Are we about to witness a return to high Step 1 fail rates?

[efle]

There's no public data I can back this up with, but...

I've now heard from multiple students at local med schools, and also seen a bunch of mentions on med school forums, that people in the first Pass/Fail cohorts are failing CBSEs and Step 1 itself at unprecedented rates.

This is probably to be expected, given there were 30 years of score creep followed by the test losing most of its importance essentially overnight. People in MS1-MS2 are probably studying for the test like their counterparts of the year 2000 instead of 2020, which is a problem since the pass mark moved up ~15 points between these eras.

Interesting to note, when Step 1 first rolled out it had a ~15% failure rate, several fold higher than the 3-5% of recent years. With that historical context, I think the NBME is very unlikely to drop the pass threshold down even if we start to see many, many more retakes.

For any current students, what's the situation at your school, is this as widespread a problem as its starting to seem to me?

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[ooh a bean]

I'm a year-end M3 and can't confirm anything, but I've heard a LOT of anecdotal evidence lining up with what you're saying. I personally have a friend at one of the southern MD state schools who was failing NBMEs as late as April and though they ended up passing, they made it sound like their situation wasn't unusual at their school this year.

 

[efle]

Yeah when I was chatting with some local MS3s who just tested they said pretty much everybody has been starting out with failing NBMEs / CBSEs and then cramming really hard in dedicated to get to a reliable pass. Lots of people postponing or having to test with a legit chance of failing if they're unlucky on their test form.

And this is at a school with graded clerkships so there is reason to do more than coast by on 70s every exam. In true unranked pass/fail curriculums there must be a lot of very nervous students and deans.

 

[Lawpy]

The Step 1 pass threshold should decrease

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Why should it decrease?

 

[Lawpy]

Why should it decrease?

Because the only reason why the threshold even increased in the first place is to match with the score creep, and doctors who barely passed Step 1 with a 190 30 years ago are in no way incompetent or incapable of practicing medicine today. The pass threshold should drop back to 180

 

[Lawpy]

The fact that PDs abused Step 1 because they have no answer to the overapplication problem doesn’t justify keeping abnormally high Step 1 pass thresholds. Use the Steps for their intended purpose: to assess basic medical competency of doctors in training and nothing else. To have a Step 1 pass threshold in the 190s is completely absurd.

 

[Ho0v-man]

I guess it’s still just too unfair. We better make it pass/pass before someone’s feelings get hurt. /s

 

[Chelseadagger]

Students at my school (understandably) aren’t forthcoming to share if they failed or not but I did hear that up to a 1/3 of our class delayed their exams beyond the 2 month dedicated period because they didn’t feel prepared/were still not passing practice exams.

 

[hallowmann]

Yeah when I was chatting with some local MS3s who just tested they said pretty much everybody has been starting out with failing NBMEs / CBSEs and then cramming really hard in dedicated to get to a reliable pass. Lots of people postponing or having to test with a legit chance of failing if they're unlucky on their test form.

And this is at a school with graded clerkships so there is reason to do more than coast by on 70s every exam. In true unranked pass/fail curriculums there must be a lot of very nervous students and deans.

Umm, this sounds normal to me. Most people on their first NBME before dedicated are failing or barely passing (scores in the 180s-200s), that's why a lot of schools used to use an NBME mid-2nd year to motivate people to study. This is normal. The exam is hard. Just because it's pass fail doesn't make it easy. You still have to study, but it should be very passable if you actually study.

 

[Konigstiger]

Great thread to come across right before I take it tomorrow morning...

 

[hallowmann]

Great thread to come across right before I take it tomorrow morning...

😄 Go to sleep, you'll be fine

 

[ooh a bean]

Umm, this sounds normal to me. Most people on their first NBME before dedicated are failing or barely passing (scores in the 180s-200s), that's why a lot of schools used to use an NBME mid-2nd year to motivate people to study. This is normal. The exam is hard. Just because it's pass fail doesn't make it easy. You still have to study, but it should be very passable if you actually study.

That was accurate previously

But from a lot of anecdotal evidence I've gathered, there seems to be a not insignificant increase in pre-dedicated students scoring below the 150s on their first NBME.

 

[hallowmann]

That was accurate previously

But from a lot of anecdotal evidence I've gathered, there seems to be a not insignificant increase in pre-dedicated students scoring below the 150s on their first NBME.

