anyone feel like **** after the real exam?

[gotdoc]

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took step 1 yesterday and i feel like ****! i thought i was going to feel satisfied after the test but I was a mess instead!

my middle two blocks were tough as **** so by the time i got to my last two blocks i was losing my confidence. i wasnt even tired i was just fading a little. I'm worried i got tons of questions wrong that i should have gotten right or that i was fogetting stuff. UGH!

on my last NBME (#3) (1.5 weeks before my major review), I got a 224 and was pretty happy. I knew i had some more time to go over concepts i needed more strength in.

anyway, did anyone else feel completely awful after the test and end up doing well? i just dont know how to stop thinking about it and just be happy im done. I feel like i might have totally failed it.

HELP!

 

[Keg]

took step 1 yesterday and i feel like ****! i thought i was going to feel satisfied after the test but I was a mess instead!

my middle two blocks were tough as **** so by the time i got to my last two blocks i was losing my confidence. i wasnt even tired i was just fading a little. I'm worried i got tons of questions wrong that i should have gotten right or that i was fogetting stuff. UGH!

on my last NBME (#3) (1.5 weeks before my major review), I got a 224 and was pretty happy. I knew i had some more time to go over concepts i needed more strength in.

anyway, did anyone else feel completely awful after the test and end up doing well? i just dont know how to stop thinking about it and just be happy im done. I feel like i might have totally failed it.

HELP!

Apparently, this is the case with everyone. As such, I have started prophylactic Paxil Qday to stave off such a feeling. I'll report back.

Seriously though, anyone have a beta blocker handy? For performance anxiety?

 

[SirCuneus]

I feel like a million bucks after taking it June 9 (yesterday)...NOT. I can recall the easy ones I missed just because you feel so rushed to get through the questions. So I honestly missed some easy questions that I should've gotten right.

But I had a lot of cellular and molecular biology on my exam and I was so glad that I read the HY Molecular and Cell. That book saved me on a bunch of questions.

Overall, I think I remember more of the easy ones I missed so i hope that means I got the ones I'm not thinking about right (which would be the majority of the questions). But I echo your feeling OP, it's just not a feeling you are exactly comfortable with when you finish.

 

[gogo110182]

i am glad someone else is feeling the same.... I remember more of the easy ones i missed than others... haha.... My exam reached final orgasmic plateau at the last block... needless to say, i was half-dead coming out....

 

[theunderdog]

i am glad someone else is feeling the same.... I remember more of the easy ones i missed than others... haha.... My exam reached final orgasmic plateau at the last block... needless to say, i was half-dead coming out....

i concur. i remember missing the drug indication for S.pyogenes, two questions on epidural / subdural hematomas, etc. i was so mad i missed these questions.

 

[farnsworth]

i concur. i remember missing the drug indication for S.pyogenes, two questions on epidural / subdural hematomas, etc. i was so mad i missed these questions.

In one of those "quote" questions I think I told a patient to "**** off". I was delirious.

 

[emlopez2]

In one of those "quote" questions I think I told a patient to "**** off". I was delirious.

I definately agree with you here. I must have had like 10 "quote" questions on WWJD type of situations. Another thing I was a mad about was the extreme amount of biostats I had on my test, and it wasnt any of the simple sensitivity specificity stuff either. And of course I found my self later thinking of questions i should of got right just because I was rushing or second guessing myself. Overall though i dont think the test was anything compared to doing UWorld over the last 6 weeks.

 

[SirCuneus]

Overall though i dont think the test was anything compared to doing UWorld over the last 6 weeks.

True that. Too many questions about "what to say in response" to the patient's complaint. Some of those answers had really obvious responses and then others were like...hmmm...options a and b both sound really good.

 

[farnsworth]

True that. Too many questions about "what to say in response" to the patient's complaint. Some of those answers had really obvious responses and then others were like...hmmm...options a and b both sound really good.

