Official 2009 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[VFib911]

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Two days premature, but I thought I would get it started anyway as I just took the exam this morning!!!!!

Overall impressions:
- Path, path, path - been said before and I'll say it again "know it Goljan style"
- Don't forget the biostats. I prob had 10-13 questions here.
- UW is gold... both for content and material presentation. Get comfortable with the interface and it will help you test day as it is very similar.
- FA was very helpful, but I used it for review rather than primary study source.

Today:
- In at 8:30, out at 2:30.Finished each block with 10-15 minutes left.
- Three breaks, one quick trip to the BR, one 10 minute Red bull/ powerbar refresher, and one 20 minute monster/ MetRx "lunch" and walk.
- I didn't find a large difference in content difficulty between the different module. The second-to-last was my most difficult and I was have ing a little difficulty concentrating, but I think my brain was pre-toast.

I'm feeling pretty relieved at the moment as it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. In NO WAY was it easy, but certainly doable. I had planned on taking this in July after the COMLEX, but I convinced myself I was not ready for it. Retrospectively, I feel I still would have done well after my COMLEX prep, but the last 6 months has filled in a lot of gaps.

Pre-COMLEX:
- Goljan mp3's 1st and 2nd years commuting to-from school. I did a ton of commuting. Highly valuable.
- Kaplan Biochem DVD(felt it was my weakest) and Micro DVD(lots of content).
- MedEssentials and FA for system-based content review. Big Robbins for reference only.
- CMMRS, know the virus charts, staph and strep algorithms, systemic mycoses, immunocompromised opportunistics.
- Costanza text for physio. Tried to review BRS physio (also Costanza), but I am strong in physio and I felt I was wasting my time.
- Lippincott pharm. Cover-to-cover, but overkill. Easy read though if you know your pharm.
- Kaplan and FA for biostats.
- Flash cards from eBay, both electronic and paper. Great way to review - at least for me - but be aware there are occasional errors. Prob went through 5-7000, really.
- BRS flash cards - Micro, Pharm, Biochem.
- (Savarese for any DO's - know the green book and you are golden.)

COMLEX - 06/08.

Post- COMLEX

UWorld - Thank god I did this. Wish I had done this before the COMLEX. Did tutor mode, took notes, looked each unknown up. I ended up with about 40 pages of topics with key notes written next to each topic. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
HY Histo, Cell Bio, Immuno. By this time it was mostly review, but they all helped tie things together and are quick reads.

One week before test:

Goljan cover-to-cover. Goes quick when it is review.
HY Neuroanat - overkill for my exam. Still good topics if you have the time.
FA cover-to-cover.
Reviewed UW notes/ answers.

UW - 100% completed, overall 68%. Last 450 questions mid 70's. Tutor, random, unused.


That's it. I have been meaning to post this for a while after my COMLEX grade posting, but never got around to doing it... been too damn busy reading. I'll update when result is in.

BTW - anyone know if it takes longer to receive your grade this time of year since fewer people are taking the exam?

 

[Mr. Three-Wiggle]

Yes.

JUST DO WORLD.

It is IDENTICAL.

There were TONS of questions I knew ONLY cuz I got them wrong on World earlier in the week - and I knew em RIGHT AWAY. These are questions you're gonna waste a ton of time on trying to reason through but can't cuz they're stupid recall... and World comes through for you..

I almost didn't use USMLE world - it is almost unfair how close it is to the real thing - the poor suckers that don't use it are SCREWING their scores.

It is also way way way more basic than you think it'll be too. Despite what everyone says...

 

[ucsfstudents]

Keep up the great job guys! Remember that factors that predict your USMLE score include number of questions attempted, length of study time, MCAT score in biology and physics, and even class rank in Anatomy. If you're low in any of those areas, it means you have to work harder! Good luck!