150s!? Yeah, that was not the case in the past. 160s-170s were basically what people who we were worried wouldn't pass would get. Are people not using board study materials during 2nd year anymore? That's the only explanation, relying solely on the school curriculum.

 

[Lawpy]

That was accurate previously

But from a lot of anecdotal evidence I've gathered, there seems to be a not insignificant increase in pre-dedicated students scoring below the 150s on their first NBME.

Did people just completely ignore preclinical once Step 1 went P/F

Because that kinda defeats the point of Step 1 going P/F in the first place

 

[BBQisgood4u]

I have a few friends at various schools as well and they've said a similar sentiment about their class (anecdotally) having higher failure rates/many pushing back.

I think a good amount of students saw the pass/fail change and decided it wasn't necessary to go full throttle when it comes to board preparation. They ended up not passing their NBMEs or being too close to the pass cut off and delaying their test.

Many of us realized (a little too late lol) that you still need a good baseline knowledge/efficient and diligent preparation in order to pass.

 

[Dr. Anonymouss]

There's no public data I can back this up with, but...

I've now heard from multiple students at local med schools, and also seen a bunch of mentions on med school forums, that people in the first Pass/Fail cohorts are failing CBSEs and Step 1 itself at unprecedented rates.

This is probably to be expected, given there were 30 years of score creep followed by the test losing most of its importance essentially overnight. People in MS1-MS2 are probably studying for the test like their counterparts of the year 2000 instead of 2020, which is a problem since the pass mark moved up ~15 points between these eras.

Interesting to note, when Step 1 first rolled out it had a ~15% failure rate, several fold higher than the 3-5% of recent years. With that historical context, I think the NBME is very unlikely to drop the pass threshold down even if we start to see many, many more retakes.

For any current students, what's the situation at your school, is this as widespread a problem as its starting to seem to me?

30% of my MD class was not ready to take the test by the schools deadline this year and had to postpone into clinicals. It's hard to say how much of this was nervousness and how much of it was truly unpreparedness, but needless to say it reflects poorly. We have not heard back from the school on pass/fail rates thus far, but based on the aforementioned I will assume the fail rate is higher than previous years.

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

Because the only reason why the threshold even increased in the first place is to match with the score creep, and doctors who barely passed Step 1 with a 190 30 years ago are in no way incompetent or incapable of practicing medicine today. The pass threshold should drop back to 180

They should make the questions easier without dropping the percentage needed to pass. What’s the point of a test where the goal is to get 50% right? What is it even testing?

 

[Mad Jack]

The Step 1 pass threshold should decrease

A large part of the justification for P/F was that most students were reliably passing the exam and the purpose of the exam was to gauge minimum competency. Lowering what qualifies as that minimum competency after going P/F is not a good look

 

[Mad Jack]

The fact that PDs abused Step 1 because they have no answer to the overapplication problem doesn’t justify keeping abnormally high Step 1 pass thresholds. Use the Steps for their intended purpose: to assess basic medical competency of doctors in training and nothing else. To have a Step 1 pass threshold in the 190s is completely absurd.

The minimum knowledge to effectively practice as a doctor has increased exponentially since the first Step exam. Higher cutoffs make sense, unless they substantially revamp content

 

[efle]

That's a good point that it's normal not to be able to pass a Step form pre-dedicated. What I've been hearing is same as above, BAD fails like 50s on the CBSE and still failing scores several weeks into review.

 

[Browns99]

The Step 1 pass threshold should decrease

So, people moaned and the test went to p/f(Some are now second guessing that call), now people are suggesting we drop the minimum passing score. What's next, get rid of the test altogether and we can start residency selection via lottery. I understand Step 1 is hard, but we have to be able to asses a student's basic knowledge of science applicable to medicine.

 

[deleted1079620]

Did people just completely ignore preclinical once Step 1 went P/F

Because that kinda defeats the point of Step 1 going P/F in the first place

At my school we certainly didn’t ignore preclinicals, but our admin used p/f boards as an excuse to cut our dedicated time in half despite the study body begging them not to, and we received very little in the way of help for preparation compared to prior classes. I suspect other schools have enacted similar policies based on what I’m reading online.

 

[longhaul3]

Would not surprise me at all

When this all was announced my first thought was that, despite the shift in focus to Step 2, those scores could actually drop for the first group or two because they would be tempted to ignore Step 1. Of course Step 1 has the reputation for being about useless trivia, but in reality that applies to a small percentage of the tested material, and people underestimate the overlap.

