Official 2011 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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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.
 
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kingofthehill said:
I just took my first NBME (#11), and I was surprised at how difficult the behavioral "what is the right thing to do?" type questions were. Wow. What is everyone studying for behavioral, b/c that section in FA is obviously not sufficient. I have BRS Behavioral, haven't read that, should I? It's long, surely there's something else out there that would work also...don't wanna spend too much time on that. Any advice?
Click to expand...

if you're talking only about the ethics questions, then BRS has a nice section on that, but the kaplan chapter in the BSP book is really good as well. If the UW questions aren't enough, if you have the kaplan qbank/rx take a look at those. Those type of questions are kind of a mix between knowing what's right + knowing what they're looking for (actually, I guess that's just about every damn questions haha). Repetition of questions is key for those IMO.
 
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pullandbear said:
Thanks for the update! I got a quick question. How important did you feel RR Goljan and his audio were? I don't have much time left and I'm trying to stick with the most useful stuff only. And how many images did you have? Thanks!
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i tried to read RR but it was just to dense for me but i did listen to his audios during basic sciences and 1 time during my dedicated study period and then i read the audio transcript that are floating around online. if you dont have much time left my best advice would be to stick to FA and uworld....everything is there....there was nothing on my exam that i was like i've never seen before besides the experimental genetics stuff that you had to kind of figure out but then at the end might end up remembering what it was similar too. I had about like 2 or 3 images per block - some were the very obvious (keiser fleisher ring, blue sclera) and more CT scans (an upper thoracic, a CT scan of pnuemothorax, and some lower limb muscles and one pelvic scan).

that being said - i have no idea how i did - some blocks were much easier then others but over all there was a good variation in diffulty level of the questions......just be confident that is very important......i was freaking out the weekend before my exam because I had only done NBME 12 2 weeks before my exam and got 217 and did NBME 11 1 week before and got 231 so the range was really varied....i finally decided to do NBME 7 2 days before my exam and got a 235 so it calmed my nerves down a little bit.....i tried to study on sunday the day before my exam but i felt like my eyeballs had exploded and i forgot how to read sooooo i would advise to just relax the day before or do light review of the charts in the back of FA (actually never got a chance to get through them)
 
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Step1Hash said:
I used this http://www.visiblebody.com/ during anatomy class in MS1...soo helpful and mostly accurate. Much better that using an atlas at times.... heres a demo http://www.visiblebody.com/tour_demos

They used to have a 1 month free trial which I used like 6 times with different email addresses...no more trial now. But its only like 15 bucks for 5 months if you're a student.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
I looked at their 1 minute demo and it looks good. But there were no labels at all. In the real thing is every structure labeled? And how is it for neuroanatomy?
 
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Nellyakgo said:
Thanks!
I looked at their 1 minute demo and it looks good. But there were no labels at all. In the real thing is every structure labeled? And how is it for neuroanatomy?
Click to expand...

when you click on s nerve/artery/anything it will show you the name of what you clicked on on the top. Check out the demo -- its of the head -- so if you just want it for neuro its free. The demo is the exact same thing as the real program, just your limited to the head.
 
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hyrule said:
Anyone know if you can bring up the lab values and have it be to the right side of the questions at all times? I normally do this on NBMEs to decrease the width of the question stems

I ask b/c I hate how in the NBMEs, the text extends all the way across the monitor... and you have to scan the whole width of your screen for each line.

Also, is there a way I can see the tutorial somewhere online before the test so I can use those 15 mins for break? I hear there's a buncha keyboard shortcuts
Click to expand...

bump if anyone has any insight... taking the beast tomorrow :scared:
 
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Wow. Wrote the exam today. Everything seemed like a blur. I was so happy it looked exactly like uworld, but then again, as I was pacing through it, I was getting down and sadder cause it was just as hard; harder even.

Didn't get any MRI. I got mostly endo (the inc, decreased type of relationship), lots of elderly with meds and how they affect each other, some micro, maybe 10 biostat questions; genetics like 2-3 pedigrees and 2 questions about a couple's offspring's chances of getting such a disease if one is a carrier- you know the drill. The harder part is that the vignette would ask you about a certain disease- no buzzwords or anything and then the choices given to you would be the description of what type of mutation might have happened. And then the rest are mostly pathophysiology where Uworld questions I think are good at.