 

[Deferoxamine]

Re: USMLE World

There is no one-size-fits-all for this thing. I tapered off of UWorld in the days before my exam... stopped altogether about 3 days before, and am very comfortable with that decision. "Doing more questions" doesn't guarantee anyone squat.

While Step 1 was not earth-shattering for me yesterday, make no mistake about it - this test is no joke. It's hard (sometimes), you have to think quickly, and you have to dig deep into your knowledge base. If I happen to get a great score on Step 1 when the FREDV2 scores are released sometime in early 2015 (probably), I'll be attributing it to good old-fashioned hard work on my part, and not some single "magic bullet" question bank or review book or whatever. I think people seriously need to get over this obsession that one review source can make-or-break their performance on Step 1.

I lost count of all of the questions I figured out yesterday from stuff I remembered learning in my MS2 classes and not from some corny Goljan jingle, 5,000 word UWorld answer explanation, or poorly-written First Aid mnemonic.

 

[Cliff Huxtable]

So are you saying that you didn't feel UWorld questions were represented on the test?

I finished UWorld but only once.

 

[Mr. Three-Wiggle]

I'm sure it's variable... but my test... whew. Unreal. If I had 5 days to study that is all I would do - review the ones I got wrong.

 

[Deferoxamine]

So are you saying that you didn't feel UWorld questions were represented on the test?

I finished UWorld but only once.

Oh it did help, I won't deny that. It also got me used to the testing interface (everything is EXACTLY THE SAME), and doing rounds of difficult questions in timed sets. Off the top of my head, my test questions yesterday for Behavioral, Cardio, Derm, Biochem, and Immuno had some of the same feel as UWorld. For the others: not so much.

I felt that UWorld was a little weak on Physio, just my opinion.

 

[Ihateverbal]

Okay I just took the test today...here are my thoughts

WOW. People overestimated the difficulty of the USMLE. I was expecting to check mark like 20+ questions (from eveyone freaking me out). I also finished every section on time with time to spare. I never did anything on UWorld timed either, so I kinda went in expecting to move fast. It wasn't easy by any means but I thought it was fair. I actually thought the distribution of questions were very equal (roughly speaking). I am also not a 240+ scorer on ANY of my practice exams. I ranged from 206 (lowest) to 239 (highest) on my practice exams.
I had 3 heart sounds and the only audio for me were heart sounds. I had no idea what the heck the answer was and listened to it repeatedly trying to tune in on something but....really.....found nothing =(

Some questions were one sentences, and there were plenty of them. Some questions I did not even have to look twice. I put my answer is less than 5 seconds and moved on. Some questions came from left field and I've never heard of anything like it.

Here was the breakdown
Behavioral Science/Biostats: Enough, I'd say about 3 or 4 per section.
Cardio: There was definitely alot of cardio. I was "ok" in cardio
Neuro: This was one of my weak pts, studied it intensely before my exam but still didn't do as well as I thought. Lots but I didn't get a brain stem picture and label the correct nerve. Lots of brainstem slices though.
Genetics/cell bio/molecular: This was my strong pt. quite a few actually...not so much genetics (there were like two pedigrees, but plenty of molecular and cell bio about DNA, RNA, Protein, techniques like blotting etc). A few on knowing cell signaling. Only one glycogen metabolism disorder and it was so obvious it was like, which of the following is mutated (protein, glycogen, fats, mucopolysaccharidoses etc)
Embryo: No embryo to be found on my exam at all.
Respiratory: Lots of respiratory, I was quite surprised. V/Q mismatch too.
Renal: Renal cell carcinoma came up alot for me. But not that many questions on renal in general.
Musculoskeletal: Not alot of musculoskeletal at all.
Anatomy: Ok. This is where I lost LOTS my pts, I hated anatomy and it's something I will never be good at. I had plenty of anatomy of my exam =( and they were not pelvic anatomy as was listed in this thread. It ranged from alot of systems such as muscles to artery ligations in surgeries etc. I had at least 2-3 per question x 7 = 15!
Skin: More than I imagined!!! Some weird skin diseases I've never head of either.
Endocrine/Repro: Quite a few but not as much as what was on everyone else's exam.
GI: Wasn't that much. Hormone stuff, Meckels etc. A few on nutrition like vitamins.
Immuno: No CD markers, but lots of cytokines. Know your cytokines well!
Micro: Lots of micro. This is actually my strong point. But some of the micro questions confused me because more than one bug sounded good. I was a micro major in undergrad and still don't think I nailed this section
Pharm: Not much at all. This was my weak point and I studied really hard for this section and it showed. I went from 32nd percentile in UW to 58 percentile LOL.
Heme/Onc: Lots of oncology but no heme. Multiple myeloma came up alot. I was pretty disappointed because Heme is my strongest point. I'd say only about a few questions on Heme but more than 10+ questions on Onc dealing with Neoplasia/Metablasia specific oncogenes/proto-oncogenes and cancer.\

