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je355804

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So I just got out of my test, and let me say... my experience is quite a bit different than what I've been hearing a lot of people say on this forum.

So I've been putting my heart and soul into step 1 for a few months now... I worked hard during my first 2 years of med school, and I've always done relatively well on NBME tests, shelf exams, the usual etc.

I got a 220,220, and 242 on the practice NBME tests. (12/11/6). I thought these questions were pretty easy for the most part with some tough ones in between that you could at least work out if you had a decent amount of knowledge. The thing about NBME tests is that even if the question is hard, they usually just want to know that you know the concept or have a good working knowledge of the material. They in my experience don't try to get you by giving 5 impossible answer choices.

UWorld on the other hand tries to trick you in two areas, the questions are fairly obscure and the answer choices are generally very difficult. Usually if you're going a legit first time through random/ unused a 75% is a really good score.

From what I've heard from many people, step 1 is usually easier than UWorld and slightly harder than the practice NBMEs. Well, on my test today the questions were EXTREMELY difficult... not just the questions but the answer choices were often obscure and extremely similar to one another with small nuances being the difference. I can honestly say I wasn't really expecting this based on what other people have told me about this test. I can easily say that this test I took today was easily as hard as UWorld without a doubt.

The thing that bothers me is I wasn't nervous etc etc... and I know I was prepared. I feel very confident saying that I have a good knowledge of the material, but it just seems like there were so many questions that were WAYYY out there. I also don't necessarily think other people would "in general" have known the answers to these questions either...

Has anyone else has an experience like this, and can anyone say if the test is graded based on how hard the exam was?... Or are they all supposed to be "generally the same difficulty."

Feels like I put so much time and hard work into this and now I'm totally feeling like crap because the test was completely not what I expected.
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je355804 said:
So I just got out of my test, and let me say... my experience is quite a bit different than what I've been hearing a lot of people say on this forum.

So I've been putting my heart and soul into step 1 for a few months now... I worked hard during my first 2 years of med school, and I've always done relatively well on NBME tests, shelf exams, the usual etc.

I got a 220,220, and 242 on the practice NBME tests. (12/11/6). I thought these questions were pretty easy for the most part with some tough ones in between that you could at least work out if you had a decent amount of knowledge. The thing about NBME tests is that even if the question is hard, they usually just want to know that you know the concept or have a good working knowledge of the material. They in my experience don't try to get you by giving 5 impossible answer choices.

UWorld on the other hand tries to trick you in two areas, the questions are fairly obscure and the answer choices are generally very difficult. Usually if you're going a legit first time through random/ unused a 75% is a really good score.

From what I've heard from many people, step 1 is usually easier than UWorld and slightly harder than the practice NBMEs. Well, on my test today the questions were EXTREMELY difficult... not just the questions but the answer choices were often obscure and extremely similar to one another with small nuances being the difference. I can honestly say I wasn't really expecting this based on what other people have told me about this test. I can easily say that this test I took today was easily as hard as UWorld without a doubt.

The thing that bothers me is I wasn't nervous etc etc... and I know I was prepared. I feel very confident saying that I have a good knowledge of the material, but it just seems like there were so many questions that were WAYYY out there. I also don't necessarily think other people would "in general" have known the answers to these questions either...

Has anyone else has an experience like this, and can anyone say if the test is graded based on how hard the exam was?... Or are they all supposed to be "generally the same difficulty."

Feels like I put so much time and hard work into this and now I'm totally feeling like crap because the test was completely not what I expected.
Click to expand...

Please update us when you get your score. I'm very interested. Don't freak out too much, it is done now! 🙂
 
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kaleerkalut said:
Please update us when you get your score. I'm very interested. Don't freak out too much, it is done now! 🙂
Click to expand...

Thanks... Guess I'm just down, because I feel like it comes down to difficulty of the test, which I hope isn't true. My friend who is generally right in line with me knowledge/score wise took it 4 days earlier and was amazed by what I was telling him was on mine.