I think the worst for me, is that it was timed, and I didn't really have time to do all of it. I didn't get tired, I even did 2 blocks at a time, cause it really literally went too quick for me. If only I have some more minutes just so I could go back to the other questions I missed,but, don't we all? *sigh*

My advice would be to have a solid knowledge of everything. Know the basics. Don't waste time reading tons of material, especially if you have a good background. You need to know FA cover to cover, and memorize by heart, as if you're seeing a patient when you read the questions.

And get 8 hours of sleep before.

Here's hoping the best for all of us. God bless us all.
 
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Msttelschmerz said:
Wow. Wrote the exam today. Everything seemed like a blur. I was so happy it looked exactly like uworld, but then again, as I was pacing through it, I was getting down and sadder cause it was just as hard; harder even.

Didn't get any MRI. I got mostly endo (the inc, decreased type of relationship), lots of elderly with meds and how they affect each other, some micro, maybe 10 biostat questions; genetics like 2-3 pedigrees and 2 questions about a couple's offspring's chances of getting such a disease if one is a carrier- you know the drill. The harder part is that the vignette would ask you about a certain disease- no buzzwords or anything and then the choices given to you would be the description of what type of mutation might have happened. And then the rest are mostly pathophysiology where Uworld questions I think are good at.

I think the worst for me, is that it was timed, and I didn't really have time to do all of it. I didn't get tired, I even did 2 blocks at a time, cause it really literally went too quick for me. If only I have some more minutes just so I could go back to the other questions I missed,but, don't we all? *sigh*

My advice would be to have a solid knowledge of everything. Know the basics. Don't waste time reading tons of material, especially if you have a good background. You need to know FA cover to cover, and memorize by heart, as if you're seeing a patient when you read the questions.

And get 8 hours of sleep before.

Here's hoping the best for all of us. God bless us all.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think that maybe nerves and being anxious contributed to you feeling like Step was harder than UW? I don't often hear that.

@Hyrule: good luck!
 
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exi said:
Thanks for sharing your experience. Do you think that maybe nerves and being anxious contributed to you feeling like Step was harder than UW? I don't often hear that.
Click to expand...

Yeah it could be that too. I also think that it's a game of chance. Because I'm not a genius to be able to cover everything and know everything, but, if I luckily get most questions that I know, then I have higher chances of breaking a high score.

That's why Goljan always say you have to know your high yields. And it is true. And practice practice practice. 🙂

Dr. Lionel Raymond's ANS problems in Pharm Kaplan vid helped too btw. 🙂
 
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I'm taking the test in late June...initially aimed for early June, but changed my mind given the long wait for results.

I'm not sure how I should go about the last few weeks. The other day, I went to Kinkos and photocopied all the pages in F.A. I've struggled to learn/memorize. This was easy to do since my F.A. was already unbound. I asked to have the pages bound together into a little notebook to carry around. Hoping that's worth something.

I've finished about 95% of UW with a 71% (I had a 3 month subscription so the first few blocks were no bueno...last few blocks have risen from the late 60s to late 70s/early 80%). I took NBME 11 a few weeks ago and scored a 224. Cardiophys is killing me! It was taught poorly at school, so things like heart sounds are a definite weakness. I read BRS physi-cardio several times but that hasn't been enough. Anyone know of a good source?

In a few days, I plan to take at least one diagnostic test per week, starting with the UW assessments then NBMEs 12, 6 and 7 (in that order), with 7 a few days before the real thing.

My goal score is a 240+ -- is that realistic ? I wanted a 99 but I just heard that only the top number will be reported from now on. Boo.
 
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Maalik Ashtaar said:
Just took it today came out feeling like all of dreams were crushed.
I was surprised at just how similar it was to Uworld, it's the EXACT layout which is great, I didn't get a lot of anatomy questions [lol which is good since I didn't bother reviewing the innervation of the lower limbs] it didn't really seem that hard knowledge wise I just didn't know a lot of things.
Preparing for the worst case scenario and so I'll start back studying after my week vacation.
Click to expand...

unless you planned on failing it, you don't get to retake the exam


----
do scores come out tomorrow?
 
