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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
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FA = first aid, it is a series of books written for exams. So if you google First Aid for Step 1 you'll find the book for sale on many bookstore websites.
NBME = national board of medical examiners, it is the governing body over all healthcare examinations in the USA. http://www.nbme.org/
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DONE DONE DONE !!!! 😀
NBME 6-207
NBME11-210
NBME12-205
NBME7-207
UWSA1-220
UWSA2-230
I was so nervous when i checked in, but as soon as i started answering questions from 1st block i was ease lol ( for sometime ). My exam was heavy on MICRO,PHARM,ETHICAL ( yes ETHICAL) questions. Overall exam covered every single topic from FA. I was surprised that some of the questions were so easy, it was like examiner is telling you what the dx is lol. In each block i had atleast 3-4 questions which i had no clue, i couldn't no clue in question stem. I had no only 3 Female Pelvic questions very easy. 10-11 pictures including ct's, x-rays and histology slides and one brachial plexus question. I had 6 repeat questions from nbme 11, 12 and 7. One question was copy pasted from nbme 7 lol ( CA*** REPEAT DISORDER where you have calculate something and go across chart HINT!!!) No angiograms surprisingly, no Hep question.
Overall exam was well written, and it covered majority of system, only one DNA question which i had no clue what they were asking, drawing was weird.
As you can see my nbme scores, i am just hoping to get atleast >190 i will be happy.
Thanks
NBME 6-207
NBME11-210
NBME12-205
NBME7-207
UWSA1-220
UWSA2-230
I was so nervous when i checked in, but as soon as i started answering questions from 1st block i was ease lol ( for sometime ). My exam was heavy on MICRO,PHARM,ETHICAL ( yes ETHICAL) questions. Overall exam covered every single topic from FA. I was surprised that some of the questions were so easy, it was like examiner is telling you what the dx is lol. In each block i had atleast 3-4 questions which i had no clue, i couldn't no clue in question stem. I had no only 3 Female Pelvic questions very easy. 10-11 pictures including ct's, x-rays and histology slides and one brachial plexus question. I had 6 repeat questions from nbme 11, 12 and 7. One question was copy pasted from nbme 7 lol ( CA*** REPEAT DISORDER where you have calculate something and go across chart HINT!!!) No angiograms surprisingly, no Hep question.
Overall exam was well written, and it covered majority of system, only one DNA question which i had no clue what they were asking, drawing was weird.
As you can see my nbme scores, i am just hoping to get atleast >190 i will be happy.
Thanks
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congrats on being done ! i'm sure you did great
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pppsshhh on block 1-5, i marked 15-23 questions eachh. hahaha im screweddddddddddd
How did you guys mark questions? For the few that I didn't feel I could answer in a minute or so, I just left them unanswered and returned to them after I finished the block. I marked questions that I wanted to double check on if I had time available at the end out of concern for possibly having made a simple mistake.
I would flag any question i was not 100% sure on. I would add a note (just type a random letter so the note symbol comes up) to any one I really felt I had to come back and look over again. I would leave blank ones that I had no clue / were taking too long to answer. If I was able to review all the ones I added a note to / the blank ones, I would then go over the ones that were just flagged. In the end I marked (in total) 15-20 per block.
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Haha....I was wondering the same thing....also, has anyone tried just skipping their weaker areas and hitting them at the end? For instance, I tend to spend a ton of time on questions with lab values or questions asking about drug X/Y....would it be wise to save those till the end? Thanks!
took the test yesterday. Still so exhausted, by the time 430 rolled around I was totally fried. I've gotten some good info from this thread so i'll offer some feedback.
First of all, I have to say, I don't know how much trust i put in the concept that some forms of this test are 'easy' and some are 'hard. I'm absolutely certain that there are various different forms, obviously - and that curves will vary slightly based on this, but I give the NBME enough credit to say that for the most part they don't allow for wild variability from test to test. I just don't think some of us get forms with 100 obscure pelvic anatomy questions while others get a test that was entirely based off first aid or easier concepts.
That being said, the test isn't easy by any means, It's also not impossible. I would agree most with step1Hash's breakdown , I think close to 80% or so of the questions are answerable based on first aid/uworld, maybe 85% if you really memorized the crap out of uworld. Based on First aid ALONE, I would say you can probably regurgitate 50% of the test, and with some proper test taking and deducing skills + FA , likely around 65-70%.
It's not harder than Uworld, It's not easier than Uworld, I would say there are some questions that are harder, and some that are easier, with most around the same difficulty. Difficulty wise it seemed most similar to nbme 11, but with more 'gimmie' questions.
