Good luck all. I have my exam end of March and hope to be the 1st one to post here for 2010.
Official 2010 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread
- Thread starter FMD212
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A solid score indeed. Congratulations!
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I read CMMRS and didn't find it too useful. I think for answering questions on Step 1, FA and RR has more useful information. CMMRS seemed to be better as a quick review for my micro class, or something thereabouts.
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Don't bother with the BRS Anatomy, I bought it, cracked it open, then sold it on amazon. It's way too extensive for the exam. However, I might be biased because our school provided the Kaplan Notes/lectures which were golden. Not much fat, very lean, need to know stuff. I stopped watching the videos after the bchem b/c they were jut too long and we only had about 6 weeks post-finals to study. I highly recommend Kaplan notes to everyone.
In terms of the anatomy questions, the ones I can remember were the ones I thought were obscure. For example, a figure of a medulla (cross-section) with a shaded section, then asking you what symptoms the person would present with. I had a few other neuroanatomy questions as well. The MSK questions were pretty straight forward (FA). I also has several histo Q's.
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FA is more than enough for micro. For the amount of material there VS the amount of questions you'll see (even in a micro heavy test) FA still has more than enough.
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It isn't. It is just a fun hilarious read if you want to learn micro like that. First Aid and Micro Cards are more than enough.
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by studying hard the months leading up to your exam. Think about it, you have likely been studying 12+ hours a day so a 7 hour test should not be a problem. The only time I felt fatigued was late it block 3 but I felt fine after a 15 minute break. You could also start doing multiple UW blocks in a row but I did not find that necessary.
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You obviously don't feel hungry on the real test day but i forced myself to snack after almost every block. If you are a caffeine junkie, don't forget to keep drinking some fluids along with it. And for the love of God do not attempt to read any books in break time 👎
Or whooping coughThat would be pretty cool, actually...
Its just very very cool if you catch it. All I can say is make sure you watch EVERYTHING in the media. Not just the test they are doing on a specific body part.
its not a big deal, i only had 3 medias... but it was seriously an awesome question.
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is there any chance that the results for the new version will be out before that July date ? I had the new version of qs too and the wait looks super horrendous now🙁 Its just making me regurgitate all the mistakes i made and think I am gonna fail. Is this normal or is it a tell tale sign of the worst news one can imagine?
Sorry for sounding too freakish.
Sorry for sounding too freakish.
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It's completely normal. Many, many people come out thinking they may have failed. Very few of those actually do. Just try to relax; chances are you're just fine.
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hang in there buddy, and try not to open your books
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SLEEP. Man I cannot stress it's importance enough having barely slept for flicker-eyed 5 hours before the test.I was starting to shut out in the 5th block, had to step outside and do few jumping jacks to awaken ...which is certainly not hot.😳
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ok
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parrotyellow, NBME does not allow you to give out specifics of the USMLE questions to anyone (especially in a public forum like SDN). Be careful with what info you give out regarding your test.
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I have about 6 days to my exam. I have only taken 3 NBME Exams
NBME 6- 185 (Before any studying)
NBME 3 - 225 (early June after 2 wks of dedicated studying)
NBME 4- 231 (3.5 weeks into studying; 5 days ago)
I am not sure what I can do to get this over 240 and possibly into 250 (ideal). I am reading FA and doing UWorld questions. Should I take another NBME exam? Its seems like no one is taking NBME 3 or 4. I only took them because I heard they were hard, so I figured I should go for the hardest and see how I perform. Are they completely obsolete in terms of predicting my possible score? Pls help me. I feel lost.
NBME 6- 185 (Before any studying)
NBME 3 - 225 (early June after 2 wks of dedicated studying)
NBME 4- 231 (3.5 weeks into studying; 5 days ago)
I am not sure what I can do to get this over 240 and possibly into 250 (ideal). I am reading FA and doing UWorld questions. Should I take another NBME exam? Its seems like no one is taking NBME 3 or 4. I only took them because I heard they were hard, so I figured I should go for the hardest and see how I perform. Are they completely obsolete in terms of predicting my possible score? Pls help me. I feel lost.
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Congrats!! I really want to thank for posting your study method on here. I REALLY appreciate it! I've been looking on here for a good long term study plan for step one due to my need to go over material repeatedly in order to hope to remember it. I read your study method a few days ago and thought "man, that sounds SO much like me!" I'm constantly forgetting the simplest science facts and basically have no long term memory. 😳 So, again congrats and thanks SO, SO much for taking the time to post your method. 👍👍
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After a little time to let the fact that Step 1 is now part of history for me, I can relay a little bit about my experience. Reading SDN experiences was helpful in giving me an idea of what other people were doing to study (no one person has the right method) and for getting a feel for the big day. I won't have my score for a little while, but I'm not looking forward to getting it.
Studying before my hardcore 5 weeks:
A guy like me, not too bright, really has to repeat things over and over again. It is a motif that has repeated throughout my life. I'm just not that talented in anything, so I just work twice as hard as most other people. It has worked out most of the time: medical school, cycling, Ironman. The basic goals were as follows: 3x RR Pathology, 4-5x First Aid, 1x Kaplan QBank, and 2x UWorld.
