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Hello everyone. I am a second year who will write the exam in June 2011. Meanwhile let this be a good thread where everyone share their study progress and recent trend of the exam.
Official 2011 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread
- Thread starter ProtossCarrier
- Start date
I took my exam a few days ago. Feels soo good to be done with it.
I got repeats from NBME 6 and 7.
Had many neuroanat images. Apart from those and a histology q, anatomy was simple and UW and FA were enough.
Kaplan pharm was helpful from the beginning till cardiovascular meds. For the rest, FA and UW was sufficient. I had one pharmakokinetics q that wasn't in any of these three sources.
Genetics was tough and there were at least 6 questions about which I had serious doubts. I used FA, UW and Kaplan
I didn't read Goljon, and have no regrets. I did flip through BRS path, however; focussed mainly on FA and UW.
My physio in UW was strong as I knew Kaplan well (x3), and read FA physio once. But there were still q on actual exam that I'm not sure about.
Some q were so simple that I marked the answer without reading all options. For those, change your answer only if u're sure that your marked answer's wrong, not because some other answer may be right.
Some q tested very basic concepts that I knew well, but in a very complicated way. Unless you did not encounter anything in the q stem or answer options in FA and UW, tell yourself you know the answer and just need to understand the q better. Mark it and come back to it in the end.
A few q were very weird, and I'd never read about them before. These require a random guess and there's no point wasting time on them. Remember 10-20% of q are experimental.
Last four days before exam, i revised FA focussing on things not covered by UW. None of those things came. It would've been better to revise uw notes i think.
I know at least 16 that I got incorrect, and another 14 in which I've doubt. Hope the result goes well.
If you have further q, feel free to contact me.
I got repeats from NBME 6 and 7.
Had many neuroanat images. Apart from those and a histology q, anatomy was simple and UW and FA were enough.
Kaplan pharm was helpful from the beginning till cardiovascular meds. For the rest, FA and UW was sufficient. I had one pharmakokinetics q that wasn't in any of these three sources.
Genetics was tough and there were at least 6 questions about which I had serious doubts. I used FA, UW and Kaplan
I didn't read Goljon, and have no regrets. I did flip through BRS path, however; focussed mainly on FA and UW.
My physio in UW was strong as I knew Kaplan well (x3), and read FA physio once. But there were still q on actual exam that I'm not sure about.
Some q were so simple that I marked the answer without reading all options. For those, change your answer only if u're sure that your marked answer's wrong, not because some other answer may be right.
Some q tested very basic concepts that I knew well, but in a very complicated way. Unless you did not encounter anything in the q stem or answer options in FA and UW, tell yourself you know the answer and just need to understand the q better. Mark it and come back to it in the end.
A few q were very weird, and I'd never read about them before. These require a random guess and there's no point wasting time on them. Remember 10-20% of q are experimental.
Last four days before exam, i revised FA focussing on things not covered by UW. None of those things came. It would've been better to revise uw notes i think.
I know at least 16 that I got incorrect, and another 14 in which I've doubt. Hope the result goes well.
If you have further q, feel free to contact me.
🙂
I just had brownies, instead.
At least I get homemade brownies to try to drown out my ridiculous day of GI physiology 😍
Man, I am having SO much trouble getting through a block of 46 UW questions even though I'm getting about 65% of them right (on average). It still takes me hours on hours to go through this!
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I have heard people say there are wierd questions on the Step 1. Can someone give an example of a wierd step 1 question that just doesn't make sense? I just am curious as to how these questions can be so out there that they can't be answered.
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yupp. thats why i havent been able to do more than 1 block per dayhttp://edge.studentdoctor.net/images/smilies/scared.gif and still have 3 out of 4 blocks of UWSA1 to go over 🙁 🙁 🙁
yeah, I'm trying for one block per day. I can finish UWorld in time if I can get through 1 block per day (given that I did a few hundred questions during the school year).
Speaking of pens (a long way back in this thread), the DIT pen that they handed out when they came to our school is really good. It's a little thick, but absolutely no smudging and it rolls nicely.
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took Step 1 at end of april.... will get score around may 18th.
preparation: starting doing alot of boards studying and stopped going to class in January
throughout all of second year: read FA, Goljan, and kaplan Qbank for the same block we were covering in school.
started USMLE world in Feb.
read thru FA 2011 4x (3x during the dedicated 6 &1/2 weeks for boards)
re-read Goljan RR Path, and re-read BRS physio
looked at all pictures in HY Neuro and HY anat
made a set schedule and quickly never used it, I felt to restricted with it so heres what i did:
week 1: read FA cover to cover
week 2-3: read BRS physio, and Goljan cover to cover
week 4-6: FA over and over again
Do UW questions everyweek
School issued basic science exam in feburary- got a 223.
I did NBME 6 (got a 238) about 1 1/2 weeks into my studing. NBME 7 (got a 250) a week before the test. I actually moved my test day forward! if you are ready dont be afraid to do the same.
My actual test: the rumors are true, you may see the same exact questions from the NBME forms as I did. I had lots of pictures. Know the brain stem stem well (gross and cross sections), visual fields defects, a bunch of genetics pedigrees!, all my biochem questions where easy easy easy, some really tricky physio, and some impossible behavioral questions.
my advice: if you think you are weak in pharm: (first know pharm was not huge on my test) take a day to read all pharm in FA and then do this again within 3 days of ur test. i thought this was super helpful
stick w/ FA and UW if nothing else.
Goljan is the man. RR PAth is a solid book and if nothing else do the margin notes.
BRS physio is good but i didnt annotate much of this...prob too much in my opinion
By far Path represented the majority of questions on my actual exam
preparation: starting doing alot of boards studying and stopped going to class in January
throughout all of second year: read FA, Goljan, and kaplan Qbank for the same block we were covering in school.
started USMLE world in Feb.
read thru FA 2011 4x (3x during the dedicated 6 &1/2 weeks for boards)
re-read Goljan RR Path, and re-read BRS physio
looked at all pictures in HY Neuro and HY anat
made a set schedule and quickly never used it, I felt to restricted with it so heres what i did:
week 1: read FA cover to cover
week 2-3: read BRS physio, and Goljan cover to cover
week 4-6: FA over and over again
Do UW questions everyweek
School issued basic science exam in feburary- got a 223.
I did NBME 6 (got a 238) about 1 1/2 weeks into my studing. NBME 7 (got a 250) a week before the test. I actually moved my test day forward! if you are ready dont be afraid to do the same.
My actual test: the rumors are true, you may see the same exact questions from the NBME forms as I did. I had lots of pictures. Know the brain stem stem well (gross and cross sections), visual fields defects, a bunch of genetics pedigrees!, all my biochem questions where easy easy easy, some really tricky physio, and some impossible behavioral questions.
my advice: if you think you are weak in pharm: (first know pharm was not huge on my test) take a day to read all pharm in FA and then do this again within 3 days of ur test. i thought this was super helpful
stick w/ FA and UW if nothing else.
Goljan is the man. RR PAth is a solid book and if nothing else do the margin notes.
BRS physio is good but i didnt annotate much of this...prob too much in my opinion
By far Path represented the majority of questions on my actual exam
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Thanks for sharing. Hope you did well.
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I read these books once to get an overview: KLN, FA, BRS physio and RR Path 3rd Goljan
Then I focused on KME and UW and in my last week I read secrets
Nbme 1: 450
Nbme 2: 470
Nbme 5: 430
Nbme 6: 490
Nbme 7: 460
UWSA 1: 480
UWSA 2: 510
IMHO all you need is FA and UW. RR path is great book but it has excess details.
About the exam:
This exam is very fair exam and the question makers are very clever. They test concepts in way that you have to think to get the answer which is only possible if you know the concept rather than memorizing the material. Initially ever question seems weird and foreign but when you think about it they are asking a concept that you already know. I think the best preparation for this exam is to study hard the first 2 years.
Subjects:
Physio: about 5-7qs questions 3 of which were GI hormones. These involved easy ones and some experimental type. for example: they will say an animal was given a molecule and the serum HCO3 level from the pancreas was measured. then they ask which hormone was given: 1. Secretin 2. CCK....etc
Path: 50-60% of the test not too bad. They ask the typical UW and FA stuff. You have to know the disease characteristics. for example they will give Marfans case and ask you some findings in this syndrome
Pathphysio: about 10-15Qs almost all involved arrows going up/down
Pharm: about 20-30Qs, I was so glad as this was my favorite area. 95% of the questions asked MOA. rest 5% involved classic side effects, some drug-drug interactions. I had 2 questions with graphs where you had to figure out what drug X is. FA covers the graphs well.
Micro: 10-15Qs. the questions are easy like what organism is causing it. But the hard ones are the characteristics of the microbes like knowing virulence factors and those EF2 stuff. Viruses: based on the stem you will know the type of virus so dont worry much about the characteristics of the viruses. But if you had to know something make sure you know the DNA viruses and which ones are enveloped (i only had 1q)
Biochem: I had less than 5Qs and they were enzyme deficiencies.
Gross Anatomy: **** I had like 10-12 Qs and 90% of these involved a picture like a CT scan of the pelvis where you have to identify the structure. When you read the question you will know the diagnosis but the hard part is knowing where the structure of the abnormality is. Please review the basic CT scans so you know where structures are located.
Embro: 2-3Qs where they give a disease like M.diverticulium and ask you the embryological defect. not too hard
Neuro: 5-10Qs. 90% of them were easy and they involved identifying structures, like circle of willis...etc
BS: **** I had 3-5 very challenging "what the physician should say" type of cases. I had only 3 stats, 2 study questions, 1 p-value question. Psych was not that bad, they were about 5qs
-----------------------------------------------
Even though it was a thinking test, nevertheless it was fair and not too difficult as people like to say it. When I was doing the exam I felt like I was doing NBME 7 again because of the type of questions. I had 3 repeat qs from Nbme 7. The length of the stems were mixed and time was not an issue.
If you need to ask questions feel free.
Gl to you all.
Then I focused on KME and UW and in my last week I read secrets
Nbme 1: 450
Nbme 2: 470
Nbme 5: 430
Nbme 6: 490
Nbme 7: 460
UWSA 1: 480
UWSA 2: 510
IMHO all you need is FA and UW. RR path is great book but it has excess details.
About the exam:
This exam is very fair exam and the question makers are very clever. They test concepts in way that you have to think to get the answer which is only possible if you know the concept rather than memorizing the material. Initially ever question seems weird and foreign but when you think about it they are asking a concept that you already know. I think the best preparation for this exam is to study hard the first 2 years.
Subjects:
Physio: about 5-7qs questions 3 of which were GI hormones. These involved easy ones and some experimental type. for example: they will say an animal was given a molecule and the serum HCO3 level from the pancreas was measured. then they ask which hormone was given: 1. Secretin 2. CCK....etc
Path: 50-60% of the test not too bad. They ask the typical UW and FA stuff. You have to know the disease characteristics. for example they will give Marfans case and ask you some findings in this syndrome
Pathphysio: about 10-15Qs almost all involved arrows going up/down
Pharm: about 20-30Qs, I was so glad as this was my favorite area. 95% of the questions asked MOA. rest 5% involved classic side effects, some drug-drug interactions. I had 2 questions with graphs where you had to figure out what drug X is. FA covers the graphs well.
Micro: 10-15Qs. the questions are easy like what organism is causing it. But the hard ones are the characteristics of the microbes like knowing virulence factors and those EF2 stuff. Viruses: based on the stem you will know the type of virus so dont worry much about the characteristics of the viruses. But if you had to know something make sure you know the DNA viruses and which ones are enveloped (i only had 1q)
Biochem: I had less than 5Qs and they were enzyme deficiencies.
Gross Anatomy: **** I had like 10-12 Qs and 90% of these involved a picture like a CT scan of the pelvis where you have to identify the structure. When you read the question you will know the diagnosis but the hard part is knowing where the structure of the abnormality is. Please review the basic CT scans so you know where structures are located.
Embro: 2-3Qs where they give a disease like M.diverticulium and ask you the embryological defect. not too hard
Neuro: 5-10Qs. 90% of them were easy and they involved identifying structures, like circle of willis...etc
BS: **** I had 3-5 very challenging "what the physician should say" type of cases. I had only 3 stats, 2 study questions, 1 p-value question. Psych was not that bad, they were about 5qs
-----------------------------------------------
Even though it was a thinking test, nevertheless it was fair and not too difficult as people like to say it. When I was doing the exam I felt like I was doing NBME 7 again because of the type of questions. I had 3 repeat qs from Nbme 7. The length of the stems were mixed and time was not an issue.
If you need to ask questions feel free.
Gl to you all.
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My understanding is that there is a fair amount of fluctuation between exams
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I would agree with this. I took the exam a couple weeks ago and I had probably 50 pharm questions on my exam (one section had a pharm question every other question). This was substantially more than anyone else I talked to from my school (even those at the same test center on the same day).
Also, I took the exam the week of April 18....any idea when my scores might come out? I honestly have no clue when to expect them.
Yah, you are correct. From what I hear, each test has a random subject or 2 that they concentrate on a lot. It really makes it kind of ****ty that they do that because you have to figure a huge part of your score is luck than. Pretty much everyone has 2-3 subjects they just suck at and 2-3 subjects that they are really good in, and everything in the middle. So technically two people with the exact same knowledge and experience can have very different scores based on if they hit the jackpot and get there good subject, or vice versa. Hopefully pharm was a subject you liked. 😀
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If anything I think it indicates how important it is to focus on studying weak subjects. It really cuts down (and can eliminate) getting heavily tested on something you are very weak on.
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Just took the test today!!! Yay!
Overall, I was really surprised with how straight forward the questions were. I say this not as some genius medical student. But the questions were not meant to trick you. They described the most common presentations of the diseases and generally asked really straight forward questions. The answer choices were not as tricky as UW or NBME - there was often times 1 very obvious answer and the other ones made absolutely no sense. This happened A LOT. There were also quite a few questions that were so easy that I laughed outloud. I'm not kidding.
I had a question that was one line long, and it said you experimentally inject a neuron with a sodium channel blocker (it didnt give you a name of a drug, it literally said 'sodium channel blocker'..then the question asked which ion was inhibited from entering the neuron and gave you answer choices like 'potassium, sodium calcium, chlorine.' I'm not kidding. I looked at it for about minutes cuz i was just confused if i was taking the right test.
There were other 'easy' questions that weren't as easy as the sodium question but were still very simple and straight forward applications of the subjects we've studied. The most common side effects drugs - they didn't ask any obscure side effects. The RLEs of major metabolism pathways. The MC symptoms of classic diseases. For example, I had quite a few questions on meningitis. They were descried how you would expect a person with meningitis to be described! They gave lab values that made the pathogen very obvious, and often times the question was simply "what is the orgnanism." That is what most of the microbiology questions were.
Anatomy - I only had 1 weird pelvic anatomy question. All of the other anatomy questions were pretty straight forward and could have been found in FA or Kaplan. Was a little worried b/c people on here have been freaking out about 'how much anatomy' there has been, but it seemed reasonable and fair to me for the most part.
I just read a post above about this 'theme' thing that they do with every test. I'd never heard of this, but it makes sense in retrospect bc I had like 10-15 questions on heart failure. Each time it was a very similar presentation of symptoms (classic heart failure symptoms), but at the end they asked a different question. The ending question hit pretty much alll the subjects from biochem to path to pharm to behavioral science, to physio etc.
Maybe I lucked out - I dont know. But most questions were VERY straight forward. Buzzwords and MC symptoms galore. I felt like I knew the dz and could guess what the questoin as going to get at within the first few lines of a lot of the questions.
The length of the questions was not too bad either. There was a good mix of long and short - from the one liners i mentioned above to some that were 10+ lines long.
The interface looks identical to UW, so that was nice.
Again, I'm not some crazy genius, I don't even know if I scored very well. There were definitely quite a few questions I didn't know just b/c I couldnt remember what exactly they were asking about. That being said, there were very few questions that were just so far out of left field that I just had no idea. If you've studied hard, you''ll be well prepared for 95% of what they throw at you.
Most important thing is to be confident. Have a relaxing day the day before. Get a good nights rest. Be confident in yourself and your ability. You've been studyign for 6+ weeks....you know A LOT of stuff. Go in there with the feeling that you couldn't possibly have studied any harder, and I promise you will walk out feeling good.
Overall, I was really surprised with how straight forward the questions were. I say this not as some genius medical student. But the questions were not meant to trick you. They described the most common presentations of the diseases and generally asked really straight forward questions. The answer choices were not as tricky as UW or NBME - there was often times 1 very obvious answer and the other ones made absolutely no sense. This happened A LOT. There were also quite a few questions that were so easy that I laughed outloud. I'm not kidding.
I had a question that was one line long, and it said you experimentally inject a neuron with a sodium channel blocker (it didnt give you a name of a drug, it literally said 'sodium channel blocker'..then the question asked which ion was inhibited from entering the neuron and gave you answer choices like 'potassium, sodium calcium, chlorine.' I'm not kidding. I looked at it for about minutes cuz i was just confused if i was taking the right test.
There were other 'easy' questions that weren't as easy as the sodium question but were still very simple and straight forward applications of the subjects we've studied. The most common side effects drugs - they didn't ask any obscure side effects. The RLEs of major metabolism pathways. The MC symptoms of classic diseases. For example, I had quite a few questions on meningitis. They were descried how you would expect a person with meningitis to be described! They gave lab values that made the pathogen very obvious, and often times the question was simply "what is the orgnanism." That is what most of the microbiology questions were.
Anatomy - I only had 1 weird pelvic anatomy question. All of the other anatomy questions were pretty straight forward and could have been found in FA or Kaplan. Was a little worried b/c people on here have been freaking out about 'how much anatomy' there has been, but it seemed reasonable and fair to me for the most part.
I just read a post above about this 'theme' thing that they do with every test. I'd never heard of this, but it makes sense in retrospect bc I had like 10-15 questions on heart failure. Each time it was a very similar presentation of symptoms (classic heart failure symptoms), but at the end they asked a different question. The ending question hit pretty much alll the subjects from biochem to path to pharm to behavioral science, to physio etc.
Maybe I lucked out - I dont know. But most questions were VERY straight forward. Buzzwords and MC symptoms galore. I felt like I knew the dz and could guess what the questoin as going to get at within the first few lines of a lot of the questions.
The length of the questions was not too bad either. There was a good mix of long and short - from the one liners i mentioned above to some that were 10+ lines long.
The interface looks identical to UW, so that was nice.
Again, I'm not some crazy genius, I don't even know if I scored very well. There were definitely quite a few questions I didn't know just b/c I couldnt remember what exactly they were asking about. That being said, there were very few questions that were just so far out of left field that I just had no idea. If you've studied hard, you''ll be well prepared for 95% of what they throw at you.
Most important thing is to be confident. Have a relaxing day the day before. Get a good nights rest. Be confident in yourself and your ability. You've been studyign for 6+ weeks....you know A LOT of stuff. Go in there with the feeling that you couldn't possibly have studied any harder, and I promise you will walk out feeling good.
Congrats ryserr on being done.. that's great you felt good about the test. In the end, I'm sure it works out fine. Perhaps you had a form with a tougher curve, but who cares, you felt good about it.
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yea, theres really no way to tell what the end result will be b/c it depends so much on how you do compared to other people.
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Congrats Dude! sounds like you rocked it and definitely gave it your best. And in time to have like a 50 gallon margarhita for cinco de drinko too 👍
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Ryserr described how I felt exactly. It is really not that bad. I also felt that the answer choices were clearer than on the uworld or nbme exams. There were only a handful of times where I was caught between two answers--otherwise I either knew it or didn't. I did feel that I was unprepared for some of the pelvic anatomy I saw. I only used first aid and browsed through a couple clinical anatomy books.
Other content thoughts:
--All of my heart auscultation questions were the type where you move the "stethoscope" yourself. Even though I did the free 150 (the only place where you get that type of question that i know of) I still didn't feel comfortable with those questions. And I think they really tried to avoid giving the answer away in the stem.
--Lots of Pharm, and all but one drug were in FA. However, they were tricky about the presentation of a few of the drugs.
--I also had a few repeating theme's. I must have been asked about insulin C-peptide in 5 different ways. I think I had 3 questions where the person was abusing insulin because they were super hypoglycemic without any C peptide. I also had 3 questions about the hippocampus, I had to locate it on three different cross sections.
--Micro was so easy. Immunology was easier. biochem wasn't bad--all FA stuff.
Other than that here's what I've learned from this experience (some practical advice, some philosophy)--
-This was a really stressful experience. I was really humbled by it and will never judge anyone by their step I score. I went into this thing hoping for a 250 and after some practice tests, had to readjust my expectations. There were some nights where i just couldn't sleep and I took one benadryl before bed to help me sleep. That helped. I exercised most days, which is also important.
-I think the nbme's are really useful. It's really useful to know where you are at (more or less) throughout the process. Whenever you feel like you've hit a wall in your progress, take an nbme/or uwsa and see where you stand. I wish I would have taken one at the beginning of my study period to have a better handle on where I stood. It was crappy to realize three weeks into your study block that you aren't where you want to be.
-I wish someone told me how long it takes to get through uworld if you read the entire answer to every question. It takes about 3.5-4 hours per 46 questions to take the test, then carefully read/annotate. Looking back I spent the first week and a half or so working on the kaplan qbank and I wish I would have just started uworld at the beginning of my study block. I wanted to redo all of my incorrects and possibly do uworld 2x, but was only able to do my marked questions and a few exams of missed questions.
-Like everyone else, I think memorizing FA and using Uworld are the 2 best resources. I really liked goljan audio and rapid review. I used rapid review towards the end of my study period, which worked out well because I needed to dedicate the time early on to memorizing first aid. Towards the end, it was nice to add goljan rapid review b/c it made a lot of connections between the existing knowledge in my head. Plus after 3-4 run through's of FA, it's nice to see things in a different way.
My scores:
Uworld SA 1--216
Uworld SA 2--234
NBME 6: 224 (post-scoring scale change)
NBME 7: 231 (Post-scoring scale change)
Free 150: 85% (Medfriends says 249--I didn't care if it was an overprediction, I'll take the confidence boost 🙂)
Real deal: ?
There you have it. Best of luck to future test takers. Thanks to everyone who has gone before and provided great info.
Other content thoughts:
--All of my heart auscultation questions were the type where you move the "stethoscope" yourself. Even though I did the free 150 (the only place where you get that type of question that i know of) I still didn't feel comfortable with those questions. And I think they really tried to avoid giving the answer away in the stem.
--Lots of Pharm, and all but one drug were in FA. However, they were tricky about the presentation of a few of the drugs.
--I also had a few repeating theme's. I must have been asked about insulin C-peptide in 5 different ways. I think I had 3 questions where the person was abusing insulin because they were super hypoglycemic without any C peptide. I also had 3 questions about the hippocampus, I had to locate it on three different cross sections.
--Micro was so easy. Immunology was easier. biochem wasn't bad--all FA stuff.
Other than that here's what I've learned from this experience (some practical advice, some philosophy)--
-This was a really stressful experience. I was really humbled by it and will never judge anyone by their step I score. I went into this thing hoping for a 250 and after some practice tests, had to readjust my expectations. There were some nights where i just couldn't sleep and I took one benadryl before bed to help me sleep. That helped. I exercised most days, which is also important.
-I think the nbme's are really useful. It's really useful to know where you are at (more or less) throughout the process. Whenever you feel like you've hit a wall in your progress, take an nbme/or uwsa and see where you stand. I wish I would have taken one at the beginning of my study period to have a better handle on where I stood. It was crappy to realize three weeks into your study block that you aren't where you want to be.
-I wish someone told me how long it takes to get through uworld if you read the entire answer to every question. It takes about 3.5-4 hours per 46 questions to take the test, then carefully read/annotate. Looking back I spent the first week and a half or so working on the kaplan qbank and I wish I would have just started uworld at the beginning of my study block. I wanted to redo all of my incorrects and possibly do uworld 2x, but was only able to do my marked questions and a few exams of missed questions.
-Like everyone else, I think memorizing FA and using Uworld are the 2 best resources. I really liked goljan audio and rapid review. I used rapid review towards the end of my study period, which worked out well because I needed to dedicate the time early on to memorizing first aid. Towards the end, it was nice to add goljan rapid review b/c it made a lot of connections between the existing knowledge in my head. Plus after 3-4 run through's of FA, it's nice to see things in a different way.
My scores:
Uworld SA 1--216
Uworld SA 2--234
NBME 6: 224 (post-scoring scale change)
NBME 7: 231 (Post-scoring scale change)
Free 150: 85% (Medfriends says 249--I didn't care if it was an overprediction, I'll take the confidence boost 🙂)
Real deal: ?
There you have it. Best of luck to future test takers. Thanks to everyone who has gone before and provided great info.
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Took the beast today. I'll post in more detail later, but for right now I will say I am glad to be done, and that more time would not necessarily have helped me get more questions right. That and apparently hamster ovaries are important. Missed that section of FA 🙄
ohh shii.. with the heart sound questions, what's the best source to listen to the,?
everytime I hear one on UW, I can't tell if it's a S4 or an S1, for example... or sometimes I confuse S1 for a murmur. Sometimes the staticky noise in background makes me thing of PDA. I guess I never really learned heart sounds at all.. and normally glean the answer from the stem.
everytime I hear one on UW, I can't tell if it's a S4 or an S1, for example... or sometimes I confuse S1 for a murmur. Sometimes the staticky noise in background makes me thing of PDA. I guess I never really learned heart sounds at all.. and normally glean the answer from the stem.
I'm in the same group. Unless it's ridiculously obvious, I depend on the question stem giving me clues. Although, I want to learn how to ID heart sounds better for rotations, it will have to be after the USMLE. I think it would take way too long to learn them well now, and I just figured it isn't high yield enough to spend the time on. From what my friend shave said, almost all there questions gave clues and you didn't even have to listen.
Here's a good link if you do decide to learn or just want to have for later:http://www.3m.com/healthcare/littmann/start.htm
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My question is, on the step 1 what do you hear when the stethoscope is NOT at the right spot for the murmur?
Do you hear normal heart sounds? Do you still hear the murmur but its muffled because its not at the optimal spot?
It would be quite a bit more difficult if you had to first identify that a murmur exists but then have to figure out where you hear it best to get the right answer.
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The overall quality of the simulation of the murmurs was easily 10x better than either UW or RX. The vignette got me in the ball park for each question, but I did need to at least locate the murmur and estimate sys/dia. You could hear the murmur at more than 1 spot sometimes, but it changed significantly in quality and volume, so I thought it was pretty clear where it was supposed to be best heard. That and the vignette had me expecting those anyways.
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I agree. I liked the simulation on the real thing as well. You could move the bell away from the murmur and could more easily hear S1 and S2. Sometimes I would get confused with UW questions because S1 and S2 are overpowered by the murmur. It shouldn't throw me off, but sometimes I doubt myself on whether it's diastolic or systolic. Silly, but true.
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Does the real deal interface look/act like U-world or the NBME's?
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Someone said on another thread that it looks very much like Uworld.
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congrats!!! i would be thrilled with that score. and its over! 🙂
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Do you guys think NBME q's are worth doing for learning purposes (not self-assessment?). I'm stuck between doing UW mistakes or NBME q's.
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First time poster!! This waiting around is killing me! I took my exam on april 26, on a tuesday... I was wondering if my score will arrive on exactly 3 wednesday cause by that count it may arrive this wednesday (may 11) 
, is my logic correct or will I still have to wait 2 more weeks, dont know what ill do till then! Any experience from exam takers on a tuesday will be greatly appreciated!
My stats prior to taking the exam where:
qbank 72 %
uworld 76%
nbme form 3, 1 month before 610
Nbme form 7, 1 week before 590
Think I have any shot of crossing the 250 line??
