Anxiety Level: Step 1 Vs Mcat

[gravitywave]

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Like most other med students in here, I'll say Step 1 was much more stressful, for all the reasons people have already said. The stakes are much, much higher. If you can't pass it, you are cooked - far more so than if you can't get a competitive score on the MCAT. The stats on how many students fail Step 1 don't matter once you are in the middle of it - you, the individual, still have to pass. I do think the remarks about them being different styles of test are very true, although as usual SDN tends to exaggerate them. Step 1 requires no small amount of critical thinking, and the MCAT certainly requires the ability to retain formulas and mechanisms. After all, just because there aren't many med students posting who got straight As in basic sciences and then got a below average Step score doesn't mean that they aren't out there.

I scored well on both exams, similar percentiles on each relative to my cohort. But the performance required ~10x as much exam-specific effort for Step 1 as it did for the MCAT. Every year gets more difficult on this path, guys. Whether you enjoy the road depends on how much you enjoy the new challenges.

While we're on the subject, no one I know in med school studied for the MCAT for more than a few weeks. Some people take it without having taken all the pre reqs and are med students now. Studying full time for months might be the norm on SDN, but not IRL. For that matter, the people I've known who studied for months on end were the ones more likely to do poorly and perhaps not make it.

 

[cuculici1]

Physics are important in many parts of medicine. Radiogists even take physics courses during residency. Cardiogy uses lots of physics also. Not sure where you got that idea.

Are you a premed?

Mechanics is also important in orthopedic surgery and PM&R.

 

[cuculici1]

Like most other med students in here, I'll say Step 1 was much more stressful, for all the reasons people have already said. The stakes are much, much higher. If you can't pass it, you are cooked - far more so than if you can't get a competitive score on the MCAT. The stats on how many students fail Step 1 don't matter once you are in the middle of it - you, the individual, still have to pass. I do think the remarks about them being different styles of test are very true, although as usual SDN tends to exaggerate them. Step 1 requires no small amount of critical thinking, and the MCAT certainly requires the ability to retain formulas and mechanisms. After all, just because there aren't many med students posting who got straight As in basic sciences and then got a below average Step score doesn't mean that they aren't out there.

I scored well on both exams, similar percentiles on each relative to my cohort. But the performance required ~10x as much exam-specific effort for Step 1 as it did for the MCAT. Every year gets more difficult on this path, guys. Whether you enjoy the road depends on how much you enjoy the new challenges.

While we're on the subject, no one I know in med school studied for the MCAT for more than a few weeks. Some people take it without having taken all the pre reqs and are med students now. Studying full time for months might be the norm on SDN, but not IRL. For that matter, the people I've known who studied for months on end were the ones more likely to do poorly and perhaps not make it.

Agreed, I've noticed the same thing about pre-meds that are non SDN users. One of my friends just studied for the January MCAT over winter break last year. Some of them take a class that meets once a week during the semester, but obviously that is not "full time" work. The MCAT is very much a reasoning test and as long as your remember the concepts you don't need a huge amount of review. However, if you do decide to buy The Berkeley Review's books, read all the chapters, and do most of the practice questions you are in for a lot of studying. Most people don't even know TBR exists though.

 

[sinombre]

I find it interesting that the MCAT is widely considered a "reasoning" test. The test I took basically required straight regurgitation for both PS and BS (i.e. most questions had almost nothing to do with the passages). My test basically felt like a series of disjointed and random questions from www.mcatquestion.com. VR obviously had a lot of reasoning, which is probably why I scored the highest in that section.

 

[cuculici1]

I find it interesting that the MCAT is widely considered a "reasoning" test. The test I took basically required straight regurgitation for both PS and BS (i.e. most questions had almost nothing to do with the passages). My test basically felt like a series of disjointed and random questions from www.mcatquestion.com. VR obviously had a lot of reasoning, which is probably why I scored the highest in that section.

BS isn't really like this anymore (so I've heard, a lot of experimental analysis of data in the passage), and a lot of PS concepts can't really be solved through memorization alone. Did you take it recently? Everyone has their own opinion anyway, so I'm not saying your impression is invalid.

 

[gravitywave]

I find it interesting that the MCAT is widely considered a "reasoning" test. The test I took basically required straight regurgitation for both PS and BS (i.e. most questions had almost nothing to do with the passages). My test basically felt like a series of disjointed and random questions from www.mcatquestion.com. VR obviously had a lot of reasoning, which is probably why I scored the highest in that section.