He said his was very similar to NBME 7...
 
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My friend who took Step 1 at the end of June had a very similar experience. He scored in the same range on his practice NBMEs as you and was a great student. He told me it was extremely difficult (like "nothing he'd ever seen") and, in his opinion, more difficult than Uworld. By the end of the test, he was blindly guessing. He was very depressed after the exam and actually thought he failed it. As time went by, he was absolutely convinced he failed it. The only thing that kept him sane was the thought that, even if he had more time, he wouldn't have done any better. When he got his score, it was a 230, on a the dot. He was absolutely shocked.

I don't know what score you're shooting for, but I hope that's some consolation. Another friend of mine who took the test 2 days before him got in the low 220's and she thought it was the easiest test ever....

So, just relax as much as you can until you get your score. Without a doubt, others like you feel the same. I'm sure it will go much better than you anticipate..you may even be surprised! Best of luck
 
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CW3469 said:
My friend who took Step 1 at the end of June had a very similar experience. He scored in the same range on his practice NBMEs as you and was a great student. He told me it was extremely difficult (like "nothing he'd ever seen") and, in his opinion, more difficult than Uworld. By the end of the test, he was blindly guessing. He was very depressed after the exam and actually thought he failed it. As time went by, he was absolutely convinced he failed it. The only thing that kept him sane was the thought that, even if he had more time, he wouldn't have done any better. When he got his score, it was a 230, on a the dot. He was absolutely shocked.

I don't know what score you're shooting for, but I hope that's some consolation. Another friend of mine who took the test 2 days before him got in the low 220's and she thought it was the easiest test ever....

So, just relax as much as you can until you get your score. Without a doubt, others like you feel the same. I'm sure it will go much better than you anticipate..you may even be surprised! Best of luck
Click to expand...


I have to be 100% honest that makes me feel a lot better, and it's funny you say that... I've been telling myself I can't feel down about whatever I score. I put my heart and soul into this test, unlike anything I've ever done before. So if I don't get the score I want, I can't have any regrets because I know I did everything I could do.

I guess at the end of the day that's what really counts.

Thanks much for the encouragement!
 
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seriously, don't worry. after my exam, i felt terrible, destroyed and close to tears. all the hard studying seemed meaningless on this day. i made stupid mistakes (some REALLY easy questions), felt unsure with a whole lot of questions and had problems focusing during the last blocks.
however, i ended up with 265+, even a little bit higher than most of my nbmes. so i guess this is just how you're supposed to feel after such an exam. maybe you should worry if you didn't have this feeling 😉
 
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Tummy said:
seriously, don't worry. after my exam, i felt terrible, destroyed and close to tears. all the hard studying seemed meaningless on this day. i made stupid mistakes (some REALLY easy questions), felt unsure with a whole lot of questions and had problems focusing during the last blocks.
however, i ended up with 265+, even a little bit higher than most of my nbmes. so i guess this is just how you're supposed to feel after such an exam. maybe you should worry if you didn't have this feeling 😉
Click to expand...

Mind sharing your study plan? Thanks.
 
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je355804 said:
I have to be 100% honest that makes me feel a lot better, and it's funny you say that... I've been telling myself I can't feel down about whatever I score. I put my heart and soul into this test, unlike anything I've ever done before. So if I don't get the score I want, I can't have any regrets because I know I did everything I could do.

I guess at the end of the day that's what really counts.

Thanks much for the encouragement!
Click to expand...

How was the Pharm and Biochem on your exam?
 
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colonelmustard said:
How was the Pharm and Biochem on your exam?
Click to expand...

Again thanks to everyone for their experiences and their encouragement. I do indeed feel much better after hearing all this.

The pharm was ANS heavy. I'd know all the basics, and don't spend tons of time delving into the depths of each drug.

