Correlation between NBME practice shelf exam scores and real shelf exam scores

[Styrene]

I thought this would be helpful and/or reassuring for some people. Of note, my school has us take Step 1 after clerkships. I bought each practice shelf, i.e. Clinical Science Mastery Series, and did it under the simulation conditions on the NBME website. I will list the dates I took the practice tests and the dates of the real tests. The website gives an “assessment score” which correlates to an approximated overall NBME score - will write as assessment_score/approx_overall.

Shelf #1 - Medicine
-Study strategy included doing maybe half of UWorld medicine qs, prepping for in-house written test by going over the lectures we had, and paying attention on rounds + google on high-yield topics. Didn’t open a book.

• Medicine (Form 1) 4/4/18: 19/69
• Medicine (Form 2) 4/10/18: 21/75
• Medicine (Form 3) 4/17/18: 18/66
• Medicine (Form 4) 4/23/18: 24/85
• MEDICINE SHELF 4/26/18: 74 = 44%ile

Shelf #2 - “Ambulatory Medicine”
-We have a four-week primary care clerkship that comes after eight weeks of medicine. We take the Ambulatory Medicine shelf, NOT the Family Medicine shelf. Study strategy for me was to just take the test. Didn’t study at all specifically. Just hoped medicine stuff would carry over.

• AMBULATORY MEDICINE SHELF 4/27/18: 74 = 42%ile

Shelf #3 - Ob/Gyn
-What a nightmare. Worst part of medical school for me. Our clerkship course director makes every student do all 600+ UWise Ob/Gyn questions in order to pass the clerkship. In addition to those, I did some maybe 1/3 of the UWorld questions and looked up some random topics. Kind of just showed up for the shelf and guessed.

• Ob/Gyn (Form 1) 6/2/18: 20/75
• Ob/Gyn (Form 2) 6/4/18: 17/66
• Ob/Gyn (Form 3) 6/6/18: 18/69
• OB/GYN SHELF 6/8/18: 73 = 24%ile

Shelf #4 - Pediatrics
-Hit an academic low-point here. Was so sick of studying and also had a crazy long-distance relationship going on (so glad that’s over). Studying consisted of reading random topics on the peds section of Medbullets and doing UWorld questions with a friend during downtime (definitely didn’t get through all of them).

• Pediatrics (Form 1) 7/16/18: 17/65
• Pediatrics (Form 4) 7/18/18: 21/77
• PEDIATRICS SHELF 7/20/18: 74 = 34%ile

Shelf #5 - Surgery
-Hit a second wind starting with surgery. Study strategy included doing all of the UWorld questions, reviewing topics, studying in-house materials for our in-house written/oral tests, and just generally paying attention. Did not open the recommended 1000-page textbook (find that sort of advice ludicrous). Additionally, our school bundles two weeks of EM and two weeks of Anesthesia with eight weeks of surgery as our “Acute Care” clerkship. I did EM and anesthesia first, which I found very helpful. I also worked as a scribe in a local ED for a year before med school, which I also found very helpful for trauma-type stuff.

• Surgery (Form 1) 8/30/18: 18/65
• Surgery (Form 2) 9/24/18: 18/65
• Surgery (Form 3) 9/24/18: 23/80
• Surgery (Form 4) 10/10/18: 22/77
• SURGERY SHELF 10/12/18: 77 = 65%ile

Shelf #6 - Psychiatry
-I have always been interested in psychiatry, for years, and know much more about psychotropic medications and different mental illnesses than the typical medical student (just being honest here). For studying, I just did most of the UWorld questions. No book or anything.

• Psychiatry (Form 1) 11/15/18: 20/76
• Psychiatry (Form 3) 11/19/18: 24/86
• Psychiatry (Form 4) 11/20/18: 24/86
• PSYCHIATRY SHELF 11/21/18: 86 = 74%ile

Shelf #7 - Neurology
-I really enjoyed the clerkship. I may go into the field. Did most of the UWorld questions, a few Pretest questions, a practice test from some neurology society that we have to do for the clerkship, and paid attention. It was a four-week rotation. We also had 3-4 hours of lecture every Tuesday, and this was actually really helpful. No books.

