Just finished Step 1 - 6 normal sections, 1 crazy hard section!

[cameraGEEK]

Hi guys, I just took my Step 1 exam last week. I felt I was doing fine until in the last section suddenly question after question were strange random things that I had never seen or heard of before. I was feeling pretty bad after that last section, and am now feeling very worried. Is it likely that one was the "fake" section that they are testing for future tests? Or is it more likely that the fake questions were dispersed among all 7 sections?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[JasonE]

i wouldnt worry much, seems to be a universal feeling.

we all use the same review books as you did, so if there was weird stuff on it, its weird for everyone

 

[Phloston]

I've actually read in other posts somewhere of people getting one memorable section of absolute greater difficulty, but yet again, I'm sure it differs test to test.

I haven't taken the exam, but in terms of having finished ~90% of USMLE Rx, I've found that there are definitely some "wicked hard" timed blocks I've done, which upon completion, I'd literally throw my earmuffs off and not even want to look at my score, then I'd do just fine!, or sometimes, even better than on some of the easier ones! Remember that if you're finding something hard, then a lot of other people are too, but that's not necessarily a reflection of performance.

 

[cameraGEEK]

Thanks for these comments guys, it is nice to know other people have had the same thing happen. Wish I could stop thinking about it, seems like results take so long to get back. I did fine on all my practice tests but I keep feeling like I must have got like none of those questions on that difficult section correct, I really felt clueless question after question, and that is the first time that has happened! So no one knows anything about the "experimental" questions?

 

[shan564]

Thanks for these comments guys, it is nice to know other people have had the same thing happen. Wish I could stop thinking about it, seems like results take so long to get back. I did fine on all my practice tests but I keep feeling like I must have got like none of those questions on that difficult section correct, I really felt clueless question after question, and that is the first time that has happened! So no one knows anything about the "experimental" questions?

Nobody knows anything about the experimental questions. There's a lot of speculation, but nobody knows for sure. The widely accepted belief is that the experimental questions are dispersed throughout the test.

But for what it's worth, almost everybody says that they have one block that just seemed ridiculously hard. I even got that when I did NBME 11, but then when I looked at my score, it turns out that I'd answered 20 of the first 21 questions correctly (compared to 83% overall for the test). So I may have thought that it was difficult, but I guess I was wrong.