And the occasional...."none of these sound that good".

 

[Doctor J]

Kaplan QBank is pretty good for those quote questions... A lot of them get low percentages correct, too, so you can tell they aren't the gimme's.

I've had quite a few wrong in the QBank and while I may disagree with a few of the "Correct" answers you can bet your rear end I'll answer them "Correctly" on the Step.

 

[oreosandsake]

And the occasional...."none of these sound that good".

sadly.... +1

 

[rperiod]

But I had a lot of cellular and molecular biology on my exam and I was so glad that I read the HY Molecular and Cell. That book saved me on a bunch of questions.

I picked up that book from the library a few days ago and boy is it dense. Any particularly important sections that you'd recommend going over?

 

[StevenRF]

I still feel like crap and it's been 3 days. 350 filled in circles have the possibility to negate the last 24 years of my life I busted my ass to get here.

BTW +4 to those multimedia questions. What ***** thought those were a good idea for first and second year students? My headsphones must have been f'ed cause every APTM spot sounded like the same normal lubdub.

2 more years of the Bull**** Tolerance Test that is medschool. Save me.

 

[DaveinDallas]

StevenRF --- as a local radio talkshow host here (Russ Martin) likes
to say,"Buddy, Buddy....."

I go on Saturday.....reading some of the comments here, I'm thinking I
want to take the pig, pass it and be done with it........

I'm taking the prophylactic step of organizing a party at our local 'On The Border' restaurant....just 20 of my closest friends and their families for appetizers and beverages of their choice on the patio....music, friends, Mexican food and good times......

I haven't seen most of these folks for any extended time for 2 years so I figured I'd depressurize with them and get reacquainted.....


Why am I telling you this.....perhaps it would help going into your 'screw it all -- I just don't care anymore' mentality for a night or two to recharge and then come back to it.....

 

[Flopotomist]

I feel HORRIBLE after my exam today. There were some SUPER simple gimme questions that I goofed and can't believe ... I confused long thoracic and thoracodorsal nerve (weird, I made that same mistake 1st year too) and I forgot which color went with what in the gram stain.. of course got it down to 50/50 and went the wrong way. Idiot. 😱😱

 

[emlopez2]

I feel HORRIBLE after my exam today. There were some SUPER simple gimme questions that I goofed and can't believe ... I confused long thoracic and thoracodorsal nerve (weird, I made that same mistake 1st year too) and I forgot which color went with what in the gram stain.. of course got it down to 50/50 and went the wrong way. Idiot. 😱😱

At the time I didnt exactly feel horrible after my exam, but its been 3 days now and anxiety is setting in. It doesnt help that this week im studying for COMLEX and all while reviewing more micro and pharm its recalling my memory as to questions i missed on the USMLE. Most of them of course were stupid mistakes that I should have known which really burns me. Anyways I think just about everybody on here feels about the same way. Cant get those questions off our minds that should have been correct, but im sure im sure the correct should outweigh the stupid mistakes.👍

 

[FDoRoML]

Yes, I took it yesterday (Wed) and have that sinking feeling. It was like a month meant nothing... a whole month of 15 hr days... questions... note-taking... and... well, the blocks were super evil hard. My very first one was full of specific pharm (and not the easy, use all the time, pharm!) and some very random other specific Qs that I thought just blew chunks. Not a good way to start out a long day.

I hear that EVERYONE thinks they did worse than they actually end up doing, and I'm banking on that. We have 6 weeks to find out whether we blew our residency hopes (for those who already have strong intentions in one direction), and I'll just have to figure out a way to forget it until then. 🙁

But, on a brighter note, given that we all passed... it's a party! No more year 1-2 material to study!!!

 

[femme]

But, on a brighter note, given that we all passed... it's a party! No more year 1-2 material to study!!!

Is that a given?

 

[Red Beard]

It doesnt help that this week im studying for COMLEX and all while reviewing more micro and pharm its recalling my memory as to questions i missed on the USMLE.