I hate ANATOMY!!!! =)
That's all.

 

[Ihateverbal]

Oh, the exam definitely felt VERY VERY SIMILAR TO UWORLD...but the level of difficulty was easier than UWorld...

My best recommendation is to do ALLLL of UWorld and if you are running out of time, do the sections you are at least weak on (that's what I did). I spent my last three days on embryo, musculo, neuro and pharm, my 4 weaker pts.

Avg on UW: 66% (tutor, and random)

Hoping for a 220+ score 😍

 

[Cliff Huxtable]

In terms of content?

 

[vmgopal]

i took my USMLE Step one on Sat 6/6....and i was wondering if maybe scores are comin gout next week? any speculation lol ??? I heard people who too theirs a week befor emine got their scores last wednesday???🙂 anyone else takes theres on that date?
that should say MS3 😉

 

[Ihateverbal]

No questions for me were word for word from UW but it was definitely 100000000x better than Kaplan Q Bank. I only used that during the school year. Alot of the questions were very similar to UW but just some minor tweaks.

 

[Darksmurf]

Nope, I just clicked "Yes" while the two of them watched, and about a minute had been deducted from my time.

Script error here too. I just clicked it and moved on.

 

[Abilene85]

Script error here too. I just clicked it and moved on.

Same.

 

[Ihateverbal]

i got one of those too...

come to think of it, i had a lot of surface anatomy on my exam...kinda pissed me off...was hoping for some more upper limb stuff lol

 

[sebsvenmdc]

Did any of you have really long question stems? One of my friends said she had really long stems. She took the test this week. Her breakdown was that about half of the questions were long, significantly longer than UW average stem. She said the remaining half were about the same as UW, and a few were just one-liners. It sounded like her form was longer than what I've heard from others...any feedback from recent test-takers?

 

[med314]

Has anyone gotten there score back on today's release date? I took my test three weeks ago and am just hoping that maybe my score will come out earlier than July 15.

 

[PropofolandPorsche]

.

 

[vmgopal]

Yeah I took my USMLE on 6/6 and was wondering if score would be comeing b4 7/15.....I had Fredv2

I have no idea why it takes them longer to grade the newer version.

I also had the script error and then I clicked yes also I had a scare at the end of my all of my blocks and the survey I got an red error on my screen and they werent able to print my test completion confirmation

so then i had to call NBME and they said they recieved my test so its ok 😉 sigh of relief

 

[snowflake83]

I took mine this week too. Overall, not as bad as I expected based on previous posts on here. Things that surprised me were there was a LOT of antibiotic questions, drug-drug interactions, acid/base disorders (some were pretty complex), and a fair amount of physician-patient interaction questions (ie patient is angry about XYZ... what do you say? Might sound easy, but many of the choices seemed reasonable). On the bright side, the majority of the test were very fair, straight forward questions about the bread and butter diseases. My question stems really varied in length, but a lot were very short, so time never became an issue (finished the blocks with ~2mins left).