I started studying in December of my 2nd year. During each pathophysiology block, I'd attend class and take good notes, but I wouldn't really touch them until a little before the test. On the first day of the block, I'd start reading BRS Physiology, RR Pathology, and then First Aid. The early reading for me wasn't as deep as most people read in their first pass. The Kaplan QBank questions (by organ) came next a little more than half way through the block. After that, I'd try to read RR Pathology in greater depth and re-read First Aid followed by all the UWorld questions (by organ) a few days before the block exam. At the beginning of my studying, I'd take ~5 days to study for the exam. By the end of the year, I studied for the last two exams in 10-12 hours each. To me, the Boards were much more important, and my goal was to actually score 70% exactly on all the exams for medical school. My logic was that if I scored better than 70%, then I will have spent too much time studying for an exam that didn't really matter that much. I never even came close to scoring 70%, though.
My weakest points were Biochemistry, Embryology, and Neurology. I started reading HY Biochemistry over Christmas break, during which I spent most of the rest of my time working on my research. I started reading HY Embryology in February and High Yield Gross Anatomy in late April.
A few things acted as small hurdles to my preparation. At the beginning of April, the principal investigator on my research project asked me to have a manuscript ready in under 2 weeks. Needless to say, I stopped studying during those two weeks. My co-authors had some pretty good ideas about how I should re-do my statistics. There were days during which I spent 10+ hours clacking away at R-2.9.1. On top of that, I had to put together a powerpoint for a mini-oral presentation, for which I was first author (presentation and abstract), at an international conference at the end of the month. Because I had known about the presentation well in advance, I was pretty serious about starting to study early. That reminds me. I should e-mail all my co-authors about this paper.
The hardcore 5 weeks:
I used UWSA1 to gauge my progress and knocked it out of the park. My goal for the big day was fairly high, and I was already above that mark. However, I figured the worst thing would be to become complacent, so I reset my goal and really started crushing my work. I broke everything down into blocks of 2-3 subjects that I felt connected well, e.g. Cardiology and Pulmonology. I approached it the way I had during the year: BRS Physio, RR Path, First Aid, but this time I supplemented each section with Lippincott Pharm and HY Embryo during the section rather than reading random sections of pharm and embryology at various times as I had during the year.
The day was broken up into 4 time slots that varied in length. The first hour was for biochem, embryology, or anatomy. Because it was hard for me to memorize these things, I took a slow and steady approach. For the rest of the day, I'd have a goal of finishing one or two sections of a book during the appointed time in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. I almost never studied anything that wasn't on my schedule, but I often had to adapt my schedule, because I couldn't read fast enough. I worked out 4 times per week (usually in the middle of the day) in order to stay relaxed, and it helped a ton. Every day started at 7:30AM, and I worked on waking up at 6:30 to 7:00 so as to adjust my sleep schedule to test day.
On Fridays, I took my practice tests. As I got closer to test day, I started doing 3 blocks of UWorld (timed, random, 2nd pass) before I did my practice test and worked in my break/snack/lunch schedule. This really helped me build my stamina.
Test day:
Everything ran smoothly. I arrived on time and nervously talked to a few of the people waiting around to take their respective tests (mostly but not all Step 1). Most people seemed relieved to voice their own concerns, and we all wished each other good luck.. I had taken the prometric practice test (DEFINITELY DO THIS TO GET USED TO THE TEST CENTER), so I knew the dance of going in and out of the room.
It took about 15 questions to get over the nerves, but after that I started cruising. Every section, I marked 6 questions, 1 or 2 of which I had no idea but could reasonably narrow it down to 3 choices. The remaining 4 or 5 questions were a 50/50. I learned from experience that on a good day the questions I thought were 50/50, I actually had a good chance of getting right. However, on a bad day I had less than 50% chance of getting it right. I finished all but one block with 6 or 7 minutes to go back and check my marked questions. On the last block, I got hung up on a couple questions that really frustrated me, and I had to fly through the last 10 questions in under 7 minutes, because I needed the last 2 minutes for my marked questions (maybe this wasn't a good idea). I didn't think they were particularly hard questions, but I didn't get to read through all the answer choices. Instead, I read the question, figured out the answer, and looked for the answer among the choices.
Between blocks 2 and 3, I ate a Snickers bar. Between blocks 3 and 4, I drank a my Fresca. Between blocks 4 and 5 (~1 o'clock), I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a diet coke. Between blocks 6 and 7, I went for a walk and drank a second diet coke. Of the 60 minutes of break time, I used 53, and I'm glad I did.
To be honest, I had a very average day. On every practice I took, there were a few questions that I got wrong, because I zoned out for ~70 seconds. After the test, I felt awful, but I'm chalking that up to recall bias. The most frustrating thing about the day was the fact that every question I didn't know, I thought, "well, I should know the answer to this" or "at one point, I knew this." This was even the case on some of the esoteric and weird questions. On top of that, either my guessing strategy turned out to be poor or my memory failed me big time on a few of the questions. I'm still kicking myself.