Haha, yeah, just before I opened this thread I was skimming GI in First Aid (COMLEX this Saturday) and saw another easy question I now know I got wrong. 🙄

 

[SirCuneus]

Going through FA after taking the test is torture...I hated it. Earlier someone asked about the HY Molecular and Cell. If you can get your hands on the 1999 edition, that's the one I used and it's readable in a day. In fact, I only read the bold words. There are lots of pictures and it's great; it was more than sufficient for what I had on the USMLE on 6/9.

 

[FDoRoML]

Is that a given?

Now that's funny. No, it's not "a given" that we passed. But GIVEN THAT WE DID, it's time to party. Notice it's a qualifier. Well, I suppose that until we know for sure, we can pretend to party anyway, while our minds race internally.

Off to think about things other than the questions I know I missed.🙄

 

[jmk]

Add me to the feel like S**** list and I feel really bad because my bf has been really supportive throught the last month and I came home in a BAD mood... he was great though handed me a beer and turned on the tv...

amazingly it was a lot better after 12 oz of good beer

this morning is another story....


ahhhh why does this process take so long... computers can determine our scores in seconds why do we need to wait

 

[Keg]

Add me to the feel like S**** list and I feel really bad because my bf has been really supportive throught the last month and I came home in a BAD mood... he was great though handed me a beer and turned on the tv...

amazingly it was a lot better after 12 oz of good beer

this morning is another story....


ahhhh why does this process take so long... computers can determine our scores in seconds why do we need to wait

So they can standardize all of us against one another who took it this month.

 

[Helo]

hey everyone,

i feel like **** after the test. it was a def WTF moment since i was asked about path and physio that i have never seen (and ive read/done/understood all the review sources and was a very good student in school). NBME's were a joke compared to the real thing; NBME questions were so much more straight forward and easy compared to the real thing...i was getting straight stars across the board on the NBME's only to take the real thing and find that it was so ridiculously different. i really felt like i wasted $$$ buying the NBME exams since my exam didnt even resemble them. I am hoping that the insane difficulty of my exam will be accounted for, but I am not at all going to count on that. Even though people feel that they could have taken it like a week before and done just as well, I disagree...there were some little facts that i relearned that night before that was directly on the exam (it was a knee jerk answer this way). other questions were out of this world, with tons of questions that had 15+ lines in the question stem and lots of histo pictures (less gross path surprisingly). i had an answer and good idea for each NBME question but found 10-14 ?'s per section in the real thing to be nuts and i was sure of (at least a few that i had no idea about, craziness!).

overall, i feel pretty terrible! this is a great thread and it made me feel better to hear others vent some anger as well. hope some of you have better experiences than me!

 

[InternationlDoc]

I second the above poster

real exam was HARDER - as in the path integration you needed to do was sooo very difficult. I mean as goljan says, If I had a day - i'd be fine, but we are all under time limit.

For example, I had this question: Women comes in with no periods for the past 3 months, got elevated prolactin and has galactorrhea, uterus is a little big. I believe estrogen and progesterone were a little depressed - whats the diagnosis? answer choices were hyothyroidism (yes this could be it), pregnancy (most common cause of ammenorrhea - so yes + prolactin level rises + plus her uterus was a little retroverted and a bit bigger), severed infundibulum (sure, loss of dopamine inhibition, but wouldn't there be ADH deficiency etc?) --

now you guys tell me what it is? Yea. HARD.

similarly- did you know that Peptic ulcer disease pain can radiate to the shoulder and arm?!! guess what another answer choice had angina pectoris -- and presentation totally would have thrown off alot of people in the direction.

also what to do for a muscular VSD? it 90% of time spontaneously closes- so do nothing?(I went with this one - seriously, I'm sorry NBME but I don't think they teach us management yet jeez)

tough stuff on USMLE

may be other than 3 blocks, every other block, like Helo, I had easily 20 questions that were just weird.