• Clinical Neurology (Form 1) 12/8/18: 20/75
• Clinical Neurology (Form 2) 12/11/18: 20/75
• Clinical Neurology (Form 3) 12/15/18: 25/89
• Clinical Neurology (Form 4) 12/18/18: 26/92
• NEUROLOGY SHELF 12/21/18: 88 = 88%ile

————-
So, in summary, I think the practice NBMEs are useful for 1) making sure you will pass the shelf, 2) getting a general sense of how you are improving in terms of knowledge during the clerkship, and 3) estimating, albeit very roughly, what you will actually get on the shelf. This is how I used them, and they were very helpful for me. That’s why I created this thread. Best of luck in med school.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ortnakas]

I don’t remember exact numbers, but I felt the same way: the NBMEs helped me make sure I was going to score above my school’s cut-off for passing, but weren’t predictive beyond that.

 

[ciestar]

I don’t remember exact numbers, but I felt the same way: the NBMEs helped me make sure I was going to score above my school’s cut-off for passing, but weren’t predictive beyond that.

I agree with this as well

 

[Styrene]

I don’t remember exact numbers, but I felt the same way: the NBMEs helped me make sure I was going to score above my school’s cut-off for passing, but weren’t predictive beyond that.

Yes, that's my feeling.

 

[21Rush12]

I thought this would be helpful and/or reassuring for some people. Of note, my school has us take Step 1 after clerkships. I bought each practice shelf, i.e. Clinical Science Mastery Series, and did it under the simulation conditions on the NBME website. I will list the dates I took the practice tests and the dates of the real tests. The website gives an “assessment score” which correlates to an approximated overall NBME score - will write as assessment_score/approx_overall.

Shelf #1 - Medicine
-Study strategy included doing maybe half of UWorld medicine qs, prepping for in-house written test by going over the lectures we had, and paying attention on rounds + google on high-yield topics. Didn’t open a book.

• Medicine (Form 1) 4/4/18: 19/69
• Medicine (Form 2) 4/10/18: 21/75
• Medicine (Form 3) 4/17/18: 18/66
• Medicine (Form 4) 4/23/18: 24/85
• MEDICINE SHELF 4/26/18: 74 = 44%ile

Shelf #2 - “Ambulatory Medicine”
-We have a four-week primary care clerkship that comes after eight weeks of medicine. We take the Ambulatory Medicine shelf, NOT the Family Medicine shelf. Study strategy for me was to just take the test. Didn’t study at all specifically. Just hoped medicine stuff would carry over.

• AMBULATORY MEDICINE SHELF 4/27/18: 74 = 42%ile

Shelf #3 - Ob/Gyn
-What a nightmare. Worst part of medical school for me. Our clerkship course director makes every student do all 600+ UWise Ob/Gyn questions in order to pass the clerkship. In addition to those, I did some maybe 1/3 of the UWorld questions and looked up some random topics. Kind of just showed up for the shelf and guessed.

• Ob/Gyn (Form 1) 6/2/18: 20/75
• Ob/Gyn (Form 2) 6/4/18: 17/66
• Ob/Gyn (Form 3) 6/6/18: 18/69
• OB/GYN SHELF 6/8/18: 73 = 24%ile

Shelf #4 - Pediatrics
-Hit an academic low-point here. Was so sick of studying and also had a crazy long-distance relationship going on (so glad that’s over). Studying consisted of reading random topics on the peds section of Medbullets and doing UWorld questions with a friend during downtime (definitely didn’t get through all of them).

• Pediatrics (Form 1) 7/16/18: 17/65
• Pediatrics (Form 4) 7/18/18: 21/77
• PEDIATRICS SHELF 7/20/18: 74 = 34%ile

Shelf #5 - Surgery
-Hit a second wind starting with surgery. Study strategy included doing all of the UWorld questions, reviewing topics, studying in-house materials for our in-house written/oral tests, and just generally paying attention. Did not open the recommended 1000-page textbook (find that sort of advice ludicrous). Additionally, our school bundles two weeks of EM and two weeks of Anesthesia with eight weeks of surgery as our “Acute Care” clerkship. I did EM and anesthesia first, which I found very helpful. I also worked as a scribe in a local ED for a year before med school, which I also found very helpful for trauma-type stuff.