It's been years but I clearly remember that for me, the best Step 2 prep was having learned Step 1 really well. I think most people (at least in my day) could take Step 2 the day after Step 1 and do well without any dedicated Step 2 studying. For younger med students hoping for high board scores for competitive residency spots, it's a predictable but huge mistake in my opinion to brush off Step 1.

I think your question/observation tells the same tale

 

[Goro]

They should make the questions easier without dropping the percentage needed to pass. What’s the point of a test where the goal is to get 50% right? What is it even testing?

Make the questions easier???? Went to grade school anymore!. The whole point of the exam is to assess competence. Nothing more.

 

[Lawpy]

A large part of the justification for P/F was that most students were reliably passing the exam and the purpose of the exam was to gauge minimum competency. Lowering what qualifies as that minimum competency after going P/F is not a good look

The minimum competency only increased because of the score creep as a direct consequence of PDs repeatedly abusing Step 1. It would’ve otherwise remained at 180s

With the score creep now gone, it doesn’t make sense to keep the pass threshold artificially inflated

 

[Lawpy]

They should make the questions easier without dropping the percentage needed to pass. What’s the point of a test where the goal is to get 50% right? What is it even testing?

I can agree with this

 

[Lawpy]

The minimum knowledge to effectively practice as a doctor has increased exponentially since the first Step exam. Higher cutoffs make sense, unless they substantially revamp content

It’s not just the minimum knowledge. The NBME has added much more obscure content and severely ramped up the difficulty of questions to address the score creep as a direct consequence of PDs abusing Step 1. That’s a horrible thing. The pass threshold for a much more difficult Step 1 being a 190s is arguably comparable to a 220-230 in the original Step 1 few decades ago. Combine that with the absurdly high standard errors of Step 1 when it was scored, and it’d suggest people scoring in the low 200s in practice tests are at risk for failing. Doctors back then (or even one decade ago) would fail Step 1 in its current form and in no way are they incompetent or incapable of practicing medicine

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Why would they make it easier? The NBME already gave a huge gift to people who would have scored low? Now it has to be even easier?

 

[Lawpy]

So, people moaned and the test went to p/f(Some are now second guessing that call), now people are suggesting we drop the minimum passing score. What's next, get rid of the test altogether and we can start residency selection via lottery. I understand Step 1 is hard, but we have to be able to asses a student's basic knowledge of science applicable to medicine.

I don’t care much for the people who wanted Step 1 to go P/F and are failing now. I have been strongly against Step 1 ever going P/F in the first place and fought repeatedly with pro-P/F SDNers for years. The resulting problem of high fail rates from P/F Step 1 should force medical education leaders to take a hard look that the idea of the exam going P/F was a disastrous mistake in the first place

Medical education leaders and PDs complain about overapplication while stubbornly refusing to consider direct solutions to that problem (such as app caps). The fact that Step 1 went P/F while overapplication problem remains unaddressed is completely idiotic

 

[Sidus1011]

Wouldn't more people failing ensure that Step 1 is still seen as somewhat valuable? It sucks for those who don't pass, but if people from Top 20s are having a hard time passing at rates like before, it makes a pass still worthwhile. I see this also eventually impacting Step 2 scores, since I've heard from most upperclassmen that their Step 1 score has been pretty well correlated with their Step 2 score.

 

[Lawpy]

Why would they make it easier? The NBME already gave a huge gift to people who would have scored low? Now it has to be even easier?

The people who were scoring low are already at risk of failing the test. They’re not really the winners here.

The only winners here are those at top schools who are confidently passing Step 1 with minimal effort.

 

[Lawpy]

Make the questions easier???? Went to grade school anymore!. The whole point of the exam is to assess competence. Nothing more.

The exam only got artificially more difficult because of the score creep and nothing else. It doesn’t make sense to retain that difficulty in a P/F world. Revert Step 1 to its original purpose and move on. All US medical students are smart and hardworking, and we shouldn’t be using Steps as if they’re the MCAT

 

[Mad Jack]

It’s not just the minimum knowledge. The NBME has added much more obscure content and severely ramped up the difficulty of questions to address the score creep as a direct consequence of PDs abusing Step 1. That’s a horrible thing. The pass threshold for a much more difficult Step 1 being a 190s is arguably comparable to a 220-230 in the original Step 1 few decades ago. Combine that with the absurdly high standard errors of Step 1 when it was scored, and it’d suggest people scoring in the low 200s in practice tests are at risk for failing. Doctors back then (or even one decade ago) would fail Step 1 in its current form and in no way are they incompetent or incapable of practicing medicine

If anything I've heard that Step 1 has gradually phased out the more esoteric stuff for entirely new categories of questions (genetics, more advanced biostats, pharm that covers the infinitely broadened classes of drugs, etc). It used to be that esoteric questions were more prevalent because there was a much smaller content base 30 years ago and they had to fill questions with something. We've got ample content these days, and you need to know more of it to be a doctor with any success. You can't get by with the knowledge base of 20-30 years ago.