 

[emlopez2]

I 3rd the upper two posters. I took the USMLE on Monday and still cant get over how rediculous the test was. I took the harder NBME 4 about five weeks out and got a 232. After the solid 5 weeks of studying and doing UW i figured i would come in and blow most of the questions away. Well it didnt exactly turn out that way. Mostly the physio and epidemiology was completely out in left field. Way harder than anything i saw on the NBME or UW. It was like they gave you so much info in the question stem and all the answers were so similar that it was near impossible to narrow down the correct ones. Anyways I just got done with COMLEX today and went in and pretty much blew it away finishing it 2hrs early. I always herd COMLEX was disorganized and all over the place but it turned out to be way easier than the USMLE. Ok im done venting. Off to VEGAS for a 5 day bender.

 

[InternationlDoc]

I 3rd the upper two posters. I took the USMLE on Monday and still cant get over how rediculous the test was. I took the harder NBME 4 about five weeks out and got a 232. After the solid 5 weeks of studying and doing UW i figured i would come in and blow most of the questions away. Well it didnt exactly turn out that way. Mostly the physio and epidemiology was completely out in left field. Way harder than anything i saw on the NBME or UW. It was like they gave you so much info in the question stem and all the answers were so similar that it was near impossible to narrow down the correct ones. Anyways I just got done with COMLEX today and went in and pretty much blew it away finishing it 2hrs early. I always herd COMLEX was disorganized and all over the place but it turned out to be way easier than the USMLE. Ok im done venting. Off to VEGAS for a 5 day bender.

seriously man. I am keeping a list of questions I know for sure I missed. It's upto 12 already! out of which 7 I SHOULD have gotten right because they are really the dumb mistakes (but hey no excuses, its still a mistake). DAMN - this really suck; when you know it and got blocking going on during the test.

on another note- is this exam really "curved" some people told me that its not really scaled (sdn differs in opinion as I hear it is curved and stuff).

also can a veteran post if they felt they underachieved versus their NBMEs but ended up +/-5 points from their last NBME?

 

[SoCuteMD]

I felt AWFUL after the test. I think I cried that night. I ended up doing almost exactly how I wanted to do/how I would have predicted I'd do before the test.

 

[Red Beard]

I just took COMLEX yesterday and I feel worse about that than about the USMLE. Not what I expected based on everything I'd heard. I had way more questions on COMLEX that I basically had to totally guess on. 👎 Kind of sucks since I think I want to do an osteopathic residency...

 

[jon0013]

seriously man. I am keeping a list of questions I know for sure I missed. It's upto 12 already! out of which 7 I SHOULD have gotten right because they are really the dumb mistakes (but hey no excuses, its still a mistake). DAMN - this really suck; when you know it and got blocking going on during the test.

on another note- is this exam really "curved" some people told me that its not really scaled (sdn differs in opinion as I hear it is curved and stuff).

also can a veteran post if they felt they underachieved versus their NBMEs but ended up +/-5 points from their last NBME?

bro i feel ya...made ridiculously dumb errors...everyone does...but man im not gonna sit here and dwell on these errors for a month...not trying to recount my entire test and look everything up...im sure you will be fine I-Doc...

 

[Helo]

d

 

[nudmamer]

Gotta say Im pretty nervous about my score and have been agonizing over my careless errors since. It really disrupted my ability to study for COMLEX (which was a disaster). I got 240+ on my NBME's and feel like I flopped on test day. I am sure of 12 or so that I wish I didn't miss and 5 of those that if I were the grader for my test I would kick me out of medical school for getting wrong. Overall the test was very difficult and they were LLLOOONNNGGGG stems. Im in medicine because my reading comprehension sucks so that didn't help. Oh well I am praying I did decent I would settle for a 220ish and would really like a 230+ but at this point I am conviced that only an act of god will get me that score. We shall see and untill then I will continue to hate myself. Thank you NBME for making me wait 6 weeks.

score over 240. I am amazingly greatful.