 

[vir0n]

I'm really worried about this too. My test was difficult but really not that bad. I hope that doesn't bite me, where getting 10+ questions wrong on the whole thing locks you out of a 240 or something. 😱

You think there are tests like this? Where a 97% = a 240?

I'm under the opinion that each test is statistically similar in difficulty.

 

[theman1990]

Did any of you have really long question stems? One of my friends said she had really long stems. She took the test this week. Her breakdown was that about half of the questions were long, significantly longer than UW average stem. She said the remaining half were about the same as UW, and a few were just one-liners. It sounded like her form was longer than what I've heard from others...any feedback from recent test-takers?

I did... I had stems that were TWENTY LINES long! And my average was probably 10 lines... My STEP I was NOTHING likw NBME or Uworld stuff... I had stems with patients with multiple infections of parasites and even had ones where they had heritable diseases and then some other 'affliction' and you had to sort out which was which... I ran out of time on all but one block, and usually I have 10 minutes left...

Needless to say, I'm planning on retaking it soon.... 🙁

 

[Ihateverbal]

Sucks, I love antibiotic questions and micro is my forte, i had alot of surface anatomy which I had NO CLUE whatsoever


Part of me thinks that statistically speaking, the exams have all got to be similar in difficulty in such a way that the % score is roughly the same between tests. I dont think itd be fair to give someone a hard exam and allow them to miss more and to give someone a very easy exam and they can't miss much for the same score as the guy who had the hard exam.....
What if some people naturally gain more confidence in easy exams versus hard exams? That's my two cents.

 

[Deferoxamine]

I don't think there's any particular "form" that you get.

My take on it is that there's just some giant system of questions (figure it's a giant USMLE-written Qbank), that randomly generates 336 questions and divides them into blocks of 48, at random, and in random order. Probably some pre-set algorithm to ensure that all students get 1-2 of those sequential-style questions, and X number of audio/video clips in the whole test.

The reason why I suspect complete randomness is that when I took the exam on Monday, I had at least 2 instances of back-to-back questions on nearly identical subjects/topics, or basically asking me nearly the same question, with the same stem and constellation of symptoms, etc.

This also accounts for the varieties of subject question distribution that people seem to be getting. And, of course, it also accounts for those less common instances of people reporting that they had a "TERRIBLE block", or perhaps even just a difficult exam overall.

 

[rahulb]

Sucks, I love antibiotic questions and micro is my forte, i had alot of surface anatomy which I had NO CLUE whatsoever


Part of me thinks that statistically speaking, the exams have all got to be similar in difficulty in such a way that the % score is roughly the same between tests. I dont think itd be fair to give someone a hard exam and allow them to miss more and to give someone a very easy exam and they can't miss much for the same score as the guy who had the hard exam.....
What if some people naturally gain more confidence in easy exams versus hard exams? That's my two cents.

how ridic was the # of cardio qs on yesterday's test

think i saw like 70

 

[SeminoleFan3]

I don't think there's any particular "form" that you get.

My take on it is that there's just some giant system of questions (figure it's a giant USMLE-written Qbank), that randomly generates 336 questions and divides them into blocks of 48, at random, and in random order. Probably some pre-set algorithm to ensure that all students get 1-2 of those sequential-style questions, and X number of audio/video clips in the whole test.

The reason why I suspect complete randomness is that when I took the exam on Monday, I had at least 2 instances of back-to-back questions on nearly identical subjects/topics, or basically asking me nearly the same question, with the same stem and constellation of symptoms, etc.

This also accounts for the varieties of subject question distribution that people seem to be getting. And, of course, it also accounts for those less common instances of people reporting that they had a "TERRIBLE block", or perhaps even just a difficult exam overall.

