Change in CBT

[ratan]

Hi, Iam an IMG from India. planning to appear for USMLE step 1 in September. There was a announcement in mle website regarding change of CBT from Prometric to Freda in late fall. Medschool web says it will be more difficult. Level of ouestions depends on how you scored in previous block. will this be more difficult.what is late fall? aug,sep,oct....? Should i schedule my exam before this changes? Thanks in advance.

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[Winged Scapula]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by ratan:
Hi, Iam an IMG from India. planning to appear for USMLE step 1 in September. There was a announcement in mle website regarding change of CBT from Prometric to Freda in late fall. Medschool web says it will be more difficult. Level of ouestions depends on how you scored in previous block. will this be more difficult.what is late fall? aug,sep,oct....? Should i schedule my exam before this changes? Thanks in advance.•

Since fall starts around September 21st and winter starts around December 21st, I would say that late fall would be November-December or so. However, NBME and other monolithic institutions are well known to be less than specific about such rolling out of products, so I wouldn't expect a definite date for some time. Unless you have seen an actual announcement from the NBME I would not believe any purported changes read about on a BB.

What you are describing is Adaptive testing - as long as you get questions right, they will get harder; if you start missing questions they will get easier. I suppose it will seem harder to the applicant but there is the potential for being done much quicker which may relieve some of the stress inherent to USMLEs. Adaptive testing has been in use for years and I should imagine it will make NO difference in your ultimate score. However, if you feel nervous about the possible change, then you should certainly schedule your exam prior to the change over.



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PGY1
Penn State University
Department of Surgery