August 2020 - CBSE

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Ivy.ch said:
I heard from several 4-year program directors that if you want to do head and neck cancer, you need to go to a 6-year AND do a fellowship.
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Yes, it's more common but not always true. I know an attending who didn't go to a "big name" 4-year program, did a fellowship, and is a well-respected head and neck cancer guy in the south
 
So, is this the same exact exam offered over the course of 4 weeks?
 
Does the curve for the CBSE end up being more lenient when compared to the curve on tests like NBME 18/USWA2? In USWA2 and NBME 18, youre being curved with med students who are taking STEP in under a week, but with the CBSE, med students are generally taking it months out from their exam. Is this true?
 
iluvnetters said:
Does the curve for the CBSE end up being more lenient when compared to the curve on tests like NBME 18/USWA2? In USWA2 and NBME 18, youre being curved with med students who are taking STEP in under a week, but with the CBSE, med students are generally taking it months out from their exam. Is this true?
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Nah it's pretty much the same. Very similar curve to nbme 18
 
iluvnetters said:
Then how are people scoring sometimes 5-10 CBSE points higher on their other assessments taken days before?
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Just like how some people score higher on one nbme form over another. Also I know people that have scored lower on the cbse than nbme. Having said that, it does seem like some people score a few points higher on the cbse than nbme 18. Overall people seem to score very similar to their recent nbme scores
 
Building off all that, I think the better “measurement “ stick would be your % right. If you’re 65-70% right, my guess is you’re close to that 70. FA estimates that passing on the USMLE is between a 60-70% right, but take that at face value. Supposedly the NBMEs are harder due to people looking up questions mid exam and stuff. Again, simply What I’ve found on discussion boards. At the end of the day, test day is luck.
 
providence819 said:
Building off all that, I think the better “measurement “ stick would be your % right. If you’re 65-70% right, my guess is you’re close to that 70. FA estimates that passing on the USMLE is between a 60-70% right, but take that at face value. Supposedly the NBMEs are harder due to people looking up questions mid exam and stuff. Again, simply What I’ve found on discussion boards. At the end of the day, test day is luck.
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Thats interesting.. iirc a ~65% on USWA2 was about a 215
 
Both UW exams over predict. First one more than the second. Honestly just take the Nbme's timed and don't cheat and that will be relatively close to where you're going to score on the cbse. GL to those taking it
 
Who the heck is looking up nbmes in the middle of the exam lol. Yeha saturday is when the first group of students take it.
 
Just to complicate this a bit more:
I've scored higher on the actual CBSE than I have on any practice exam (UW, NBME).
 
Banjogo said:
Just to complicate this a bit more:
I've scored higher on the actual CBSE than I have on any practice exam (UW, NBME).
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Thats what the majority have said from what I've gathered. I know @Likkriue said he jumped like 11 CBSE points or something ridiculous from his last NBME, and a lot of other people have said theyve jumped 6 or 7 as well.. I feel like thats a lot to attribute to just having a good day or test variance. No point in worrying I guess, Saturday will come regardless.
 
I jumped 8 points and honestly, it was a little lucky too jump THAT much. I feel like it’s normal to have your NBME scores to be +/- 5 CBSE points of what you’ll get. I knew anatomy and repro and some cancer stuff were my weak points, but I was lucky enough to get asked all the stuff I knew within those subjects.

At the same time though, I did get easy ones wrong that I shouldn’t have missed. I did also know 0 biostats and made sure I knew it well, but this was after my NBME run. So that definitely plays a role to my large jump.
 
IMO you should 100% see an improvement in each subsequent NBME and the CBSE. I mainly used NBMEs to see where I was at and if my review method was working. If your NBME scores aren't increasing with each one, you need to change your study methods.
 
DDSER1 said:
IMO you should 100% see an improvement in each subsequent NBME and the CBSE. I mainly used NBMEs to see where I was at and if my review method was working. If your NBME scores aren't increasing with each one, you need to change your study methods.
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Yes and no. Depends on how much you space them out. doing 1 per week, you should make sure you at least review your wrongs and use it like "UWorld". I've seen people's scores fluctuate and then they do well on the real deal. Just need to review it and memorize why you got some stuff wrong
 
I think he means you should see an improvement going from 50-60-70. After 70, improvement is all up in the air as some exams cover things others don’t. But the difference between a 50 to a 70 Should be seen.

You shouldn’t be going from a 75 to a 60 in one week.
 