I think I got every pharm question right except 1. They were literally straight forward and simply wanted to know MOA or a very simple side effect.

Biochem was really easy. (well not really easy.) But if you knew first aid biochem in and out you were cool.

The hard questions were path/pathophys (which I was at the 80% percentile in UWorld in both of those subjects on (all unused/random/timed)) and tons of questions I couldn't even classify because I've never heard of such things before.
 
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I heard this theory once that questions get harder the more you answer correctly - so that might be why some ppl say it was really easy and didn't do as well and some feel it was really hard and get great scores.
Anyone heard about this too?
 
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Val7 said:
I heard this theory once that questions get harder the more you answer correctly - so that might be why some ppl say it was really easy and didn't do as well and some feel it was really hard and get great scores.
Anyone heard about this too?
Click to expand...

Isnt this one of the urban legends on the NBME website?
 
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First Aid was pretty much good enough for every topic, as long as you know FA very well. I read FA 4 times, and there were only a couple questions that truly surprised me. As for pharm, I'll second the poster who said that ANS drugs were stressed -- I had tons of questions on that, and they were the tricky ones. All the others were basically side effects or MOAs.
 
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sirius08 said:
First Aid was pretty much good enough for every topic, as long as you know FA very well. I read FA 4 times, and there were only a couple questions that truly surprised me. As for pharm, I'll second the poster who said that ANS drugs were stressed -- I had tons of questions on that, and they were the tricky ones. All the others were basically side effects or MOAs.
Click to expand...

Was there also an emphasis on antidepressants and psychotics? I'm getting bogged down with psych pharm and the obscure drugs from the different classes.
 
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colonelmustard said:
Was there also an emphasis on antidepressants and psychotics? I'm getting bogged down with psych pharm and the obscure drugs from the different classes.
Click to expand...

For psych drugs, if time is short, I'd focus on undesirable side effects -- e.g., sexual, cardiac, weight gain, tardive dyskinesia -- that might make patients not want to take the drug. Also, if one particular drug works especially well for a given disorder, know the drug and its MOA.
 
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lemonade90 said:
je355804 what did you use to study path?
Click to expand...


Goljan... OMG this man made my path/pathophys skills so much better than they ever could have been without using him. He simply makes you a better doctor period. You literally go from knowing how to pick the right answer to --> Knowing WHY you're picking the right answer and why all the other questions are BS.

Micro-- First aid is kind of enough. Kaplan is also useful.

Neuro - First aid is not enough. This is the biggest subject where I'd say first aid can't get the job done. There are NO brain stem pictures in (at least 2010 version) First aid.

Immuno - Yeah MAYBE first aid was enough... but ONLY if you memorized every single detail to a T. I'd say again first aid is not a realistic source for learning immuno because the detail itself may be there but there may not be an explanation. Which when step 1 gives you the question the first AID isn't going to be enough, because they're going to twist the answer in a way you've never seen. Again, goljan and kaplan are what really helped me here. Let's see first aid help you with radioactive thymidine proliferation assay... yeah... aint gonna happen.

Pharm - Pharm was totally doable with essentially just first aid. Uworld would lead you to believe otherwise.

Path/Pathophys/Physio - Well... Goljan... duh. You know this and you're going to get most every question or at least have a shot at it.

Anatomy - Don't know... mine was generally hard. Kaplan was not enough. (Videos that is) This is the subject I prepared a lot for on kaplan... and got absolutely killed on.

Behavioral - 80% easy 20% ridiculous. No doctor in their right mind would respond with any of those insane answer choices. Only a true dick (penis, if the word gets starred out) face.

Cardio - The experimental questions were kind of hard. Although 10000000000000000000 x 10^100000000 more clear that than crap (****ing piece of ****) on Uworld.

I don't know that's all I can think of now.

EDIT: Am I going to get in trouble for talking about what my step 1 was like? Is that illegal?
 
