Official 2008 Usmle Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[lion]

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Greetings my brothers and sisters ,

I am new member here and will be taking my boards in another few months .
I thought I would start a thread devoted to a compilation of 2008 usmle experiences . I don't have anything to report as yet since my test is in a few month but anyone who has taken the test in 2008 please share with us your experience and feedback so we can keep the SDN tradition alive !

Good Luck

"Never , never , never , never Give up ! "

 

[generic]

I got it 20 days from my test date (I took it on a Thursday and I guess new scores come out every Wednesday).

You supposedly can check online at midnight (Tuesday PM-->Wed AM), or wait til the morning and check the pdf. They will send you the email later on in the morning telling you to go check.

I suspect that people taking it now, "off-peak," receive their scores quicker than those who take it later. For instance, friends who took it in June and others who took it in mid-December had to wait the full 6 weeks.

 

[Roxyfoxy]

Hi everyone, I have been a silent observer on this forum for the past 6 weeks . It has helped me tremendously in my board prep so I am hoping to do the same for future test takers.

Like previous posters, I go to a med school with an accelerated basic science program and have already finished 1 year of clinical rotations. I took my medicine shelf before studying for the boards. I am not sure how much that helped.

I studied for 6.5 weeks (painful, painful, painful) around 8 hours every day and around 10 hours everyday during the last week. I took a day off here and there but I basically sat down for 6.5 weeks and studied. I have never studied this much in my life and by the 6th week, I was wondering what I had done for the previous 6 weeks meaning I think I have forgotten most of what I had learned the first 2 weeks. (terrible short term memory)

I used FA, BRS physi, kaplan (biochem,behavior,physio,pharma and anatomy). For question bank i used UW (amazing) and Kaplan Q book. I will post a more detailed plan when I get my score.

The test:
Anatomy: there was quiet a few anatomy questions on my test. a bunch of neurotanatomy, extremity (muscles) and brachial plexus. I thought FA was okay for anatomy. Even though it didn't cover everything I needed to know on the test, I don't know if I would have spent more time on it with other resources. Know your CT scans. i thought I knew my cross section CT until I sat there for 3 minutes during block 1 trying to figure out if I was looking at the IVC. Know it well.

Embro: I also got quiet a few embryo q's on my test. But they were straightforward and nothing too complex. FA definitely enough.

Behavior/Statistics/ethics: I had maybe 6-7 quote questions. I expected the worst with the quote questions, but they were mostly okay with exception of 1 question which still makes no sense to me. I had very little statistics on my exam. 2 questions and that's it. I was hoping to limit my calculations to sens and spe but I didn't get any of those q. I was asked to calculate alveolar ventilation which for the life of me I could not remember how to d😵h well. Lots of psych personality/psychotic/mood problems.

Biochem/molecular bio: didn't have that many pathways. It's either you know it or you don't. I didn't have any glycogen storage disease or lysosomal storage diseases. But I had a TON of questions on lipid disorders. Molecular bio tested alot of basic stuff like transcription/translation. No crazy questions.

Physiology: not too bad. Know your RAS, endocirne. O2 dissociation curves. The major topics. Know which way the arrows points when X scenario happens.

Path: This was the majority of my test. There weren't that many path slides, more gross specimens. There was this pic of a spinal cord and I am like wtf...why is there this gigantic hole in it and I had no idea what was going on. A lot of Chest x rays and CT's and crap like that for you to ID disease processes.

Micro: not bad. I had almost no viruses. mostly bacteria and 1 or 2 parasite.

Pharma: I had a ton of pharm questions. mostly graphs that ask you what happens when x and y are added together or some crap like that. You are never sure if you are right or wrong even though you think you know the drug.

Overall, I think it was a fair test with a handful of questions that makes no sense. Whenever I had a question like that, I just chalked it up to being experimental. It helped me to move on and not get stuck. FA and UW will prepare you well if you understand everything and all the major concepts. Good luck to everyone studying. It's painful but it will pass.

Final Score: 259/99

 

[Pascal8]

great posts 👍

 

[rox]

I got it 20 days from my test date (I took it on a Thursday and I guess new scores come out every Wednesday).

You supposedly can check online at midnight (Tuesday PM-->Wed AM), or wait til the morning and check the pdf. They will send you the email later on in the morning telling you to go check.