I think this is true. One of our faculty members is on the board or does something with the USMLE, and I felt like this was the explanation we were given. Another interesting tidbit, you only get the same disease process 3 times max (it's some part of the algorithm). For example, you won't get 5 questions where the correct answer is neurofibromatosis.
While I'm not sure he spoke to this, I do feel like there is degree of difficulty between the exams, and that the curve is better for some than others.

 

[Ihateverbal]

If that's the case, isn't it easy to generate an exam with a 60% (for example) average? while also randomly generating 337 questions?

 

[pseudoknot]

If that's the case, isn't it easy to generate an exam with a 60% (for example) average? while also randomly generating 337 questions?

Yes, either by deliberately selecting questions with a certain distribution of difficulty, or simply random selection of questions if the bank is large enough. (When was the last time you grabbed a handful of jelly beans from a mixed bowl and they were all the same flavor?) One could actually calculate the expected distribution of difficulty for various reasonable scenarios, but that's a bit too much procrastination for me considering I'm taking this thing on Friday.

 

[dbth77]

despite what people tell themselves, every exam is approximately the same difficulty ie 60 average. first of all, people who claim they had "really hard exams" have no basis for comparison because i'd imagine they've never taken step 1 before. statistically, even if they only gave you 336 questions randomly out of a huge block the average for any given administration would be almost identical, nevermind the fact that part of the formula is probably guaranteeing similar averages for all administrations

 

[nka1985]

Did any of you have really long question stems? One of my friends said she had really long stems. She took the test this week. Her breakdown was that about half of the questions were long, significantly longer than UW average stem. She said the remaining half were about the same as UW, and a few were just one-liners. It sounded like her form was longer than what I've heard from others...any feedback from recent test-takers?

I had really long stems too. A few one liners but most of them were really long. Sometimes they were really simple cases, they just took a little while to dig through and I'm a fast reader.

 

[zephyrhills123]

I took my test on June 3rd, and got my results today -- 221! Maybe not amazing super star but definitely my goal range (especially since I didn't pass the NBME tests I took, the highest I got was a 183).

I finished about 60% of UW, with a 51% average. I did the Doctors in Training course so I'd been through FA about twice, but didn't know it extremely well. Basically, I studied for 10 hours a day (60 hrs/week) for about 3 weeks... I used the timer method to make sure it was a legit 10 hours (50 min studying, 10 min break).

I felt my test was as hard as UW, and I seriously thought I failed. A LOT of anatomy questions and weird CT scans of the brain I had to ID. I didn't have any embryo, except maybe a few centered around the heart. Biochem wasn't tested extensively, mostly centered around key enzymes and some genetics. Micro was pretty straight forward, mostly ID'ing the causative agent (sometimes harder than you might think!); pharm was also either I knew it or not (but not as hard as UW level -- pretty much what drug do you use, TONS of pharmacokinetics, MOA). Path was along the lines of UW, I didn't notice one system favored over the others. I also thought phys wasn't too bad b/c that's a weaker area according to my class grades!

Overall, a lot more anatomy and the anatomy was more difficult than I expected.

 

[med314]

was your version FREDV1 or FREDV2

 

[zephyrhills123]

was your version fredv1 or fredv2

fredv1

 

[spospo]

all my classmates who had v1 through june 3rd got their results today. I took it june 4th with v2 and believe I am going to have to wait til july 15th. oh the wait

 

[Deferoxamine]

all my classmates who had v1 through june 3rd got their results today. I took it june 4th with v2 and believe I am going to have to wait til july 15th. oh the wait

Holy crap. THAT SUCKS. My condolences.

 

[chaostheory]

Just got back from taking the test... it was alright i guess. I got a hell of a lot of genetics questions... so many that i got to the point of marking a tally on my laminated sheet everytime a genetics question popped up - total 44 from blocks 2-7 (i think in the 1st block i had about 6 or 7). Other than that, the test was pretty decent. I took a break after the first 2 blocks, then did 3rd block, 5-10 min break, 4th block, then break, then etc... you get the idea. i'll try to break down the topics of my test...