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je355804 said:
Cardio - The experimental questions were kind of hard. Although 10000000000000000000 x 10^100000000 more clear that than crap (****ing piece of ****) on Uworld.
Click to expand...

Would you mind telling us what subjects were tested more than others? Btw, when you say the cardio questions, were "more clear" on the actual exam, do you mean they were more explicit in what they were asking?
 
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colonelmustard said:
Would you mind telling us what subjects were tested more than others? Btw, when you say the cardio questions, were "more clear" on the actual exam, do you mean they were more explicit in what they were asking?
Click to expand...

No the audio was much higher quality than the random drum beats on UWorld.
 
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kaleerkalut said:
It scares the hell out of me that you say Kaplan Anatomy wasn't enough....
Click to expand...

The information may have been in Kaplan, but as my recent experience with Kaplan has shown me, their information is above and beyond. It's way too much to sort through, and it's hard to absorb and memorize every detail they give you. I think Kaplan's approach is to "throw everything" at their students, so they can't come back and say Kaplan didn't cover it.

From people I've talked to who recently took the boards, anatomy is pretty hit or miss. It's not worth your time memorizing everything for anatomy, considering most of it is not high yield. Lots of people get "killed" on it, and they still get great scores.
 
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colonelmustard said:
The information may have been in Kaplan, but as my recent experience with Kaplan has shown me, their information is above and beyond. It's way too much to sort through, and it's hard to absorb and memorize every detail they give you. I think Kaplan's approach is to "throw everything" at their students, so they can't come back and say Kaplan didn't cover it.

From people I've talked to who recently took the boards, anatomy is pretty hit or miss. It's not worth your time memorizing everything for anatomy, considering most of it is not high yield. Lots of people get "killed" on it, and they still get great scores.
Click to expand...

So is it just me or do the Kaplan Anatomy Videos not cover everything in the text? For instance I was just going over Chapter 3: Abdomen, Pelvis, and Perineum and the lecturer didn't even talk about the "Congenital Reproductive Anomalies" at the end of the chapter like 5alpha-reductase 2 deficiency. Anyone else or are my videos just messed up?
 
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try not to worry too much A LOT of people leave the exam not knowing at all how they did..i'm sure you'll do fine..i have a friend who got a 250+ after saying it was way more difficult than what he expected..but definitely do update us with your score

also anything you would have done differently in your preparation now that you've taken the exam?

thanks and good luck!
 
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To give hope to anyone worried about biochem, all you need to know really is in FA. I never took a biochem course, but I carefully read that chapter in FA about 5 times. I got my exam results back this week, and biochem was one of my starred, high-score areas.
 
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colonelmustard said:
The information may have been in Kaplan, but as my recent experience with Kaplan has shown me, their information is above and beyond. It's way too much to sort through, and it's hard to absorb and memorize every detail they give you. I think Kaplan's approach is to "throw everything" at their students, so they can't come back and say Kaplan didn't cover it.

From people I've talked to who recently took the boards, anatomy is pretty hit or miss. It's not worth your time memorizing everything for anatomy, considering most of it is not high yield. Lots of people get "killed" on it, and they still get great scores.
Click to expand...



I really agree with this... Do what you can for anatomy, don't over-stress on it. They can come easy or they can come impossible. It's really hit or miss.
 
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Got my score today.

226. Not great, not bad. Should be good enough for pretty much anything I'm interested in.

Here were my practice test scores once more...

NBME 6 - 195

NBME 12 - 217

NBME 11 - 219

NBME 7 - 242

... As I said earlier, my test was NOTHING like NBME 6/7.
 
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je355804 said:
Got my score today.

226. Not great, not bad. Should be good enough for pretty much anything I'm interested in.

Here were my practice test scores once more...

NBME 6 - 195

NBME 12 - 217

NBME 11 - 219

NBME 7 - 242

... As I said earlier, my test was NOTHING like NBME 6/7.
Click to expand...
It's a solid score.
 