Good luck to everyone taking it tomorrow
 
providence819 said:
Building off all that, I think the better “measurement “ stick would be your % right. If you’re 65-70% right, my guess is you’re close to that 70. FA estimates that passing on the USMLE is between a 60-70% right, but take that at face value. Supposedly the NBMEs are harder due to people looking up questions mid exam and stuff. Again, simply What I’ve found on discussion boards. At the end of the day, test day is luck.
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Who would have the guts to do that
 
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Anybody take the exam today? If so, how did you find it? No specifics please-not allowed to talk about specific test questions/answers.
 
OMFSer* said:
Anybody take the exam today? If so, how did you find it? No specifics please-not allowed to talk about specific test questions/answers.
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where I was taking it the computer crashed four times throughout the exam so it really bent me out of shape. Same thing happened to the other person taking it next to me. Not sure if it was a nationwide issue or not..?
 
Not trying to be a negative person or anything. But this test was the most bull**** test I’ve ever taken. From being disconnected 4 times and having to sit there and wait for them to restart it back up. Prolonging a 5 hour test to 7 hour... To the type of questions they asked. Wasn’t a good reputation of this test or the material at all. It’s all about, the little info you have to know.


Took 4 practice NBME forms scoring 75+ on all 4... and after taking this, they asked no concepts. Just random straight little facts in the middle of nowhere. Good luck all.
 
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RoquanSmith03 said:
Not trying to be a negative person or anything. But this test was the most bull**** test I’ve ever taken. From being disconnected 4 times and having to sit there and wait for them to restart it back up. Prolonging a 5 hour test to 7 hour... To the type of questions they asked. Wasn’t a good reputation of this test or the material at all. It’s all about, the little info you have to know.


Took 4 practice NBME forms scoring 75+ on all 4... and after taking this, they asked no concepts. Just random straight little facts in the middle of nowhere. Good luck all.
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Ok so the issues weren’t just with my center. They better give us a little juice.
 
dpdan93 said:
Ok so the issues weren’t just with my center. They better give us a little juice.
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You guys should consider requesting an earlier score report since I’m sure they’ll offer a retake. Waiting 2 months to see how much being disconnected 4 times affected your scores seems a bit unfair. Sorry to hear this happened to you all.
 
RoquanSmith03 said:
Not trying to be a negative person or anything. But this test was the most bull**** test I’ve ever taken. From being disconnected 4 times and having to sit there and wait for them to restart it back up. Prolonging a 5 hour test to 7 hour... To the type of questions they asked. Wasn’t a good reputation of this test or the material at all. It’s all about, the little info you have to know.


Took 4 practice NBME forms scoring 75+ on all 4... and after taking this, they asked no concepts. Just random straight little facts in the middle of nowhere. Good luck all.
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Are experimental questions included in the CBSE? I have heard those can be a curveball on the Step 1.
 
Yeah, I was disconnected 4 times as well. Really frustrating, but nothing we can do about it. I'm sure yall did well. The last block worked me good.
 
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RoquanSmith03 said:
Not trying to be a negative person or anything. But this test was the most bull**** test I’ve ever taken. From being disconnected 4 times and having to sit there and wait for them to restart it back up. Prolonging a 5 hour test to 7 hour... To the type of questions they asked. Wasn’t a good reputation of this test or the material at all. It’s all about, the little info you have to know.


Took 4 practice NBME forms scoring 75+ on all 4... and after taking this, they asked no concepts. Just random straight little facts in the middle of nowhere. Good luck all.
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Man, well I hope it turns out okay for you. Sorry to hear there were so many technical issues-never had that happen to me on previous takes of this exam.
 
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Yeah our prometric said the problem was across the board. But I don’t think it affected the 11a testers
 
Test kinda felt as I was expecting. Not terrible but not easy. Glad to be done with it. On a side note, I was recently told by a resident at my home program (well known 6 year) that the program director is going to be harder about the results for this test than normal. I was told since we had a lot more time to study, it will be expected that the scores will be a little higher. So the score they want for interviews will be higher for only this test. Has anyone else heard anything similar?
 
dentident said:
Anyone feel like this was easier than the one in Feb?
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I never took it before, but that scares me. Wonder if the curve pushes a 70 to something like 75-80% of the questions right. Sort of like some of the NBMEs we did
 