• Surgery (Form 1) 8/30/18: 18/65
• Surgery (Form 2) 9/24/18: 18/65
• Surgery (Form 3) 9/24/18: 23/80
• Surgery (Form 4) 10/10/18: 22/77
• SURGERY SHELF 10/12/18: 77 = 65%ile

Shelf #6 - Psychiatry
-I have always been interested in psychiatry, for years, and know much more about psychotropic medications and different mental illnesses than the typical medical student (just being honest here). For studying, I just did most of the UWorld questions. No book or anything.

• Psychiatry (Form 1) 11/15/18: 20/76
• Psychiatry (Form 3) 11/19/18: 24/86
• Psychiatry (Form 4) 11/20/18: 24/86
• PSYCHIATRY SHELF 11/21/18: 86 = 74%ile

Shelf #7 - Neurology
-I really enjoyed the clerkship. I may go into the field. Did most of the UWorld questions, a few Pretest questions, a practice test from some neurology society that we have to do for the clerkship, and paid attention. It was a four-week rotation. We also had 3-4 hours of lecture every Tuesday, and this was actually really helpful. No books.

• Clinical Neurology (Form 1) 12/8/18: 20/75
• Clinical Neurology (Form 2) 12/11/18: 20/75
• Clinical Neurology (Form 3) 12/15/18: 25/89
• Clinical Neurology (Form 4) 12/18/18: 26/92
• NEUROLOGY SHELF 12/21/18: 88 = 88%ile

————-
So, in summary, I think the practice NBMEs are useful for 1) making sure you will pass the shelf, 2) getting a general sense of how you are improving in terms of knowledge during the clerkship, and 3) estimating, albeit very roughly, what you will actually get on the shelf. This is how I used them, and they were very helpful for me. That’s why I created this thread. Best of luck in med school.

Thanks for putting this together and sharing your experience with us.

Out of curiosity, what is this translating to in terms of clinical grades? Honors/HP/P etc

 

[Styrene]

Thanks for putting this together and sharing your experience with us.

Out of curiosity, what is this translating to in terms of clinical grades? Honors/HP/P etc

HP, HP, P, P, HP, HP, H

 

[21Rush12]

HP, HP, P, P, HP, HP, H

Thank you! You killed it on Neuro!

 

[bananafish94]

IM 4/1/2/3: 17/21/20/24. Shelf: 87
Neuro 1/2/3/4: 21/22/23/23. Shelf: 84
Psych 4/1/3: 25/20/25. Shelf: 87
FM 2/1 23/23. Shelf: 74
Pediatrics 1/2/3/4: 20/22/22/25. Shelf: 86

 

[Styrene]

IM 4/1/2/3: 17/21/20/24. Shelf: 87
Neuro 1/2/3/4: 21/22/23/23. Shelf: 84
Psych 4/1/3: 25/20/25. Shelf: 87
FM 2/1 23/23. Shelf: 74
Pediatrics 1/2/3/4: 20/22/22/25. Shelf: 86

Nice scores. Seems like the practice tests were a rough estimate of real scores for you, as well. I would like to put together a graph if enough people end up replying with scores.

 

[Styrene]

Thank you! You killed it on Neuro!

Thanks, I may want to go into the field, so I tried a bit more. Also got lucky because I ended up having a lot of study time during one of the weeks of inpatient.

 

[bananafish94]

Nice scores. Seems like the practice tests were a rough estimate of real scores for you, as well. I would like to put together a graph if enough people end up replying with scores.

Thanks! That’s a great idea. I don’t know if such a resource exists currently.

 

[Styrene]

Thanks! That’s a great idea. I don’t know if such a resource exists currently.

That’s why I posted this actually. I never found a comprehensive thread about this.

 

[ciestar]

Keep in mind I never finished UWorld with any of these exams... and I am not as diligent about it as I should be...

Family 1: 18(66%) shelf: 74
Psych 4: 21 (78%) shelf: 79 (uworld 78%)
IM 1/2: 22(79%)/22(79%) shelf: 70 (uworld 75%)
Peds 1: 23(83%) shelf: 80 (uworld 82%)

I also tend to choke on exams, but my discipline kinda sucks. 🙁

 

[831929]

Do you guys think that practice NBME scores are not accurate anymore due to resources like zanki and bros?

 

[Styrene]

Do you guys think that practice NBME scores are not accurate anymore due to resources like zanki and bros?