Study materials:
The Holy Trinity: First Aid, RR Path, BRS Physio
First Aid - Everyone said that if I knew First Aid perfectly, I'd get a 280. This advice is probably bullsh*t. It's the highest-yield stuff, but oftentimes it doesn't have the detail required for some of the high-level questions. However, it has to be the foundation of everyone's study materials.
RR Pathology - Awesome. It's very dense, but I thought this book was great for establishing associations, mechanisms of disease, etc.
BRS Physiology - This hits the basics. It's hard to build understanding without the basics.
Question Banks
UWorld - I definitely preferred UWorld. It required higher-order thinking than Kaplan, but this wasn't necessarily what was required on a lot of the questions on test-day. However, the thinking it asked of you allowed for better learning. The explanations were awesome.
Kaplan - This question bank was a little nitpicky. I thought it was helpful, but it depended a lot more on knowing specfic facts. I only did the organ system questions (none of the integrated vignettes, multi-organ, etc.). There were definitely some questions in the Kaplan style on the real thing.
Practice Tests
NBME 1, 5, 6, and 7 - I thought the test was harder than these. In difficulty, I thought 6 was the easiest and 7 was the hardest. I just didn't think 1 and 5 were written that well. The curve on these things is ridiculous. I only got the extended feedback on 6, but I wrote down concepts that I had to clarify whenever there was a question on which I had trouble.
UWSA 1 and 2 - The curve on these is pretty nice. You can get 15% wrong and still max out the score. The most important part is the explanations.
Free 150 - The questions are much easier than the real thing. Take it at the test center.
Supporting cast: High-yield series, Lippincott books, Microbio Made Ridiculous Simple
High-Yield Biochemistry - This book only makes sense the 3rd time you read it. I had so much trouble with it the first two times. However, I'm terrible at biochemistry.
High-Yield Embryology - This book should be called moderate-yield embryology. This stuff is ridiculous. It really only helped me eliminate answers rather than get answers right. However, reading HY-Embryo helped build my knowledge.
High-Yield Gross Anatomy - I mostly used this for Head/Neck Anatomy and Upper/Lower limb. I wish I had done a little more with this book and at least flipped through Netter's.
High-Yield Neuroanatomy - The pictures are good, but it's tough to get through. I tried to read the entire thing in about 4 hours and wasn't hugely successful.
Lippincott Biochemistry - This book is a serious overkill. I probably read 11 chapters total. It's just too much.
Lippincott Pharmacology - This book is also a serious overkill, but I wish I had spent a little more time on it. There are questions that made me think, "holy crap. The test-writers read First Aid and decided to take it a tiny bit further."
Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple - I read this entire book (minus parasitology and only skimming pharm) in about 11 hours. Wow. It probably has everything you'll ever need, but there's a lot of information.
Reference: Textbooks, internet
The Immune System by Parham - This book is insane. I don't think anyone has actually read this book from cover to cover. Ever. Immunology has some pretty tough concepts, though, and I had to read extended discussions of some topics.
Uptodate - This provided a clinical context for everything. It also has basic mechanisms of actions for drugs, discussions of standard of care, pathogenesis, etc. It's easy to get lost, but once you get used to looking for specific things, it's not so bad.
Neuroanatomy Text and Atlas - Another overkill book, but I used it specifically to read about the cerebellum and basal ganglia.
Pathophysiology of Heart Disease - Cardiology is my favorite subject, so reading this was a bit of a treat for myself. It's well written, and I really liked the discussions of heart failure, pharmacology, and congenital lesions.
Larsen's Human Embryology - I read maybe 10 pages from this book. It wasn't the best use of my time.
Robbin's Basic Pathology - It might've been good to read this during the school year. I skimmed a few sections. Some of my friends read it cover-to-cover, and their knowledge was really deep.
Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy - I didn't use it, but I wish I had just flipped through the pages once.
Books I bought but didn't use:
The entire Underground Clinical Vignettes Series - didn't have the time.
Robbins Review of Pathology - I bought this when I thought I was going to use UWorld in the last 5 weeks. I wanted to save the best questions for last. Seriously, just do UWorld twice. If you memorize all 2100 questions and have a vague recollection of the explanation, you'll be in good shape.
Scores:
Practice tests - I did very well on all of the practice tests (all 6 were above my goal with most of them being significantly above). I don't know if I want to post my practice test scores, though. My classmates might still read SDN.
Kaplan - average was around 75%, but I can't remember.
UWorld - 1st pass average was 73%, second pass average was 91%.
Final Words:
I wish I had studied more. Seriously. Every single question I got wrong, I should've known. I wish I had started earlier and studied in a more structured and focused fashion. Based on my prep, I probably could've only eked out a couple more right answers, so I think I had an average day. I'm praying that the NBMEs and UWSAs have some predictive power.