I suspect that people taking it now, "off-peak," receive their scores quicker than those who take it later. For instance, friends who took it in June and others who took it in mid-December had to wait the full 6 weeks.

I agree. I took it in mid-Jan and received the result 3 weeks later. Some friends of mine took it in December and had to wait 5-6 weeks.

 

[Freddie]

i took mine on 15th jan; results in exactly 21 days; 250/99

first day after exam i thought i had done horribly- could only remember the tough questions.. and believe me, questions are not all that straight forward.

Did Kaplan home study program (4 books); USMLE world; kaplan qbank(online).

Good luck to everyone else with your scores.

on usmle world, by the time i finished my bank i had scored 70% correct and was on 80th centile and on kaplan i had average of 80% correct at end of the bank.

Of course week before exam i did first aid to help consolidate all i had read before.

 

[lilzelda2]

When did you guys start the question banks?? Like how many months before?

 

[HIJay]

i started 6 weeks before the test date

 

[rox]

I started UW 3 weeks before the exam as I bought a 1 month subscription. I had a free Kap Qbank subscription for 3 months, so I started it early.

 

[redbeans]

252/99

absolutely fierce. see previous post for my studying habits, but summary of predictors:

Q bank avg 68%

150 Free Questions: 226 before studying
NBME Form 2: 242 2 weeks out.
NBME Form 3: 234 1 week out.
NBME Form 4: 244 3 days out.

 

[HIJay]

just had mine...
weirdest exam...didnt expect it at all...
had tons of histo qs! and anatomy!
and perhaps a small handful of micro

 

[zedx]

Posted by HIJay:
just had mine...
weirdest exam...didnt expect it at all...
had tons of histo qs! and anatomy!
and perhaps a small handful of micro

Wha? I thought the test was 8hrs long? How'd you finish so fast?

 

[lankysudanese]

Wha? I thought the test was 8hrs long? How'd you finish so fast?

pls quote the text that you are referring to, when you pose such vague questions, so that you identify who you want to reply to your query.

also, you are given 8hrs to do 350 questions. whether you take all 8hrs is your choice. for all that the NBME cares, you can choose C for each answer and finish the test in <45min.

 

[HIJay]

Wha? I thought the test was 8hrs long? How'd you finish so fast?

i didnt take very long breaks and i never needed 1 hr to finish each block.

i always have about 10 mins left when im done with a block

and the test is max 8 hrs long if you need it, but you can leave when you are done

i started around 730ish am and walked out at 230pm

 

[HIJay]

for what its worth,
nbme 3 and 4 were the most similar to usmle in term of difficulty and contents. nbme and 2 were just too easy

 

[ShepherdsApp]

Hey Y'all...Awesome Thread,
I have a few quick cleanup questions for any takers...

1. Stats...is the section in HY behavioral Science enough or should I look into the HY Biostats book itself?
2. is FA really enough for anatomy, or would adding HY be helpful?
3. For Pharm, I am planning on supplimenting F-Aid with the Lange Smart
Charts book (a big flip book)...has anyone else used it or heard good or bad?

Otherwise I am plannin on trying to keep the books down a little...
FA of course, BRS Path with Golgan Audio, BRS Phys, HY Cell/Mol Bio, HY Behavioral Sci, HY Neruoanat....any advice would be awesome

I have about a month of class left (until april 11th) and then I am taking Step I on May 9th...ARRGGGHHH so I will post my schedule and score when they are done. Thanks!!

 

[riverie]

Hey Y'all...Awesome Thread,
I have a few quick cleanup questions for any takers...

1. Stats...is the section in HY behavioral Science enough or should I look into the HY Biostats book itself?
2. is FA really enough for anatomy, or would adding HY be helpful?
3. For Pharm, I am planning on supplimenting F-Aid with the Lange Smart
Charts book (a big flip book)...has anyone else used it or heard good or bad?

Otherwise I am plannin on trying to keep the books down a little...
FA of course, BRS Path with Golgan Audio, BRS Phys, HY Cell/Mol Bio, HY Behavioral Sci, HY Neruoanat....any advice would be awesome

I have about a month of class left (until april 11th) and then I am taking Step I on May 9th...ARRGGGHHH so I will post my schedule and score when they are done. Thanks!!