I think even because of UWorld. I notice repeat questions on UWorld—as if they generate a couple questions from each NBME practice form question for each topic. Then again, there were a couple verbatim or near-verbatim repeats from practice NBMEs on my actual shelf exams.

 

[Styrene]

Keep in mind I never finished UWorld with any of these exams... and I am not as diligent about it as I should be...

Family 1: 18(66%) shelf: 74
Psych 4: 21 (78%) shelf: 79 (uworld 78%)
IM 1/2: 22(79%)/22(79%) shelf: 70 (uworld 75%)
Peds 1: 23(83%) shelf: pending (uworld 82%)

I also tend to choke on exams, but my discipline kinda sucks. 🙁

I have a hard time finishing UWorld, too. Just not that motivated to try and get the highest scores possible on shelf exams. I don’t find grades intrinsically valuable, though a certain percentage of medical students do.

 

[ciestar]

I have a hard time finishing UWorld, too. Just not that motivated to try and get the highest scores possible on shelf exams. I don’t find grades intrinsically valuable, though a certain percentage of medical students do.

I just want HP/H on rotations. My step 1 and preclinical suck so I am trying to redeem myself somehow

 

[21Rush12]

I have a hard time finishing UWorld, too. Just not that motivated to try and get the highest scores possible on shelf exams. I don’t find grades intrinsically valuable, though a certain percentage of medical students do.

I’ve struggled with this mindset also. Came to Med school thinking I wanted IM in a rural area, now aiming for Anesthesia in SoCal. I’ve had to adjust my attitude accordingly and I don’t like it. Never gave a crap about grades up until third year but now it’s so competitive out there (all you smarties!) that I can’t help but stress about it.

 

[bananafish94]

I just wish my shelf scores correlated more with my grades. Despite generally getting good evaluations even one average evaluation is usually enough to knock you out of contention for honors or even high pass at my school.

 

[21Rush12]

I just wish my shelf scores correlated more with my grades. Despite generally getting good evaluations even one average evaluation is usually enough to knock you out of contention for honors or even high pass at my school.

So strange that they vary so widely between schools. Ours has a cutoff for honors on the shelf AND you have to get 7+/8 on at least 4 of 6 categories to get honors. Shelf cutoff is usually ~80 for H and 77 HP. In other words, if you get 8/8 in every category of your evals but a 79 on shelf, you can’t honor.

 

[bananafish94]

So strange that they vary so widely between schools. Ours has a cutoff for honors on the shelf AND you have to get 7+/8 on at least 4 of 6 categories to get honors. Shelf cutoff is usually ~80 for H and 77 HP. In other words, if you get 8/8 in every category of your evals but a 79 on shelf, you can’t honor.

That’s ridiculous. I’ve frustratingly been directly on the border (both in and against my favor) in most clerkships so far. It’s adjusted at the very end so that if less than 10-20% get honors they will move the cutoff down, so hopefully I can be bumped up in one or two if the curve is good.

 

[21Rush12]

That’s ridiculous. I’ve frustratingly been directly on the border (both in and against my favor) in most clerkships so far. It’s adjusted at the very end so that if less than 10-20% get honors they will move the cutoff down, so hopefully I can be bumped up in one or two if the curve is good.

I feel you — my first two years in 4/11 classes I was within .5 of HP or H (always below). And now my school transitioned to pass fail but not for us.

 

[ciestar]

So strange that they vary so widely between schools. Ours has a cutoff for honors on the shelf AND you have to get 7+/8 on at least 4 of 6 categories to get honors. Shelf cutoff is usually ~80 for H and 77 HP. In other words, if you get 8/8 in every category of your evals but a 79 on shelf, you can’t honor.

Mine is like that too. I got a 5/5 on my FM eval and missed the honors cutoff on the shelf by 2 questions. It is so frustrating.

 

[Styrene]

So strange that they vary so widely between schools. Ours has a cutoff for honors on the shelf AND you have to get 7+/8 on at least 4 of 6 categories to get honors. Shelf cutoff is usually ~80 for H and 77 HP. In other words, if you get 8/8 in every category of your evals but a 79 on shelf, you can’t honor.

My school has a similar system. I alway got stellar evals, but then I would miss honors by the cutoff. On the psychiatry shelf, I missed honors by 1% correct because my school uses the yearly percentiles for cut-offsI...I got an 86, and I was 74th percentile; my friend got an 87 and was 80th percentile.

