Anxiety Level: Step 1 Vs Mcat

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stereochemistry

stereochemistry

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In the minds of those that have completed both, which caused more stress, axiety, lack of sleep, or feelings of dread?


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stereochemistry said:
In the minds of those that have completed both, which caused more stress, axiety, lack of sleep, or feelings of dread?


Spill the beans..
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Step 1 by far. There is simply far more material that is fair game. Most people will spend more time studying for Step 1 than the MCAT and yet cover a smaller percentage of the material out there that could potentially be asked.

Plus you usually have scheduling opportunities to retake the MCAT if you blow it, whereas it could really screw up your rotation schedule if you fail Step 1. And having done poorly on Step 1 is much harder to erase than a simple MCAT retake. So there is a ton more pressure.

At each step along this road, you will fondly look back on how easy you used to have it. Step 1 vs MCAT is one of these examples.
 
stereochemistry said:
In the minds of those that have completed both, which caused more stress, axiety, lack of sleep, or feelings of dread?


Spill the beans..
Click to expand...


The MCAT is nothing compared to USMLE Step I. Neither caused any specific feelings of "dread" or "lack of sleep" but the stress level is much higher after USMLE Step I than the MCAT. The MCAT was practically an afterthought and once I took it, it was done. USMLE is one shot to get the job done right.
 
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Definitely Step 1. With the MCAT, I always had in the back of my mind, "Well, I can retake it if I bomb the thing."

No retakes with Step 1, unless you totally fail it, in which case you are screwed no matter what. So it's one shot, do-or-die. I really started to wig out about 3-4 days before the test.
 
Another vote for Step 1.
 
Is there anyone out there that may have the opinion that the MCAT was totally make or break because it kept you in/out of medical school, yet Step 1, if you performed well but not up to your wildest dreams, meant: "oh well, I guess Orthopaedics is not for me; such-and-such not-so-competitive medicine, here I come!" ?
 
Step 1, by far. However, one thing that made the MCAT hard was taking it while I was in school and concurrently studying for other classes. In contrast, your medical school will give you time off to study for Step 1.
 
You know how you have that nightmare where you're taking Step 1, and you accidentally kick the power cord of your computer? And the screen suddenly goes black? And you sit there for that purloined moment, eyes transfixed by the vacant pixels, hoping you'll stroke out before you crap yourself?

Yeah, that happened to me.

Fortunately, they powered it back up and it returned me to the very question I left hanging.

Good times.
 
Gut Shot said:
You know how you have that nightmare where you're taking Step 1, and you accidentally kick the power cord of your computer? And the screen suddenly goes black? And you sit there for that purloined moment, eyes transfixed by the vacant pixels, hoping you'll stroke out before you crap yourself?

Yeah, that happened to me.

Fortunately, they powered it back up and it returned me to the very question I left hanging.

Good times.
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Holy cow.:eek: That suckz

One of my classmates had a blackout (during the calif power outage/shortage) in the middle of his last block. He actually had to take the whole exam over again a few weeks later. Thing is he already paid for a vacation package and went on it knowing that when he got back he had to take the beast all over again.

For me on the mcat I was on the end of the verbal section, when the proctors declared you have 10 minutes left. I started to freak cuz I was nowhere near done so I started to just bubble in all Bs for my answer choice. 10 minutes go by and the proctor says oops, you actually still have 10 minutes left. So these foolios declared 10 minutes left when we actually had 20, but by that time the damage was done I couldn't get to together to go back and do the questions I'd just filled in an answer for.

Sorry but :hijacked:
 
Ive described step 1 as a "REAL fight", but have heard others describe it as a nightmare...
[Use to joke with friends and say "If you dont like or fail step 1 you can always go take the police test"]
 
Step 1 by far! Although, I feel like I knew how to study for Step 1 better. I had no clue how to prepare for the MCAT. At least after two years of med school I feel like I have a better gauge for what's high yield and what's just trivial.
 
stereochemistry said:
Is there anyone out there that may have the opinion that the MCAT was totally make or break because it kept you in/out of medical school, yet Step 1, if you performed well but not up to your wildest dreams, meant: "oh well, I guess Orthopaedics is not for me; such-and-such not-so-competitive medicine, here I come!" ?
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No. As most above have mentioned, many people have to retake the MCAT for a better score and still get into med school. Far fewer people get their choice of residencies if they tank step 1. So that's the real make or break test.
Seriously -- once you get a bit past the MCAT you will realize it is just a little hill on the way to base camp -- the real mountains still lie before you. Sorry.
 