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Day man said:
if you're talking only about the ethics questions, then BRS has a nice section on that, but the kaplan chapter in the BSP book is really good as well. If the UW questions aren't enough, if you have the kaplan qbank/rx take a look at those. Those type of questions are kind of a mix between knowing what's right + knowing what they're looking for (actually, I guess that's just about every damn questions haha). Repetition of questions is key for those IMO.
Click to expand...

Thanks Day man I'll take a look at that chapter, just saw that actually. I guess that's all I can do. I personally thought the uworld ethics questions weren't as bad, that's why I was surprised.
 
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I took it yesterday as well. My question prep consisted of doing all of Kaplan Q bank, UWorld, NBME 7 and UW sim exams 1 and 2. Other than that, I spent most of my time going through First Aid. I got through all of it twice, and some of it 3 times. I feel like for the bulk of it FA is sufficient, the rest comes from test taking ability that you gain by doing as many practice questions as possible. With that said, there is ALWAYS gonna be something that you don't know and you just try to narrow the answer choices down and make an educated guess.

I would say the difficulty felt very similar to UWorld. I only had 2 heart sound questions, one was very straightforward, the other didn't seem to have an answer choice that made sense. Several genetic pedigrees, all the pharm save 1 drug was out of FA (2009). Biochem was pretty much out of FA, except for a weird question about tRNA that I may have just been reading wrong. Only one behavioral science question that I wasn't moderately sure about. I felt like the lab results were really long for several questions and it required you to check like 15 values just to make sure you aren't missing something. Not too many calculations, although I did have one difficult one about Vd that I still don't know how to do.

I didn't have any problem with timing, although I'm generally a fast test taker. From what I read on the NBME site, most of us taking it in late May/all of June will have to wait until July 13 for our scores. That's really disappointing, but if I can come close to the scores I got on practice tests, I'd be willing to forgive it 🙂.
 
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How are the UW Simulations? I've done an NBME and thought it was good practice, but UWorlds explanations are really complete. Do you feel u got a lot out of them?
 
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devlyyn said:
I took it yesterday as well. My question prep consisted of doing all of Kaplan Q bank, UWorld, NBME 7 and UW sim exams 1 and 2. Other than that, I spent most of my time going through First Aid. I got through all of it twice, and some of it 3 times. I feel like for the bulk of it FA is sufficient, the rest comes from test taking ability that you gain by doing as many practice questions as possible. With that said, there is ALWAYS gonna be something that you don't know and you just try to narrow the answer choices down and make an educated guess.

I would say the difficulty felt very similar to UWorld. I only had 2 heart sound questions, one was very straightforward, the other didn't seem to have an answer choice that made sense. Several genetic pedigrees, all the pharm save 1 drug was out of FA (2009). Biochem was pretty much out of FA, except for a weird question about tRNA that I may have just been reading wrong. Only one behavioral science question that I wasn't moderately sure about. I felt like the lab results were really long for several questions and it required you to check like 15 values just to make sure you aren't missing something. Not too many calculations, although I did have one difficult one about Vd that I still don't know how to do.

I didn't have any problem with timing, although I'm generally a fast test taker. From what I read on the NBME site, most of us taking it in late May/all of June will have to wait until July 13 for our scores. That's really disappointing, but if I can come close to the scores I got on practice tests, I'd be willing to forgive it 🙂.
Click to expand...

Quick question. When you say FA covered the bulk. Do you mean like a little over 50% or like the vast majority of it (80-90%)? And did you get any strange anatomy questions? Thanks!
 
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pullandbear said:
Quick question. When you say FA covered the bulk. Do you mean like a little over 50% or like the vast majority of it (80-90%)? And did you get any strange anatomy questions? Thanks!
Click to expand...

You can probably find the "details" of at least 90%, if not more, on FA. However, receiving the information in bullet-point format in FA isn't necessarily enough for everyone to process the significance of those details.
 
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kingofthehill said:
I just took my first NBME (#11), and I was surprised at how difficult the behavioral "what is the right thing to do?" type questions were. Wow. What is everyone studying for behavioral, b/c that section in FA is obviously not sufficient. I have BRS Behavioral, haven't read that, should I? It's long, surely there's something else out there that would work also...don't wanna spend too much time on that. Any advice?
Click to expand...

I read High Yield Behavioral; it was a quick read, and I thought it was great. It really lived up to its name.
 
