MCAT vs USMLE Step1?

[jram2323]

Can someone briefly compare the style of the exams? Why would someone who performed poorly on the MCAT do better on step 1 or vice versa? Passages vs stand alone questions?

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[Apoplexy__]

Haven't taken Step 1 yet so I'll only address one of your questions: people perform differently on the MCAT and Step 1 because undergrad and med school are completely different. Different atmosphere, different lifestyle, different courseload (a bunch of random, unrelated classes vs. med school's all-inclusive, ever-building curriculum), etc. A lot of my friends are completely different students than they were in undergrad - I know I absolutely am myself.
Check out this research study, which attempts to answer this question (albeit with a small sample size): https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/Are Questions the Answer PPT 11-6-12 10PM.pdf

 

[Syndicate]

Haven't taken step 1 but I've heard that MCAT has a lot of critical thinking questions, especially in verbal and nowadays in bio as well, whereas step 1 is pure memorization. It's just what I've heard tho..

 

[Microglia]

A cursory google search yielded this ppt. May be of use:

https://members.aamc.org/eweb/upload/Are Questions the Answer PPT 11-6-12 10PM.pptx

There is a graph in it comparing step I scores and MCAT scores.

 

[mvenus929]

MCAT: Long passages and questions based on that passage that reflect the material you studied as well as your understanding of the passage.

Step 1: Shorter passages with 1-2 questions (usually 1) somehow related to said question testing the material that you studied. Relatively few questions can you answer with only good test taking skills. There is usually something in the vignette that changes the direction of the question. There are a handful of verbal-style questions on step 1, but they're usually analyzing a drug ad of some sort and making sure you know what statistic terms mean.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Can someone briefly compare the style of the exams? Why would someone who performed poorly on the MCAT do better on step 1 or vice versa? Passages vs stand alone questions?

Step 1 is 7 individual, 1-hour sections of 48 questions. You are also given 1 hour total of break time to allot as you wish in-between sections.

There is a correlation between MCAT and USMLE scores (obviously medical adcoms use the MCAT as a way to see if potential students can handle the curriculum and pass the boards). I think at my institution the correlation coefficient (r) for the two exams was 0.45. However, grades on medical exams had a much high r-value.

As someone else mentioned, most of Step 1 questions are clinical vignettes, which seem to be getting longer and longer. Over 90% of the MCAT is passage based. I tend to disagree with the notion that Step 1 is "purely memorization," as there as been increased emphasis on eliminating clinical buzzwords from the vignettes. In general, yes, medical school is a ton of memorization, but being able to explain "why?" is always going to be more useful than simply regurgitating facts.

I think good test taking skills are super helpful (and definitely worth learning, especially for multiple choice exams), at least on the question banks I have been doing. I also believe that no matter what you scored on the MCAT, you can rock Step 1.

 

[CarlosDanger]

I also believe that no matter what you scored on the MCAT, you can rock Step 1.

Hope so! I've been worried about this lately because I studied quite a lot for the MCAT, and I did ok but not excellent. I'm kind of concerned that I may not perform as well on step1 because of all the cramming/learning the test that has to be done in a short period of time. I guess exams in class will prepare me well as long as I stay on top of it all...did anyone feel like they had to learn a lot of new information that wasn't covered in classes in order to do well?

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

Haven't taken step 1 but I've heard that MCAT has a lot of critical thinking questions, especially in verbal and nowadays in bio as well, whereas step 1 is pure memorization. It's just what I've heard tho..

No.

Step 1 requires that you memorize a ton of information AND have solid critical thinking skills. My exam was very heavy on the critical thinking aspect. It was orders of magnitude more difficult than the MCAT was. However, I agree with Renaissance Man in that I don't think there's a good correlation between how well you performed on the MCAT and how well you'll do on Step 1.

 

[redpanda]

Hope so! I've been worried about this lately because I studied quite a lot for the MCAT, and I did ok but not excellent. I'm kind of concerned that I may not perform as well on step1 because of all the cramming/learning the test that has to be done in a short period of time. I guess exams in class will prepare me well as long as I stay on top of it all...did anyone feel like they had to learn a lot of new information that wasn't covered in classes in order to do well?

In my program, if you actually learned, and by learned I mean "remember immediately or with a little prompting" rather than "memorized and purged post exam", what you were supposed to learn in class, there was relatively little to learn de novo. The point of the study period is to salvage stuff out of the depths of your memory to where it can be retrieved quickly, not to learn enormous quantities of new stuff.

And, yes, Step 1 is entirely different than the MCAT. 1 paragraph vignette which would typically require you to identify some state/disease/condition/organism, know a particular fact about that condition, and perhaps connect that fact to something else to select an answer. The only test-taking skill that I can think of that is useful between both tests is time management. You need to have a decent internal clock (or check the time display) and know when you are spending too long on one question so you can leave it for later.

 

[NickNaylor]

No.

Step 1 requires that you memorize a ton of information AND have solid critical thinking skills. My exam was very heavy on the critical thinking aspect. It was orders of magnitude more difficult than the MCAT was. However, I agree with Renaissance Man in that I don't think there's a good correlation between how well you performed on the MCAT and how well you'll do on Step 1.