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Gut Shot said:
You know how you have that nightmare where you're taking Step 1, and you accidentally kick the power cord of your computer? And the screen suddenly goes black? And you sit there for that purloined moment, eyes transfixed by the vacant pixels, hoping you'll stroke out before you crap yourself?

Yeah, that happened to me.

Fortunately, they powered it back up and it returned me to the very question I left hanging.

Good times.
Click to expand...

While I suppose this is what I get for reading SDN the night before step 1, I just wanted to thank you for putting ANOTHER nightmare scenario into the dozens swarming around my brain tonight ;) Oh well, I'm sure I'll look back on this and laugh... right? Probably? Aargh, I need a Xanax!
 
WhoisJohnGalt said:
Oh well, I'm sure I'll look back on this and laugh... right? Probably?
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Totally. It's all chuckles compared to what Long Dong described.

In all seriousness, when the power actually died on my computer I felt no worry. Beyond that empty moment of realization there was no excitement. No hysteria. I walked out to the front office and said "I just killed the power in my cubicle." They fixed it in short order and I continued right on. It was only later that I bothered to reflect on it.

Frankly it's similar to what happens during those uber-stressful moments in the hospital. Like codes. Sometimes it's only later, over a Southern Style biscuit from Mickey D's that you think "Holy f*ck, did I just watch that guy die"?

Ah well, anyways, g'night!
 
stereochemistry said:
In the minds of those that have completed both, which caused more stress, axiety, lack of sleep, or feelings of dread?


Spill the beans..
Click to expand...

For me it was the MCAT, for me that was the test that would determine my overall career. I suppose if I absolutely had to be one of the more competitive specialties then the Step 1 would have given me a lot of anxiety as well.

I definitely studied heaps and heaps more for Step 1, but I slept well, managed anxiety reasonably well, and never really felt any dread.

Gut Shot said:
You know how you have that nightmare where you're taking Step 1, and you accidentally kick the power cord of your computer? And the screen suddenly goes black? And you sit there for that purloined moment, eyes transfixed by the vacant pixels, hoping you'll stroke out before you crap yourself?

Yeah, that happened to me.

Fortunately, they powered it back up and it returned me to the very question I left hanging.

Good times.
Click to expand...

The system crashed at my test center. It was a horrible experience because no one would explain to me what exactly was going on and whether or not I had lost everything and would have to retake. Fortunately I didn't but my tachycardia didn't let up for quite a while.
 
As far as preparation, build up, hype, etc. I would go with the majority vote on step 1. As far as during the actual test I would say the MCAT...i guess just something about proctors reading instructions and counting down time left that just makes me nervous. Once i sat down for Step 1 I was just in the zone for 7 hours and it was over like that. You get to make the decisions whether you break or keep going as well. And I suppose also as someone else said, for me it was easier to know what to study for Step 1, so i guess i felt more prepared for it once it was actually test time.
 
Step 1.

The day before the MCAT my sister and I watched Doris Day movies all day on TCM, made dinner, dessert. And the MCAT was on paper, which I like soooooo much more than computerized tests.

Step 1. I studied all day before. Went to bed the night before after getting rid of a migraine, woke up with a migraine at 3am and couldn't go back to sleep, got a migraine during the 2nd to last block, so I had to take a break for medicine instead of just finishing the test. During the test I realized that my constant nervous foot moving might turn off the power since I kept hitting something at the back of the cubicle, so I had to control that nervous habit. (Didn't lose power, but I started to worry about it). Now I'm having LOTS of dreams about questions I potentially missed. Like polar bears asking me, since I just watched some Planet Earth with polar bears.

The only other exam I've ever been more nervous/anxious/a wreck for than Step 1 was my pharm final.
 
Ashers said:
Like polar bears asking me, since I just watched some Planet Earth with polar bears.

The only other exam I've ever been more nervous/anxious/a wreck for than Step 1 was my pharm final.
Click to expand...

Your polar bear dream beats my dream where I got shown a photo of a dog and had to identify the breed.

and we all remember how you were before the pharm final... and you know, studying under the table actually was kinda helpful for me at one point as well before Step 1.
 
Agent Splat said:
Your polar bear dream beats my dream where I got shown a photo of a dog and had to identify the breed.

and we all remember how you were before the pharm final... and you know, studying under the table actually was kinda helpful for me at one point as well before Step 1.
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with studying under the table. Especially when people who just want to bother you won't leave you alone. The day before Step 1 people came up to me, and they were like "This is a good sign, you're not under the table yet."
 