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Yeah, what I mean by that is that I think First Aid is sufficient in all the details, but there are some questions that are more conceptual and even if you had First Aid open right before you, you wouldn't necessarily get it right. That's why I think First Aid + as many questions as you possibly can do is the best way to study.
 
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RySerr21 said:
yup....expecting mine sometime in the morning.....😱
Click to expand...

Did you take it May 4th, or the week before that?

I just want to get a feel for whether it's taking 3 weeks or 4 for most people. I took it on the 4th, and would love to get my score today.
 
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Has anyone had any experience with the kaplan genetics lectures?
 
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clinicallabguy said:
Did you take it May 4th, or the week before that?

I just want to get a feel for whether it's taking 3 weeks or 4 for most people. I took it on the 4th, and would love to get my score today.
Click to expand...


i havent heard of it taking 4 weeks for anybody, its pretty much always been 3. I took it on the 5th. Man, last night was the worst sleep ive had in a looong time. I just want to get it over with already!
 
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RySerr21 said:
i havent heard of it taking 4 weeks for anybody, its pretty much always been 3. I took it on the 5th. Man, last night was the worst sleep ive had in a looong time. I just want to get it over with already!
Click to expand...

Hope you get the score you want!
 
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RySerr21 said:
i havent heard of it taking 4 weeks for anybody, its pretty much always been 3. I took it on the 5th. Man, last night was the worst sleep ive had in a looong time. I just want to get it over with already!
Click to expand...


Ya man, hope things go well for you today. This wait is terrible, it has only been 1 week so far for me.
 
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Hey guys, so I just finished my 1st year and I thought about reading First Aid little by little throughout my 2nd year so it doesn't become a huge stress later on when I'm officially studying for step 1. Is it pretty much required you have to know FA cover to cover? How many passes does that take in general? It's like 500 pages, a LOT of stuff.
 
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just took it today...and didn't feel too good afterwards.
I was marking about 10 questions per block and after I got home I checked some of the unmarked questions (aka questions that I thought I got right), and found out they were wrong...there were like 8 of those. and then I stopped checking cause i don't wanna feel more depressed. sigh...I was hitting high 230s in the practice test, but at this point, I'll be lucky to get above 230. I guess i'll found out in 6 weeks..the wait is killing me
 
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XRanger said:
just took it today...and didn't feel too good afterwards.
I was marking about 10 questions per block and after I got home I checked some of the unmarked questions (aka questions that I thought I got right), and found out they were wrong...there were like 8 of those. and then I stopped checking cause i don't wanna feel more depressed. sigh...I was hitting high 230s in the practice test, but at this point, I'll be lucky to get above 230. I guess i'll found out in 6 weeks..the wait is killing me
Click to expand...

I can't speak from experience until next weekend, but all I can really say is that I've talked to far, far more people who hated themselves after the test (who then found out they did fine weeks later) than I have people who said it went well. Pretty sure the consensus is that you probably didn't do nearly as bad as you're worried you might've. Hang in there man. 👍
 
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Test was insane. I got destroyed. Way harder than UW or the NBMEs. I went in there feeling pretty good since I was doing well on the last few NBMEs, and I had heard 11 and 12 were a good representation. Man, I was wrong: the real deal made NBME 12 look like a joke. I would mark 6-7 questions per block on the NBMEs.

On the real deal: For 5 out of the 7 blocks, I marked 18-22 questions, basically half the block :/ Block 1 was the worst for me. I ended up marking questions 1-10 consecutively. Very very demoralizing. I was surprised by the lack of giveaways. There were maybe 2 questions/block that were considered "easy." No giveaways, no high yield topics. Question stems were twice as long. The answer choices were very very close. I think this was what stood out the most. With the NBMEs, very few questions had close answer choices. There were so many Qs where I had to narrow down the answer from 3 choices.. never had this happened before.

Content wise: good stuff first: barely any anatomy, easy embryo,easy pharm

Bad: Surprisingly, the hardest was Microbio on my test. The most random bugs: the little random details you wouldn't expect anyone to ask... bugs I'd never encountered on any other practice question. Lots of biochem: some was fine, some were tricky.There wasn't that much Immuno, but damn it was ridiculous. Random cytokines/Interleukins that were not in FA. The biggest problem I had with the test was that you couldn't get that far with "reasoning" ... you either knew it or you didn't. I got unlucky in some areas. For ex, endocrinology is probably my strongest subject. So I didn't spend much time studying random details that simply never really appeared on practice questions. I ended up having 5-6 questions on IGF-1, something I glanced at maybe once in my studying.

Overall hardest test I've ever taken. If I absolutely had to pick one source that was similar, I guess it'd have to be UWorld. Practice NBMEs were not very helpful for preparation for the test. The test was all details... the more you know, the longer you studied, the better you'd do I guess. You've gotta know everything. Score prediction: 20 points lower than practice tests.
 
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I don't know whether to be happy or underwhelmed. Last week I took NBME 6 and got a 224. Today I took UWSA1 and got a 242. I was so ecstatic. But is it true that UWSA1 overestimates where you are actually at? Sigh. I was hoping to truly be at around the 240 mark. I've been studying nonstop everyday. I'm 2 weeks out. What do you guys think?
 
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XRanger said:
just took it today...and didn't feel too good afterwards.
I was marking about 10 questions per block and after I got home I checked some of the unmarked questions (aka questions that I thought I got right), and found out they were wrong...there were like 8 of those. and then I stopped checking cause i don't wanna feel more depressed. sigh...I was hitting high 230s in the practice test, but at this point, I'll be lucky to get above 230. I guess i'll found out in 6 weeks..the wait is killing me
Click to expand...

Ranger, I feel the same way. I made the mistake of looking up answers and getting them wrong. Starting to freak out.

Must stay calm !
 
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hyrule said:
Test was insane. I got destroyed. Way harder than UW or the NBMEs. I went in there feeling pretty good since I was doing well on the last few NBMEs, and I had heard 11 and 12 were a good representation. Man, I was wrong: the real deal made NBME 12 look like a joke. I would mark 6-7 questions per block on the NBMEs.

On the real deal: For 5 out of the 7 blocks, I marked 18-22 questions, basically half the block :/ Block 1 was the worst for me. I ended up marking questions 1-10 consecutively. Very very demoralizing. I was surprised by the lack of giveaways. There were maybe 2 questions/block that were considered "easy." No giveaways, no high yield topics. Question stems were twice as long. The answer choices were very very close. I think this was what stood out the most. With the NBMEs, very few questions had close answer choices. There were so many Qs where I had to narrow down the answer from 3 choices.. never had this happened before.

Content wise: good stuff first: barely any anatomy, easy embryo,easy pharm

Bad: Surprisingly, the hardest was Microbio on my test. The most random bugs: the little random details you wouldn't expect anyone to ask... bugs I'd never encountered on any other practice question. Lots of biochem: some was fine, some were tricky.There wasn't that much Immuno, but damn it was ridiculous. Random cytokines/Interleukins that were not in FA. The biggest problem I had with the test was that you couldn't get that far with "reasoning" ... you either knew it or you didn't. I got unlucky in some areas. For ex, endocrinology is probably my strongest subject. So I didn't spend much time studying random details that simply never really appeared on practice questions. I ended up having 5-6 questions on IGF-1, something I glanced at maybe once in my studying.

Overall hardest test I've ever taken. If I absolutely had to pick one source that was similar, I guess it'd have to be UWorld. Practice NBMEs were not very helpful for preparation for the test. The test was all details... the more you know, the longer you studied, the better you'd do I guess. You've gotta know everything. Score prediction: 20 points lower than practice tests.
Click to expand...

Hang in there... Maybe you got the test that will have a humongous curve. Your experience is freaking me out a little though...
 
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hyrule said:
Test was insane. I got destroyed. Way harder than UW or the NBMEs. I went in there feeling pretty good since I was doing well on the last few NBMEs, and I had heard 11 and 12 were a good representation. Man, I was wrong: the real deal made NBME 12 look like a joke. I would mark 6-7 questions per block on the NBMEs.

On the real deal: For 5 out of the 7 blocks, I marked 18-22 questions, basically half the block :/ Block 1 was the worst for me. I ended up marking questions 1-10 consecutively. Very very demoralizing. I was surprised by the lack of giveaways. There were maybe 2 questions/block that were considered "easy." No giveaways, no high yield topics. Question stems were twice as long. The answer choices were very very close. I think this was what stood out the most. With the NBMEs, very few questions had close answer choices. There were so many Qs where I had to narrow down the answer from 3 choices.. never had this happened before.

Content wise: good stuff first: barely any anatomy, easy embryo,easy pharm

Bad: Surprisingly, the hardest was Microbio on my test. The most random bugs: the little random details you wouldn't expect anyone to ask... bugs I'd never encountered on any other practice question. Lots of biochem: some was fine, some were tricky.There wasn't that much Immuno, but damn it was ridiculous. Random cytokines/Interleukins that were not in FA. The biggest problem I had with the test was that you couldn't get that far with "reasoning" ... you either knew it or you didn't. I got unlucky in some areas. For ex, endocrinology is probably my strongest subject. So I didn't spend much time studying random details that simply never really appeared on practice questions. I ended up having 5-6 questions on IGF-1, something I glanced at maybe once in my studying.

Overall hardest test I've ever taken. If I absolutely had to pick one source that was similar, I guess it'd have to be UWorld. Practice NBMEs were not very helpful for preparation for the test. The test was all details... the more you know, the longer you studied, the better you'd do I guess. You've gotta know everything. Score prediction: 20 points lower than practice tests.
Click to expand...

ok, wow. This is something I didn't need to read. But hopefully it went well.
 
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dude1344 said:
Hang in there... Maybe you got the test that will have a humongous curve. Your experience is freaking me out a little though...
Click to expand...

lol sorry didn't mean to do that... I'm hoping it had a good curve. Many other people had "fair" tests. You don't really know.. so go in there confident.
 
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hyrule said:
lol sorry didn't mean to do that... I'm hoping it had a good curve. Many other people had "fair" tests. You don't really know.. so go in there confident.
Click to expand...
Your practice test scores were awesome...I'm sure this score will be very similar to your practice tests. Even if your score drops 10 pts, you're still in a great position.

Thanks for the post! And time for you to take your well-deserved break 🙂 Congrats!!!
 
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hyrule said:
Test was insane. I got destroyed. Way harder than UW or the NBMEs. I went in there feeling pretty good since I was doing well on the last few NBMEs, and I had heard 11 and 12 were a good representation. Man, I was wrong: the real deal made NBME 12 look like a joke. I would mark 6-7 questions per block on the NBMEs.

On the real deal: For 5 out of the 7 blocks, I marked 18-22 questions, basically half the block :/ Block 1 was the worst for me. I ended up marking questions 1-10 consecutively. Very very demoralizing. I was surprised by the lack of giveaways. There were maybe 2 questions/block that were considered "easy." No giveaways, no high yield topics. Question stems were twice as long. The answer choices were very very close. I think this was what stood out the most. With the NBMEs, very few questions had close answer choices. There were so many Qs where I had to narrow down the answer from 3 choices.. never had this happened before.

Content wise: good stuff first: barely any anatomy, easy embryo,easy pharm

Bad: Surprisingly, the hardest was Microbio on my test. The most random bugs: the little random details you wouldn't expect anyone to ask... bugs I'd never encountered on any other practice question. Lots of biochem: some was fine, some were tricky.There wasn't that much Immuno, but damn it was ridiculous. Random cytokines/Interleukins that were not in FA. The biggest problem I had with the test was that you couldn't get that far with "reasoning" ... you either knew it or you didn't. I got unlucky in some areas. For ex, endocrinology is probably my strongest subject. So I didn't spend much time studying random details that simply never really appeared on practice questions. I ended up having 5-6 questions on IGF-1, something I glanced at maybe once in my studying.

Overall hardest test I've ever taken. If I absolutely had to pick one source that was similar, I guess it'd have to be UWorld. Practice NBMEs were not very helpful for preparation for the test. The test was all details... the more you know, the longer you studied, the better you'd do I guess. You've gotta know everything. Score prediction: 20 points lower than practice tests.
Click to expand...
Looks like we had a fairly similar experience. Lets keep our fingers crossed that the curve will be generous and that it wasn't simply us getting slammed on our weaknesses. :xf:

On a morbidly funny note, I remember you reading my testing experience and posting this:

hyrule said:
omg this is depressing
Click to expand...
 
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