I never thought much critical thinking was required for step 1. I considered the abstract/theoretical questions those that required "critical thinking," and those questions were few and far between. I agree with what red above said - most questions really were recall, it was just what you were recalling. I think most step 1/shelf questions follow the format:

Description of patient and/or signs and symptoms of disease and/or treatment for disease -> identify disease -> provide diagnosis and/or provide treatment for disease and/or provide major adverse effects of primary treatment and/or identify mechanism of either disease or treatment and/or determine the next best step of management

IMO these are all straightforward questions, the difficulty is just in retaining all of the material and knowing exactly what each sentence in the question stem is telling you. I don't really consider that critical thinking simply because most of the problem solving process is just regurgitation of facts - the questions are just asked in such a way that they evaluate more knowledge than more simple questions. In other words, I don't think a question requires "critical thinking" simply because it's a two- or even three-step question. That question just requires you to have an additional one or two pieces of knowledge to answer the question, thus, if you get the question right you're either lucky or you actually know what's going on. Using that idea of "critical thinking," I'd say the MCAT requires significantly more if only because the questions asked tend to be more abstract and require inference vs. questions that are concrete... provided that you know enough information to know what the question is telling/asking you.

It's all a moot point regardless because who really cares in the end. I agree with the notion that there's little correlation between the MCAT and step 1 beyond the basic "people that do well on standardized tests will do well on standardized tests." Med school is, to a large degree, a clean slate that requires different skills than those required of your typical undergrad program. Your MCAT might predict a general "trajectory" for your step 1 performance (i.e., people that do very well or very poorly on one are more likely to do as well or poorly on the other), but at the end of the day it comes down to how well you learn the material during the first two years, how hard you study in your study time, and how lucky you get on test day.

 

[MSTPlease]

I never thought much critical thinking was required for step 1. I considered the abstract/theoretical questions those that required "critical thinking," and those questions were few and far between. I agree with what red above said - most questions really were recall, it was just what you were recalling. I think most step 1/shelf questions follow the format:

Description of patient and/or signs and symptoms of disease and/or treatment for disease -> identify disease -> provide diagnosis and/or provide treatment for disease and/or provide major adverse effects of primary treatment and/or identify mechanism of either disease or treatment and/or determine the next best step of management

IMO these are all straightforward questions, the difficulty is just in retaining all of the material and knowing exactly what each sentence in the question stem is telling you. I don't really consider that critical thinking simply because most of the problem solving process is just regurgitation of facts - the questions are just asked in such a way that they evaluate more knowledge than more simple questions. In other words, I don't think a question requires "critical thinking" simply because it's a two- or even three-step question. That question just requires you to have an additional one or two pieces of knowledge to answer the question, thus, if you get the question right you're either lucky or you actually know what's going on. Using that idea of "critical thinking," I'd say the MCAT requires significantly more if only because the questions asked tend to be more abstract and require inference vs. questions that are concrete... provided that you know enough information to know what the question is telling/asking you.

It's all a moot point regardless because who really cares in the end. I agree with the notion that there's little correlation between the MCAT and step 1 beyond the basic "people that do well on standardized tests will do well on standardized tests." Med school is, to a large degree, a clean slate that requires different skills than those required of your typical undergrad program. Your MCAT might predict a general "trajectory" for your step 1 performance (i.e., people that do very well or very poorly on one are more likely to do as well or poorly on the other), but at the end of the day it comes down to how well you learn the material during the first two years, how hard you study in your study time, and how lucky you get on test day.

I think this is the best answer so far. Even if the buzzwords are being removed, it's ultimately a largely fact based test in contrast to the MCAT which is much less fact heavy. I often think about tests (standardized and not) and their critical thinking/memorization lean in the context of "how would my score change if it were open book?" I don't think having my MCAT materials with me on the exam would have helped to nearly the extent that having my step 1 materials would have. Similarly, I have taken exams in classes (both med school and undergrad) where sometimes having my notes would have easily landed me a perfect score and other times it wouldn't have mattered.

I would say that the individual questions on Step 1 are easier than MCAT questions, but the volume of knowledge covered made it more difficult than the MCAT was for me.

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

I never thought much critical thinking was required for step 1. I considered the abstract/theoretical questions those that required "critical thinking," and those questions were few and far between. I agree with what red above said - most questions really were recall, it was just what you were recalling. I think most step 1/shelf questions follow the format:

Description of patient and/or signs and symptoms of disease and/or treatment for disease -> identify disease -> provide diagnosis and/or provide treatment for disease and/or provide major adverse effects of primary treatment and/or identify mechanism of either disease or treatment and/or determine the next best step of management

IMO these are all straightforward questions, the difficulty is just in retaining all of the material and knowing exactly what each sentence in the question stem is telling you. I don't really consider that critical thinking simply because most of the problem solving process is just regurgitation of facts - the questions are just asked in such a way that they evaluate more knowledge than more simple questions. In other words, I don't think a question requires "critical thinking" simply because it's a two- or even three-step question. That question just requires you to have an additional one or two pieces of knowledge to answer the question, thus, if you get the question right you're either lucky or you actually know what's going on. Using that idea of "critical thinking," I'd say the MCAT requires significantly more if only because the questions asked tend to be more abstract and require inference vs. questions that are concrete... provided that you know enough information to know what the question is telling/asking you.

It's all a moot point regardless because who really cares in the end. I agree with the notion that there's little correlation between the MCAT and step 1 beyond the basic "people that do well on standardized tests will do well on standardized tests." Med school is, to a large degree, a clean slate that requires different skills than those required of your typical undergrad program. Your MCAT might predict a general "trajectory" for your step 1 performance (i.e., people that do very well or very poorly on one are more likely to do as well or poorly on the other), but at the end of the day it comes down to how well you learn the material during the first two years, how hard you study in your study time, and how lucky you get on test day.

My Step 1 was very heavy on interpreting graphs and data, arrow questions, etc. I could have memorized all of Robbins and it likely wouldn't have helped me in answering many of those questions if I wasn't able to extrapolate concepts.

I agree with your last paragraph.