This one is not hard to figure out. If you fail the MCAT, you can move on to another career, in 1-2 years you would have forgoten about it. If you fail step 1, your ass is grass, and the consequences will probably last a lifetime.
 
Step 1 vs MCAT? They're not even in the same category.

I studied for a couple weeks for MCAT, strolled in, took the test, did fine. Never really worried, certainly never lost any sleep. Most students who do well in undergrad do fine on the MCAT, and as mentioned previously, you can always retake it.

Step 1 entitled months of a very rigorous study schedule and a good deal of anxiety. Your step 1 score is one of the most important factors as you apply to residency. Therefore, step 1 can determine one day which specialty you can realistically consider and what city you live in. If you were undecided on specialty at the time of step 1, like me, and wanted to keep your options open, this can be very stressful.
 
stereochemistry said:
Is there anyone out there that may have the opinion that the MCAT was totally make or break because it kept you in/out of medical school, yet Step 1, if you performed well but not up to your wildest dreams, meant: "oh well, I guess Orthopaedics is not for me; such-and-such not-so-competitive medicine, here I come!" ?
Click to expand...

I think you have a wider range with the MCAT. As long as you can get INTO med school, you have enough of a launching pad into any field you want. Unless you do really badly on the MCAT, no score is enough to "make or break" your chances.

Now, though, it's a much more narrow range. I mean, there are lots of people who get into med school with "average" (30-31) MCAT scores. But there are very few people who get into derm or ortho with "average" (210-220) Step 1 scores. For some specialties, anything < 235 is almost definitely not good enough. That's kind of frightening. Plus - when you take Step 1, you haven't done any rotations yet, so you don't really know what you want to do. What if you don't do very well on Step 1, just enough to barely pass, and then realize at the end of 3rd year that you HATE peds, family med, and internal med? By that point it's too late to do anything.

I think that feeling like you need to do well merely to keep your options open makes Step 1 that much more stressful.
 
i'm already looking back on the MCAT thinking it wasn't too bad, almost even fun to study for...i have a feeling i'll never feel that way about Step 1
 
damn, why did I start this thread...
 
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stereochemistry said:
damn, why did I start this thread...
Click to expand...

So here's what I've gathered is the story with medicine -- well, what I've gathered from SDN. The next step is always harder than the last step. :eek: Second semester of 1st year is harder than 1st semester. Second year is harder than first year (so they tell you). Step 1 is harder than the MCAT. Internship year is harder than medical school ...

Yeah, I guess it just keeps on sucking more than it previously sucked. Yay! :(
 
maybe i'm an anomaly here but i would have to say the MCAT was worse in terms of anxiety and whatnot. certainly not in terms of the material...step1 beats the mcat hands down in the amount/difficulty of material. however... the average mcat score is NOT a 30. its somewhere around 24-25. that means more than half the people that take the mcat get a score that makes getting into any med school very difficult...considering the average matriculating ms0 has ~30 on the mcat. whereas...the average score on step1 is 215-217...barring the most competitive residency programs in each field and some intrinsically hard to enter fields (integrated plastics, derms, and such) you can get the average score or lower (so long as you pass step1).

i would however say that med school in general is FAR more anxiety provoking than undergrad and this definitely plays into the whole freaking out over step1 thing considerably.
 
Havent taken it yet, but Step 1 hands down...its probably more important than Steps 2 and 3 in a lot of ways too. Any reasons I would give why Step 1 is more important is just a rehash, but there is very little you can do to correct a bad Step 1 score, while there is tons you can do for a bad MCAT score. I found that you dont really have to know a whole lot to do well on the MCAT, while Step 1 actually requires you to know a mind boggling amount of material...it makes me shudder to think that my entire first year taught me very little of what will be on Step 1, despite the fact that its helped me on the wards a bit, eep.
 
greater_omentum said:
maybe i'm an anomaly here but i would have to say the MCAT was worse in terms of anxiety and whatnot. certainly not in terms of the material...step1 beats the mcat hands down in the amount/difficulty of material.
Click to expand...

I really missed having genuine practice tests to study from for Step 1. I did the NBME practice tests, but you can only take them once, you don't get an answer sheet (just an estimated score), and they cost $45 to do once. I know there's QBank, but I just started losing patience with it after the 14th question that talked about some disease that I had never heard of. (Menkes disease?!) At least for the MCAT, you have old tests from the AAMC, and those come with answer keys. Plus, they were in paper form, so I did them over and over again.
 
"The next step is always harder than the last step"

cept one glitch...4th year is cake...tho you pay for it in something called "internship" the following year!
 
