Official 2010 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Ok, here's my overall take.

A few numbers:

UW: completed 85% (ran out of time) with a cumulative % of 81%, random timed blocks. Started around 76% the first week of studying, and gradually improved so that the last week before the real thing I was averaging around 85%. All random, timed blocks of 48.

Kaplan Qbank:
1. During school year (really only March to May): 40% completed with about a 67% average. Random mix of subject specific and random blocks.
2. During Step I prep: 25% more completed, average 86%. used this periodically at night to reinforce the basic FA ideas I had just read. Turns out Kaplan does follow FA pretty closely, and they're really not a bad QBank for this purpose. USMLERx obviously follows FA to a T, but others have said the questions are too easy. Kaplan's questions definitely felt "too easy" after having hammered through Goljan and FA (as you can at least tell from the jump in my average).

I listened to Goljan Audio periodically throughout the year when working out or walking to and from class. Sounds dumb probably, but just hearing the stuff over and over helped, even if I hadn't gotten to that stuff yet (but I made sure to try to listen to what we were learning in Path when we got there). Never really sat down to just listen and do nothing else. Didn't have the patience.

NBME3 (day after final exams, day before starting dedicated prep): 236
UWSA1 (two weeks into studying, 3.5 weeks to go): 254
NBME7 (5 or 6 days before the real thing): 258

I spent February to May doing a verrrrrrryyyyy slow "Taus" pass through a good portion of the material in FA, using Goljan/CMMRS/HY Neuro/RR Biochem/etc. I eventually switched to Kaplan Biochem which was a million times better at just explaining the key concepts, I thought.

I had about 5 weeks to study, and spent the first week and a half doing the basic science stuffy, followed by all the path/pharm. On average probably spent 2-3 days on subjects, with a few getting less (Behavioral, for example). My daily schedule was 48q's in the morning, followed by FA for the basic sciences, or BRS Phys-->Goljan Path-->FA for all the path stuff. I had planned to only take 3 weeks for this all, then do a final two weeks of Taus program kind of thing, but ended up being slower than I wanted and only had 7-8 days. So I just did another full pass through FA while doing UW.

And now, for the exam:

Going into it, I had lofty goals of maybe reaching the elusive 260+. Judging by my UW scores and my practice exams, I felt it was very possible with a lucky question draw. Honestly, anything over 250 would make me very, very happy. SDN has skewed my perception of things so much that I let it slip to one of my best friends that I "better at least break 250" and he was like "dude, do you realize how many people would kill for a 230, let alone 250?"

Overall: I feel like I was my own worst enemy on this exam. The first two blocks I felt kind of uncomfortable, with a lot of guessing. There were quite a few questions I feel like I either fell for their tricks, or just assumed that the real answer couldn't be THAT simple and picked something else. Those are the questions that will haunt me until July 14th (but hopefully won't affect my score terribly). As far as stem length, I had plenty that were one/two-liners. Also had a bunch that did seem unnecessarily long and were filled with pointless stuff (there were some you could tell they were going to just hand you the diagnosis on the last line and ask some other question....they'd basically list symptoms in order as they appear in FA and you knew they weren't just going to ask for the diagnosis). But overall I didn't struggle with the length, and I consider myself an average to slightly below average reader when it comes to testing situations.

Anatomy: as I said on another thread, pretty random. Most of it was spatial (surgeon cuts here, what might be injured? what artery would give rise to the blood vessel branch that serves the lateral half of organ X?). Got two really easy brachial plexus injury questions. There's little you can do to prepare for this. Honestly, I'd recommend A) having done well in anatomy class, B) looking through a few abd/pelvis CTs (thorax too), C) knowing the brachial plexus and upper/lower extremity innervations, D) just looking at a few pictures from Netter that have everything in the abdomen/thorax shown so you can visually remember the spatial orientations. It's all about positional relationships of organs and blood vessels.

Biochem/Cell Bio: combo of straightforward (classical description of kid with either fructose or lactose digesting problems) or bizarre stuff I'd never seen before. Probably a little more of the former. I'm not good at parsing exactly what falls under Biochem vs. Cell Bio at times, so they're getting lumped here. Oh, and knowing receptors is high yield (i.e. which ones use a Tyrosine Kinase, etc).

