mid 50's in USMLE world but 70s in qbank! what is going on?

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blackberry13

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I have the test in about three weeks and am getting mid 50's in world but mid 70's in qbank. I don't know where I stand and how I will do on the exam. Any ideas? I have done about half of world and half of qbank. Thanks!

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I have the test in about three weeks and am getting mid 50's in world but mid 70's in qbank. I don't know where I stand and how I will do on the exam. Any ideas? I have done about half of world and half of qbank. Thanks!

Have you taken any of the NBME exams yet? Those are probably most predictive of where you stand.
 
no I have not yet. im too scared to take it and see that im doing really poorly. i dont know why but usmleword is very difficult, at least for me. What can one expect from the scores I have given?
 
no I have not yet. im too scared to take it and see that im doing really poorly. i dont know why but usmleword is very difficult, at least for me. What can one expect from the scores I have given?

Yeah, but you have three weeks to study for it. It just seems like you really need to suck it up and take one, see where you are, where your weak points are, and what you need to study. It's not the real thing, and it would be stupid to wait until the real thing to find out where you are. If I were you, I'd take one now, see where you are, focus your studies based on your test, and take an exam approximately weekly to chart your progress. If your exam scores are not satisfactory around the time of your boards, push them back.
 
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I took the 150 free questions. Supposedly people are saying they are way too easy. I got a 74% on them, which correlates to a 226 on the calculator....
 
I took the 150 free questions. Supposedly people are saying they are way too easy. I got a 74% on them, which correlates to a 226 on the calculator....
Uworld is hard that's whats going on. Stop beating around the bush. If you really want to know how you'll probably do, take one of the NBME's.
 
From what I've seen on here (although I can't speak from personal experience since I only used UWorld), a discrepancy between UWorld and Kaplan Qbank scores is normal. I used only UWorld, and though my score did loosely trend upwards, my scores were all over the place. My highest score was 78% and lowest was probably 50%, and I was hitting down to the 50's even in the week before my exam - my average over 3 weeks with about 50% complete was 60%.

Do yourself a favor and do *NOT* gauge your progress by UWorld scores. I am very suspicious that they may not correlate well with actual exam scores, even though I consider UWorld to be excellent preparation for the test. Also, I don't think the 150 questions are entirely representative of real boards questions. Take an NBME if you want to check your progress and estimate your score.
 
Are you using the kaplan notes to study? That could be why you're scoring a lot higher on qbank. Their banks tend to be geared toward their materials.
 
No I'm not using any Kaplan books, so I guess that's not it. I think, at least for me, the questions are just really difficult in World. In fact, the reason I think I am doing so good in Qbank is because of World. I stopped doing Qbank and did about 40% of World and just went back to Qbank to see how I'd do and started doing much better. So I am hoping it is because just doing World made me get better although I don't know if this is the case. I thought the 150 free questions were really easy and got a 208 based on that on the first block, but 235 on the next two blocks for an overall average of 74% i think. i still have about 2 weeks left till my exam and think I should probably take an nbme soon....I've heard that you can raise your score quite a bit in the last 2 weeks...What do you guys think? Thanks for the responses btw.
 
yep, last two weeks are pretty darn important. I crushed the score I got on the NBME I took 4 weeks before my exam.
 
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