 

[Styrene]

I just want HP/H on rotations. My step 1 and preclinical suck so I am trying to redeem myself somehow

That makes sense. We don't take step 1 until after clerkships.

 

[ciestar]

Update: 80 on the peds shelf

 

[TheIllusionist]

OB gyn 88

Neuro 96

Surgery 80

Psych 94

Medicine 90

Averages on nbmes 86, 86, 77, 88, 86 respectively

 

[Styrene]

Update: 80 on the peds shelf

Nice score

 

[mehc012]

Italics: practice NBME Bold: NBME shelf score

FM: We take a non-NBME shelf, 80%
IM: 85, 85, 85
-- this is when I took Step 1 --
Psych: 92, 92, 84
Neuro: 84, 84, 87
Surgery: 86, 86, 86, 80

Study strategies:
IM/FM: I was studying for these at the same time, before my Step 1 dedicated, so I went all out. Started a month before the rotation, watched OME videos (the ones suggested for IM) and after each organ system would go through all of the Step 1 firecracker questions. Didn't finish all of the firecracker, but got the main systems (cards, pulm, renal, GI). Did all of UW. 2 practice shelves.
FM was...well, a bit of a clusterfrak. Our school uses a non-standard NBME knockoff for the shelf, and it wasn't clear what to expect going in, so I kind of decided that if I hit IM hard enough, I could rapid-review some high yield obgyn and peds the night before and do OK. Well, I messed up and got the exam dates backwards and showed up to take the IM shelf...only to find that it was actually FM that day. So needless to say, I never did that last minute review.

Psych: Firecracker Step 2 questions, OME if I needed it (most was too review at that point right after Step prep), all UW, 2 practice shelves. This one was kind of a low priority for me...most of the diagnoses seem intuitive to me and my rotation was super educational, plus I knew I wouldn't be doing this field, so...I took the practice shelves, saw I was doing OK, and let it slide. It bit me a bit on the real deal, but I still beat the honors threshold for our school so I'm fine with it.

Neuro: Firecracker Step 2 questions, OME videos, all UW, 2 practice shelves. OME and UW were key here. Don't know why my score bumped, but I guess I'll take it!

Surgery: This rotation slammed me. I tried to read Pestanas, but found it boring. UW was too out of left field and my classmates said it wasn't helpful, so I didn't bother. I had no time for FC. I read De Virgilio's for cases I was seeing and really just learned what I could on the job, since the hours were so long. I OME binged in the last few weeks of the rotation, when I had some trauma or ED shifts and thus shorter hours. No idea how I pulled this one off, frankly, though the cutoff for honors is lower on this one at my school than for other rotations, so I still had a comfortable margin, which is why I didn't push it.


Hope any of that info helps anyone, and best of luck!

 

[ciestar]

Update: 90 on OB. I didnt end up fitting in an NBME beforehand (and I regretted it, but thankfully it worked out).

Completely finished UWise. Did some UWorld and finished all the Zanki cards for it.

Very pleased for once!

 

[21Rush12]

These are all over the map for me.
Neuro: 80, 68, 74, 72 on practices (in order) and 89 on the real one.

 

[Newyawk]

I always killed the practice shelf exams, scoring in the 90s raw for all of them. For some it correlated for others not so much (medicine and surgery high 80s raw) but obgyn, peds, neuro, psych low to high 90s raw.
I never really understood the percentiles either. The averages are different for each exam so how do they just provide broad percentile charts for all of the nbmes? I know theyre skewed and not entirely normally distributed so the average and SDs cant be used on the higher scores as accurately, but it never made sense to me.

 

[Sn95]

I know this is a long shot given post is over a year old but worth a shot!! Genuinely confused about score conversion. Nbme practice forms I have (blocks 1 through 4) are each 50 question. And thus my correct score is out of 50 (ex 36/50), how do i convert that to approximate subject exam score. Usmle score converter has medicine self assessment score out of 29??

Thank you!

I thought this would be helpful and/or reassuring for some people. Of note, my school has us take Step 1 after clerkships. I bought each practice shelf, i.e. Clinical Science Mastery Series, and did it under the simulation conditions on the NBME website. I will list the dates I took the practice tests and the dates of the real tests. The website gives an “assessment score” which correlates to an approximated overall NBME score - will write as assessment_score/approx_overall.