, is my logic correct or will I still have to wait 2 more weeks, dont know what ill do till then! Any experience from exam takers on a tuesday will be greatly appreciated!My stats prior to taking the exam where:
qbank 72 %
uworld 76%
nbme form 3, 1 month before 610
Nbme form 7, 1 week before 590
Think I have any shot of crossing the 250 line??
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Identical to uworld in every way.
In regards to heart sounds, I had three questions with them and they never described anything in the question to give you a hint as to what it was, they wanted you to know what it sounded like. On questions without a media they described it like you would expect. Also be ware that you have to move the steth yourself. I was confused at first bc the heart sounded normal haha, then saw that I could move it around
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maybe. i had 88% on UWorld and 76% on qbank. i scored a 249.
according to kaplan, a 76% (1st pass) equates to a 250. it was pretty accurate for me.
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Hey guys,
so I'm supposed to start real Step 1 studying this week, and I'm considering taking some kind of diagnostic at first so that I know just how f'd I am before I start. Any suggestions for the best diagnostic? I have UWorld by the way, considering getting a Kaplan qbank as well to have some "easier" questions lying around.
so I'm supposed to start real Step 1 studying this week, and I'm considering taking some kind of diagnostic at first so that I know just how f'd I am before I start. Any suggestions for the best diagnostic? I have UWorld by the way, considering getting a Kaplan qbank as well to have some "easier" questions lying around.
To anyone who has taken the test recently:
Did you see any repeats from NBME 11/12? Or even 6/7 for that matter?
I'm wondering if its worth doing those just for that reason alone... 1 week left for me!
Did you see any repeats from NBME 11/12? Or even 6/7 for that matter?
I'm wondering if its worth doing those just for that reason alone... 1 week left for me!
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I only took NBME 7, but I did not see any repeat questions. Definitely repeated topics, but no verbatim questions that I could recall.
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I took my exam on april 28. I had a couple of exact repeat questions from NBME 6 & 7...I can't remember which one they came from but these are the only two NBME's I did...
I would recommend doing 6 and 7 because these are historically the best at "predicting your actual score" according to the last couple of years of posts in this forum.
If you are taking your test in late May or later, do 11 and 12 because I hear these are supposed to represent the newer questions coming to the actual step 1. (I heard that the question pool for the actual exam will be changing up a little bit later this summer)
I would recommend doing 6 and 7 because these are historically the best at "predicting your actual score" according to the last couple of years of posts in this forum.
If you are taking your test in late May or later, do 11 and 12 because I hear these are supposed to represent the newer questions coming to the actual step 1. (I heard that the question pool for the actual exam will be changing up a little bit later this summer)
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Do any of you recommend taking the practice NBME at the actual testing center? I will be done with my first pass of Uworld and First Aid on Monday the 16th, and I take my exam on June 6th. My goal is to get through Uworld once more, first aid once more, and 2 Uworld assessments and 1 or 2 NBME assessments....doable?
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Took the exam yesterday
I will echo what several others have said; whats "high yield" was high yield. What wasn't high yield was also high yield 🙄
In a nutshell, everything in FA is fair game. Uworld is EXCELLENT preparation; I had questions which were taken straight from uworld/uwsa. I actually considered the real thing closer to the difficulty levels of uwsa than nbmes but ofcourse the latter may predict scores better.
Goljan was the man as well; could literally hear him talk on certain questions 🙂
If I had to study all over again (NO PLEASE NOooo), it'd be FA, uworld and rapid review path/ shady goljan audio.
Congratulations to those dunzo and good luck to all who're about to make the plunge!
I will echo what several others have said; whats "high yield" was high yield. What wasn't high yield was also high yield 🙄
In a nutshell, everything in FA is fair game. Uworld is EXCELLENT preparation; I had questions which were taken straight from uworld/uwsa. I actually considered the real thing closer to the difficulty levels of uwsa than nbmes but ofcourse the latter may predict scores better.
Goljan was the man as well; could literally hear him talk on certain questions 🙂
If I had to study all over again (NO PLEASE NOooo), it'd be FA, uworld and rapid review path/ shady goljan audio.
Congratulations to those dunzo and good luck to all who're about to make the plunge!
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