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If you take your avg score for NBME form 7, 11 , 12 thats = 226 on the dot .. haha crazy. a good friend of mine that took the exam told me that i should take 3 NBMEs --> with different difficulty and the avg score of the 3 is what i should prob get on the real deal .

Good job ..
 
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je355804 said:
So I just got out of my test, and let me say... my experience is quite a bit different than what I've been hearing a lot of people say on this forum.

So I've been putting my heart and soul into step 1 for a few months now... I worked hard during my first 2 years of med school, and I've always done relatively well on NBME tests, shelf exams, the usual etc.

I got a 220,220, and 242 on the practice NBME tests. (12/11/6). I thought these questions were pretty easy for the most part with some tough ones in between that you could at least work out if you had a decent amount of knowledge. The thing about NBME tests is that even if the question is hard, they usually just want to know that you know the concept or have a good working knowledge of the material. They in my experience don't try to get you by giving 5 impossible answer choices.

UWorld on the other hand tries to trick you in two areas, the questions are fairly obscure and the answer choices are generally very difficult. Usually if you're going a legit first time through random/ unused a 75% is a really good score.

From what I've heard from many people, step 1 is usually easier than UWorld and slightly harder than the practice NBMEs. Well, on my test today the questions were EXTREMELY difficult... not just the questions but the answer choices were often obscure and extremely similar to one another with small nuances being the difference. I can honestly say I wasn't really expecting this based on what other people have told me about this test. I can easily say that this test I took today was easily as hard as UWorld without a doubt.

The thing that bothers me is I wasn't nervous etc etc... and I know I was prepared. I feel very confident saying that I have a good knowledge of the material, but it just seems like there were so many questions that were WAYYY out there. I also don't necessarily think other people would "in general" have known the answers to these questions either...

Has anyone else has an experience like this, and can anyone say if the test is graded based on how hard the exam was?... Or are they all supposed to be "generally the same difficulty."

Feels like I put so much time and hard work into this and now I'm totally feeling like crap because the test was completely not what I expected.
Click to expand...

congrats for your score ! well done
but u r scaring everybody i guess with your experience
10-15% of exam is difficult
and when u finish exam u remember WTF Qs more than the give away Qs
i feel exam is balanced ,but there can be slightly tougher exam(as the one u got)
but i dont think the variability can be a lot.
 
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I was wondering if anyone knows what 2 number score this correlates to? I've heard anywhere from 95-98.
 
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ctizzle13498 said:
My friend took it in July and got a 209/87

My friend took in in Novemeber and just got his score back 209/78
Click to expand...


Well I guess what I meant was... does anyone know what a 226 correlates to using the old scoring system.

The new two number score is not the same as the old 2 number score.
 
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je355804 said:
Well I guess what I meant was... does anyone know what a 226 correlates to using the old scoring system.

The new two number score is not the same as the old 2 number score.
Click to expand...

213 -90, 229-99 and 225 relates to 97 and 227 relates to 98

source- www.usmle.org announcements
relationship between 2 digit and 3 digit scoring system as in jan 1,2010 - sep 30-2011

you can check it yourself from website.i am just qouting from the website.
 
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stepvictory said:
213 -90, 229-99 and 225 relates to 97 and 227 relates to 98

source- www.usmle.org announcements
relationship between 2 digit and 3 digit scoring system as in jan 1,2010 - sep 30-2011

you can check it yourself from website.i am just qouting from the website.
Click to expand...


Ah cool. Thanks for that link 🙂 My goal was always 99, so a 97.5 kind of makes me happy. My first semester at school I failed a course and didn't even know if I was smart enough for medical school (I was a business major in undergrad so I had really 0 science knowledge coming into my Caribbean school.) After this I started learning how to study and how to learn the information.

So for those of you down in the Carib, just know if you work hard you can do it... and even do better than I did!
 
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