Shelf #1 - Medicine
-Study strategy included doing maybe half of UWorld medicine qs, prepping for in-house written test by going over the lectures we had, and paying attention on rounds + google on high-yield topics. Didn’t open a book.

• Medicine (Form 1) 4/4/18: 19/69
• Medicine (Form 2) 4/10/18: 21/75
• Medicine (Form 3) 4/17/18: 18/66
• Medicine (Form 4) 4/23/18: 24/85
• MEDICINE SHELF 4/26/18: 74 = 44%ile

Shelf #2 - “Ambulatory Medicine”
-We have a four-week primary care clerkship that comes after eight weeks of medicine. We take the Ambulatory Medicine shelf, NOT the Family Medicine shelf. Study strategy for me was to just take the test. Didn’t study at all specifically. Just hoped medicine stuff would carry over.

• AMBULATORY MEDICINE SHELF 4/27/18: 74 = 42%ile

Shelf #3 - Ob/Gyn
-What a nightmare. Worst part of medical school for me. Our clerkship course director makes every student do all 600+ UWise Ob/Gyn questions in order to pass the clerkship. In addition to those, I did some maybe 1/3 of the UWorld questions and looked up some random topics. Kind of just showed up for the shelf and guessed.

• Ob/Gyn (Form 1) 6/2/18: 20/75
• Ob/Gyn (Form 2) 6/4/18: 17/66
• Ob/Gyn (Form 3) 6/6/18: 18/69
• OB/GYN SHELF 6/8/18: 73 = 24%ile

Shelf #4 - Pediatrics
-Hit an academic low-point here. Was so sick of studying and also had a crazy long-distance relationship going on (so glad that’s over). Studying consisted of reading random topics on the peds section of Medbullets and doing UWorld questions with a friend during downtime (definitely didn’t get through all of them).

• Pediatrics (Form 1) 7/16/18: 17/65
• Pediatrics (Form 4) 7/18/18: 21/77
• PEDIATRICS SHELF 7/20/18: 74 = 34%ile

Shelf #5 - Surgery
-Hit a second wind starting with surgery. Study strategy included doing all of the UWorld questions, reviewing topics, studying in-house materials for our in-house written/oral tests, and just generally paying attention. Did not open the recommended 1000-page textbook (find that sort of advice ludicrous). Additionally, our school bundles two weeks of EM and two weeks of Anesthesia with eight weeks of surgery as our “Acute Care” clerkship. I did EM and anesthesia first, which I found very helpful. I also worked as a scribe in a local ED for a year before med school, which I also found very helpful for trauma-type stuff.

• Surgery (Form 1) 8/30/18: 18/65
• Surgery (Form 2) 9/24/18: 18/65
• Surgery (Form 3) 9/24/18: 23/80
• Surgery (Form 4) 10/10/18: 22/77
• SURGERY SHELF 10/12/18: 77 = 65%ile

Shelf #6 - Psychiatry
-I have always been interested in psychiatry, for years, and know much more about psychotropic medications and different mental illnesses than the typical medical student (just being honest here). For studying, I just did most of the UWorld questions. No book or anything.

• Psychiatry (Form 1) 11/15/18: 20/76
• Psychiatry (Form 3) 11/19/18: 24/86
• Psychiatry (Form 4) 11/20/18: 24/86
• PSYCHIATRY SHELF 11/21/18: 86 = 74%ile

Shelf #7 - Neurology
-I really enjoyed the clerkship. I may go into the field. Did most of the UWorld questions, a few Pretest questions, a practice test from some neurology society that we have to do for the clerkship, and paid attention. It was a four-week rotation. We also had 3-4 hours of lecture every Tuesday, and this was actually really helpful. No books.

• Clinical Neurology (Form 1) 12/8/18: 20/75
• Clinical Neurology (Form 2) 12/11/18: 20/75
• Clinical Neurology (Form 3) 12/15/18: 25/89
• Clinical Neurology (Form 4) 12/18/18: 26/92
• NEUROLOGY SHELF 12/21/18: 88 = 88%ile

————-
So, in summary, I think the practice NBMEs are useful for 1) making sure you will pass the shelf, 2) getting a general sense of how you are improving in terms of knowledge during the clerkship, and 3) estimating, albeit very roughly, what you will actually get on the shelf. This is how I used them, and they were very helpful for me. That’s why I created this thread. Best of luck in med school.