Histo: I think maybe I got 1 or 2 straight histo questions? I can't remember really. Just memorize Ross Histology and you should be good. (I'm kidding....)

Embryo: I didn't get much on this. What I did get was pretty simple and straight out of FA (All I remember is a Kidney question and a Pharyngeal Arch question, both of which were pretty damn basic). Wouldn't go hunting through HY/BRS Embryo unless you have an extra day to kill and love studying low yield stuff.

Physiology: BAM. Know this stuff. I got a lot. Tons of those arrow questions (up/down/no change). Some were fairly easy, but some were pretty damn tricky (i.e. three variables which were easy/medium difficulty to figure out, and then a fourth I literally had never heard of and so I was essentially blindly guessing on a physiology question I probably had 75% down pat. It was just those random variables I couldn't have prepared for). That said, there were plenty of gimmes here. I'd say BRS Phys prepared me very well for the most part, and I wouldn't even know where to go otherwise without spending way too much time.

Micro: CMMRS during the year was great, and I tried to go through this again over spring break. But honestly, FA is pretty money for micro. Supplement it with whatever mnemonics you can find/create, but most of my questions were answerable just knowing FA for sure.

Biostats: Merry Christmas. My biostats stuff was almost entirely made up of the real easy UW questions that you scratch your head wondering how "only" 85% people got it right. One or two tried to trick/confuse you, but when you realized what they were asking, you only had to use the most basic 4th grade math to figure out.

Psych: Apparently 90% of all our psych rotations will involve finding random people lying on the street in various states of consciousness. That was seriously most of what mine were. A few of those "person is obviously on Ketamine or Cocaine, what drug did they probably take?" type questions. But I guess that's more pharm.

Digression: There was a question about a 13 year old boy who masturbates to porn online. I won't go into all the details here, but it was a hilarious break from some of the more serious questions.

Pharm: My biggest fear during the whole prep was Pharm, since people say it's one of the big 3 subjects, and it's poorly taught at my school. Thankfully, like most people have said, it was pretty damn straightforward mostly. A few questions were tricky. Honestly, just having MOA's and major ADR's down for most drugs would've been enough to get most of mine correct.

Path: A decent mix, although I feel like it was a lot of renal. Which is a shame since some of the renal path is stuff I'm weak on, but I hope I made some good guesses. The rest of it really is a blur at this point. A few questions were literally straight out of UW or NBME's. And there was one particular concept I never really picked up during class, but Goljan hammered in his audio, and I had three very similar questions all testing that concept. So, many thanks to whoever recorded that stuff, regardless of how illegal it was.





Overall I left the test feeling kind of disappointed actually. I went in with really high expectations, and felt like the exam was tougher than I thought. I know I made some good guesses, and I know I made some bonehead mistakes. I hope that they cancel out and my overall score is in the ballpark of my practice scores. As a whole, it just took me out of my comfort zone, at least in the first couple blocks.

I am so so so so very glad to be done with this garbage, this past month has pretty much sucked. At this point a 250 would make me ecstatic. I always finish question blocks/practice exams feeling like crap though, so who knows. I'm praying I have to sheepishly return on July 14th to tell you all that I nailed it and am a terrible judge of my own performances.
 
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GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
Overall I left the test feeling kind of disappointed actually. I went in with really high expectations, and felt like the exam was tougher than I thought. I know I made some good guesses, and I know I made some bonehead mistakes. I hope that they cancel out and my overall score is in the ballpark of my practice scores. As a whole, it just took me out of my comfort zone, at least in the first couple blocks.

I am so so so so very glad to be done with this garbage, this past month has pretty much sucked. At this point a 250 would make me ecstatic. I always finish question blocks/practice exams feeling like crap though, so who knows. I'm praying I have to sheepishly return on July 14th to tell you all that I nailed it and am a terrible judge of my own performances.
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Thanks for the feedback. I've been watching your progress, and I feel comfortable putting 2 bucks on you making 260.
 