Studying before my hardcore 5 weeks:
A guy like me, not too bright, really has to repeat things over and over again. It is a motif that has repeated throughout my life. I'm just not that talented in anything, so I just work twice as hard as most other people. It has worked out most of the time: medical school, cycling, Ironman. The basic goals were as follows: 3x RR Pathology, 4-5x First Aid, 1x Kaplan QBank, and 2x UWorld.
I started studying in December of my 2nd year. During each pathophysiology block, I'd attend class and take good notes, but I wouldn't really touch them until a little before the test. On the first day of the block, I'd start reading BRS Physiology, RR Pathology, and then First Aid. The early reading for me wasn't as deep as most people read in their first pass. The Kaplan QBank questions (by organ) came next a little more than half way through the block. After that, I'd try to read RR Pathology in greater depth and re-read First Aid followed by all the UWorld questions (by organ) a few days before the block exam. At the beginning of my studying, I'd take ~5 days to study for the exam. By the end of the year, I studied for the last two exams in 10-12 hours each. To me, the Boards were much more important, and my goal was to actually score 70% exactly on all the exams for medical school. My logic was that if I scored better than 70%, then I will have spent too much time studying for an exam that didn't really matter that much. I never even came close to scoring 70%, though.
My weakest points were Biochemistry, Embryology, and Neurology. I started reading HY Biochemistry over Christmas break, during which I spent most of the rest of my time working on my research. I started reading HY Embryology in February and High Yield Gross Anatomy in late April.
A few things acted as small hurdles to my preparation. At the beginning of April, the principal investigator on my research project asked me to have a manuscript ready in under 2 weeks. Needless to say, I stopped studying during those two weeks. My co-authors had some pretty good ideas about how I should re-do my statistics. There were days during which I spent 10+ hours clacking away at R-2.9.1. On top of that, I had to put together a powerpoint for a mini-oral presentation, for which I was first author (presentation and abstract), at an international conference at the end of the month. Because I had known about the presentation well in advance, I was pretty serious about starting to study early. That reminds me. I should e-mail all my co-authors about this paper.
The hardcore 5 weeks:
I used UWSA1 to gauge my progress and knocked it out of the park. My goal for the big day was fairly high, and I was already above that mark. However, I figured the worst thing would be to become complacent, so I reset my goal and really started crushing my work. I broke everything down into blocks of 2-3 subjects that I felt connected well, e.g. Cardiology and Pulmonology. I approached it the way I had during the year: BRS Physio, RR Path, First Aid, but this time I supplemented each section with Lippincott Pharm and HY Embryo during the section rather than reading random sections of pharm and embryology at various times as I had during the year.
The day was broken up into 4 time slots that varied in length. The first hour was for biochem, embryology, or anatomy. Because it was hard for me to memorize these things, I took a slow and steady approach. For the rest of the day, I'd have a goal of finishing one or two sections of a book during the appointed time in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. I almost never studied anything that wasn't on my schedule, but I often had to adapt my schedule, because I couldn't read fast enough. I worked out 4 times per week (usually in the middle of the day) in order to stay relaxed, and it helped a ton. Every day started at 7:30AM, and I worked on waking up at 6:30 to 7:00 so as to adjust my sleep schedule to test day.
On Fridays, I took my practice tests. As I got closer to test day, I started doing 3 blocks of UWorld (timed, random, 2nd pass) before I did my practice test and worked in my break/snack/lunch schedule. This really helped me build my stamina.
Test day:
Everything ran smoothly. I arrived on time and nervously talked to a few of the people waiting around to take their respective tests (mostly but not all Step 1). Most people seemed relieved to voice their own concerns, and we all wished each other good luck.. I had taken the prometric practice test (DEFINITELY DO THIS TO GET USED TO THE TEST CENTER), so I knew the dance of going in and out of the room.
It took about 15 questions to get over the nerves, but after that I started cruising. Every section, I marked 6 questions, 1 or 2 of which I had no idea but could reasonably narrow it down to 3 choices. The remaining 4 or 5 questions were a 50/50. I learned from experience that on a good day the questions I thought were 50/50, I actually had a good chance of getting right. However, on a bad day I had less than 50% chance of getting it right. I finished all but one block with 6 or 7 minutes to go back and check my marked questions. On the last block, I got hung up on a couple questions that really frustrated me, and I had to fly through the last 10 questions in under 7 minutes, because I needed the last 2 minutes for my marked questions (maybe this wasn't a good idea). I didn't think they were particularly hard questions, but I didn't get to read through all the answer choices. Instead, I read the question, figured out the answer, and looked for the answer among the choices.
Between blocks 2 and 3, I ate a Snickers bar. Between blocks 3 and 4, I drank a my Fresca. Between blocks 4 and 5 (~1 o'clock), I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a diet coke. Between blocks 6 and 7, I went for a walk and drank a second diet coke. Of the 60 minutes of break time, I used 53, and I'm glad I did.
To be honest, I had a very average day. On every practice I took, there were a few questions that I got wrong, because I zoned out for ~70 seconds. After the test, I felt awful, but I'm chalking that up to recall bias. The most frustrating thing about the day was the fact that every question I didn't know, I thought, "well, I should know the answer to this" or "at one point, I knew this." This was even the case on some of the esoteric and weird questions. On top of that, either my guessing strategy turned out to be poor or my memory failed me big time on a few of the questions. I'm still kicking myself.