Oh man. Step 1 like crazy. When I took the MCAT, I had not yet definitively decided I was absolutely going to apply to med school. I was still a little uncertain, so I thought, "well, if I don't do well on the MCAT, I guess med school isn't the place for me." It's hard to be anxious about something when you don't feel your future is hanging on it. Also, my housemate was taking the MCAT at the same time/place as me, so we used to bum around the house and study. It was really mellow. After we took it, we went home, made her boyfriend fetch us some KFC, and watched The Real Adventures of He-Man. All in all, it wasn't an awful day.

Step 1, however, was (a) scary, (b) ridiculously difficult, and (c) overall WAY more important to me, so it was far more anxiety-provoking. Never have I ever worried so much about a test!
 
Agree with the above. The MCAT is basically a reading exam if you understood the concepts in your prerequisite courses. USMLE is a memorization competition between a bunch of people who have already been filtered and re-filtered.

Cue the Eminem song for Step I: "Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you've ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it? Or just let it slip?"

Regarding stuff getting harder as you go along, many a ROAD resident have mentioned to me that PGY-1 is the nastiest year of residency.
 
personally....step 1>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>MCAT

granted I studied a little bit more for the boards....and by a little I mean 3-4 hours a day for 3 weeks for the MCAT vs. 10-14 hours a day for almost 2 months for Step 1...
 
Both were a big deal for me but for different reasons. I was at a very low tier state school, GF was at a very high tier school. She took prep courses, i had some used books to study. I knew I had a huge uphill battle because our stats and how they compared.
Scores were important, as they are now..but i must say they seem to have gotten more important, same for Step 1.
USMLE was wierd...I dont think i really realized how important a good score really was. I studied for a few months..and did well. Early in 3rd year i figured out what I wanted to do..and was glad i studied. I guess i feel lucky i fell back on my type A personality. thinkin about it now..phew glad i put the time in. that is why sites like this are valuable, we never had resources like this (9 yrs ago step 1, MCAT 12-13? yrs)
 
Hello fellows

$ 64 for 4 years membership. How does that sound. Anybody tried it. Should I go for it. Is it worth it?
 
in retrospect, i think, the mcat looks way easier than it did at the time. i was pretty freaked out studying maybe 2 hours a day for a month... whereas i've been at this step1 studying thing 8-14 hours/day for 6 weeks... however i'd say after 1st year (to a lesser extent) and 2nd year (to a very great extent), your tolerance for studying goes up.

at the end of the day though, they are both challenging exams for the level of student they are pitched at, and we are also (mostly) type A people who tend to want to do well for the sake of doing well.

i wouldn't want to take the mcat again, and i'm looking forward to getting step1 out of the way finally (on friday)...so maybe my blase attitude here is a bit o' denial. i guess we all gotta have our defense mechanisms...
 
OK, personally the material was harder for the MCAT. Yes, there was a lot less material for the MCAT, but I really suck at physics and organic chemistry and to this day, nothing about waves of any kind makes any logical sense in my brain. Medicine is way easier to understand, with the exception perhaps of mixed acid base disorders which still elude me.

Anxiety? Step 1 no question. Yes, I wanted to be a doctor. But if I bombed the MCAT, I already had a job which, while not exactly fulfilling, had good benefits and had its moments, and I'd only wasted three evenings a week over three months plus $1,500, and I could always take it again... plus three of five sections were cake-I was a bio major, and verbal and writing, you don't need to bring anything to the table with you. Compare to two years of med school and I don't even want to think how much money.
 
I was a lot more anxious about the MCAT than Step 1.

I'm odd though, I had already failed out of one career (computer science) and was applying to med school with a 2.9 GPA. So the MCAT was pretty much my one shot at having any career at all; I was told that unless I scored around a 35 or so I probably wouldn't even get looked at by any schools. I prepped for around 4 months for it and slept for maybe 3 hours the night before.

I did well in my first two years of med school and had a pretty good understanding of all the concepts so my Step 1 prep (6 weeks) was more or less a laid-back review (other than pharm, micro, and immuno which I had to learn from scratch). I went golfing the day before the exam and slept 7 or 8 hours. I don't know how I did yet, but I'm not really interested in any super-competitive specialties and I'm pretty confident that I did well enough for me to be happy with how I did. The day of the exam I was pretty much in a zone and not stressing out over any questions.

So, MCAT for me, but I'm definitely the exception.
 
Step 1 definitely, by far.

I didn't run with the gunner type circles in undergrad. Many of my classes were geared just for pre-med and they were very adamant about not paying for the Kaplan prep classes, so I believed them. I studied the book, practiced questions, and my test went great.