Hy behavioral is enough
FA anatomy is enough -- HY had a LOT of extraneous stuff that i didn't even bother reading.
FA for pharm was pretty much good enough. i supplemented with a little HY.
i recommend RR path over BRS path -- especially since it will be complemented by goljan audio.

 

[blaise77]

for all of you guys freaking out about the exam or your pending scores...I took the test in June '07...studied off/on for about 4-5 weeks, average of 6-8 hrs a day of studying. Only did First Aid and half of Qbank questions along with some BRS...got 255 overall....I hope this calms your fears and stress

 

[alpha06]

for all of you guys freaking out about the exam or your pending scores...I took the test in June '07...studied off/on for about 4-5 weeks, average of 6-8 hrs a day of studying. Only did First Aid and half of Qbank questions along with some BRS...got 255 overall....I hope this calms your fears and stress

No. It does not.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad you got a 255. Congrats!👍

But making Step 1 look like a cake walk is not very reassuring.

 

[ShepherdsApp]

Hy behavioral is enough
FA anatomy is enough -- HY had a LOT of extraneous stuff that i didn't even bother reading.
FA for pharm was pretty much good enough. i supplemented with a little HY.
i recommend RR path over BRS path -- especially since it will be complemented by goljan audio.

Awesome...Thanks for your advice!! Actually I went ahead and picked up the RR path today and It looks pretty good. Now that I have my book list and schedule figured out I just need to come up with a way to rock through all this...since I do not drink coffee or tea, chocolate is my friend. Happy Clinicking😉

 

[DOCTORSAIB]

for all of you guys freaking out about the exam or your pending scores...I took the test in June '07...studied off/on for about 4-5 weeks, average of 6-8 hrs a day of studying. Only did First Aid and half of Qbank questions along with some BRS...got 255 overall....I hope this calms your fears and stress

Congrats dude. Awesome score.

To everyone else reading this please understand that such a laid-back approch to Step 1 (6-8 hrs/day for 4-5 weeks, "OFF AND ON") is the perfect recipe for scoring near the national average, not almost 2 SDs above it.

Unless, of course, you've destroyed the first 2 years with half the effort as the rest of your class and had a 42T on your MCAT. In that case follow this poster's approach...

 

[ertugrul]

First of all, thanks for SDN and users who shared their experiences and thoughts for the exam and supported others, that's how doctors should be; being helpfull or everyone including collegues.
After this dramatic introduction, it's time to talk about exam 🙂

I took the exam on last wednesday (12th march). I'm not-so-old IMG that graduated in 2005, currently working as a medical manager in a medical advertisement company and doing biomedical engineering master. I don't have much problem with English and this was not a particular problem during studying and during actual exam.

I'm not sure it's realistic to make a generalisation from 350 questions since it's highly possible that a random test from a pool of -god knows- thousands of questions may not be representative of another set. Anyway, all of us know that and we also know that some people feel that their tests are hard while some says it's more like free or paid NBME tests, etc.

Okay, let's start. Exam was not as much harder as UW, as everyone expect. But, there are some questions that you probably never encountered. I don't mean "weird" questions but "different" ones. There were longer questions (ie 8-9 lines) as well as shorter ones. It would be a good strategy to read the last sentence of long question first since it's not rare to get a question that gives a life story of the patient -which is useless- and asks an abrupt question.

Pathology was the major subject of the test. Microbiology, immunology and biochemistry (plus molecular biology, genetic etc) were less presented than I expected. I had a few gross anatomy questions -brachial plexus, nerve injuries etc- and a few embryology question. There were no multimedia (audio/video) question at all. There were many neuroanatomy questions too (actualy, to be honest, may be not too many but as it was one of my weakest area, there would be a bias 🙂 )

Kaplan was my primary source, plus goljan audio & RR2, FA, UW and Kaplan Q banks (Kaplan q banks was free, thanks for SDN again 🙂 ).

And lastly, I didn't experienced any time problem, actually I finished ~2 hours earlier. I've been finishing NBME exams earlier too, though no one will give any golden medal for finishing earlier 😛

I wish all test takers success and happines.

 

[g6pddfishnc]

.

 

[ertugrul]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your exam experience, but in reference to the above statement....

