finally, it's over!!!

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annushka

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Took my USMLE Step 1 yesterday. HUGE relief. Here's the 411:

Man, those SDN'ers got me freaked out for the test!!! In retrospect, it really wasn't that bad...what's definitely true is that the exams are TOTALLY different--mine was not similar to anyone else's here.

Here's the shocker: my USMLE was A LOT like the COMLEX!!! :wow:
I even got 2 pictures that were the EXACT SAME ones as the ones used on the COMLEX!!! throughout the exam, I kept rubbing my eyes and triple-checking to make sure I was in fact taking the right test. TONS of muskuloskeletal questions!!! I think there was a physical therapy question in it also...

With that said, I think the only difference was in the subject of the questions... the style wasn't all that similar. But it kinda sucked, because I concentrated mostly on learning biochem and molecular bio and didn't read that much m-skeletal stuff, only to find out I had a lot of questions on it and forgot a good portion. Lots of anatomy too, on my exam. I had exactly 7 questions on genetics--1 in each block :)
crazy, crazy exam--that's all I can say. The writing was really weird, I don't know why people say USMLE questions are well-written. I had to re-read most questions 3-4 times just to understand what they were getting it. Oh, here's a really good recommendation: read the actual question before you read the stem--I had a bunch of questions where the stem just serves the purpose of trying to confuse you, and the actual question is about something totally different. One question, the stem kept going on an on, telling the pt's history for like 2 years, with all hospitalizations and labs, and the actual question was about the action of a hormone on the receptor. That kinda stuff.

Oh, another tip is bring in some books!!! And look in them during breaks--I did that a couple of times, there are repeat topics/questions among the blocks. So what I would do, i would write down on that dry-erase sheet the topics I wasn't sure about...then during the break, I'd go look it up in First Aid. It's totally legit and such a relief when you get a repeat question and you know the answer b/c you just looked it up.

About figures/graphs--mine were decent and easy to read and not at all bad...I got a couple of enzyme kinetics ones, couple of lung physio ones, one on the cardio physiology stuff. Not too shabby.

Well, that's that for me--I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Good luck to all who haven't taken it yet!!!

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congrats annushka,
any advice for a fellow NYCOM student that will be taking the boards next year. how do i maxinize what we learn next yera to not only pass the courses but to use it toward board study? any advice would be appreciated..
 
That books idea is a decnet idea. Or you can call a friend to look the stuff up for you. That kind of happened to me on accident.
 
Hmmmm, this is starting to sound strangely familiar.

1. Phone a friend.
2. Poll the people at the testing site.

The only thing we need to add is a 50/50 for the tough questions.


Jalby said:
That books idea is a decnet idea. Or you can call a friend to look the stuff up for you. That kind of happened to me on accident.

One more thing, isn't it possible that since you are getting different questions on the same concept, that they are the "experimental" questions? This way they can gauge what is the best way to "field test" a future concept using various question stems.

To me, asking the same concept more than once (and counting the questions for your overall score) just seems superfluous, and unfair (this is kinda like double jeopardy in law). I find it hard to believe that an exam with a committee for each subject would pass the safeguards to allow the same concept to be tested more than once(and count each attempt). It's not like there is a small number of concepts that they can ask, so they have to resort to using different question stems to fit into a 350 Question bank. What do you guys think?
 
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I think the questions are totally random done by a computer. They weren't exactly the same question. Well, one was, except one had a picture and theother one explained the picture.
 
Congrats on finishing.

As far as looking up stuff on breaks I disagree. I brought my FA and fought the urge to look at it during breaks b/c at that point I'd be looking up questions I already had and could do nothing about anymore. To find out I got them wrong in the middle of the exam would just put me in a bad mood for the remaining blocks. I went on a frenzy looking up stuff once the exam was over and upset myself a bit. This is b/c you tend to remember the hard questions you got wrong vs. the easy ones you got right. In my oppinion its not good to do this to yourself in the middle of your exam.

But hey if it makes you feel better bring your whole library, keep it in your car in the lot outside and go crazy during the breaks. To each their own. I don't recommend it.
 
They might be very similar, but I don't think any two questions are ever exactly the same. It's reasonable to get more than one question on the same step dealing with the same subject matter presented in a similar fashion because there are so many ways of asking a question on one concept. And plus, the NBME is constantly flushing out old questions and putting in new ones, and the first two years of medical science aren't changing THAT fast, so you're going to see very similar questions, even over long periods of time.