Path: lots of renal > cardio > respiratory > everything else. Goljan was golden on this, most of everything in RR path was there... so thank you dr. goljan!!
Physio: lots of respiratory graphs, definitely doable... i think I had a bit of endocrine questions but other than that, not much physio.
Pharm: straight out of FA... got only about 3 questions that i had no idea on, 1 was a new drug question (so hopefully experimental?) and the other 2 were weird genetics-related questions... very hard stuff, i just guessed on them and moved on.
Anatomy: tons of head and neck and only 3 pelvic that i can remember... ughhh... i had two muscle insertion questions which i couldn't remember (last time i read that type of stuff was back in 1st year of med school).
Neuro: fairly straightforward... lots of brain slices but the questions were easy... know your lesions!! for most of the questions, i didn't even have to look at the pics, the question had all the info in it to answer it correctly.
Behavioral science/biostats: super easy. lots of doc/patient advice questions. for biostats, i had 1 question. that was it.
Biochem: lots of deficiencies. also got grilled on the TCA cycle... other than that, it wasn't bad. I had the same question twice... luckily i knew the answer to it, so yay, 2 questions correct 🙂
Embryo: just 3 questions. 2 came out of FA, the other one was weird, so I just guessed.
Immuno: FA was not enough... there were all sorts of crazy cytokines questions. I just guessed and moved on.
Micro: there wasn't a lot of micro on my test. it was all pretty easy except for a few crazy helminths questions. They weren't hard, I just didn't pay much attention to helminths during my prep so i had trouble remembering some details.
Genetics: oh dear god, they nearly killed me with the genetics questions. i don't know if it was just my bad luck or if other ppl were swamped with this many genetics questions, but oh well... can't do anything about it now. I'm guessing that most of them were experimental because they were just so hard. There were a few simple pedigree questions (thankfully) and the rest were just so detailed and plus the stems were super long 🙁

Sequential questions: only had 1 of them. the first part was hard so I just guessed on the answer. The second part was easy, the first part of the question pretty much gave me the answer for the second part. I was pretty excited about that lol.

A/V questions: Had 2 of them, I listened to the sounds carefully and couldn't differentiate anything at all, so I just picked the answer based on what info the question had. Seriously these type of questions are pointless because nobody seems to be able to hear the differences in the sound.

Well, I guess that's about it. The resources I used in my prep were: FA, UW, RR Path, BRS Physio, Kaplan dvds for physio only, HY Neuro for pics only. I took all 6 NBME exams... started out with a 163 (horrible I know!!) and ended up with a 244 3 days ago. The reason why my pre-prep NBME score was so low was because my path teacher in school was horrible... the original one ended up having a stroke midway through the term, so we ended up getting taught by various teaching assistants (which means we basically goofed off the whole time and learned hardly anything).

All in all, this test wasn't so bad... I'm kicking myself for missing some easy questions because i simply couldn't remember what I read 6 wks ago... also the genetics/immuno/head and neck anatomy questions killed me so I'm unhappy about that as well. I don't think I failed this exam, but I don't think that I managed to get a high score either. Honestly I would be happy with a 220+ because I think I did so bad.

I'll break down my reactions while taking the test:
1st block: okay this is hard, i hope it gets easier
2nd block: WTF is up with these genetics questions??? i'm gonna fail!!
3rd block: hmm not so bad, I think I can still pull off a 230
4th block: okay never mind, forget the 230, 220's would be great
5th block: headache. i hope i can get at least a 200.
6th block: when will this test be over? And WTF more genetics questions??
7th block: I wanna go home!!!! Please god, just let me pass, I don't even care what score I get!!! Just let me passssss....

Oh well, it's done with and now time to go hang out with the bf (whom I ignored for 6 weeks, lucky for me he's studying hardcore for his bar exam in july so he understood what i was going through haha ). If anybody has any questions, feel free to ask. Also good luck to everybody taking the exam tomorrow and in the future!!