I actually think experiences like yours gesture toward the nature of the entire debate over the difference between the two tests, namely, that people's impressions are subjective. A student more comfortable with the reasoning component is likely to blow over the reasoning that's necessary and focus on the memorization they had to do/demonstrate, because that was the part that came less easily. The converse would be true for someone more comfortable with memorizing stuff. Pure conjecture but I think most people would be able to tell you they felt better about one versus the other if pressed.

What I can remember from the MCAT is that very few questions really required you to know an answer, and that the vast majority of them could be figured out from the basic principles you learned in the core classes. This was especially true for the ones that looked like they really wanted you to know some esoteric piece of information. For Step 1, that process will only get you down to three or four answer choices; most of the time, you really do have to know it.

 

[GadRads]

The point is with just a bachelors, your options are very limited. Some people retake more than twice and still fail miserably. I really doubt you studied for 3 weeks and got a 37.

It's VERY VERY possible. I got 33 with two weeks. And I know people smarter than me who did 3 weeks and scored 36-40.

 

[GadRads]

To be honest I'm sure they both suck. I'm studying for the MCAT almost full time now for a few months, and I'm sure Step 1 will be 6 weeks of hell prior to the exam. Unfortunately, pretty much any curved standardized test is a pain in the ***.

The only exception to this was the SAT, but that's because I could study 15 hours for it and get a good score. Can't do that with Step 1 or MCAT, as there's a lot more information that you have to review. Also for the SAT I had a tutor holding my hand through the entire process, for the MCAT I wasn't interested in paying a tutor 6 grand.

GRE is easy too. Studied for 1 day (<8 hrs) and got 1420/1600. On the other hand I put in 100-120 hrs over 2 wks for the MCAT. I wish med school was easier. So much minutiae to memorize.

 

[Rothbard]

Step 1 wasn't as bad. I went into it comforting myself with the fact that the test is 8 ****ing hours long. You can completely screw up a dozen easy questions and make up for it later.

Hell, you can lose focus for multiple sections, several hours, and still come within a certain acceptable range of your target score.

With the MCAT, there is so much less room for error. When I was applying, I estimated I needed a 33 to get in somewhere, and practice tests predicted my score to be around 36. That's a difference of one point in each section, or about two questions per section. No room for error. It was pretty nerve wracking, and I psyched myself out on my first test, so I canceled the score.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Step 1 wasn't as bad. I went into it comforting myself with the fact that the test is 8 ****ing hours long. You can completely screw up a dozen easy questions and make up for it later.

Hell, you can lose focus for multiple sections, several hours, and still come within a certain acceptable range of your target score.

With the MCAT, there is so much less room for error. When I was applying, I estimated I needed a 33 to get in somewhere, and practice tests predicted my score to be around 36. That's a difference of one point in each section, or about two questions per section. No room for error. It was pretty nerve wracking, and I psyched myself out on my first test, so I canceled the score.

That logic doesn't hold very well. I don't recall the exact percentages, but a 33 is something like 80th percentile of test takers, correct? That's a solid 240 on Step 1. If you're up that high, individual questions are going to start making a bigger difference. It's also a longer test, so it's obvious that single questions will matter less. I completely disagree that you can "lose focus for multiple sections" and still score well, though. Blow one block of Step 1, and you're cooked. You can't just sigh, shell out another $200 bucks, and take the test again. Seriously, I don't even know why this thread even exists. Retakes alone make the MCAT a much less daunting proposition, even if we were to make the hilariously faulty assumption that the two exams were somehow equal in terms of difficulty/required knowledge.

 

[Brachyury]

That logic doesn't hold very well. I don't recall the exact percentages, but a 33 is something like 80th percentile of test takers, correct? That's a solid 240 on Step 1. If you're up that high, individual questions are going to start making a bigger difference. It's also a longer test, so it's obvious that single questions will matter less. I completely disagree that you can "lose focus for multiple sections" and still score well, though. Blow one block of Step 1, and you're cooked. You can't just sigh, shell out another $200 bucks, and take the test again. Seriously, I don't even know why this thread even exists. Retakes alone make the MCAT a much less daunting proposition, even if we were to make the hilariously faulty assumption that the two exams were somehow equal in terms of difficulty/required knowledge.