The argument that "Oh well they took this or that test back then and they're still fine" doesn't hold up, because being a doctor is a process of lifelong learning and they have to keep up with research to not kill patients or be sued. Training people to the standards of 1980s medicine would be like training mechanics to the standards of 1980s vehicles, they'd be obsolete out of the gate because everything has changed.

 

[Mad Jack]

I don’t care much for the people who wanted Step 1 to go P/F and are failing now. I have been strongly against Step 1 ever going P/F in the first place and fought repeatedly with pro-P/F SDNers for years. The resulting problem of high fail rates from P/F Step 1 should force medical education leaders to take a hard look that the idea of the exam going P/F was a disastrous mistake in the first place

Medical education leaders and PDs complain about overapplication while stubbornly refusing to consider direct solutions to that problem (such as app caps). The fact that Step 1 went P/F while overapplication problem remains unaddressed is completely idiotic

Dare I say the reason people may be failing is that it is pass/fail and there is no longer a drive to study hard to get every last point possible to secure your spot in residency. A Cs get degrees mentality doesn't tend to build a strong desire to work hard for As, and puts individuals far closer to the failure threshold.

 

[Oso]

Dare I say the reason people may be failing is that it is pass/fail and there is no longer a drive to study hard to get every last point possible to secure your spot in residency. A Cs get degrees mentality doesn't tend to build a strong desire to work hard for As, and puts individuals far closer to the failure threshold.

Though I don’t have any evidence, I do agree with this. I think that after a cycle or two of higher fail rates, likely due to the pass/fail mentality and not studying as much, the fail rate will probably return to what it was pre-pass/fail. It’s unfortunate for the students who got caught in the transition and maybe didn’t take it as seriously. Again, I haven’t talked to anyone about this and have zero evidence, but this seems logical to me and I think things will settle out without needing to change the cutoff.

 

[Lawpy]

Dare I say the reason people may be failing is that it is pass/fail and there is no longer a drive to study hard to get every last point possible to secure your spot in residency. A Cs get degrees mentality doesn't tend to build a strong desire to work hard for As, and puts individuals far closer to the failure threshold.

Honestly this is probably the real reason but the people with that mentality are doomed to fail in either Step 1 scenarios. They are the people who are scoring in the 150s-180s because the Steps are still difficult exams even in their original forms from decades ago. However the real risk is for those scoring in the 200s-210s in practice tests who can end up failing because of high standard errors.

 

[operaman]

Fascinating. If true it seems likely to be people blowing off the test. It’s hard to say though because this same cohort has caught the brunt of Covid restrictions, so I wonder if that could be playing a role too.

Most people in my day would skip class and watch the recordings at 2x speed, but we had a decent number who were regulars in person and felt they learned better that way. I think this group also lost out on many group study opportunities along the way, something I found very helpful for synthesis plus gauging my level of understanding relative to my peers. I’d discover areas I’d glossed over and would make a point to give those lectures more time.

I’ll be interested to see the data when the inevitable papers are published about all of this.

 

[Aurarice]

As someone who was one of the last cohort to take scored STEP1, seeing this isn't surprising.

An issue that I noticed shortly after they made the change was the kind of recommendations from upperclassmen, including on Reddit/SDN, which basically emphasized "Score well enough on your school material to pass and focus on research/connections/etc." As much as people talk down about lectures and "low yield" school material, they're still extremely useful as guidelines for order of things to study. (e.g. having timelines to go through certain subjects, trying to actually do well so the material sticks, keeping up with Anki, etc.)

I think what a lot of upperclassmen who gave those sorts of recommendations forgot is how much effort we put in for the rat race early on that significantly paid off during Dedicated. (i.e. Fighting to score >230, 240, or 250)
It's also odd seeing people get through <75% of UWorld with just a couple of full length tests when the advice I had gotten as an MS2 were to do a full first pass at minimum, plus Missed/Marked as much as possible, in addition to all of the NBME's, UWSA's, and Free 120.