 

[libertyyne]

I know this is a long shot given post is over a year old but worth a shot!! Genuinely confused about score conversion. Nbme practice forms I have (blocks 1 through 4) are each 50 question. And thus my correct score is out of 50 (ex 36/50), how do i convert that to approximate subject exam score. Usmle score converter has medicine self assessment score out of 29??

Thank you!

you have to pay for the shelf and then they will give you a score.

 

[Sn95]

you have to pay for the shelf and then they will give you a score.

Yes Im aware but as Im currently having to rely on offline resources (really tight financially atm), I was wondering how to approximate to get a grasp out of what the score out of 50 meant. On Block 1 Medicine i got 37/50 correct, is it safe to assume it means im about 76%?

 

[libertyyne]

Yes Im aware but as Im currently having to rely on offline resources (really tight financially atm), I was wondering how to approximate to get a grasp out of what the score out of 50 meant. On Block 1 Medicine i got 37/50 correct, is it safe to assume it means im about 76%?

they are scaled. There is no way to figure that out without a large dataset of answered questions which also happens to include scores generated and specific questions that were incorrect.

 

[Sn95]

they are scaled. There is no way to figure that out without a large dataset of answered questions which also happens to include scores generated and specific questions that were incorrect.

Ah I see, thank you for the explanation. So the %correct alone would have a poor predictive value :/.

 

[libertyyne]

Ah I see, thank you for the explanation. So the %correct alone would have a poor predictive value :/.

I too looked for data for correlation on raw % correct but i could not find any. Just do the questions as best as you can and use them as practice. I was usually scoring +4-5 points compared to my averages % correct.

 

[Domepiece]

Don't look at score correlation, that is a waste of time. Take practice tests because 1) they repeat questions on these tests and you should get it right on the actual shelf 2) showing improvement from first test to last. But mostly #1

Also, don't try and do keto the week of your first shelf exam, that didn't go so hot...

 

[21Rush12]

I would chime in also and say these tests are next to useless for calculating an actual score. The precision of the measurement is very poor and who knows what the curves are even based on. I scored much higher on real exams than any practice one.

 

[Styrene]

I would chime in also and say these tests are next to useless for calculating an actual score. The precision of the measurement is very poor and who knows what the curves are even based on. I scored much higher on real exams than any practice one.

We aren't trying to calculate an actual score from these. And it's not useless to have an idea of how you may score on the real test. There are many reasons such an idea may be helpful. I also don't quite understand how the nature of the conversion formula used for raw to scaled score conversion of a practice test affects potential correlations between those scores and real test scores. I can't comment on the precision of either instrument.

 

[Styrene]

I know this is a long shot given post is over a year old but worth a shot!! Genuinely confused about score conversion. Nbme practice forms I have (blocks 1 through 4) are each 50 question. And thus my correct score is out of 50 (ex 36/50), how do i convert that to approximate subject exam score. Usmle score converter has medicine self assessment score out of 29??

Thank you!

There are yearly tables published that show equated percent correct vs percentiles for each shelf. Not sure if that would be helpful for you. My school used percentiles.

 

[21Rush12]

We aren't trying to calculate an actual score from these. And it's not useless to have an idea of how you may score on the real test. There are many reasons such an idea may be helpful. I also don't quite understand how the nature of the conversion formula used for raw to scaled score conversion of a practice test affects potential correlations between those scores and real test scores. I can't comment on the precision of either instrument.

IMO if generating a useless number as “how you may score” is what people want, just Venmo me $5 and I’ll reply with a number.

Difficulty level, statistical validity of the questions, relevance to real exam material and conditions are all variables in these exams even without using any type of conversion chart.

They can be useful to test knowledge but I truly don’t think they have any meaningful ability to tell you a score prediction that’s useful, with the exception of someone grossly passing or failing by wide margins.

Again, good for practicing but the I can’t see the utility in a score number for basically 80-90% of test takers who are comfortably above the passing 10th percentile or dangerously below it.

Definitely interested in hearing what your thoughts are!