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I think you just have to put things in perspective. It's really easy to dwell on the stupid mistakes you make instead of considering the big picture. If you were getting high 250s on the nbmes it means you got probably less than 10 wrong, and probably got most if not all of the easy/moderate qs on the test right. I'm pretty sure that probably happened on the real test also. That will get you a high score.

For me, I felt like the test felt like a practice test. Some WTF questions where you just make an educated guess (maybe 1-2 per section) some hard questions that you need to think through (4-5 per section) some "advanced qs" that weren't directly referenced in fa/rr/Uw (4-5 per set), moderate qs, which average students will have to think through but if you know Uw cold they're automatic (10-13 per set) easy qs that any 2nd year med student should be able to answer (20-23 per set)

With that kind of breakdown, knowing rr/fa/Uw cold will get you 30-36 questions per set right, which I'd guess would be 230-250, depending how lucky you are with the other qs. The rest you get from 2nd year stuff and outside sources.
 
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kryptik said:
those who have taken the exam, how much physio calculations was on your test?
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I think I might have had one and that's it, but I can't even remember what it would've been.

I only really remember using the calculator for a couple biostats question.

As always, however, your mileage will likely vary.

Edit: It was two alveolar gas/A-a gradient ones, but one was answerable without doing actual calculations (they gave various pH/gas values and asked for what the change would be, and I only did the equation to make sure I wasn't completely screwing it up). The other one was basically "here's the guy's O2 and CO2, what's the likely diagnosis?" and you had to check the A-a gradient and once you figured that out, you could eliminate all but one answer choice.
 
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kryptik said:
those who have taken the exam, how much physio calculations was on your test?
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Not much. It is really becoming a blur now, but the only thing I remember was a renal physio calculation...... Maybe one other physio calculation, but I can't even remember.

Most of the calculations will be straight up biostats.
 
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Its been a long time I posted cuz my summer internship has kept me busy.

I miss SDN so just wanted to drop in and say good luck to everyone who's gonna be facing the beast soon.Just believe in a plan that works for ya and do the big daddy's - Goljan , FA, UW and you will not falter.

Have faith and confidence.That's what I learned from the whole battering experience.🙂
 
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badasshairday said:
Checking in guys. Finished up the test today.

It was tough. But definitely doable. I'd say it was like NBME 6/7 with some WTF UWORLD only 15% got this correct type of questions.

I saw plenty of repeats, or psuedo-repeats. Saw a biostats question that was exactly the same as one I saw in UWORLD (only got it right because of that). Also noticed some repeating themes, like being asked multiple times about Diptheria in the first few blocks. Also being asked about acute intermittant porphoria, not once, but 2 times in a row in one of the later blocks. I also saw an X-ray that was exactly the same as an X-ray image in NBME 6... question was the same, but answer choices were differnt (ie. NBME 6 asked which nerve was lesioned, Step 1 asked what muscular action is inhibited due to the injury).

There were PLENTY of easy questions. I was actually pretty shocked at how easy some were. Some straight up used buzzwords, and that sort of tripped me up because I wasn't expecting some of them to be that easy. I would sometimes mark super easy ones to come back and make sure I didn't miss something, lol.

Also plenty of difficult questions. Seemed like my hardest block was block 6. Absolutely brutal. But whatever. Block 3 was tough too. The rest were alright. I felt like I was doing UWORLD the whole time so overall it was a good experience.

In terms of content, I think if you know RR/FA/UWORLD, you will be solid. I don't think you really need anything else. Anatomy on my test was fine, I didn't have a huge amount like some people have been reporting. I felt like my exam was pretty well balanced.

Anyways... I am SO FREAKIN' HAPPY TO BE DONE!!!!!!!! This month has been hell. I had a big stressor in the middle of my study peroid that through me off by 2.5 days. Ended up having to reschedule, then felt like I was ready to take it earlier...... then realized I probably was not. I don't know, this whole experience had my emotions all messed up. So glad it is done.

Thanks for all the support guys/gals. This board has been amazing. So much good information flowing here and positive energy. I just want to say thanks especially to those folks that I was PM'ing this past week, it was really tough for me, thanks for the support. 👍

Goodluck to those of you who are up next. You guys will rock it! :luck:
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Congrats on being done , albeit this comes in late😀
 
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Its because of connective tissue restriction. Contractility of the myocardium is actually tends to flatten out with increasing end diastolic pressures. See Fig 6-2 in Cecil and Carpenter's Essentials of Medicine 7th Ed.
 