???? 😕

Sorry for that, it should be 5th. Consider how traumatic it was 🙂

 

[hassan kachal]

I had my exams couple of weeks ago. IMG with 2 yrs clinical experience. done extremely well in first two yrs pre-med sciences and this knowledge proved most useful for Step 1.

recommendations:
1) learn stuff well from first two years. makes preparation easier.
2) First Aid2008 was invaluable. countless questions straight from this book.
MEMORISE this book. I was told this but didn't take it too seriously. Didn't manage to read it through twice completely.

PREPARATION
FA2008 1.5x
Goljan Audio Lectures (all)
Goljan 100 pages PDF
Goljan 36 pages PDF
First Aid Q&A 2008

FA2008 average was about 65%.
USMLE CD 35, 39, 41 (3months, 2months and 1month before exam)

EXAM DAY
had to sleep 7pm inorder to make it on time at 8am. arrived 45 mins early and wasn't allowed in until 8am!

accidently pressed lock screen instead of end block early! fixed it within 30 secs though. Does anyone know whether this affects the reporting of my score in anyway? does it take longer? does it show up on my record as an abnormality?


generally had 5-10mins extra but was becoming tired and used up all 1 hr for all blocks.

breaks: I split up my hour break as such: 5mins, 5mins, 10mins, 20mins lunch, 10mins, 10mins

but it really does take 5mins just to sign out and sign back in in prometric!

my target was 235+
this is not a difficult target if you are serious. Though being in Europe i had less of an idea about how to go about it.

Started reading FA2008 on and off from Sept. Started Goljan lectures since Oct 2007. finished Fist Aid in Jan 2008. Then did the FAQ&A and re-read most of FA2008 again.

took one week out before my exam end of Feb. used it to read through my own notes and Goljan 100pages and FA2008.

I don't think I will achieve my target. in fact i marked all the ones i was guessing and calculated i will get a
228 +/-5. I hope I am wrong and get higher though.


Good luck

 

[g6pddfishnc]

.

 

[hassan kachal]

would it be possible for ppl to approx state where they are at? e.g. CA or MA or England or Canada etc? helps a little to see the differences in preparation and views. thanks. (I'm from England)

 

[HIJay]

would it be possible for ppl to approx state where they are at? e.g. CA or MA or England or Canada etc? helps a little to see the differences in preparation and views. thanks. (I'm from England)

NY.......

 

[ertugrul]

NY.......

Turkey, if anyone cares 🙂

 

[TTPHUS]

Hey Y'all...Awesome Thread,
I have a few quick cleanup questions for any takers...

1. Stats...is the section in HY behavioral Science enough or should I look into the HY Biostats book itself?
2. is FA really enough for anatomy, or would adding HY be helpful?
3. For Pharm, I am planning on supplimenting F-Aid with the Lange Smart
Charts book (a big flip book)...has anyone else used it or heard good or bad?

Otherwise I am plannin on trying to keep the books down a little...
FA of course, BRS Path with Golgan Audio, BRS Phys, HY Cell/Mol Bio, HY Behavioral Sci, HY Neruoanat....any advice would be awesome

I have about a month of class left (until april 11th) and then I am taking Step I on May 9th...ARRGGGHHH so I will post my schedule and score when they are done. Thanks!!

sounds good

 

[tony montana]

Okay, let's start. Exam was not as much harder as UW, as everyone expect.

Hey ertugrul,

Do you mean the actual exam was not as hard as UW? thanks

 

[ertugrul]

Hey ertugrul,

Do you mean the actual exam was not as hard as UW? thanks

Yes, it's not as hard as UW. It ,of course, has some hard questions but overall it's not that hard.

 

[rox]

UW pharmacology questions were probably among the most difficult question I ever encountered in my life!

