Did anybody take the STEP 1 on/after 15th MAY?

meerak said:

What did yall do for the pics?

Is FA good enough for it?

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I think it depends on how weak you are in neuro and pathology. I didn't look at any images myself and am glad I didn't waste the time. My brainstem slice question had easy things marked and my gross brainstem pic had cranial nerves marked. If you don't know that stuff you have bigger problems. As for the pathology gross and micro questions, they were all fairly basic, and the stem gave it away most of the time. And really, if you can't tell a slide from lung cancer is squamous cell when there are squamous pearls, you're in trouble (that was a question I had).

I think you might be overplaying the "If you don't know this, you suck" card just a little bit. We aren't all set up to make a 270 on Step 1, you know. That said, I never learned anything involving neuro well the first time around, and everything I've encountered so far has been really easy. It's all simple identification.

My point is not that "you suck"; it's that if you cannot identify a squamous cell carcinoma or a renal cell carcinoma, or psammoma bodies on a slide, that probably means you have other areas that are much more important to be working on. I understand some programs may have "weak" neuro departments, but I find it hard to believe that everyone did not learn the DCMLS/ALS/LCST systems, learn the cranial nerves and their nuclei and the basics. That's really all you're going to get on the exam. And yeah, if you were weak, reviewing that is fine, but it shouldn't take any more than 20 minutes. Wasting a day on pictures if you're that deficient in something basic probably means that time is better spent elsewhere. The goal is to earn points with questions right, not to minimize losses caused by incorrect answers. If you don't know all the stuff in FA, then why would you even think of doing anything else? It's just a good strategy, but I'm not trying to degrade people's knowledge, just pointing out a fact about how that is more low-yield since the answers are almost always given away in the stem anyway.

those who have taken the exam recently can you comment on the biostats? Does FA cover all of it? is it the regular NNT NNH RR OR PPV straight forward biostats?

kryptik said:

those who have taken the exam recently can you comment on the biostats? Does FA cover all of it? is it the regular NNT NNH RR OR PPV straight forward biostats?

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Yes, my test had a few of those straightforward calculations on it. I think FA was enough as long as you know it well. Definitely be familiar with the type of question where they describe a study and ask you to tell you what type of study it is (ex. case-control, cohort, etc) or they describe a situation (ex. disease outbreak at a hospital) and ask what type of study would be best suited to answer the researcher's posed question.

^thanks for the input

kryptik said:

those who have taken the exam recently can you comment on the biostats? Does FA cover all of it? is it the regular NNT NNH RR OR PPV straight forward biostats?

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FA covered all the biostats on my exam. I had NNT, specificity calculation, power, correlation, and a "name the type of study" question. That was all. They were very straight forward and pretty much easy points.

lildave2586 said:

FA covered all the biostats on my exam. I had NNT, specificity calculation, power, correlation, and a "name the type of study" question. That was all. They were very straight forward and pretty much easy points.

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thanks for the response. biostats is my weakest and was looking for ways to remedy that, i guess i will have to know whats in FA very well.

kryptik said:

thanks for the response. biostats is my weakest and was looking for ways to remedy that, i guess i will have to know whats in FA very well.

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Same here. Biostats is my weakest in UWORLD. I am definitely going to work through all my wrong answers again in biostats. I just wasn't familiar with applying the equations. I think a second time around would help solidify, and really learn how to apply.

Did any of yall do the kaplan biostats (which is I think the first couple of chapters of the behav science book).

What do yall think about that?any good?

To those who've taken the exam could you comment on whether FA is still useful for the new exam content, what percent of the material would you generally say is covered in FA ?

About biostats I highly recommend doing UW subject review biostat questions.

I think that some of you guys are worrying a little too much about the "new format." Its not a completely different test, it's two less questions. By and large, taking the exam (for me at least), was like doing a full day of UWorld questions that weren't as difficult. Everything you need to know to do well is in FA. There are always going to be a few surprises on the test, but you just do your best with those questions. There is no reason to begin questioning your study strategy or whether FA is good enough for this test. You studied for two years for this thing, trust your knowledge.

metalmd06 said:

I think that some of you guys are worrying a little too much about the "new format." Its not a completely different test, it's two less questions. By and large, taking the exam (for me at least), was like doing a full day of UWorld questions that weren't as difficult. Everything you need to know to do well is in FA. There are always going to be a few surprises on the test, but you just do your best with those questions. There is no reason to begin questioning your study strategy or whether FA is good enough for this test. You studied for two years for this thing, trust your knowledge.