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MilkmanAl said:
Dude, I had 2 bosentan questions, too. Thank God for UWorld is all I have to say about that one. I also had a lot of other weird concepts repeated like lead poisoning, Chagas disease, and Von Gierke's.

Here's a question that's been eating at me for awhile: Why does the the ventricle stretch less easily with increased filling pressure? Is it due to connective tissue restriction or myocardial contratcion in response to stretch?
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Its because of connective tissue restriction which determines the passive tension. Myocardial contractility determines the active tension. Myocardial contractility is initially increased by LVEDP (= initial length of sacromere) to but it tends to flatten out after 20mm Hg and then if the pressure is higher contractility actually tends to decrease! and hence is not the restricting factor to ventricular stretch. Look at the passive, active and total tension curve to better appreciate it.
Hope this helps you.
 
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I just wanted to echo what others have been saying about anatomy on their tests: my test had about 5 to 10 anatomy questions per block--no lie. I was surprised. Most were pretty easy and you could get the question right from FA/UW, but some required detailed knowledge of arteries and origins/insertions. I also had quite a bit of neuroanatomy--pictures of brain slides--arrows pointing to spots and asking questions about things.

I had absolutely zero embryology. Well, maybe 1 drug question on defects, but no q's on all the arch/pouch/cleft that I memorized.

There was also a lot of biochem and microbio. I thought both were easy though. Most of the questions asked had answers to them somewhere in FA.

If I had to break my test down, it was about:
50% path
10% biochem, 10% microbio, 10%anatomy
10% pharm
10% misc

What I had least of:
Almost no psych/behavioral science (and the stats q's were all very easy, so too were the ethics questions), barely any physiology questions, no physiology calc questions, hardly any embryo, only a few immuno questions, 2 heart sounds (both of which were very easy and you could have gotten it right without even listening to the sounds), and I had to interpret 1 EKG.

In terms of taking the test:

  • I finished every block with 20 minutes to spare except for block 4, which for some reason, had really long question stems.
  • I had the 46question module, but the question stems really weren't long (except for the ones in block 4). Most were on par with Uworld.
  • I felt like there were 20 to 30 gimme questions, 10 challenging questions, and 6 or so we're going to pick something very random from your 1st two years questions.
  • The pharm questions were all very simple. Don't worry about these. Just know MOA, side effects, and every drug name.
  • I also had several repeat questions from Uworld--like verbatim--I started reading it and was like, "lol this is from uworld...sweet".
  • Not a lot of path pictures, but quite a bit of CTs, Xrays, brain slides, etc. Most were pretty easy though. Uworld/FA anatomy + flipping through Kaplan's anatomy was enough.
  • There are definitely themes to the exam. I would get two or three questions in a row on viruses, then have three cardiology questions separated by only a question or two. This is why I don't think it's all that necessary to randomize your question bank as you're learning. I didn't and it was no problem.
  • Outside of block 4, I felt the exam was pretty easy, which is a little unsettling to me right now, because in my head I'm like, "was it really that easy or did I just fall for every one of their tricks?" I'm not sure. I think I probably came out thinking it wasn't too bad because I only did q's from Uworld + Robbins and I didn't take an NBME exam. I've heard that the NBMEs are easier than the UWSAs, so maybe since I had nothing to compare the real thing to other than the UWSAs....perhaps that's why I thought it wasn't too bad. We'll see. (fwiw: I was scoring 260s on the UWSAs)
One thing I would stress: know FA like the back of your hand! The tiniest, most insignificant things in there can and will pop up on your test. The answers just seem to jump out at you if you know and understand that book cold.

Oh and another thing, Goljan got me at least 5 questions right. I owe him a beer. I read some people's exams have very straight path, and mine did too, but I did have a few path questions that asked specific mechanisms--that aren't in FA or BRS--and Goljan mentioned. I wouldn't have known those answers if it weren't for reading his book.