 

[HIJay]

actual usmle pharm was wayyyy easier than UW's

 

[wonderboy00]

actual usmle pharm was wayyyy easier than UW's

even though you say that the UW pharm questions were extremely difficult, were they helpful/informative, or were they just totally bogus and frustrating? i'm planning on using UW to study for my upcoming pharm shelf, and i've heard that kaplan qbank pharm questions were too detailed/random/frustrating, and i was just wondering if the same goes for UW

 

[HIJay]

i think UW pharm is good to learn some basic drug principles and side effects. it helped me remember some stuff better bc the way it presented was so different

however, all of the pharm qs i had can be found in FA and in no way that hard compared to UW. most of the ones i had were antimicrobial mixed with micro

 

[wonderboy00]

however, all of the pharm qs i had can be found in FA and in no way that hard compared to UW. most of the ones i had were antimicrobial mixed with micro

thanks for the response HIJay. Speaking of antimicrobials, are we expected to know every single organism that the drug is used for (as presented in first aid). For example, it states that tetracycline is used for vibrio, acne, chlamydia, ureaplasma, mycoplasma, tularemia, etc....
so basically, based on ur experience, are the specific clinical uses more high yield, or are the mechanisms and toxicities more high yield? (i'm assuming the latter)

 

[lankysudanese]

thanks for the response HIJay. Speaking of antimicrobials, are we expected to know every single organism that the drug is used for (as presented in first aid). For example, it states that tetracycline is used for vibrio, acne, chlamydia, ureaplasma, mycoplasma, tularemia, etc....
so basically, based on ur experience, are the specific clinical uses more high yield, or are the mechanisms and toxicities more high yield? (i'm assuming the latter)

while you wait for HiJay's response, I'll pitch in my $0.02
i think that you will find questions that ask you to match the organism with its treatment, others which ask you to match drugs with mechanisms/toxicites and others which are 3-step and ask you to do both steps. So I would suggest that you learn the info in FA via several organizations. first, make tables of all the major organisms and their corresponding 1st line of therapy. then make tables of all the major antimicrobials and list every single organism that each drug is active against. then make a table with all the mechanisms and toxicities of each drug. after 3-4 reads over these tables, you will find that you will be able to tackle any 2-step/3-step question, no matter what angle they throw the curve ball at you.

Good Luck

 

[HIJay]

yes you need to know what drug is used for what actually

i had a q on my usmle that went something like this....

pregnant woman hiking in woods, saw a MD with rash on her leg which resemble a bullseye, bc of her pregnancy, what possible complications can the drug of choice cause in her?

so now u need to know its lyme disease which is treated by tetracycline and AE is staining of the fetus teeth, which was one of the ans choices

 

[darkmansaad]

Hey ertugrul,

Do you mean the actual exam was not as hard as UW? thanks

the exam is honestly like 2 nbme's combined. so if you liked those , u'll like that. if you got owned on those, you'll get owned on that most probably. unless we're talking about nbme 3 which can rot in the lowest level of hell next to adolf hitler and the lead singer of Creed and/or Nickelback

 

[Sarah1980]

the exam is honestly like 2 nbme's combined. so if you liked those , u'll like that. if you got owned on those, you'll get owned on that most probably. unless we're talking about nbme 3 which can rot in the lowest level of hell next to adolf hitler and the lead singer of Creed and/or Nickelback

what about NBME 4 , Dr Saad , do you think NBME 4 underpojects the score for the usmle ??

 

[HIJay]

nbme 3 and 4 were the hardest, and closest to the actual difficulty and content of the real usmle imo

 

[registered user]

I would agree that 4 is harder than 1. However, Sarah and I are wondering if 4 underprojects your score.

Also, any recommendations for which form to take as the last NBME before the real thing (about 6 days before)?

 

[darkmansaad]

nbme 3 and 4 were the hardest, and closest to the actual difficulty and content of the real usmle imo

that is your opinion and here is mine. i took #3 10 days before my usmle and it dropped 8 points from my nbme #2 and also UNDERestimated my final score by a whopping 24 points. 24 points is more than 1 standard deviation according to my score report, thats f***ng RIDICULOUS. Now while others had a different test experience, that was mine so thats all i can say. However i have heard #3 and #4 are heard because of the excessive cell biology (dna, rna type crap) which 95% of the world suck at, but if u have applied for a job at the human genome project recently you should be fine.....

 

[HIJay]

i dont think its any significance whether if one nbme underscore the real score of usmle, as each person is different. one nbme may underscore for one person, or it may overscore, it all depends on the individual imo.

