Early practice scores

[Melkor]

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I was just wondering if those who have taken early (5-7 months before the real thing) practice step I exams like NBMEs, Kaplan diagnostic, Uworld diagnostic/etc would mind sharing their scores and then your actual step 1 score if you have already taken it (or what you are aiming to get if you haven't). I know there is a large thread on NBME improvement but a lot of the scores mentioned by posters seem to only include the last 5-8 weeks before taking step 1 and don't have a lot of people who took early practice tests.

Unfortunately my school doesn't make us take a practice test until early April so I don't have any numbers to compare with fellow students to see if I'm on the right track or not...

And, just so others can compare; I recently took the NBME 6 and got a 370=191 (was hoping to break 200). Test date is 1st week of July and am aiming for 240+.

 

[iliketurt1es]

Congrats! How much did you study before taking NBME 6? Was this before any review at all?

 

[hrain]

I was just wondering if those who have taken early (5-7 months before the real thing) practice step I exams like NBMEs, Kaplan diagnostic, Uworld diagnostic/etc would mind sharing their scores and then your actual step 1 score if you have already taken it (or what you are aiming to get if you haven't). I know there is a large thread on NBME improvement but a lot of the scores mentioned by posters seem to only include the last 5-8 weeks before taking step 1 and don't have a lot of people who took early practice tests.

Unfortunately my school doesn't make us take a practice test until early April so I don't have any numbers to compare with fellow students to see if I'm on the right track or not...

And, just so others can compare; I recently took the NBME 6 and got a 370=191 (was hoping to break 200). Test date is 1st week of July and am aiming for 240+.

Hey Melkor,

I also just took NBME 6. I got a 196, but I'm taking my exam almost exactly 3 months from now (probably April 18), so you have quite a bit more time than me. I'm also aiming for 240+, and will have almost five weeks of dedicated study from March 15-April 17. Here's hoping that will be enough to get me there!

So far, I've pretty much just tried to stay up with GT. I'm at about 72% banked with 46% mastery (definitely not where I want it). I've also seen a decent amount of Pathoma with my classes and I've done about 300 Kaplan QBank questions. That's pretty much it, though.

Haven't taken the big thing yet, though, so I can't tell you how much we'll improve...sorry!

 

[Melkor]

Hey Melkor,

I also just took NBME 6. I got a 196, but I'm taking my exam almost exactly 3 months from now (probably April 18), so you have quite a bit more time than me. I'm also aiming for 240+, and will have almost five weeks of dedicated study from March 15-April 17. Here's hoping that will be enough to get me there!

So far, I've pretty much just tried to stay up with GT. I'm at about 72% banked with 46% mastery (definitely not where I want it). I've also seen a decent amount of Pathoma with my classes and I've done about 300 Kaplan QBank questions. That's pretty much it, though.

Haven't taken the big thing yet, though, so I can't tell you how much we'll improve...sorry!

It sounds like were going about this in a pretty similar way. I'm about 53% banked in GT and 42% mastered (was hoping to be higher % banked by now as well), done maybe 2-300 kaplan/usmlerx questions and have also watched pathoma along with the organ system we are in for 2nd year.

I'll definitely be interested in hearing about your progression over the next few months. Good luck!

 

[ijn]

I was just wondering if those who have taken early (5-7 months before the real thing) practice step I exams like NBMEs, Kaplan diagnostic, Uworld diagnostic/etc would mind sharing their scores and then your actual step 1 score if you have already taken it (or what you are aiming to get if you haven't). I know there is a large thread on NBME improvement but a lot of the scores mentioned by posters seem to only include the last 5-8 weeks before taking step 1 and don't have a lot of people who took early practice tests.

Unfortunately my school doesn't make us take a practice test until early April so I don't have any numbers to compare with fellow students to see if I'm on the right track or not...

And, just so others can compare; I recently took the NBME 6 and got a 370=191 (was hoping to break 200). Test date is 1st week of July and am aiming for 240+.