A 33 is the 88-91th percentile, which would be a 250-254. A 31 is the 80th percentile, which is about a 242

 

[Rothbard]

That logic doesn't hold very well. I don't recall the exact percentages, but a 33 is something like 80th percentile of test takers, correct? That's a solid 240 on Step 1. If you're up that high, individual questions are going to start making a bigger difference. It's also a longer test, so it's obvious that single questions will matter less. I completely disagree that you can "lose focus for multiple sections" and still score well, though. Blow one block of Step 1, and you're cooked. You can't just sigh, shell out another $200 bucks, and take the test again. Seriously, I don't even know why this thread even exists. Retakes alone make the MCAT a much less daunting proposition, even if we were to make the hilariously faulty assumption that the two exams were somehow equal in terms of difficulty/required knowledge.

There are two kinds of questions on step 1. Those that you can answer quickly because they're very easy or very hard; and those that are intermediate and require some thinking.

A lot of questions on step 1 are very easy. A small number are extremely difficult, and I think most people get them wrong. Because these questions are very easy or very hard, it doesn't matter how "on" you are that day, you'll probably answer them the same way.

Most of the rest of the questions can be immediately narrowed down to 2-3 choices using basic knowledge, at which point you need to be able to think on your feet. So completely blowing a section doesn't mean getting everything wrong, it just means that you get a few more wrong than you normally would.

To be more specific here's an example. If you're performing at the 230-250 level, then in any section, there are probably 10 questions that are at that intermediate level of difficulty for you: not so easy that the answer is obvious, not so hard that you're probably going to get it wrong. Narrowing each question down to the 2-3 answers means you'll probably get 3/10 of those questions right by pure chance even if you're completely off your game. If you're completely on your game, maybe you'll get 6/10 correct.

Ie, even if you're way off your game, you're probably still going to be within 15-20 points of your predicted score.

The MCAT is completely different, and I'd say well over half the questions require more than a little thought. A predicted score of 36 can easily become a 28-30 if you're having a bad day.

 

[Rothbard]

A 33 is the 88-91th percentile, which would be a 250-254. A 31 is the 80th percentile, which is about a 242

You've got to remember that percentiles for the MCAT are for med school applicants. About half of all people who apply to med school get in somewhere (and half don't get in anywhere, and are eliminated from the Step 1 test taking pool). So for example, a 95th percentile MCAT probably correlates to around a 90th percentile Step 1; a 90th percentile MCAT probably correlates more to a 80th percentile Step 1.

 

[yehhhboiii]

You've got to remember that percentiles for the MCAT are for med school applicants. About half of all people who apply to med school get in somewhere (and half don't get in anywhere, and are eliminated from the Step 1 test taking pool). So for example, a 95th percentile MCAT probably correlates to a 90th percentile Step 1.

What happened to all the people who took the MCAT and didn't apply? There are also the people who took the MCAT multiple times.

 

[Brachyury]

You've got to remember that percentiles for the MCAT are for med school applicants. About half of all people who apply to med school get in somewhere (and half don't get in anywhere, and are eliminated from the Step 1 test taking pool). So for example, a 95th percentile MCAT probably correlates to around a 90th percentile Step 1; a 90th percentile MCAT probably correlates more to a 80th percentile Step 1.

There are also people not at US allopathic schools who take Step 1, some of whom will not match

 

[evilbooyaa]

That logic doesn't hold very well. I don't recall the exact percentages, but a 33 is something like 80th percentile of test takers, correct? That's a solid 240 on Step 1. If you're up that high, individual questions are going to start making a bigger difference. It's also a longer test, so it's obvious that single questions will matter less. I completely disagree that you can "lose focus for multiple sections" and still score well, though. Blow one block of Step 1, and you're cooked. You can't just sigh, shell out another $200 bucks, and take the test again. Seriously, I don't even know why this thread even exists. Retakes alone make the MCAT a much less daunting proposition, even if we were to make the hilariously faulty assumption that the two exams were somehow equal in terms of difficulty/required knowledge.

Agree with the bolded. Not being able to re-take Step 1 if you pass (and god forbid you fail for anything competitive) makes it significantly more stressful. I think if you disagree with that, you are 99% someone who hasn't taken Step 1 yet.

 

[SpecterGT260]

http://www.bigbri.net/?p=95

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17198300

A 218-223 is about average (but it seems to go up every year). All in all, this correlates loosely with people scoring ~30 +/- 1. But nothing is really set in stone here.

 

[gasblaster]

Agree with the bolded. Not being able to re-take Step 1 if you pass (and god forbid you fail for anything competitive) makes it significantly more stressful. I think if you disagree with that, you are 99% someone who hasn't taken Step 1 yet.

Agree.

 

[zherussianbear]

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.

Something very similar happened to me on my MCAT. I cannot imagine that on the Step. I'd spaz hard.