 

[DocTroll]

all my classmates who had v1 through june 3rd got their results today. I took it june 4th with v2 and believe I am going to have to wait til july 15th. oh the wait

Super frustrating. Oh well I guess I have 3 more weeks.

 

[morriske]

all my classmates who had v1 through june 3rd got their results today. I took it june 4th with v2 and believe I am going to have to wait til july 15th. oh the wait

Same here. I was June 5 v2 so prob no score until July 15 🙁 Maybe they'll come out earlier. Is it true that no scores are reported on July 1?

 

[morriske]

"The normal turnaround time for reporting scores to Step 1 examinees is 3 to 4 weeks. However, during this transition, turnaround time for some examinees may be as long as 6 to 8 weeks."

"some" and "may" sort of suggest that scores could come earlier....

 

[Darksmurf]

The reason why I suspect complete randomness is that when I took the exam on Monday, I had at least 2 instances of back-to-back questions on nearly identical subjects/topics, or basically asking me nearly the same question, with the same stem and constellation of symptoms, etc.

I had three pairs of questions throughout the test that had a very similar question and basically the same answer (at least I thought so). It seemed so weird that I thought it might be a trick.

It seems possible that some of the repeat questions may be experiemental questions that they are trying to validate. For instance, if 100 kids answer one validated question about syndrome A correctly, but miss a similar one about the same syndrome, maybe the problem is with the question. The inverse would follow a similar logic.

 

[chaostheory]

oh wow i already received so many pm's about my exam experience (posted just a few hrs ago), so i decided to answer the most common ones here (since a lot of ppl asked me the same exact things)

1. genetics: now that it's been a few hrs, looking back, i realize that maybe it wasn't as bad as i thought. yeah i still had an abnormal number of questions, but some of them HAD to be experimental. There were some that were incredibly hard, and then some that were really easy... Also several of the questions had to do with embryo or biochem related stuff... so technically I could classify them in those categories (ex: deficiencies that are x-linked blah blah etc). Everytime I saw the word "gene" I classified the question as a genetics one and marked a tally on my laminated paper lol. I can't describe the specifics on here, but just know the FA biochem section plus UW really well and you'll be fine imo.

2. I increased my NBME scores so dramatically because my path skills were severely lacking... I basically had to teach myself pathology from scratch (spent nearly 3 weeks doing purely that) and once I managed to master that, my scores shot straight up.

If anybody has any more questions, feel free to ask! Though I might not get around to answering my pm's till the weekend (orientation for rotations starts tomorrow)

 

[Ihateverbal]

Oh CHaostheory..I envy you

I would have rocked that test....Genetics/Molecular/Micro is my forte =(

 

[fruitloops]

6th block: when will this test be over? And WTF more genetics questions??
7th block: I wanna go home!!!! Please god, just let me pass, I don't even care what score I get!!! Just let me passssss....

Exactly!!!! Note to future test-takers: This test is no joke; pay attention to your test stamina. The time flies, but it can be a rough slog if you're not prepared to think through 7 blocks of questions.

 

[sendwich]

Exactly!!!! Note to future test-takers: This test is no joke; pay attention to your test stamina. The time flies, but it can be a rough slog if you're not prepared to think through 7 blocks of questions.

+2!! the first 4 blocks weren't so bad, time-wise. but once you hit blocks 6, 7, 8.....man, I ran out of time easy!!! I spent too much time reading and thinking too much into 20-liner questions (wth!). Despite how you may feel at the tail end of your exam, keep a decent pace and don't let yourself become bogged down!

 

[Ihateverbal]

My brain slowed down on block 8...then I realized half my time was up, and I only finished half the block and checked 1/2 of the other half I did (if that makes any sense). The adrenaline kicked in and I moved faster. Good thing I didn't notice that at the end.