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Thanks man. I just took a UWSA and I was wanting to see that if the new Step 1 has question stems that are more and less like these, then I can manage them comfortably.

yeah, the question stems are definitely not crazy long or anything. timing wasn't an issue at all, for me at least. each block took me the about same amount of time as a UW block, and I ended up with more than an hour of saved up break time cause I kept finishing up early.

metalmd06 said:

I think that some of you guys are worrying a little too much about the "new format." Its not a completely different test, it's two less questions. By and large, taking the exam (for me at least), was like doing a full day of UWorld questions that weren't as difficult. Everything you need to know to do well is in FA. There are always going to be a few surprises on the test, but you just do your best with those questions. There is no reason to begin questioning your study strategy or whether FA is good enough for this test. You studied for two years for this thing, trust your knowledge.

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I completely agree. The stems I had were no different from what was on NBME 7. I had a lot of stems that were not clinical vignettes, and many that were 2-3 lines. Some one-liners even. It's a fair mix between short questions and longer ones. Don't loose any sleep over the new format. If anything it will give you some extra time.

I took it yesterday, and would definitely say that FA, UWORLD, and Goljan Audio were completely sufficient. I only remember seeing two questions that I hadn't seen or heard somewhere in those 3 resources, and one of those was easy to figure out just from the stem.

When I saw the 46 questions, I sort of freaked out because I had read about the "long" question stems. But I was able to finish each block with 20-25 minutes left and spent the remainder of the time looking over the questions I marked. They really weren't any longer than any of the NBME's stems (I did 1-5). I recommend doing at least 1 NBME about a week out so you get a sense of what the test will be like, and definitely stick to FA, WORLD, and G. audio.

League54 said:

I took it yesterday, and would definitely say that FA, UWORLD, and Goljan Audio were completely sufficient. I only remember seeing two questions that I hadn't seen or heard somewhere in those 3 resources, and one of those was easy to figure out just from the stem.

When I saw the 46 questions, I sort of freaked out because I had read about the "long" question stems. But I was able to finish each block with 20-25 minutes left and spent the remainder of the time looking over the questions I marked. They really weren't any longer than any of the NBME's stems (I did 1-5). I recommend doing at least 1 NBME about a week out so you get a sense of what the test will be like, and definitely stick to FA, WORLD, and G. audio.

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That's encouraging to hear that UW, FA and goljan are sufficient.Thanks and wish you a great score. If you have any more tips, do mention.

NoWayOut said:

That's encouraging to hear that UW, FA and goljan are sufficient.Thanks and wish you a great score. If you have any more tips, do mention.

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Now that it's over, the main thing that really jumps out at me is that I wish I had time to go through uworld TWICE!! I went through it extremely thoroughly the first time, (5-5.5 hrs per 48 questions). Every single word of every single question should be studied, the wrong answers, the question stems, everything!! I felt like the step questions were essentially the same as world questions, they just had that one extra piece of info that world questions omitted to make you think.

A few of my friends had kaplan qbank and I looked at a few of their questions. I don't know if I just saw more of their obscure questions, but they were NOTHING like the step questions, and they had a bunch of obscure info that I've never seen or heard before.

And of course, make sure you go through FA multiple times. Every question I had on subjects like pharm came straight from the info in FA. If you can answer any question someone were to ask you from FA, then you should start thinking about something like pharmcards. Otherwise imho you'll be studying extraneous detailed info that's not relevant to step.

G. audio really helped (1.5 speed), I'm a slower reader so RR Path would have taken too much time. I'm sure that's a good source too if you have the time to really study a dense book like that.

Hope that helps

thanks.

League54 said:

Now that it's over, the main thing that really jumps out at me is that I wish I had time to go through uworld TWICE!! I went through it extremely thoroughly the first time, (5-5.5 hrs per 48 questions). Every single word of every single question should be studied, the wrong answers, the question stems, everything!! I felt like the step questions were essentially the same as world questions, they just had that one extra piece of info that world questions omitted to make you think.

A few of my friends had kaplan qbank and I looked at a few of their questions. I don't know if I just saw more of their obscure questions, but they were NOTHING like the step questions, and they had a bunch of obscure info that I've never seen or heard before.

And of course, make sure you go through FA multiple times. Every question I had on subjects like pharm came straight from the info in FA. If you can answer any question someone were to ask you from FA, then you should start thinking about something like pharmcards. Otherwise imho you'll be studying extraneous detailed info that's not relevant to step.

G. audio really helped (1.5 speed), I'm a slower reader so RR Path would have taken too much time. I'm sure that's a good source too if you have the time to really study a dense book like that.

Hope that helps

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What you mentioned above is my plan right now. I am still going through my first round of UW but intend to go thru through that twice and am really depending on UW explanations to teach me more than anything else right now. However, some mention that the anatomy questions have been weird lately and so I was planning on going through HY anatomy (old copy) for only Upper Limb and Lower Limb because I don't have time to go through the entire thing and I hate anatomy.
What is your suggestion on that? Do you think that together with UW q's and FA would be enough?
What were your NBME scores BTW?
Thanks again.