Step 1 I've started hanging around with people interested in neurosurgery, ortho, and interventional radiology and they're rabidness scared me into studying like a madman. My nerves were shot leading up to the exam.

However, the actual act of taking the test was MUCH more pleasent with Step 1. MCAT I was running short on time, I felt half asleep the whole time, the room was insanely hot, and my chair was so uncomfortable that I messed up something in my back. Step 1 I took more leisurely, was able to schedule some nice breaks to clear my head, and I felt more positive after I walked out. Of course, now I'm doubting all the questions I figured out I got wrong, but at the time I felt good.
 
i barely studied for the mcat; i worked 2 practice tests and that was it.

i didn't sleep the night before step 1 i was so nervous.

hope that clears it up.
 
radiocures said:
i barely studied for the mcat; i worked 2 practice tests and that was it.

i didn't sleep the night before step 1 i was so nervous.

hope that clears it up.
Click to expand...

Look at all these people saying they barely studied for the MCAT. They have to be lying, because its common now for people to study 3-4 months for 6-8 hours a day! Was the MCAT just a hell of a lot easier back then? Because that test is ridiculous now!
 
kgpremed11 said:
Look at all these people saying they barely studied for the MCAT. They have to be lying, because its common now for people to study 3-4 months for 6-8 hours a day! Was the MCAT just a hell of a lot easier back then? Because that test is ridiculous now!
Click to expand...

That's excessive.
 
kgpremed11 said:
Look at all these people saying they barely studied for the MCAT. They have to be lying, because its common now for people to study 3-4 months for 6-8 hours a day! Was the MCAT just a hell of a lot easier back then? Because that test is ridiculous now!
Click to expand...

I think this is partially due to the fact that it was before SN2ed posted an MCAT study schedule that a lot of people on this site attempt. His schedule requires a full time job time commitment for 3 months, but in reality is probably more work than a lot of people need to do well.

Also, question to med students that have taken Step 1. Did you just study for 6 weeks (albeit 8-10 hrs/day) during the time off your school gave you, or did you start before M2 ended?
 
kgpremed11 said:
Look at all these people saying they barely studied for the MCAT. They have to be lying, because its common now for people to study 3-4 months for 6-8 hours a day! Was the MCAT just a hell of a lot easier back then? Because that test is ridiculous now!
Click to expand...

Woah! I definitely didn't study like that for EITHER the mcat nor step 1.

For the MCAT I remember doing maybe 10 practice tests, listen to some audio exam krackers and memorizing a couple high yield sheets. Definitely was more like a part-time job for 1 month.
 
For the MCAT I always thought, "well if I bomb I could void the exam (since nobody would know), retake, and do well."

Also, I had so much time to study for the MCAT
 
Last edited:
cuculici1 said:
I think this is partially due to the fact that it was before SN2ed posted an MCAT study schedule that a lot of people on this site attempt. His schedule requires a full time job time commitment for 3 months, but in reality is probably more work than a lot of people need to do well.

Also, question to med students that have taken Step 1. Did you just study for 6 weeks (albeit 8-10 hrs/day) during the time off your school gave you, or did you start before M2 ended?
Click to expand...

I spent about 6 weeks studying for Step 1, but I did a first pass of all my UW questions during M2. That is not a necessity though; I don't know if it helped me any more than it would have someone who just used their study time.

The first 4 weeks of my study period were spent on a 10 hour day schedule (with time for lunch, dinner, exercising, and usually would watch 10-minute TV video snippets of episodes in my breaks). The last 2 weeks were usually 6-8 hours, but that's because I was done with my questions and it was mostly just memorizing and cramming (with about 3 of those days dedicated to practice exams).
 
GalenAgas said:
For the MCAT I always thought, "well if I bomb I could void the exam (since nobody would know), retake, and do well."

Also, I had so much time to study for the MCAT
Click to expand...

Yup. I took the MCAT twice. Not nearly as much stress as the Steps, which you can only take once.
 
Scored well on both and would say the MCAT was much more stressful.

Step 1 has a WAY more forgiving curve and is a longer exam -- you don't have to worry about dropping 10 percentile points because you had one bad section in verbal reasoning. MCAT tends to test your ability to read critically and reason, whereas 99% of Step 1 is pure memorization.

For many people, the stress associated with Step 1 is associated with the pursuit of lifestyle specialties and a loss of perspective that many med students suffer from-- Do I get to do that derm residency in San Diego or do I have to do internal medicine in Ohio (end of the world scenario)?? Compare this to the very real possibility of not being able to become a physician at all due to failing the MCAT..
 
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