fail, knowing you have made no mistakes at all, then that is what is called Truely Trying Your Best.