In closing, I have no idea how I did, I could have failed it, who knows. But it cannot be stressed enough to know these three resources well: FA+Uworld+Goljan. If you know those resources answers just jump out at you on the real test.
 
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GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
I got this question too (or at least a very similar one, I can't remember the entire stem). But I remember the very last sentence was written very poorly. It basically asked "how are these symptoms caused?", and the answer choices were 4 very obvious wrong ones (if you know how botulinum toxin works), and then one answer that explained the "normal" process of what goes on WITHOUT botulism. Either I completely misread some of the answer choices, or they completely screwed up with the question stem (I really think they meant to ask "which process is impaired and results in these symptoms?").
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Yeah, not my favorite question. I think I recall narrowing it down to 2 and then miraculously picking the correct one. Cell bio=crap.

I guess I missed that heart question, then. Oops!
 
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jahbrony said:
In closing, I have no idea how I did, I could have failed it, who knows. But it cannot be stressed enough to know these three resources well: FA+Uworld+Goljan. If you know those resources answers just jump out at you on the real test.
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No way, if you thought it was mostly pretty "easy", chances are you did extremely well. Congratulations-- go celebrate!
 
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GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
Ok, here's my overall take.

Digression: There was a question about a 13 year old boy who masturbates to porn online. I won't go into all the details here, but it was a hilarious break from some of the more serious questions.
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Haha, I had this question too!! This one, and one about an astronaut that was just totally ridiculous, made me actually stifle laughing out loud when I read it!
 
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GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
Yeah this is what I'm worried about. There are at least 2 or 3 questions that I know I got wrong because I thought "NO WAY is the answer THAT easy", only to check later and find out it was, in fact, that easy.
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So do you think missing "easy" questions is more punishing for your score than missing hard questions? For example, if the easy questions are worth 0.5 and a harder question is worth 1.5, then missing the easier question would be LESS punishing, right? I keep thinking of stupid easy questions that I missed (I'm sure I picked the SECOND best answer... haha), and then I think of the 10000 other students who SURELY got that question correct... and it seems that missing an easy question would be MORE punishing to my score! Any ideas? I don't feel bad about missing the really hard ones... but darn those easy questions that I just couldn't put together quickly enough!!! 😡
 
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Corker said:
So do you think missing "easy" questions is more punishing for your score than missing hard questions? ...
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I think so. Getting 75% right on a test where the average score was 60% would equate to a higher USMLE score than getting 75% right on a form where the average was 80%. But then again, easy is relative... Maybe you're just really good at the detailed weird stuff and tend to do better on those questions, which makes up for errors on the common "easy" stuff.

In other news, MY GOD I NEED MY SCORE! I CAN'T WAIT ANOTHER TWO AND A HALF WEEKS!
 
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Not sure if I'm right here, but I think the USMLE is scored similarly to how each USMLEWorld block is scored.

If you get an 80% average for a block and the average of everyone else is 70%, your overall score is going to be based on that difference.

So for all the people who have a random selection of very hard questions, the average is going to be much lower, and therefore there score will reflect that. So even if you think your test was very hard, it probably has a lower average, and therefore your score won't be as bad as you imagine.

I think this is the most logical way it could possibly be graded, seeing how everyone has a different test.
 
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Im assuming the anatomy is no different than it has ever been on the test. What I think is happening is people have focused on it so much this year on student doctor that everyone has been worrying about it. Its going to come down to a few gimmes from your past knowledge and first aid and a few toughies that you would probably only know for sure if you were actually just finishing your anatomy block of year 1. And that's how it will probably continue to be. Though i'm betting next year a bunch of SDNers will read our years forum and get scared about anatomy, read BRS like crazy and own the anatomy sections like never before. Same thing happened with one of the "more challenging" classes at my undergrad.
 
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Guys i have a question. everyone says that Step 1 is harder than NBME but easier than USMLEW....but i thought NBME 7 was way harder than USMLEW!! i've been scoring 68-75% on world, but just got a 236 on form 7. i take the test tuesday...i'm scared!
 