On an unrelated note, my girlfriend went to a endocrine conference thing last week for her research, and she said that she attended quite a few clinical (MD, not PhD) conferences, and that ALL of them centered around biochemistry and molecular biology. This would probably explain the recent increase in this kind of testing on the step.
 
Is it possible that the increase in emphasis of molecular biology on Step 1 might actually be reflective of the reshifting of the tectonic plates of biochemistry?

I know many of you posted biochemistry and molecular biology separately on your Step 1 feedback. But I think the test makers believe that molecular biology questions are under Biochemistry. It will be interesting to see Jalby's view on this, because he has a Graduate degree in Biochem.

In fact, when you get your score report with the arrows (of distribution) it will not have molecular biology as a subsection. Interestingly, there are subsections for Cardiovascular, GI, etc. Makes you wonder if studying by systems might be the way to go. But I digress.

Stinger86 said:
They might be very similar, but I don't think any two questions are ever exactly the same. It's reasonable to get more than one question on the same step dealing with the same subject matter presented in a similar fashion because there are so many ways of asking a question on one concept. And plus, the NBME is constantly flushing out old questions and putting in new ones, and the first two years of medical science aren't changing THAT fast, so you're going to see very similar questions, even over long periods of time.

On an unrelated note, my girlfriend went to a endocrine conference thing last week for her research, and she said that she attended quite a few clinical (MD, not PhD) conferences, and that ALL of them centered around biochemistry and molecular biology. This would probably explain the recent increase in this kind of testing on the step.
 
chandler742 said:
Is it possible that the increase in emphasis of molecular biology on Step 1 might actually be reflective of the reshifting of the tectonic plates of biochemistry?

I know many of you posted biochemistry and molecular biology separately on your Step 1 feedback. But I think the test makers believe that molecular biology questions are under Biochemistry. It will be interesting to see Jalby's view on this, because he has a Graduate degree in Biochem.

In fact, when you get your score report with the arrows (of distribution) it will not have molecular biology as a subsection. Interestingly, there are subsections for Cardiovascular, GI, etc. Makes you wonder if studying by systems might be the way to go. But I digress.


I'm sure each question is labeled as a part of several disciplines, so a question that describes a patient with respiratory complaints, and asks for the ultrastructural changes expected, would be considered a pathology, respiratory system, biochemistry, and/or cell bio & histology question. Also, since there is a distribution listed for questions in Cell Biology and Histology, I would bet a lot of those mol. bio questions would fall in there too (in addition to or instead of the biochemistry distribution).
 
Su4n2 said:
congrats annushka,
any advice for a fellow NYCOM student that will be taking the boards next year. how do i maxinize what we learn next yera to not only pass the courses but to use it toward board study? any advice would be appreciated..

Try to integrate the info...that's the most important thing. Like, don't just memorize all the drugs you use to treat lupus, for example--try to understand how they work, tie this into the biochem as well.

Last year, the Radiology club had a special 3-day course on how to study for the boards--I really hope they have it this year as well, because all of those suggestions were truly excellent. If they don't, those guys wrote a book on how to study for the boards--I recommend you get it.

But in reality, boards are a totally different story than classes. I'd say second year classes at NYCOM is mostly stuff you'll need to know on your rotations, but too clinical to know for the Step 1. So just get a bunch of good review books and start annotating them--early on. That's my advice I guess.
 
chandler742 said:
Hmmmm, this is starting to sound strangely familiar.

One more thing, isn't it possible that since you are getting different questions on the same concept, that they are the "experimental" questions? This way they can gauge what is the best way to "field test" a future concept using various question stems.

To me, asking the same concept more than once (and counting the questions for your overall score) just seems superfluous, and unfair (this is kinda like double jeopardy in law). I find it hard to believe that an exam with a committee for each subject would pass the safeguards to allow the same concept to be tested more than once(and count each attempt). It's not like there is a small number of concepts that they can ask, so they have to resort to using different question stems to fit into a 350 Question bank. What do you guys think?

I don't know if they were experimental or not, but I got the same exact stem on two questions! The questions were different but the stem had the same exact wording and everything...I told you my exam was really strange. Maybe it was an experimental exam altogether? :eek:

As for looking stuff up, I guess it depends on your attitude. It helped me, just because I don't focus on getting questions right as much as on getting the knowledge. So for example, I got really confused with the diuretics...looked them up, realized I got a couple of q's wrong but wasn't freaking out about it, instead just made sure I knew what was what and was able to answer questions about them that came up afterwards. But that's just me. I also fell asleep while taking the test (right after lunch), most people I'd assume would be too freaked out to doze off, but not me. I almost hit the screen with my forehead!!! :laugh:
 
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