Anyone actually not finish a question because of time? I didn't finish a question on pharmacokinetics due to time, because it seemed like a 2 or 3 level question that involved some calculations. Even though I'm usually decent at math, I found myself bogged down.

 

[GeorgeMichael B]

My brain slowed down on block 8...then I realized half my time was up, and I only finished half the block and checked 1/2 of the other half I did (if that makes any sense). The adrenaline kicked in and I moved faster. Good thing I didn't notice that at the end.

Anyone actually not finish a question because of time? I didn't finish a question on pharmacokinetics due to time, because it seemed like a 2 or 3 level question that involved some calculations. Even though I'm usually decent at math, I found myself bogged down.

on my last block, i had one pharm kinetic question that i could not get through for the life of me - a complex graph with calculations (multiple steps) involved. It felt like climbing mt everest just to read through it. I saved it for last with 2 min left.....in the end i just guessed and clicked an answer

 

[stickshift]

on my last block, i had one pharm kinetic question that i could not get through for the life of me - a complex graph with calculations (multiple steps) involved. It felt like climbing mt everest just to read through it. I saved it for last with 2 min left.....in the end i just guessed and clicked an answer

Experimental probably, lol.

 

[docjg17]

hey guys,
first time I have posted in a while. Really appreciate all the advice...Took my exam yesterday. I'll give my perspective later, but I had a quick question.

There was a question on my exam on septic arthritis (not giving the question mods, just saying there was one). In FA I only learned about staph aur (or at least that's all I could recall at the time) causes septic arthritis.

Are there other common bugs implicated in septic arthritis. For some reason I thought of Neisseria too, but I wasn't sure where I was recalling that info from. I needed that info to help answer the question...it's been bugging me to death and I can't find verification anywhere.

thanks

 

[PBandJ]

hey guys,
first time I have posted in a while. Really appreciate all the advice...Took my exam yesterday. I'll give my perspective later, but I had a quick question.

There was a question on my exam on septic arthritis (not giving the question mods, just saying there was one). In FA I only learned about staph aur (or at least that's all I could recall at the time) causes septic arthritis.

Are there other common bugs implicated in septic arthritis. For some reason I thought of Neisseria too, but I wasn't sure where I was recalling that info from. I needed that info to help answer the question...it's been bugging me to death and I can't find verification anywhere.

thanks

yup, neisseria is actually a very common cause of septic arthritis. though not as common as it used to be, thanks to condoms.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bone-and-joint-infections/DS00545/DSECTION=causes

 

[humabot]

hey guys,
first time I have posted in a while. Really appreciate all the advice...Took my exam yesterday. I'll give my perspective later, but I had a quick question.

There was a question on my exam on septic arthritis (not giving the question mods, just saying there was one). In FA I only learned about staph aur (or at least that's all I could recall at the time) causes septic arthritis.

Are there other common bugs implicated in septic arthritis. For some reason I thought of Neisseria too, but I wasn't sure where I was recalling that info from. I needed that info to help answer the question...it's been bugging me to death and I can't find verification anywhere.

thanks

yeah, its neisseria gonorrheae--if it invades into the submucosa and enters the bloodstream, it can collect in synovial fluid, and thus lead to septic arthritis...point they are trying to make is that n. gon causes local infections but can also lead to systemic infections....this is the general pattern with micro on the exam... people always seem to know the first definition or problem, but then they ask about complications or associations...

hope that helps

 

[Whats_up_doc]

yeah, its neisseria gonorrheae--if it invades into the submucosa and enters the bloodstream, it can collect in synovial fluid, and thus lead to septic arthritis...point they are trying to make is that n. gon causes local infections but can also lead to systemic infections....this is the general pattern with micro on the exam... people always seem to know the first definition or problem, but then they ask about complications or associations...

hope that helps

I think it is the most common cause of septic arthritis.... Hmm... 🙄