Study materials:
The Holy Trinity: First Aid, RR Path, BRS Physio
First Aid - Everyone said that if I knew First Aid perfectly, I'd get a 280. This advice is probably bullsh*t. It's the highest-yield stuff, but oftentimes it doesn't have the detail required for some of the high-level questions. However, it has to be the foundation of everyone's study materials.
RR Pathology - Awesome. It's very dense, but I thought this book was great for establishing associations, mechanisms of disease, etc.
BRS Physiology - This hits the basics. It's hard to build understanding without the basics.
Question Banks
UWorld - I definitely preferred UWorld. It required higher-order thinking than Kaplan, but this wasn't necessarily what was required on a lot of the questions on test-day. However, the thinking it asked of you allowed for better learning. The explanations were awesome.
Kaplan - This question bank was a little nitpicky. I thought it was helpful, but it depended a lot more on knowing specfic facts. I only did the organ system questions (none of the integrated vignettes, multi-organ, etc.). There were definitely some questions in the Kaplan style on the real thing.
Practice Tests
NBME 1, 5, 6, and 7 - I thought the test was harder than these. In difficulty, I thought 6 was the easiest and 7 was the hardest. I just didn't think 1 and 5 were written that well. The curve on these things is ridiculous. I only got the extended feedback on 6, but I wrote down concepts that I had to clarify whenever there was a question on which I had trouble.
UWSA 1 and 2 - The curve on these is pretty nice. You can get 15% wrong and still max out the score. The most important part is the explanations.
Free 150 - The questions are much easier than the real thing. Take it at the test center.
Supporting cast: High-yield series, Lippincott books, Microbio Made Ridiculous Simple
High-Yield Biochemistry - This book only makes sense the 3rd time you read it. I had so much trouble with it the first two times. However, I'm terrible at biochemistry.
High-Yield Embryology - This book should be called moderate-yield embryology. This stuff is ridiculous. It really only helped me eliminate answers rather than get answers right. However, reading HY-Embryo helped build my knowledge.
High-Yield Gross Anatomy - I mostly used this for Head/Neck Anatomy and Upper/Lower limb. I wish I had done a little more with this book and at least flipped through Netter's.
High-Yield Neuroanatomy - The pictures are good, but it's tough to get through. I tried to read the entire thing in about 4 hours and wasn't hugely successful.
Lippincott Biochemistry - This book is a serious overkill. I probably read 11 chapters total. It's just too much.
Lippincott Pharmacology - This book is also a serious overkill, but I wish I had spent a little more time on it. There are questions that made me think, "holy crap. The test-writers read First Aid and decided to take it a tiny bit further."
Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple - I read this entire book (minus parasitology and only skimming pharm) in about 11 hours. Wow. It probably has everything you'll ever need, but there's a lot of information.
Reference: Textbooks, internet
The Immune System by Parham - This book is insane. I don't think anyone has actually read this book from cover to cover. Ever. Immunology has some pretty tough concepts, though, and I had to read extended discussions of some topics.
Uptodate - This provided a clinical context for everything. It also has basic mechanisms of actions for drugs, discussions of standard of care, pathogenesis, etc. It's easy to get lost, but once you get used to looking for specific things, it's not so bad.
Neuroanatomy Text and Atlas - Another overkill book, but I used it specifically to read about the cerebellum and basal ganglia.
Pathophysiology of Heart Disease - Cardiology is my favorite subject, so reading this was a bit of a treat for myself. It's well written, and I really liked the discussions of heart failure, pharmacology, and congenital lesions.
Larsen's Human Embryology - I read maybe 10 pages from this book. It wasn't the best use of my time.
Robbin's Basic Pathology - It might've been good to read this during the school year. I skimmed a few sections. Some of my friends read it cover-to-cover, and their knowledge was really deep.
Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy - I didn't use it, but I wish I had just flipped through the pages once.
Books I bought but didn't use:
The entire Underground Clinical Vignettes Series - didn't have the time.
Robbins Review of Pathology - I bought this when I thought I was going to use UWorld in the last 5 weeks. I wanted to save the best questions for last. Seriously, just do UWorld twice. If you memorize all 2100 questions and have a vague recollection of the explanation, you'll be in good shape.
Scores:
Practice tests - I did very well on all of the practice tests (all 6 were above my goal with most of them being significantly above). I don't know if I want to post my practice test scores, though. My classmates might still read SDN.
Kaplan - average was around 75%, but I can't remember.
UWorld - 1st pass average was 73%, second pass average was 91%.
Final Words:
I wish I had studied more. Seriously. Every single question I got wrong, I should've known. I wish I had started earlier and studied in a more structured and focused fashion. Based on my prep, I probably could've only eked out a couple more right answers, so I think I had an average day. I'm praying that the NBMEs and UWSAs have some predictive power.
