- Joined
- Jan 28, 2008
- Messages
- 199
- Reaction score
- 2
I'm a resident in a non-clinical specialty, so was very nervous about Step 3 and how to really prepare without clinical experience. I did fairly well (230) on Step 2 with Brochart's Step 2 Secrets and USMLE World, so opted for that combo again for Step 3. I used Step 3 Crush and USMLE World as my main resources. I supplemented very little with other resources, mainly ObGyn Blueprints for ObGyn. My final UW average was about 65%, although I didn't rely too much on this because I had done UW about 6 months prior
I fairly meticulously annotated Crush with everything I learned from UW and read through Crush incrementally probably 3-4 times by the end of my studying. I did all of the CCS cases and made notecards of them for quick review throughout the day. I felt like I prepared well, or at least knew my resources well. I really just want to pass, but understand that aiming for a 190 on this test can get one into trouble.
The actual test was mentally exhausting, just given the fact that it's 2 days long and so much is riding on it. And it's completely different trying to study while doing residency and studying while in medical school. The questions were fairly similar to UW in difficulty. There were some esoteric-type questions, although not too many to worry about spending time on (i.e. Micro Biochem/Cell Biology).
There also were several questions that simply could not be answered from Crush (and I assume FA). For example, Crush lists the treatment for a certain fungal infection with two choices. Both of those answer choices were there for that question, so I went with the first one listed in Crush. There must have been something I didn't know in the question stem preferring one over the other. Many questions CAN be answered from Crush, but many cannot, even if you remember word-for-word what Crush said about it. If you're just aiming to pass, then maybe it's enough?
As far timing is concerned, it wasn't a problem. I had about 7-10 minutes left on each block. While the inpatient blocks are longer, I still had a few minutes left over to jump back to questions I marked and skipped. My goal was to do 1 question/minute, which left about 10 minutes at the end of every block.
I felt fairly decent about the MC portion of the exam. If I had to objectively describe my feelings, I would say I knew about 1/3 of them, could get down to 2 answer choices on a 1/3 of them, and over 2 answer choices on the remaining 3rd. There were very few questions where I couldn't knock out at least 1 or 2 answer choices. These tests are so difficult because we're used to success equating to a 90% or above. It's hard to do UW and be satisfied with a 60% or do Step 3 and be satisfied with probably around 60% correct.
My main source of anxiety comes from the CCS portion. I knew the diagnoses on 6 cases and managed them fairly well, although thinking back I realized I could have also placed a certain consult, or done certain counseling, etc. in addition to medical management. For 2 cases I had difficulty coming up with the diagnosis despite extensive workup. In one of these I got frustrated and tried something invasive which the patient declined (I know that's a bad sign). I had one case that was exactly in UW CCS, a few others that were slight variations, and a few that were not similar at all.
Hope this helps!
I fairly meticulously annotated Crush with everything I learned from UW and read through Crush incrementally probably 3-4 times by the end of my studying. I did all of the CCS cases and made notecards of them for quick review throughout the day. I felt like I prepared well, or at least knew my resources well. I really just want to pass, but understand that aiming for a 190 on this test can get one into trouble.
The actual test was mentally exhausting, just given the fact that it's 2 days long and so much is riding on it. And it's completely different trying to study while doing residency and studying while in medical school. The questions were fairly similar to UW in difficulty. There were some esoteric-type questions, although not too many to worry about spending time on (i.e. Micro Biochem/Cell Biology).
There also were several questions that simply could not be answered from Crush (and I assume FA). For example, Crush lists the treatment for a certain fungal infection with two choices. Both of those answer choices were there for that question, so I went with the first one listed in Crush. There must have been something I didn't know in the question stem preferring one over the other. Many questions CAN be answered from Crush, but many cannot, even if you remember word-for-word what Crush said about it. If you're just aiming to pass, then maybe it's enough?
As far timing is concerned, it wasn't a problem. I had about 7-10 minutes left on each block. While the inpatient blocks are longer, I still had a few minutes left over to jump back to questions I marked and skipped. My goal was to do 1 question/minute, which left about 10 minutes at the end of every block.
I felt fairly decent about the MC portion of the exam. If I had to objectively describe my feelings, I would say I knew about 1/3 of them, could get down to 2 answer choices on a 1/3 of them, and over 2 answer choices on the remaining 3rd. There were very few questions where I couldn't knock out at least 1 or 2 answer choices. These tests are so difficult because we're used to success equating to a 90% or above. It's hard to do UW and be satisfied with a 60% or do Step 3 and be satisfied with probably around 60% correct.
My main source of anxiety comes from the CCS portion. I knew the diagnoses on 6 cases and managed them fairly well, although thinking back I realized I could have also placed a certain consult, or done certain counseling, etc. in addition to medical management. For 2 cases I had difficulty coming up with the diagnosis despite extensive workup. In one of these I got frustrated and tried something invasive which the patient declined (I know that's a bad sign). I had one case that was exactly in UW CCS, a few others that were slight variations, and a few that were not similar at all.
Hope this helps!
Last edited:
