Dismal Uworld scores - Little less than month till exam

[blahwhatever]

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I did one Uworld block yesterday, and got 45%. Did another block today and got 52%. So far I've completed my studying in physiology/pharmacology/ pathology/microbiology/behavioral science/immunology by watching Kaplan videos. I'm currently watching Anatomy, and will be doing Biochem after that. So majority of my studying of the material is done. But when I got those Uworld scores I was pretty disheartened.

I was wondering if anyone else started with 45-50% range and then went up in their scores by a lot? If so, how long did it take you and what did it go up to?

I have a little less than a month till my exam. I plan on going through almost all of the subjects again before that.

Any input appreciated!

 

[PokerDoc]

I did one Uworld block yesterday, and got 45%. Did another block today and got 52%. So far I've completed my studying in physiology/pharmacology/ pathology/microbiology/behavioral science/immunology by watching Kaplan videos. I'm currently watching Anatomy, and will be doing Biochem after that. So majority of my studying of the material is done. But when I got those Uworld scores I was pretty disheartened.

I was wondering if anyone else started with 45-50% range and then went up in their scores by a lot? If so, how long did it take you and what did it go up to?

I have a little less than a month till my exam. I plan on going through almost all of the subjects again before that.

Any input appreciated!

I'm starting UW tomorrow so I can't give you the kind of advice you will get from posters following me, but I've asked the same questions and people keep telling me that UW does this on purpose.. and as long as you are learning exactly where you went wrong in every single question, you are getting more out of it than you can even imagine.

I went through my entire 2nd year doing practice questions, getting killed on them, reading why I did so, and then on test day, when those things showed up again, I didn't have to think twice about what the right answer was. So don't worry so much about how much you get right and wrong, just make sure you know EXACTLY why you got it wrong (did you misread one word, did you just plain not know the concept it was asking, was there an answer choice that threw you off?).

If you find that the answer to this question is always the same (i.e. i noticed that I kept choosing an answer choice that 'looked' good even though if I was asked that question without multiple choice options I never would have picked it, so I started thinking about my answers more without even looking at the answer choices).


Hope this helps a little bit, but like I said, I haven't started UW yet, so maybe in 5-6 days you'll see me crying in here wondering why I cant get above 50% haha.

 

[aashkab]

let it be known that poker doc has huge biceps

 

[metalrex]

I was wondering if anyone else started with 45-50% range and then went up in their scores by a lot? If so, how long did it take you and what did it go up to?


!

Yep, I started out being thrashed on UW too, started off with 40's ,its been a roller coaster ride-with few blocks as high as 70's and some as low as 30's, but majority of my scores are falling the high 60's now.I have def seen an upward trend albeit not a stellar one.

Just stick to what pokerdoc said, i would say the same.Now I have come to a point where I could care less about my UW scores as long as they teach me something each day.

 

[kissmyasthma99]

Also, this is still a pretty small sample size. My UW %s at first jumped all over the place. You need to do at least a few hundred questions to really know where you're at. For instance my first week of UWorld, I did one block and got 80% and in that same week got 48% on another. In reality my overall percentage is in between that. It just depends on what question are chosen, and if you have covered that material yet. So just keep on keepin on.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I've improved since I started, for sure. I think my first test was something like a 31% in pharm questions. That proved to be an anomaly, but still, I've gotten a lot better. What's more, I hadn't really gotten a lot of improvement in the subjects before taking the NBME subject exams (probably mid-50's or so for most things), but I have yet to get a score back below about 70th percentile. Learn from your mistakes, and keep movin' along.

 

[PokerDoc]

one more thing I'd like to add:

I'm finding that 60% of my wrong answers are because I just plain didn't know
but 40% I could have gotten right if I wasn't fooled by the wording of the questioning. READ EVERY QUESTION TWICE unless your confidence is 100%

 

[blahwhatever]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I'm going to start Uworld again tomorrow and not expect much from the score, it won't be easy to not get down about the super low scores, but it stresses me out too much when I do care.

 

[PokerDoc]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I'm going to start Uworld again tomorrow and not expect much from the score, it won't be easy to not get down about the super low scores, but it stresses me out too much when I do care.

do tutor mode, review each question, and when your done with the block, cross your eyes or something so u cant see the cumulative stat page or put your hand over it so you cant see it.. if it stresses you out, theres no point in even lookign at it.

 

[TexasTriathlete]

one more thing I'd like to add:

I'm finding that 60% of my wrong answers are because I just plain didn't know
but 40% I could have gotten right if I wasn't fooled by the wording of the questioning. READ EVERY QUESTION TWICE unless your confidence is 100%

This is the freaking truth.

I'm re-doing questions that I got incorrect a long time ago (e.g., setting up the "create test" to make a practice block of only questions that I missed), and about half of them have me scratching my head as to how I missed them.

I am finding that they don't use many distractors on world. Pretty much every piece of information they give you is important. That is, if a patient admits to unprotected sex, they've probably got crotch rot. Every now and then, they'll drop something that throws you off, but not often. So you have to be thorough.

I don't know how your school is, but a lot of the questions at our school consist of a paragraph of bull****, followed by a straightforward question. Not so much on world though. Everything matters.

 

[kanyuek]

Good luck to everyone !

 

[TexasTriathlete]

I did USMLEWorld 4 times , 4 times the charm and just passed with 81. Consider I went to medical school almosts 30 years ago. Kaplan DVD is useless.

When using USMLE World, must learn all the other answers why they are wrong. Also need to study for First Aid. If you use USMLE UW, they cover less than 10% of USMLE part 1 materials, but First AID covers 80-90%,

SO DO AND STUDY HARD USING UW USMLEWORLD BUT MUST USE FIRST AID AS REFERENCE !!!!

This comes from someone who took USMLE 5 times, ist time back in 1983, passed without any problem, I was in US medical school, want to see if I can pass 30 years later, HELL NO, you need FIRST AID and UW !

Did you use any other sources besides World and FA? I am almost through my second pass on UW, and I was going to get Rx and DIT to help make going through FA a more active process.