Last edited:
Thanks for your experience Dienekes. Any advice about what to do in the last 2-3 days? I haven't reviewed any anatomy other than FA but I still feel like I should review Micro and Pharm in the last few days. Thanks!
You and I are afloat the same boat. Hang in there comrade. I guess we both would know our fate starting July the 15th. I had a lot of other things to do after my Step1 exam such as begin Step 2 study and begin electives applications but it appears Step1 has really become some sort of a nightmare now. I have learnt a lot from SDN and I feel guilty for not writing my experience here but it appears I might not be able to unless I get my results first.
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Just got back from the test, and overall I am less exhausted than I expected to be. Timing was not an issue at all for me, and I left each block with 3-10 min left on the clock. Question stems seemed normal, and If people here wouldn't have made such a big deal about them I never would have noticed 
For a quick breakdown of the test, most of the blocks were like NBME 7 (1-4 and 7), and some were worse than UWORLD (5 and 6). I like to mark questions, so I have no idea how many I marked.
A few things I noticed:
-THE RUMORS ARE TRUE! my exam was loaded with anatomy. It was also Loaded with biostats. These 2 areas were probly 25% of some blocks, not even kidding. Not all were hard, but there was definatley alot of them.
-10 q's about getting hurt rock climbing 😕. all were different, but I got a chuckle after different ones kept popping up.
-Fair balance of other subjects. Few randoms on things you'll never fully know (individual P450 enzymes for random drug metabolism) or get from studying for this exam
-2 media questions, both heart sounds, both easy.
maybe more later if anyone wants
For a quick breakdown of the test, most of the blocks were like NBME 7 (1-4 and 7), and some were worse than UWORLD (5 and 6). I like to mark questions, so I have no idea how many I marked.
A few things I noticed:
-THE RUMORS ARE TRUE! my exam was loaded with anatomy. It was also Loaded with biostats. These 2 areas were probly 25% of some blocks, not even kidding. Not all were hard, but there was definatley alot of them.
-10 q's about getting hurt rock climbing 😕. all were different, but I got a chuckle after different ones kept popping up.
-Fair balance of other subjects. Few randoms on things you'll never fully know (individual P450 enzymes for random drug metabolism) or get from studying for this exam
-2 media questions, both heart sounds, both easy.
maybe more later if anyone wants
Reading this thread is so inspirational. I am enjoying my post-M1 summer now, but am looking to get some boards prep going soon. I just read AggieSean's post. Wondering if I should use both GT and Rx now? one or the other?
It seemed like people recommended starting Rx as a first bank early, but any others use GT and can comment?
It seemed like people recommended starting Rx as a first bank early, but any others use GT and can comment?
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ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the feedback. Time to try to learn anatomy again.
Just got back from the test, and overall I am less exhausted than I expected to be. Timing was not an issue at all for me, and I left each block with 3-10 min left on the clock. Question stems seemed normal, and If people here wouldn't have made such a big deal about them I never would have noticed
For a quick breakdown of the test, most of the blocks were like NBME 7 (1-4 and 7), and some were worse than UWORLD (5 and 6). I like to mark questions, so I have no idea how many I marked.
A few things I noticed:
-THE RUMORS ARE TRUE! my exam was loaded with anatomy. It was also Loaded with biostats. These 2 areas were probly 25% of some blocks, not even kidding. Not all were hard, but there was definatley alot of them.
-10 q's about getting hurt rock climbing 😕. all were different, but I got a chuckle after different ones kept popping up.
-Fair balance of other subjects. Few randoms on things you'll never fully know (individual P450 enzymes for random drug metabolism) or get from studying for this exam
-2 media questions, both heart sounds, both easy.
maybe more later if anyone wants
With 3 days to go, would you recommend reading the Moore's blue boxes? Would that help for anatomy? I'm torn between spening my last study day studying one last pass of pharm or looking at anatomy (which I have not looked at at all beyond FA). How was neuroanatomy?
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Just got back from the test, and overall I am less exhausted than I expected to be. Timing was not an issue at all for me, and I left each block with 3-10 min left on the clock. Question stems seemed normal, and If people here wouldn't have made such a big deal about them I never would have noticed
For a quick breakdown of the test, most of the blocks were like NBME 7 (1-4 and 7), and some were worse than UWORLD (5 and 6). I like to mark questions, so I have no idea how many I marked.
A few things I noticed:
-THE RUMORS ARE TRUE! my exam was loaded with anatomy. It was also Loaded with biostats. These 2 areas were probly 25% of some blocks, not even kidding. Not all were hard, but there was definatley alot of them.
-10 q's about getting hurt rock climbing 😕. all were different, but I got a chuckle after different ones kept popping up.
-Fair balance of other subjects. Few randoms on things you'll never fully know (individual P450 enzymes for random drug metabolism) or get from studying for this exam
-2 media questions, both heart sounds, both easy.
maybe more later if anyone wants
congrats on being done!! few more days for me
for anatomy, was it mostly FA type material (nerve injuries, extension, flexion, etc) or random stuff like muscle insertions
thanks!