Definitely a relief to know that the changes really aren't that drastic, at least content wise!

League54 said:

I took it yesterday, and would definitely say that FA, UWORLD, and Goljan Audio were completely sufficient. I only remember seeing two questions that I hadn't seen or heard somewhere in those 3 resources, and one of those was easy to figure out just from the stem.

When I saw the 46 questions, I sort of freaked out because I had read about the "long" question stems. But I was able to finish each block with 20-25 minutes left and spent the remainder of the time looking over the questions I marked. They really weren't any longer than any of the NBME's stems (I did 1-5). I recommend doing at least 1 NBME about a week out so you get a sense of what the test will be like, and definitely stick to FA, WORLD, and G. audio.

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20-25 minutes to spare and only 2Qs u couldnt recognize? damn, you must have prepared well!
all the best for the score mate!

I was wondering if you get something to write on for the the exam. For instance, I'd like to write out the biostats tables for the calculation questions. Don't want to risk making any silly mistakes.

I'm sure it says somewhere but I'm lazy; how early should I arrive to check in? I've never been to this testing center.

psych said:

I was wondering if you get something to write on for the the exam. For instance, I'd like to write out the biostats tables for the calculation questions. Don't want to risk making any silly mistakes.

I'm sure it says somewhere but I'm lazy; how early should I arrive to check in? I've never been to this testing center.

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I think you're supposed to get there at least 30 min before your appointment. Check your emails from prometric and NBME to make sure. Also, they provided me with a dry erase board and markers for writing/calculations. Not as good as a pencil and paper, but it worked.

psych said:

I was wondering if you get something to write on for the the exam. For instance, I'd like to write out the biostats tables for the calculation questions. Don't want to risk making any silly mistakes.

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You get two markers, two (I think...I never used them) erasable boards and an eraser.

Super. Thx so much!

So with the delayed test scores, does that mean regardless when you take the exam this June, we will all receive our scores on July 14?

NUc12 said:

So with the delayed test scores, does that mean regardless when you take the exam this June, we will all receive our scores on July 14?

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Yep. It sucks.

my question is not related to this topic, but i have a question if anyone is able to help me out, one of my friend who took step1 exam had this one picture with 2 kids joined together and one kid with 2 eyes in one eye socket and same kid with nose on his forehead (i am thinking that is holoprosencephaly patau syndrome), anyone can shed some light on those..coz i cant figure out .

could it be related to the hox gene crap?

pilottodoctor said:

my question is not related to this topic, but i have a question if anyone is able to help me out, one of my friend who took step1 exam had this one picture with 2 kids joined together and one kid with 2 eyes in one eye socket and same kid with nose on his forehead (i am thinking that is holoprosencephaly patau syndrome), anyone can shed some light on those..coz i cant figure out .

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You are correct. It's funny that you mention this because I just went over this in First Aid, pg. 127: "Holoprosencephaly: decreased separation of hemispheres across midline, results in cyclopia, associated with Patau's syndrome..."

I probably wouldn't have gotten this question, so thanks for bringing it up!

pilottodoctor said:

my question is not related to this topic, but i have a question if anyone is able to help me out, one of my friend who took step1 exam had this one picture with 2 kids joined together and one kid with 2 eyes in one eye socket and same kid with nose on his forehead (i am thinking that is holoprosencephaly patau syndrome), anyone can shed some light on those..coz i cant figure out .

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Maybe its Hox or PAX gene related since mutations in these genes cause developmental errors, If it it Patau syndrome than the kids in the picture should be less than 1 years old since most die by that age. Anyway I'm not sure.

thanks

pilottodoctor said:

my question is not related to this topic, but i have a question if anyone is able to help me out, one of my friend who took step1 exam had this one picture with 2 kids joined together and one kid with 2 eyes in one eye socket and same kid with nose on his forehead (i am thinking that is holoprosencephaly patau syndrome), anyone can shed some light on those..coz i cant figure out .

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I had this one. The picture freaked me out. When it popped up I literally jumped in my seat.

lildave2586 said:

I had this one. The picture freaked me out. When it popped up I literally jumped in my seat.

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lol, same thing my friend said, that was her question

lildave2586 said:

I had this one. The picture freaked me out. When it popped up I literally jumped in my seat.

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so what was the answer?

I just finished taking step 1 and I feel that it was pretty fair overall. I feel about the same as I did after taking NMBE6 and the CBSE. I'll find out with the rest of you in July to see if I end up scoring about the same...

I didn't notice the question stems being any longer than they were on the comprehensive basic sciences exam. If anything, most were shorter. However, I did have 3-4 questions per block that were 8-10 lines, but these were almost always "what do you say to the patient?" type questions.