T1AlphaAF said:
Test kinda felt as I was expecting. Not terrible but not easy. Glad to be done with it. On a side note, I was recently told by a resident at my home program (well known 6 year) that the program director is going to be harder about the results for this test than normal. I was told since we had a lot more time to study, it will be expected that the scores will be a little higher. So the score they want for interviews will be higher for only this test. Has anyone else heard anything similar?
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nah, haven’t heard that. Also think that’s a very unnecessary response from a Program Director. COVID has presented unique challenges for everyone. To claim you have more time, without acknowledging that some DMD programs hammered busy work and clinic turned into a cluster is a gross misinterpretation of the situation
 
T1AlphaAF said:
Test kinda felt as I was expecting. Not terrible but not easy. Glad to be done with it. On a side note, I was recently told by a resident at my home program (well known 6 year) that the program director is going to be harder about the results for this test than normal. I was told since we had a lot more time to study, it will be expected that the scores will be a little higher. So the score they want for interviews will be higher for only this test. Has anyone else heard anything similar?
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No chance that's true. Most applicants this cycle got the CBSE over with prior to this August exam. I really don't believe that, unless they want the applicants to specify which date their test was.
 
Crashed on me twice, spent over an hour sitting while the proctor tried to talk with the help desk. I think they even tried calling nbme. They suggested I reschedule. No way was I going to do that. Eventually it started working again. I thought some sections were not to bad, I found my first second to be challenging.
 
TeethAndTitanium said:
No chance that's true. Most applicants this cycle got the CBSE over with prior to this August exam. I really don't believe that, unless they want the applicants to specify which date their test was.
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The date is on the score report, but yea tbh I found it hard to believe too. Resident could have just been trying to scare people.
 
TeethAndTitanium said:
No chance that's true. Most applicants this cycle got the CBSE over with prior to this August exam. I really don't believe that, unless they want the applicants to specify which date their test was.
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Not that I know, but I agree with you. From talking with programs during the residency fair it seemed like many places were being accommodating, and understanding of the situation
 
how do you guys read UWORLD, do you just read the question and the answer? or like educational objective and the first main bulk or just the whole answers ? if I read the whole answers I barely finish one block a day. Please help or advise. thanks
 
Sam85dmd said:
how do you guys read UWORLD, do you just read the question and the answer? or like educational objective and the first main bulk or just the whole answers ? if I read the whole answers I barely finish one block a day. Please help or advise. thanks
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How do you feel when you go through Uworld? Do you feel like you can understand what the core disease is and can you make associations with each option to its corresponding condition/disease? If everything feels like a foreign concept then it may be a good idea to read first aid or build some foundational knowledge. Personally it took me like 6-8hours to do one block in the beginning, and I could barely figure out what disease/condition they would be referencing. Once you review everything you should get much quicker because you can skim through the options when your reviewing and you may only be missing a small point which made you get the question wrong, but still understand the core concept.
 
DiceAndSlice said:
Also, would you guys say it was more along the lines of the old NBME's (17 and 18) or new ones?
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I’d say a mixture of both. If you’ve done a couple NBMEs (old and new) it’ll look like a mixture of both. But the exam is it’s own beast and could fluctuate come test day. Everyone perceives it differently
 
TeethAndTitanium said:
Only 1 exam has been given (today being the first day). But it will be different exams.
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Is that verified through John London or are we just assuming they made the right decision?

Also, how are means / std deviations being reported if all exams are different? Smaller sample size since only based on that day's exam takers?
 
apka said:
Is that verified through John London or are we just assuming they made the right decision?

Also, how are means / std deviations being reported if all exams are different? Smaller sample size since only based on that day's exam takers?
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In my useless, humble opinion, that would be garbage if the same exam was offered for this month. Word gets out and people pick up on questions. I don’t think it’s a big deal to report multiple means +/- SD. If you look back at history, the mean is a near 57ish regardless of how “well” everyone is scoring. That shouldn’t change if multiple tests are given
 
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apka said:
Is that verified through John London or are we just assuming they made the right decision?

Also, how are means / std deviations being reported if all exams are different? Smaller sample size since only based on that day's exam takers?
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In the past, some people have had to take their exam on Monday for religious reasons. I have heard that they were given a different exam because of this.
Agreed about the STD. Who gives a crap at the end of the day. The questions they give are pre-weighted from past medical students. Shouldn’t be too hard to determine scores fairly that way.
 
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Do residency programs have access to the STD/averages of each test? If so do they care to even look?
 
Do we feel like uworld or brute FA would be more helpful in the last few weeks? (going to do a mix but was wondering if FA would be more helpful given the randomness)
 
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