Got a 246/99, which was a (pleasant) surprise, as I was expecting my score to be much lower. Although, I think I have good test-taking genes, which makes up for my friggin' dark cloud I've had during intern year.
If you have the luxury, like I did of being able to study for 3-4 weeks (I studied 3-4hrs a day during an outpatient month), I recommend the following resources:
1. USMLE CD with MCQ and CCS cases - the highest yield review source; the concepts tested on the MCQ section of the practice CD were very similar to those on the real thing; a few questions were virtually identical
2. Boards and Wards (I like the format of this book; the organization makes it easier to read than say FA)
3. USMLE World - I did about 1000 questions and was averaging in the high 50s. I thought it was a helpful resource to get my mind back into some specialties I hadn't thought about in years (OB, Peds) but the concepts tested on the actual exam were not reflected by the USMLE World questions
4. High Yield OB - I LOVE this book. OB/GYN is a beast in and of itself with its own language, and there was no chance I was going to be able to remember from my med school rotation or intuit my way around dysfunctional uterine bleeding, failure to progress, third trimester bleeding, ASCUS on a Pap, etc. I used this both for my shelf and for Step 2, and I think it's such a hidden gem.
5. Crush Step 3 - Literally skimmed this in a day or so a few days before my test. I didn't want to use this is a primary review source because I find the material to be somewhat general and disorganized. BUT it was great for consolidating in my head everything I had reviewed between Boards and Wards and USMLE World.
6. USMLESteps123.com - agree with dre. i LOVED this for my CCS cases. It is expensive. I basically paid $60 to use it for a day. The interactive format is different than the actual exam, but the real value is in the ANSWER KEY they provide for each case. There are 100 cases I think, and I did about 40 of them. The trouble I had with just the cases on the practice CD was knowing what and how they expected to do things in terms of priority and sequence. I was confused on whether I should check results as "next available" or set a time to check in a few hours. What things do i need to before a physical if a pt arrives in the ED? (ie, continuous cardiac monitor, continuous bp monitor, O2, IV access) All of these things get sorted out in the ANSWER KEY for the case by telling you what should have been done, how it should have been done, and in what sequence, which are all part of the scoring rubric for CCS. The explanations of the cases seemed pretty helpful, too, but I was short on time and didn't really read them. I didn't bother working through entire cases to the end to get them scored.
I personally think the CCS cases bumped by score significantly. It was clearly my strongest area on my performance profile, and overall, I had felt really good about them. I had taken the NBME practice test a week before the exam (after about 2.5 weeks of studying) and it predicted a score of 590, which is ~228 calclulated based on the mean and SD. I felt worse about the MCQs on the real thing than the NBME, so I don't think the jump in my real score was from MCQs, but I think instead the cases were a boost.