With the exception of my first block (I was freaking out that I was actually taking the real USMLE1), I ended up finishing each block with between 5-15 minutes to spare for review. If it gives you any perspective, I usually finish our 125q mock boards with about 10 minutes to review.

Overall, a very doable exam and certainly less painful than taking the MCAT (which all of us have survived).

In short, you guys can do it! Keep studying hard and best of luck on test day.

MoscowAbe said:

Maybe its Hox or PAX gene related since mutations in these genes cause developmental errors, If it it Patau syndrome than the kids in the picture should be less than 1 years old since most die by that age. Anyway I'm not sure.

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It's both holoprosencephaly and hox gene related. From wiki:

Holoprosencephaly (HPE, once known as arhinencephaly) is a cephalic disorder in which the prosencephalon (the forebrain of the embryo) fails to develop into two hemispheres. Normally, the forebrain is formed and the face begins to develop in the fifth and sixth weeks of human pregnancy. Hox genes, which guide placement of embryonic structures, fail to activate along the midline of the head, allowing structures that are normally paired on the left and right to merge. The condition also occurs in other species, as with Cy, the Cyclops kitten.

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kryptik said:

so what was the answer?

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Deleted

thanks lildave and sol

kryptik said:

thanks lildave and sol

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No problem

Overall, the exam was very similar to NBME 6/7. There were quite a few repeats (BPH x 7 lysosomal storage disease x5). There was not real pressure with time, there was still a fair mix of long and sort passage questions, with a few mega long questions thrown in for good measure. Luckily on the mega ones, the pertinent information and question were in the last 2 sentences.

jimmyboi said:

Are majority of the anatomy questions on the new step pertaining to nerves (esp the musculoskeletal chapter). Because I feel like spending 10-15 mins on memorizing the brachial plexus might be helpful for those extra points. Any idea guys?

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It's just like it's always been: a complete crap-shoot. I had absolutely 0 brachial plexus questions. Seriously.

rem6775 said:

It's just like it's always been: a complete crap-shoot. I had absolutely 0 brachial plexus questions. Seriously.

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I had a couple, pretty easy. Ulnar nerve palsy, carpal tunnel syndrome.

I had one brachial plexus question, I think there was nothing from heme. I had to pick out the hippocampus twice, once on CT and once on a gross image. Very little biochem and micro. I had a few random anatomy questions about arteries.

It's all completely random + plus a few things you couldn't have possibly studied.

Best advice is, relax and take it easy, nothing you cram in the last few days is going to make or break you.

jimmyboi said:

Are majority of the anatomy questions on the new step pertaining to nerves (esp the musculoskeletal chapter). Because I feel like spending 10-15 mins on memorizing the brachial plexus might be helpful for those extra points. Any idea guys?

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In my opinion, it is definitely worth it. I had a diagram that pointed to a nerve and asked what the deficit would be. At the very minimum you need to be able to recall all of the movements responsible for each nerve. They will describe a movement deficit and ask you what nerve is damaged. Another thing they could do is describe a movement deficit and ask what the most likely injury would be. For example, a patient that can't extend the wrist most likely has a midshaft fracture of the humerous (which would produce a radial nerve injury).

I took Step 1 today. It was a fair exam for the most part. I took the 46 question exam and finished each section with ~10 minutes to spare. lots of molecular bio/experiment type questions, way less path than I expected, lots of clinical scenarios (with arrows up and down). most of the pharm was mechanism/indication. very little S/Es on pharm. 2 media questions; they were easy. All the biochem on my exam was clinically relevant (enzyme deficiencies, vitamin deficiencies..). There were a few questionable parts of the exam: one question ended with a preposition and it was basically impossible to tell what they were asking. Another was verrrry misleadingly ambiguous.. these questions you just gotta get inside their collective heads and try to figure it out. I didn't feel like most of the exam was tricky though; while questions could be vague (to avoid giving away an easy answer) most questions were more straightforward than UWorld. I was surprised how much of the exam was repeated. There were several similar questions and there was one that I got right only because of info in a question from a previous block. thank you NBME!! lol.

dunno what else to say (until July 14 that is...)

if I had to study for it all over again I'd do pretty much the same.. know FA/RR/UWorld as well as possible and use other review books to focus on weaknesses.. beyond that what can you do?? luck? good test taking? you know they're gonna throw some crazy q's out there, just fight on and everything will be alright.

Is score anxiety beginning to kick in for anyone else? For some reason I was able to put it out of my head for just about a month after taking the test, but now I'm starting to worry.

I think part of the problem might be that I'm now doing Uworld questions to study for my shelf exam. That screen just gives me anxiety.