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Anatomy was one of the few subjects I excelled on so I didn't find these questions terribly hard. Most of them you could work out to a reasonable answer and move on. Some were random guesses too. I never bought Moore's so I don't know about the boxes. I think most of them were actually in first aid, but they were asked in a way that you probly wouldn't have thought first aid covered it, if that makes any sense (They were some real thinkers that you could piece together from information that is in FA).
I think time would be better spent knowing biostats equations. Those take little time to memorize and for me were crucial as I was tested heavily on those.
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some stuff was random, like "what nerve root is affected in a muscle that is attached to X" and they listed the whole individual roots like C1-T1. I though those were pretty tough, but I only had 1 like that. Most of the others were pretty straightforward stuff that is in FA, but might take some thinking to work out.
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Thanks MoscowAbe. Looks pretty high yield.
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Yeah...that's one question I'll miss.
I'm still pulling for low and/or easy anatomy on mine. Most NBME-style anatomy questions seem reall straightforward to me, so I hope they don't switch that up on me now.Also, biostats=money. What's that sound? Oh, it's my score climbing a couple points. 😛
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Woooo finally done
I was very surprised at the amount of anatomy on my exam, too.
I was also surprised at all of the entamoebaisis dysentery questions (>1)
There were some graphs in UW that were IDENTICAL to the question/graph on questions. Like if I didn't see them in UW I would have definitely gotten them wrong, too.
I was very surprised at the amount of anatomy on my exam, too.
I was also surprised at all of the entamoebaisis dysentery questions (>1)
There were some graphs in UW that were IDENTICAL to the question/graph on questions. Like if I didn't see them in UW I would have definitely gotten them wrong, too.
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I took a run through BRS Anatomy. I would highly recommend NOT doing it (maybe read the clinical correlate boxes/ end up chapter summaries) as it was very very thick and full of crap details. Go through an atlas maybe and know your structures.
The questions (I wont post specifics so mods dont get mad) were like "what procedure would tear X" or "where should you insert this to avoid Y" type questions.
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Oh man, I wish you'd said something before doing that. The gross BRS's text is just god-awful. The summaries are pretty excellent, though, and the questions are awesome if you really want to get your hands dirty with some anatomy.
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so ill post my experience as i just took it earlier today
grades the past 2 yrs - only honored cardio path block, "intro to clinincal medicine 1" (behavioral science) and intro to 2nd year path/pharm
started studying - beg of 2nd year, used kaplan notes for behavioral, biochem and started physio but never finished, went until about march and stopped, but throughout the yr, put info in FA 2009, did 25 qs 5days a week f or the 3 wks leading up to boards studyiung
last 5 weeks - started doing like 14 hrs a day, the first 2 weeks, after 1st wk bought FA 2010 bc there were to omany differences, listened to goljan repeatedly when i showered, ate, went to gym, took a crap, etc.., didnt use any other book resources just FA 2010, over and over again, did not divide into systems just triued to get through it. started with UWorld and ended up doing 65% overall (but last blocks were in 70s and 80s all) out of 85% of questions, used usmlerx got 73% using about 1300 ?s, after the 2nd week of 14 hrs i freaked out bc i needed to relax and went down to 10-12, then after 3rd week freaked out and went down to 8, then for the 4th and 5th wks up to exam did like 4 bc i felt i had peaked just after 3.5 wks and should have moved exam up, but didnt and probably didnt do as well
my assessments
in school NBME - 215 on 4/20?
then USWA1- 209 on 5/15
NBME 7 - 223 on 5/23
USWA2 - 242 on 6/4
Free 150 - 88% on 6/8 (equiv to 255 on medfriends)
full length USMLERX - 253 on 6/10
NBME 6 - 244 on 6/13 (this was after my freakout/peak)
the test - easier than UWORLD, harder than Usmlerx, but its more ahbout associations and not just knowing every little fact. you have to relate things and put them together clinically and frnakly neiother uworld or usmlerx do a great job of it. a few random molecular bio questions in there that i couldnt have dreamed to know but everything was balanced. the starndard anatomy questions, very heavily path oriented, less physio than i expected, but everyone has a different experience every day, so every day the test must be different. really just depends on ur questions and how other people do on them that determines ur score. but the questions were all pretty fair and some of them if you apply ur knowledge and critical context skills and stuff liek that you can figure out the answer even if you didnt know it. i marked a lot more but that might be bc i tried harder. time wasnt a problem, the stems r no longer than nbme 6 or 7, UWORLD and USMLERX are just too short, so if ur expecting that, ull be disappoi9nted. it is possible to run out of time but the best test method is if you dont know the question within 10 seconds after reading and looking at the answers, move on mark it and go back after you finish the rest of the section. then spend the remaining time on all marked questions. id take nbme 6 and 7 bc they were pretty siumilar in terms of material/format. dont rtemember any specific questions from the exam as ive already cognitively diarrhea'd all of the useless bs basic science knowledge ive forced into my brain the last 2 yrs to make room for the better clinical stuff we learn now. oh - i had a lot of charts with drug x and drug y and stuff and adding diff drugs and showing what would happen.