 

[DOVinciRobot]

Doctors back then (or even one decade ago) would fail Step 1 in its current form and in no way are they incompetent or incapable of practicing medicine

This is like the people comparing the current NBA players to those in the 70s. The doctors of back then would do just the same as doctors today if there was the same culture of actually studying for the test. In those days people legit didn’t do any sort of test specific study, they just showed up to take it.

Honestly this is probably the real reason but the people with that mentality are doomed to fail in either Step 1 scenarios. They are the people who are scoring in the 150s-180s because the Steps are still difficult exams even in their original forms from decades ago. However the real risk is for those scoring in the 200s-210s in practice tests who can end up failing because of high standard errors.

If people feel comfortable with 200s-210s on practice tests they deserve the increased risk of failure. People in that range aren’t failing because of standard errors in scoring, they are failing because they’re knowledge base is weak enough that if they get too many questions on a topic they don’t know it’s easy to drop into the fail bin. For all of the flaws with the Step exams, they do an extremely good job of discriminating those around the P/F line. Simply put, if you don’t pass then your knowledge base simply isn’t good enough to move on to the next stage in training.

 

[Lawpy]

This is like the people comparing the current NBA players to those in the 70s. The doctors of back then would do just the same as doctors today if there was the same culture of actually studying for the test. In those days people legit didn’t do any sort of test specific study, they just showed up to take it.

No i doubt it and this has been said so by doctors from that time as well. The test has changed drastically and became much more complicated and advanced solely to catch up with the score creep. It doesn’t make sense to retain that level of difficulty with the score creep gone. Steps are meant to assess basic competency and should not be abused by PDs for residency selection purposes just because they’re struggling with overapplication

If people feel comfortable with 200s-210s on practice tests they deserve the increased risk of failure. People in that range aren’t failing because of standard errors in scoring, they are failing because they’re knowledge base is weak enough that if they get too many questions on a topic they don’t know it’s easy to drop into the fail bin. For all of the flaws with the Step exams, they do an extremely good job of discriminating those around the P/F line. Simply put, if you don’t pass then your knowledge base simply isn’t good enough to move on to the next stage in training.

The point is minimum competency not absolute mastery of every single concept. A 200-210 definitely addresses that and people should be satisfied with those scores without the fear of failing. I know SDN is obsessed with the whole 250+/AOA/all honors/10+ high impact publications formula but we need to realize that it’s quite frankly unrealistic to impose such standards on the entirety of US med students, many of whom are content with just passing and doing what they want. The P/F line is originally meant to be in the 180s, not 15 points higher and massively ramped up difficulty because of the score creep. We should go back to those levels and treat the Steps for their original purpose

If PDs want a standardized metric, create a norm referenced exam like the MCAT and have med students take it. Abusing the Steps to serve purposes they’re not meant to serve is a bad approach

Steps should have much lower standard errors if the pass threshold were to remain high

 

[DOVinciRobot]

I know SDN is obsessed with the whole 250+/AOA/all honors/10+ high impact publications formula but we need to realize that it’s quite frankly unrealistic to impose such standards on the entirety of US med students,

Dude what? No one is talking about that. We’re talking about a score of 196 on Step 1…. That is not a high standard by any definition.

The P/F line is originally meant to be in the 180s, not 15 points higher and massively ramped up difficulty because of the score creep. We should go back to those levels and treat the Steps for their original purpose

The passing line as always been in relation to the scores of the testing pool.

Steps should have much lower standard errors if the pass threshold were to remain high

The pass threshold is not high. 196 is not high. And again, the Steps are highly discriminatory around the passing line. The difference between a 196 and a 206 is far more significant than a 245 and a 255. This was one of the arguments for moving it to P/F, because the differences at the far end of the bell curve weren’t really relevant and the only differences that statistically mattered were the ones around the passing line.

Bottom line, If you fail Step 1, you do not have the requisite knowledge to move on. Period. The USMLE exams are supposed to be difficult. First y’all complained about a scored Step 1, now you’re complaining that the P cutoff is “too high.” Let’s just make med school participation based and instead of trophies we can give out the residency of your choice. Give me a break.

 

[Mad Jack]

Honestly this is probably the real reason but the people with that mentality are doomed to fail in either Step 1 scenarios. They are the people who are scoring in the 150s-180s because the Steps are still difficult exams even in their original forms from decades ago. However the real risk is for those scoring in the 200s-210s in practice tests who can end up failing because of high standard errors.