 

[Green Chimneys]

If it's true that we need to get ~70% of the questions correct, as per First Aid, then I definitely failed.

Oh well, nothing we can do about it now...except PARTY

 

[alliekat71]

seriously man. I am keeping a list of questions I know for sure I missed. It's upto 12 already! out of which 7 I SHOULD have gotten right because they are really the dumb mistakes (but hey no excuses, its still a mistake). DAMN - this really suck; when you know it and got blocking going on during the test.

on another note- is this exam really "curved" some people told me that its not really scaled (sdn differs in opinion as I hear it is curved and stuff).

also can a veteran post if they felt they underachieved versus their NBMEs but ended up +/-5 points from their last NBME?

I do the same thing after exams- agonizing over my mistakes (my exam is a week from tomorrow)- BUT I must say (and I apologize in advance if I am just so far off) to me, only knowing you got TWELVE wrong (as frustrating as missing ones you know can be)- still puts you in line for a terrific score (especially given your NBME performance!). Its a 330+ test- I think I'd be thrilled if I came out of the test only being sure of getting 12 wrong (or 20, or 30 for that matter!). Am I completely mistaken at how many you can miss to still score pretty well on this thing (I know theres not a definitive answers- but does anyone have some thoughts on this)?

 

[InternationlDoc]

haha - only 12? no way man. Dude that would be like a 290! no way

those 12 were questions that gave me trouble/had an uneasy feeling about. But really, what I realize now is that they present questions in a tough way but are asking a simple thing. I got alot of answers this way, but on some I couldn't see what they wanted,but in reality it was a simple answer.That is what bothers me. some Im begining to figure them out now just randomly everyday that a wake up lol. I believe the ammenorrhea question was hypothyroidism (i think TSH was low so TRH would be high which would increase prolactin --- see its easy but not so on the test, didn't get my brain working fast enough). Also, I missed Angina pectoris! I mean who does that?! (confused it with PUD in pain symptoms and radiation to arm but whatever) so couple of more of these EASY pathophy/path questinos that really anybody with straight head would get. I dont know I wasn't thinking straight or something. There were only a few (I'd say 10 questions) where I had NO IDEA. Rest you could figure out.

I believe if you are 290+/336 that should be ~ 265 ish or something. Yea, 70% on test to pass? thats ridiculous. This has to be curved.

 

[farnsworth]

Yeah, the problem is that for every 1 question you know you got wrong, there's a few that you probably got wrong that you might not have noticed or remembered. At least that's the fear.

 

[jon0013]

Yeah, the problem is that for every 1 question you know you got wrong, there's a few that you probably got wrong that you might not have noticed or remembered. At least that's the fear.

but theres also a few that you think you got wrong but you got right...and i dont believe that 70% is passing...i think 60% is passing...

 

[farnsworth]

but theres also a few that you think you got wrong but you got right...and i dont believe that 70% is passing...i think 60% is passing...

Yes, but we're talking about why people get freaked out by the ~dozen questions that they remember.

 

[justskipee]

Well just to give people another opinion. I just took my test today and I feel great. I spent 6.5 weeks preparing, stuck to my schedule, and did everything in my power to earn as many points as I could. I have no idea how I did, but I know I did my best given the time I set aside.

 

[Tiger26]

Just took it and have the 'hit by a truck' feeling--anywhere between 185 and 260--really no idea to gauge, which is kinda hard because over the first two years of med school, I've been able to predict my score to about +/- 2% on pretty much every test.

 

[SeventhSon]

I just took the real thing today. MAN do I feel like crap.

The #1 constraint was time. There were at least 3 questions where I walked outside during my break, thought about it, and then had the "ah-ha" moment that I would have had if I was doing a normal UWorld block that gave you a reasonable amount of time.