UWSA #1: 240 (1/17/2012)
NBME #7: 266 (2/10/2012)
NBME #12: 261 (2/19/2012)
NBME #13: 259 (3/08/2012)
CBSE #1: 260+ (99) (3/09/2012)
USWA #2 265+ (3/18/2012)
CBSE #2: 260+ (99) (5/11/2012)
CBSE #3: 260+ (99) (6/06/2012)
Real thing: 269 (6/13/2012)

 

[piviti]

UWSA #1: 240 (1/17/2012)
NBME #7: 266 (2/10/2012)
NBME #12: 261 (2/19/2012)
NBME #13: 259 (3/08/2012)
CBSE #1: 260+ (99) (3/09/2012)
USWA #2 265+ (3/18/2012)
CBSE #2: 260+ (99) (5/11/2012)
CBSE #3: 260+ (99) (6/06/2012)
Real thing: 269 (6/13/2012)

Huh? You were scoring in the 260s by February? What was your school curriculum like?

 

[ijn]

Huh? You were scoring in the 260s by February? What was your school curriculum like?

I don't have anything to compare it to. It's a bottom quartile US school that most people haven't heard of before. I mainly studied for the class exams throughout the year but I always made sure to teach myself important STEP 1 concepts that I thought the school decided to overlook.

 

[g8orlife]

I don't have anything to compare it to. It's a bottom quartile US school that most people haven't heard of before. I mainly studied for the class exams throughout the year but I always made sure to teach myself important STEP 1 concepts that I thought the school decided to overlook.

BTW I've been wondering this for a while after I read your 'Experience' post, but how did you review those practice tests during your semester? (e.g., Did you spend only the weekends on them, space 1 hour per day to take/review each block, taking/reviewing after an in-house exam, etc ??)

Thanks!!

 

[g8orlife]

Bump.

 

[ijn]

BTW I've been wondering this for a while after I read your 'Experience' post, but how did you review those practice tests during your semester? (e.g., Did you spend only the weekends on them, space 1 hour per day to take/review each block, taking/reviewing after an in-house exam, etc ??)

Thanks!!

I love doing questions, so was able to do 2-3 blocks of UWorld in a day after class. More if I had time on the weekend. I'd generally do the practice tests on weekends with 4 hours of solid uninterrupted time.

I'm not anal about taking notes on every single little detail in the answer explanation. I summarize what the question was asking, then added it as a single line an excel file of all the things I missed. I ended up turning that file into online flashcards. For the practice NBMEs I took screenshots of each question I missed and added them to a master powerpoint, and reviewed that repeatedly.

 

[madchemist89]

Did you start teaching yourself STEP 1 material before you went over it in class?

 

[ijn]

For the most part, no. Over Christmas break of 2nd year I started reviewing heme/onc and neuro which I took during the first semester of 2nd year. By the time I took the first CBSE we had finished respiratory, cardiovascular, GI, and renal pathology. I studied Step 1 pathology/physiology/pharmacology of those systems along with the course.

We had our first CBSE exam in March before we had our endocrine, reproductive, and derm/optho pathology courses. So I studied those topics independently in the week off that they gave us to study for the CBSE.

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

So I'm pretty just chalkin up ijn as a statistical anomaly if not I may as well just drop out of med school now because I'm a *****.

I wanted to get a baseline and seeing how others were taking NBME #6 I did that myself this morning. I'm thoroughly disappointed with my performance ended up with a 184. The Behavioral Science (usually a strong suit of mine) demolished me on this. I plan on taking my USMLE the last week in May and hoping/aiming for at least a 230+.

So far I've done about 40% of GT (switched over to firecracker and didn't want my stuff carried over). Also done about 1/3 of USMLErx. I've had a single pass through FA though to be fair that was over the course of a year. Also just started COMbank (DO student), a crappy little Qbank that is going to help me with the wording of COMLEX.