IMG 15 days away from Step 1 NBME advice

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dferhadi

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I'm an IMG and have been studying for Step 1 for almost a year after graduation, but the first half of that year was only 3-4 hours a day. Now my studying is up to 8-10 hours and I've gone over FA twice with Kaplan and UWorld once but a lot of the notes I took for UWorld I don't have the time to review. I feel like a lot of the information I've retained is fleeting and I'm never 100% sure of half of my answers.
I've done pretty well on the practice exams but my anxiety is just from the fact that I'm never fully confident in many of the NBME or UWorld answer choices and I hear the real test is much harder so the uncertainy from q stems is almost making me thinking of postponing the exam.

NBME 15 08/20 219
NBME 17 09/11 242
NBME 19 09/24 246
UWSA 1 10/02 264
NBME 16 10/11 250

I'm worried the recent dip from the UWSA1 is a sign of inconsistency but I also felt like I just had a few lucky guesses on UWSA1. I'm looking to score a 240+ on the exam since I'm an IMG and was wondering which NBMEs should I do this week to really gauge where I am and if the ones I've been doing may be irrelevant because they're older, what I should focus on in these last 2 weeks. I always hear about people "memorizing" FA and that sounds ludicrous to me. Does anyone else face all this uncertainty when answering questions? How much did the real exam compare to the NBMEs/UWorld question difficulties?

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UWSAs overpredict, NBMEs usually underpredict. You definitely look set for your goal. Do 18, 24, and USWSA2 to see where you're at.
 
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I had a lot of uncertainty when answering questions, and scored a 262. most high scorers will be operating at the "margin of their ability" (I.e., stretching their knowledge to get as many points as possible), so uncertainty is something to be comfortable with, not concerned about. seems like you are on track to do very well!
 
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I had a lot of uncertainty when answering questions, and scored a 262. most high scorers will be operating at the "margin of their ability" (I.e., stretching their knowledge to get as many points as possible), so uncertainty is something to be comfortable with, not concerned about. seems like you are on track to do very well!
Yeah, I'm finding that to be more and more true. Thanks for the advice.
 
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