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otacon88 said:
Guys i have a question. everyone says that Step 1 is harder than NBME but easier than USMLEW....but i thought NBME 7 was way harder than USMLEW!! i've been scoring 68-75% on world, but just got a 236 on form 7. i take the test tuesday...i'm scared!
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What a horrendous score. You may have to postpone your test. 🙄
 
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otacon88 said:
well according to SDN standards with people getting 255 on NBME's and 260+ on the real thing i would like to do better lol
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SDN is full of self selected bull****. This forum can be very helpful, but sometimes I hear the most ridiculous things. I am amazed that it is worse than the MCAT forum. You have to have thick skin and take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt.

Example:
Maxprime said:
4) Below 240, you need to learn the basics. I know it sounds like a dick thing to say, but it's true.
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At least he admits to what he sounds like. :laugh:
 
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lol it was a lot worse in the early 2000s, thats what prevented me from getting an account for years, the douchebaggry was enormous
 
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knuckles said:
Not sure if I'm right here, but I think the USMLE is scored similarly to how each USMLEWorld block is scored.

If you get an 80% average for a block and the average of everyone else is 70%, your overall score is going to be based on that difference.

So for all the people who have a random selection of very hard questions, the average is going to be much lower, and therefore there score will reflect that. So even if you think your test was very hard, it probably has a lower average, and therefore your score won't be as bad as you imagine.

I think this is the most logical way it could possibly be graded, seeing how everyone has a different test.
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And this is the most reassuring statement I've heard about grading so far 👍
 
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greg1184 said:
SDN is full of self selected bull****. This forum can be very helpful, but sometimes I hear the most ridiculous things. I am amazed that it is worse than the MCAT forum. You have to have thick skin and take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt.

Example:


At least he admits to what he sounds like. :laugh:
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exactly,,,I have said this in previous posts and even got warnings about saying such things,,👎thumbdown👎thumbdown
 
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knuckles said:
Not sure if I'm right here, but I think the USMLE is scored similarly to how each USMLEWorld block is scored.

If you get an 80% average for a block and the average of everyone else is 70%, your overall score is going to be based on that difference.

So for all the people who have a random selection of very hard questions, the average is going to be much lower, and therefore there score will reflect that. So even if you think your test was very hard, it probably has a lower average, and therefore your score won't be as bad as you imagine.

I think this is the most logical way it could possibly be graded, seeing how everyone has a different test.
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That sounds right... and in that case, missing easy answers is bad news! 🙄 Hopefully I got some tricky ones to make up for it!!! :laugh::laugh::laugh:
 
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Corker said:
That sounds right... and in that case, missing easy answers is bad news! 🙄 Hopefully I got some tricky ones to make up for it!!! :laugh::laugh::laugh:
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I think it's question by question. If you miss an easy q, it'll hurt you a lot, while getting it right will help you a little. In contrast, missing a hard q will hurt you only a little while getting it right will help you a lot. These are only true if the qs aren't experimental.
 
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kryptik said:
those who have taken the exam, how much physio calculations was on your test?
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I actually had a few. I had to use P=QR twice or some derivative of it, and I had to use the Fick equation as well. I feel like there were some other calculations that I'm not thinking about. All in all I'd say I had about 5 physio questions that required calculations. Oh yea, I'm also remembering calculating alveolar ventilation. They were pretty easy and straightforward, overall.
 
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AHHHHHH i have my exam tomorrow and despite getting a 225 on NBME 7 last week and mid-60's on Uworld i have this huge fear that everything i learned suddenly somehow fell out of my head :scared:
 
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just took mine .... feel like crap ... feel like i did really really bad!!!

usmle world average was 68% overall
Last 7 blocks were: 78%, 75%, 64%, 63%, 71%, 72%, 78%
NBME 6 two weeks ago was a 234

There was maybe 10 anatomy q's on my whole test ... all super easy ... which I still managed to mess up ... ugh!!!

There was no real neuroanatomy

There was no biostats

I had one PPV and that was the limit of a 4x4 table

There were TONS of safe sex/condom usage questions ... i'm guessing maybe 10 ... ridiculous ... and i didn't know them

There was one question that looked similar to world ... all in all it felt like world in how it was presented (ie it mimicks fred well) but the content of my test i felt was way diff!