bottom lines - i worked really hard the first 2 yrs at studying the material not to honor my exams but to know the material enough so i would be able to use it clinically. it definitely helped for this exam bc my practice scores were way beyojnd my expectatiojns. the most important thing is to study hard the first two years so that you remember it - even if you dont honor your exams bc most of the school written exams suck since just bc ur a dr, doesnt mean you know how to write good ?s (just like goljan says - they dont understand what they are writing.) if you know goljan + FA = 95% of the exam. to get the other 5% its not worth using any materials - if you get 95% of the exam correct, ull get like a 280 or 290 and thats never happened. and goljan was clutch - every single thing he said was on iut, including the random ones like about walking is good for osteoporosis prvntn vs swimming (idk how i remembered that from his audio but the idea is there). take time off during studying and if ur ready, push ur test up bc i made the mistake of being ready but waiting another 10 days and i definitely lost points bc of that
ill quote this when i get my grade. if u ahve any questions just ask
grades the past 2 yrs - only honored cardio path block, "intro to clinincal medicine 1" (behavioral science) and intro to 2nd year path/pharm
started studying - beg of 2nd year, used kaplan notes for behavioral, biochem and started physio but never finished, went until about march and stopped, but throughout the yr, put info in FA 2009, did 25 qs 5days a week f or the 3 wks leading up to boards studyiung
last 5 weeks - started doing like 14 hrs a day, the first 2 weeks, after 1st wk bought FA 2010 bc there were to omany differences, listened to goljan repeatedly when i showered, ate, went to gym, took a crap, etc.., didnt use any other book resources just FA 2010, over and over again, did not divide into systems just triued to get through it. started with UWorld and ended up doing 65% overall (but last blocks were in 70s and 80s all) out of 85% of questions, used usmlerx got 73% using about 1300 ?s, after the 2nd week of 14 hrs i freaked out bc i needed to relax and went down to 10-12, then after 3rd week freaked out and went down to 8, then for the 4th and 5th wks up to exam did like 4 bc i felt i had peaked just after 3.5 wks and should have moved exam up, but didnt and probably didnt do as well
my assessments
in school NBME - 215 on 4/20?
then USWA1- 209 on 5/15
NBME 7 - 223 on 5/23
USWA2 - 242 on 6/4
Free 150 - 88% on 6/8 (equiv to 255 on medfriends)
full length USMLERX - 253 on 6/10
NBME 6 - 244 on 6/13 (this was after my freakout/peak)
the test - easier than UWORLD, harder than Usmlerx, but its more ahbout associations and not just knowing every little fact. you have to relate things and put them together clinically and frnakly neiother uworld or usmlerx do a great job of it. a few random molecular bio questions in there that i couldnt have dreamed to know but everything was balanced. the starndard anatomy questions, very heavily path oriented, less physio than i expected, but everyone has a different experience every day, so every day the test must be different. really just depends on ur questions and how other people do on them that determines ur score. but the questions were all pretty fair and some of them if you apply ur knowledge and critical context skills and stuff liek that you can figure out the answer even if you didnt know it. i marked a lot more but that might be bc i tried harder. time wasnt a problem, the stems r no longer than nbme 6 or 7, UWORLD and USMLERX are just too short, so if ur expecting that, ull be disappoi9nted. it is possible to run out of time but the best test method is if you dont know the question within 10 seconds after reading and looking at the answers, move on mark it and go back after you finish the rest of the section. then spend the remaining time on all marked questions. id take nbme 6 and 7 bc they were pretty siumilar in terms of material/format. dont rtemember any specific questions from the exam as ive already cognitively diarrhea'd all of the useless bs basic science knowledge ive forced into my brain the last 2 yrs to make room for the better clinical stuff we learn now. oh - i had a lot of charts with drug x and drug y and stuff and adding diff drugs and showing what would happen.
bottom lines - i worked really hard the first 2 yrs at studying the material not to honor my exams but to know the material enough so i would be able to use it clinically. it definitely helped for this exam bc my practice scores were way beyojnd my expectatiojns. the most important thing is to study hard the first two years so that you remember it - even if you dont honor your exams bc most of the school written exams suck since just bc ur a dr, doesnt mean you know how to write good ?s (just like goljan says - they dont understand what they are writing.) if you know goljan + FA = 95% of the exam. to get the other 5% its not worth using any materials - if you get 95% of the exam correct, ull get like a 280 or 290 and thats never happened. and goljan was clutch - every single thing he said was on iut, including the random ones like about walking is good for osteoporosis prvntn vs swimming (idk how i remembered that from his audio but the idea is there). take time off during studying and if ur ready, push ur test up bc i made the mistake of being ready but waiting another 10 days and i definitely lost points bc of that
ill quote this when i get my grade. if u ahve any questions just ask
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haha i actually read the immune system by parham from cover to cover. the latest edition has had a few more chapters added but our school required us to have it and ideally read it..
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i actually got GT and so far ive been happy with it. have been using it a little bit during MS1 but want to review during the summer.
