Hey guys,
I am new to the forum. I actually, have been "stalking" the forum for the past couple of months haha before sitting for my Step 1 exam but finally have decided to post since I have some time on my hands.
I wanted to give you all my experience with the exam since I have recently taken it on April 2nd:
Overall, I think the exam was tough, but fair. I know this probably doesn't make much sense to all of you , nor is what you wanted to hear given some of your anxiety levels right now - especially those who are going to be taking the exam soon, so let me explain. From what I encountered on my exam, there were some give away questions as well as some questions that I had to think about, even questions that I honestly had no clue and had to take my best guess at. One of my colleagues that sat for the exam about a week before I had said that he had a lot of molecular biology and neuro on his exam. Another friend, who took the exam on the same day as this said colleague, said she had a lot of anatomy on her exam. Point being, their is a considerable amount of "variety" as far as what your exam will be like from one person's individual experience to another, so don't think because so and so says they had a predominant amount of X subject on their exam, that you should change your current study schedule after the fact because that is what you might think your individual exam will be like. From my exam experience, I can honestly say that I had a broad distribution of questions. No discipline was left untouched on my exam. If I had to say if anything was tested heavier, I would say Pathology and Pharmacology, but let me just add that this might be my interpretation as sometimes the way the discipline for which the question is "framed" in is actually testing on a concept in another discipline. For example, they might ask me a question which is framed in such a way I might think it is a pathology question, however they are testing me on a biochemistry question ultimately... you all know as well as I do that the board of medical examiners have become very good at doing that.
I would say my exam was most like the "NBME style of questions". I had taken all of the current NBME's available prior to sitting for the exam. The way they asked the questions on my particular exam was very similar to the NBMEs in that sense, however some of my question stems were VERY long. I know that some of the NBME test forms such as 15 and 16 have some long vignettes (more so than the early ones - specifically the ones that have become no longer available for us to purchase recently), so I was expecting that, but honestly some were much longer than what I had encountered beforehand. For example I had a few questions each block that were a large paragraph followed by a table/graph. For these questions, I decided it was best to flag them and come back to them because you WILL/SHOULD have time at the end of each block to do that since I felt like they added a fair mix of "short" and "long" questions in each block (at least on my exam). In addition, I had a handful of calculation questions that I felt, if I could not answer them within a little over a minute, give-or-take, I would mark them to return back to them. With respect to the questions regarding a calculation, I used my time at the end of the block to go back to them to either do them or just recheck that I had not made a simple calculation error or overlooked a given variable. I also used this time to recheck some of those long vignettes or questions involving interpreting graphs/tables that I marked because I felt pressured on time...
Some questions required very little rationalizaton/problem-solving and were straight recall (you either memorized it or not), while others required some level of integration of the material and required application to scenarios you probably have not come across even with passes through FirstAid/Kaplan/Pathoma/Goljan or the multitude of Qbank resources out there.
Honestly, I don't know how I did on this exam. I don't think I did terrible, but it is truly very hard to say if I reached my set goal going into this exam. We all have different expectations of ourselves with regards to our performance on this. I am am assuming, since we have all spent the time on forums like these, that we have high expectations for ourselves. I am not the one ultimately grading my exam as well as their is still much "secrecy" regarding how this exam is graded, it so it would only make sense to feel uneasy right? From what I have read, I am learning that this feeling is quite normal for even those who have done quite well...so only time will tell I guess.
So if I have to give you guys any advice, go into this exam with confidence. It is definitely doable. Yes, you will encounter things you have never seen, or presented in a way you have never come across, but there will also be questions that give you confidence to keep moving through each block (since it is such a long exam). You will probably come out of the exam, feeling uneasy, just as I do right now, but honestly, just tell your self that you gave it your best shot and you couldn't have done anything too different and this is ultimately how the majority of people feel, even those who score quite well.
If I have to critique my own studying style, I would say, when your studying please focus more on the concepts and think more broadly and APPLY when it is expected of you. The toughest part for me was delineating between when this was expected of me because I didn't want to "overthink" the question, because I have realized through my studies that sometimes I tend to overthink. Don't overlook the details, but understand things as well so that you can tackle those questions which might just give you that considerable "edge" needed in this exam. You really need a good balance. I think it really comes down to your confidence in your preparation. For example, don't think because you are given a histopathological picture/description of something in the context that doesn't fit into what you think is the "classical" presentation that is presented to you in your given question, that it still can't be the correct answer. Go with your gut and what you know, don't let them screw you up by second guessing yourself because it was presented in a context that was foreign to you...
I wish all of you the best of luck and hope you all achieve the scores you hoped for, each and everyone of you deserve it...
Now the long wait of a few weeks begin haha