There are plenty of people in medical school that truly just want to get by. They assume that they're US MD students and that by virtue of their natural ability they'll pass, even if barely, and probably study with that mentality in mind. I don't think they have a proper appreciation of what a pass entails

 

[Lawpy]

Dude what? No one is talking about that. We’re talking about a score of 196 on Step 1…. That is not a high standard by any definition.

Step 1 few decades ago was already a difficult exam even despite a pass threshold of 180. There was literally no reason to take an already difficult exam, make it magnitudes more difficult with obscure concepts and advanced questions AND increase the threshold by 15 points. That only happened because of the score creep as a result of the constant abuse of Step 1 by PDs.

The passing line as always been in relation to the scores of the testing pool.

And with the scores gone, there is no reason to keep that threshold high and retain the exam difficulty. A 5% fail rate is already bad enough, increasing that fail rate multiple times is a lot worse

The pass threshold is not high. 196 is not high. And again, the Steps are highly discriminatory around the passing line. The difference between a 196 and a 206 is far more significant than a 245 and a 255. This was one of the arguments for moving it to P/F, because the differences at the far end of the bell curve weren’t really relevant and the only differences that statistically mattered were the ones around the passing line.

Bottom line, If you fail Step 1, you do not have the requisite knowledge to move on. Period. The USMLE exams are supposed to be difficult. First y’all complained about a scored Step 1, now you’re complaining that the P cutoff is “too high.” Let’s just make med school participation based and instead of trophies we can give out the residency of your choice. Give me a break.

A 196 is definitely high for a pass threshold. Trying to compare two scores with high standard errors is an exercise in futility. A 250 can be viewed equivalent to a 230s, a 220s can be viewed equivalent to a 200s, which itself is heading to fail territory. Trying to discern the scores is needlessly subjective and the only way to have any sense of credibility is to create a norm referenced test with low standard errors. This isn’t hard, the MCAT literally serves that purpose and all medical education leaders have to do is to create the med school version of the MCAT

And spare me with the usual tired cliche on participation trophies. My whole gripe is with the constant and repeated abuse of Step exams by PDs and med ed leaders because they don’t have a way to address overapplication. If med students blow off Step prep because they think P/F is meaningless, that’s on them. But we need to revert all Steps (including Step 2CK which is currently the new Step being abused by PDs) to their original purpose in assessing basic competency and nothing more.

If PDs want a standardized metric to compare applicants, create a norm referenced exam with low standard errors. But all Steps shouldn’t be much harder with higher pass thresholds compared to their original forms few decades ago.

 

[Lawpy]

There are plenty of people in medical school that truly just want to get by. They assume that they're US MD students and that by virtue of their natural ability they'll pass, even if barely, and probably study with that mentality in mind. I don't think they have a proper appreciation of what a pass entails

I believe if people study seriously for classes, passing Step 1 comfortably shouldn’t be difficult.

 

[Mad Jack]

I believe if people study seriously for classes, passing Step 1 comfortably shouldn’t be difficult.

Unfortunately classes are often only tangentially related to Step material or the practice of medicine. Often you'll end up buried in details about some professor's pet research project and what they think is important rather than preparing for the boards or your career

 

[Lawpy]

Unfortunately classes are often only tangentially related to Step material or the practice of medicine. Often you'll end up buried in details about some professor's pet research project and what they think is important rather than preparing for the boards or your career

Idk, i think there have been pretty good curriculum overhauls across a lot of US med schools that teach the clinically relevant and boards prep materials from MS1 onwards.

 

[FootballAndSkiing]

I believe if people study seriously for classes, passing Step 1 comfortably shouldn’t be difficult.

I agree, I'm not sure why we normalized studying for a test full time for two months after two full years of med school when we were taking tests during those two years to test our knowledge.

To the people saying there is a significant knowledge gap for the people that arent able to pass, draw the TCA cycle out for me. We forget these small details anyway. We learn the info only to pass step 1, then its gone, but the cool thing is you can look it up if you need it.

 

[DOVinciRobot]

To the people saying there is a significant knowledge gap for the people that arent able to pass, draw the TCA cycle out for me. We forget these small details anyway. We learn the info only to pass step 1, then its gone, but the cool thing is you can look it up if you need it.

Have you taken Step 1?

 

[FootballAndSkiing]

Have you taken Step 1?

No im studying for it now