Easy STEP 1?

[Ernieball]

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Hey guys... quick question:

I left the prometric site today feeling like an ass... Several of my friends have taken the test and they all said it was really hard (had to calculate delta-G, lots of vague behavioral, microbiology plating techniques, etc.), but I felt like I got an easy test. I did USMLE world and Kaplan Q banks before, as well as reading through Kaplan home study edition twice... so I though I was well prepared. My USMLE world Self assessments were a 238, and 240, respectively. I was prepared for the tertiary path questions... but I had to "diagnose" NF-1 4 times after being given cafe au lait spots, subcutaneous nodules, and pigmented spots on the Iris. Has anyone else with a similar experience come out with a good score? I promise to post my real score when I get it...

Psychotically yours,
Ernieball

 

[Cliff Huxtable]

Hey guys... quick question:

I left the prometric site today feeling like an ass... Several of my friends have taken the test and they all said it was really hard (had to calculate delta-G, lots of vague behavioral, microbiology plating techniques, etc.), but I felt like I got an easy test. I did USMLE world and Kaplan Q banks before, as well as reading through Kaplan home study edition twice... so I though I was well prepared. My USMLE world Self assessments were a 238, and 240, respectively. I was prepared for the tertiary path questions... but I had to "diagnose" NF-1 4 times after being given cafe au lait spots, subcutaneous nodules, and pigmented spots on the Iris. Has anyone else with a similar experience come out with a good score? I promise to post my real score when I get it...

Psychotically yours,
Ernieball

delta-G as in gibbs free energy?

 

[rahulb]

deltaG might be a hard question if you don't know how to add.

 

[McGillGrad]

Hey guys... quick question:

I left the prometric site today feeling like an ass... Several of my friends have taken the test and they all said it was really hard (had to calculate delta-G, lots of vague behavioral, microbiology plating techniques, etc.), but I felt like I got an easy test. I did USMLE world and Kaplan Q banks before, as well as reading through Kaplan home study edition twice... so I though I was well prepared. My USMLE world Self assessments were a 238, and 240, respectively. I was prepared for the tertiary path questions... but I had to "diagnose" NF-1 4 times after being given cafe au lait spots, subcutaneous nodules, and pigmented spots on the Iris. Has anyone else with a similar experience come out with a good score? I promise to post my real score when I get it...

Psychotically yours,
Ernieball

One of the biggest factors that help (or hurt) you for Step I is the random set of questions that you end up taking. Since no two exams are exactly the same, you may have just lucked out and fell into ~300 questions that you were prepared to answer and dodged enough questions where you were weak.

Although you may have scored a higher raw score than your friends on your exam, the questions themselves are what determine you score (i.e. your performance on each question vs. everyone else who did that question). Your performance overall versus everyone else on every question you did is much more important.

If you need me to clarify further, I can give you an example, but it is just crunching stats...similar to how UW does it. In other words, you will get a higher score by answering a question right (that most people get wrong) than if you get a question right that most people get right.
And vice-versa your score will not go down much if you get a question wrong that most people get wrong (and logically you score will go down more if you get one wrong that most get right).

So in the end, the trick is to get all the questions right that most get right PLUS get a good number right that most get wrong (and avoid the opposite of both).

 

[Ernieball]

Yea, Gibbs free energy... not a hard question, but since the last time I saw the equation was about 3 years ago, it seems like a cheap-shot... more MCAT material the USMLE. I seriously doubt that over the next 2 years any attending will say to me "what is the proper dosing interval of furosemide? and by the way, calculate the gibbs free energy for me"... yea, defenately a cheap shot.👎

 

[NCF145]

deltaG might be a hard question if you don't know how to add.

To the OP...I have noticed, in regard to exams that are based on a bell curve, it is better to receive a hard exam rather than an easier exam. This is for the same reasons that McGillGrad said above. A harder exam means you (typically) have to get fewer questions right to do well compared to an easier exam.

 

[Glaxo]

To the OP...I have noticed, in regard to exams that are based on a bell curve, it is better to receive a hard exam rather than an easier exam. This is for the same reasons that McGillGrad said above. A harder exam means you (typically) have to get fewer questions right to do well compared to an easier exam.

I was also wondering about this...the NBME form 2 is the only one of those I took and it seemed extraordinarily easy compared to world or kaplan, I'm assuming it's just scaled accordingly. Does that form compared to other NBMEs or the real deal?

 

[supersleuthMD11]

Hey guys... quick question:

I left the prometric site today feeling like an ass... Several of my friends have taken the test and they all said it was really hard (had to calculate delta-G, lots of vague behavioral, microbiology plating techniques, etc.), but I felt like I got an easy test. I did USMLE world and Kaplan Q banks before, as well as reading through Kaplan home study edition twice... so I though I was well prepared. My USMLE world Self assessments were a 238, and 240, respectively. I was prepared for the tertiary path questions... but I had to "diagnose" NF-1 4 times after being given cafe au lait spots, subcutaneous nodules, and pigmented spots on the Iris. Has anyone else with a similar experience come out with a good score? I promise to post my real score when I get it...

Psychotically yours,
Ernieball

I think I can share a similar experience, but on the flip side: I took the step yesterday (Fred V.2, FYI, in NYC), and found the first four sections to be substantially more difficult than the NBME practice exams. I had a few real curveballs (and some in which the actual question they were asking wasn't quite clear, I suspect these were experimental), in addition to a number of really tough derm lesions I had never seen before. In sum, I felt about the same on the last three sections as I did about the NBME exams 3 and five (scores 240 and 244 respectively), but felt significantly less confident about the first few sections. So is it true that the NBMEs track with your suspected performance? I suppose it is possible that I had a number of experimental questions in a row, and that this threw off my confidence - I just feel a bit more beat up than I thought I would and am apprehensive about this 6-8 week score freeze. Would love to hear input from others, will be sure to post my score once I receive it.