 

[had2piknowEM]

So I'll finally cave in and post my experiences since I benefited greatly from those who posted before me. Like prevous posters, I go to a school with 1.5 years of basic sciences, so I had a year of clinics before I took the step. Whether or not this is helpful is debatable (and there's a whole thread dedicated to it), but imo I think it helped me. I have no scientific evidence on which to base this, but my score (at the bottom) was much higher than I anticipated.

Studying:
I took off a total of 8 weeks of school (no clinical obligations) to study. During the first week I read over FA 2007 and did one section of questions from each category in Kaplan Q-Book just to see what I knew well, pretty well, and had completely forgotten or never learned. I then spent the next 4 weeks going over all the topics covered by the step in more detail than what was presented in FA using several review books. I added lots of notes in FA. Starting ~3.5 weeks before the test, I began to use UW. Initially I was doing 50 questions/day untimed, random eventually working my way up to 150 questions/day. I read FA 1.5 more times, with the .5 accounting for the areas I felt weakest and had the lowest percents on UW. I finally took the test after 7.5 weeks of studying. I put in avg of 10 hrs/day. When I first started I was doing 6-8 hrs/day, worked my way up to 12hrs/day then back down to 8 hrs/day as test time approached.

Books:
FA 2007 - great foundation book, however doesn't connect all the concepts, which is important for those application questions; wouldn't rely only on FA
Lippincott's Biochem - I felt that Biochem was my weakest area, but this book is on the long end and you can probably get by with shorter books
Lippincott's Pharm - definitely overkill, but now my pharm knowledge has increased exponentially, now if only I can remember it for the wards, i'd be golden
BRS Phys/Path/Cell Bio/Behavioral/Embryo - Phys most helpful, path and cell bio less so, but still good books, behavioral and embryo overkill
Micro Made Simple - really good source, those silly mnemonics acutally stuck with me
HY Gross Anat/Neuroanat - gross slightly more helpful than neuro, but i guess i'm just not a fan of the HY series; probably other books out there that are better
Levinson Micro/Immuno - Just read the immuno part, which was good for me and actually contained many of the same diagrams found in FA with a little more explanation

Questions:
UW - started at 55% and ended with a cum. average of 76%, but my individual tests in the last 1-2 weeks were in the mid-high 80s

Test:
I slept for ~3 hours the night before...that sucked. Since it's been about a month from the date I took my test, I don't remember what percentage of each subject was represented. However, the things that stuck out to me include the majority of the test focusing on pathophys of all the systems, more images than UW (every 3-4 questions were associated with some kind of pic), and very little virology/parasitology. I was able to start my test early by getting to the testing center at 7 instead of 8. I took a break after block 2, 3, 4, and 6. I took 15 minutes for lunch, wasn't really hungry (I guess the anticipation of being almost done with step).

Score: I received my score exactly 20 days after I finished. 260/99...needless to say I was thrilled. 😀

That's my story, feel free to PM me with any questions.

 

[HIJay]

just got mine
took it on 3/6 and received score on 3/26 around 430pm

had tons of histo on mind and indeed there werent experimental qs but on my histo analysis...it wass off the chart with a star

result 230/96

 

[ertugrul]

Finally got my score tonight 🙂
90/217, and I'm happy with that score, even in SDN with 99'ers 🙄

Detailed exam experience: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=6348543&postcount=71

 

[HIJay]

congrats all!

 

[alpha06]

while you wait for HiJay's response, I'll pitch in my $0.02
i think that you will find questions that ask you to match the organism with its treatment, others which ask you to match drugs with mechanisms/toxicites and others which are 3-step and ask you to do both steps. So I would suggest that you learn the info in FA via several organizations. first, make tables of all the major organisms and their corresponding 1st line of therapy. then make tables of all the major antimicrobials and list every single organism that each drug is active against. then make a table with all the mechanisms and toxicities of each drug. after 3-4 reads over these tables, you will find that you will be able to tackle any 2-step/3-step question, no matter what angle they throw the curve ball at you.

Good Luck

How long did it take you to make all these tables?

Did you find it very beneficial for micro?

....and is this why you have an antibiotics fetish....? 🙄

Just curious. 🙂

 

[darkmansaad]

props for me for posting that even though you didnt get a 99, people should know effort and cojones counts for something

Finally got my score tonight 🙂
90/217, and I'm happy with that score, even in SDN with 99'ers 🙄

Detailed exam experience: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=6348543&postcount=71