I felt that it was as hard as a world!!!!!!! I feel so screwed ... I was hoping to get a 240 but now I'm hoping I got at least a 220 .... 🙁 ugh ugh ugh!!!!!
 
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harv1212 said:
just took mine .... Feel like crap ... Feel like i did really really bad!!!

Usmle world average was 68% overall
last 7 blocks were: 78%, 75%, 64%, 63%, 71%, 72%, 78%
nbme 6 two weeks ago was a 234

there was maybe 10 anatomy q's on my whole test ... All super easy ... Which i still managed to mess up ... Ugh!!!

There was no real neuroanatomy

there was no biostats

i had one ppv and that was the limit of a 4x4 table

there were tons of safe sex/condom usage questions ... I'm guessing maybe 10 ... Ridiculous ... And i didn't know them

there was one question that looked similar to world ... All in all it felt like world in how it was presented (ie it mimicks fred well) but the content of my test i felt was way diff!

I felt that it was as hard as a world!!!!!!! I feel so screwed ... I was hoping to get a 240 but now i'm hoping i got at least a 220 .... 🙁 ugh ugh ugh!!!!!
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wan
don t stress it dude some just want to pass and some wanted a 260 but got a 250 be happy if you pass on this sort of test is what i say you can t control this beast
 
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For those of you who have taken the test already, would you say the pharm was more like First Aid, or more like USMLE World?
 
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DocDanny said:
For those of you who have taken the test already, would you say the pharm was more like First Aid, or more like USMLE World?
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A mix. The hard questions were like U world although some questions were even harder. Some were easy though and could be found in FA.
 
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frd86guy said:
AHHHHHH i have my exam tomorrow and despite getting a 225 on NBME 7 last week and mid-60's on Uworld i have this huge fear that everything i learned suddenly somehow fell out of my head :scared:
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I remember the night before my test I paced around the house a lot... and every five minutes I would stop and put my both hands on top of my head and think, "Oh my gosh... I'm so freaked out! I don't know anything!!!"

I'm not a 250 person... my best practice was 230 on UW#1... but I want to tell you that once I got into the test, I really felt like I recognized much of the material. There was plenty I wasn't sure about or I'd never seen, but I felt very comfortable with the material I had studied. You can't control what you've never seen before, but have confidence knowing that you WILL remember what you've studied. Much of the test really assesses the MAIN concepts... so those question will boost your confidence as you face the more difficult questions.

Good luck to you and Ableton! You've prepared, so just go in and show 'em your stuff!!! 😀
 
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DocDanny said:
For those of you who have taken the test already, would you say the pharm was more like First Aid, or more like USMLE World?
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Most of the pharm I had was quite straight-forward. There were only a couple questions that were very difficult and beyond FA.
 
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drizzt3117 said:
A mix. The hard questions were like U world although some questions were even harder. Some were easy though and could be found in FA.
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See, but here is the thing.

Our class was told by our professor (who writes one of the Rapid Review books with Goljan) that they give people different types of questions based on how they've done on previous blocks.

You may have been doing so well (since your scores were so high) that they really knocked you up a notch.
 
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DocDanny said:
See, but here is the thing.

Our class was told by our professor (who writes one of the Rapid Review books with Goljan) that they give people different types of questions based on how they've done on previous blocks.

You may have been doing so well (since your scores were so high) that they really knocked you up a notch.
Click to expand...

That's not true. The test is not adaptive. There is a "myths" section on the USMLE site, and this is one of the myths they debunk.
 
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DocDanny said:
See, but here is the thing.

Our class was told by our professor (who writes one of the Rapid Review books with Goljan) that they give people different types of questions based on how they've done on previous blocks.

You may have been doing so well (since your scores were so high) that they really knocked you up a notch.
Click to expand...

That would mean that Step 1 is a Computer Adaptive Exam (like the GRE). It's not. It's well known, that its not. Your professor is misinformed (check the NBME website or first-aid)
 
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Nah, the test is random in how you get questions. I got hard pharm questions in set 1, like ridiculously hard pharm questions that I only knew the answers to because there were UW questions about them and the %s on UW were ~10-15%
 
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