To those casual observers: be prepared for stems that are on average, 1.5 times longer than UWorld stems, and twice as long as the stems on NBME 3 (not exaggerating). There were many stems that took up half of the screen. I was usually finishing UWorld blocks with 1-2 minutes left on average, and if you are still preparing I would say try to make sure you are finishing with 5-7 minutes left on your UWorld blocks.

In terms of difficulty, I thought questions were very comparable to UWorld, although UWorld is definitely lacking in the neuroanatomy department.

 

[agranulocytosis]

Yeah, I was staight floored today. Whole bunch of physio that I thought I knew but ended up just narrowing down to 2 and guessing. Some of those questions were just OUT THERE! But the worst part of it all, the time! I couldn't last 3 blocks without having to go out for a drive while eating my sandwich.

 

[agranulocytosis]

I just took the real thing today. MAN do I feel like crap.

The #1 constraint was time. There were at least 3 questions where I walked outside during my break, thought about it, and then had the "ah-ha" moment that I would have had if I was doing a normal UWorld block that gave you a reasonable amount of time.

To those casual observers: be prepared for stems that are on average, 1.5 times longer than UWorld stems, and twice as long as the stems on NBME 3 (not exaggerating). There were many stems that took up half of the screen. I was usually finishing UWorld blocks with 1-2 minutes left on average, and if you are still preparing I would say try to make sure you are finishing with 5-7 minutes left on your UWorld blocks.

In terms of difficulty, I thought questions were very comparable to UWorld, although UWorld is definitely lacking in the neuroanatomy department.

My experience was not quite that bad. Most were 4-5 lines, some were even 1-2 lines. There were quite a few stems that took up the 1/2 screen (involving lab values and such), but it wasn't that bad of question if it was such a long stem. Sometimes even reading the final question at the end allowed me to skip the lab values. It reminded me very much of UW, but the amount of "simpler" questions was relatively higher on the real deal than on UW.

 

[SeventhSon]

My experience was not quite that bad. Most were 4-5 lines, some were even 1-2 lines. There was there the stem that took up the 1/2 screen (involving lab values and such), but it wasn't that bad of question if it was such a long stem. Sometimes even reading the final question at the end allowed me to skip the lab values. It reminded me very much of UW, but the amount of "easier" questions was relatively higher on the real deal than on UW.

yeah in retrospect i think I got a weird distribution. There were 2 blocks where I finished with about 4 minutes, but even then I was rushing through the questions out of fear. I always skip questions with long stems, and in one block 4 of the first 5 had half of the page stems

 

[Tiger26]

I concur that almost all of mine were 1.5-2x the length of UW questions, so the time was a really big issue. I got everything in on time, but it came down to the wire on 5 of 7 blocks

 

[hippocampus]

i'm adding myself to the feeling like **** group

 

[InternationlDoc]

yea, after every section I had 1-2 questions where I had the "AHA" moment.

...DAMMIT - still don't know why was path/pathophys so twisted 🙁

 

[Aseptic Pimp]

same boat as you guys. the stems were crazy long, and i can't really tell how i did. missed simple questions, and got lucky on a few fortunately. those people that say they felt ****ty after their test and ended up getting 250+, i wonder if they were exaggerating. hope not.

 

[R_C_Hutchinson]

I'll go ahead and admit that I did the stupid thing and looked up a bunch of questions I was unsure of.

I think that given the intrinsic conflict of the test (that med students are driven to always succeed and the doctors who write the test are driven to differentiate between them) there's really no way one can feel "good" after having taken this test.

 

[johno83]

I'll go ahead and admit that I did the stupid thing and looked up a bunch of questions I was unsure of.

I think that given the intrinsic conflict of the test (that med students are driven to always succeed and the doctors who write the test are driven to differentiate between them) there's really no way one can feel "good" after having taken this test.

Hutch, I am certain you got every question you looked up correct. 👍