Okay, subject wise, here is what I felt :
Behavioral : super easy. dumb easy. Only a few difficult 'what would you say', or 'what would you do' questions on which more than 1 answer seemed right. This was expected based on other's experiences. The equations/statistics questions were mostly pretty easy, i had 1 really bizarre obscure one.
Embryo: Not a ton. Either very easy or very obscure. Maybe 7-8 questions total. Half i knew from FA, the rest i just guessed.
Biochem : Very straightforward. Not a ton , maybe 5-7 per block. Most of them were straightforward, a few tough ones as expected. Basic diseases/pathways/disorders they always ask.
Cell/Molecular Bio/Genetics : Wow. I would say this section had most of the 'tricky'/difficult questions on this exam. A lot of it was the obvious G receptor/CAMP stuff, but they really made you work for the answer - they often wrapped what they were asking in an obscure experiment or hard to understand concept. There were some easy pedigrees and genetics questions, but also some really hard obscure questions involving random genes and knockout/deletions i hadn't heard of. I can absolutely see why people would say they had questions here that they had never seen/heard of. Again - i think the difficulty was in figuring out WHAT they were asking without wasting a crapload of time. For the ones i didn't know, not even sure where i'd look - they were that obscure.
Micro/Immuno - pretty straightforward for the most part. Immuno was harder than micro. Reasonable amount of easy questions, but a lot of 'made you think' questions. Again, stuff that isn't really mentioned in FA, but you can probably deduce based on what they gave you in First aid. I had a few here that I just didn't know..Probably only 2-3 markers/IL's that i hadn't seen before though. First aid is enough.
Physiology: Some easy, some hard. Some of the arrow questions were definitely tricky, but many were doable based on common sense/ general knowledge. For the most part, first aid was enough.
Anatomy : Expectedly difficult. Some of it I was able to get based on First aid, but a fair amount of it was harder. A good amount of pelvic anatomy as others have mentioned. If i messed up on this test, it's mostly becuase of this section, but Honestly, not anything worth studying. You'll probably get the easier ones right, and the harder ones aren't worth wasting time going through a atlas for. The answers weren't really in HY anatomy either.
Path : Mostly bread and butter. The occasional difficult 'wtf' question on some random pathology or presentation that i had never heard of. Mostly your bread and butter stuff, first aid was enough.
Repro: A decent amount of questions, nothing hard, nothing that wasn't in FA or could be figured out from FA.
Endo: Not too bad. first aid definitely enough.
Neuro: Not too bad, basic lesions/blood supply/diseases you would expect. Mostly bread and butter. First aid is more than enough. Some pics of the brain/stem etc, easy though.
Psych: Easy. Nothing too hard. First aid enough.
GI: Mostly bread and butter. common presentations and drugs, first aid enough.
Cardio: First aid was mostly enough. most questions were physio based. I only had 2-3 murmur questions; but you could often 'figure it out' based on presentation. Path was straightforward. First aid is enough.
Heme/onc - some easy, some hard. most of it is in FA, the stuff that isn't you can likely figure out from FA.
Overall it was a difficult test, but a fair test. As i said before, I can easily see where people would say some questions were out of the blue / way too hard - but again, if you really read into them you could usually see what they were getting at/implying/asking. Wether these are 'experimental' or not is beyond me. I probably had 5-6 questions per block where i really didn't know what they were talking about. I marked questions pretty liberally on some blocks, up to 15-20 on the high end, 5-8 on the low end. I made some dumb mistakes, got some easy questions wrong, and definitely missed stuff that i thought wasn't in first aid - when i got home and looked over FA I saw that most of the stuff i got wrong was in there, just not presented as clearly.
If i could do it again, I don't know what i'd do different. I made some really dumb mistakes, overthought some questions, wasted too much time on the 'superhard' questions..but that's the kind of stuff you can't really prepare for. I'm just happy to be done. Not sure how many questions per block it takes to 'pass', but if the curve is anything like the NBME, where you need 30/46 just to get a 190 - i'm in trouble, haha.
good luck to everyone and feel free to ask if you have any questions.
First of all, I have to say, I don't know how much trust i put in the concept that some forms of this test are 'easy' and some are 'hard. I'm absolutely certain that there are various different forms, obviously - and that curves will vary slightly based on this, but I give the NBME enough credit to say that for the most part they don't allow for wild variability from test to test. I just don't think some of us get forms with 100 obscure pelvic anatomy questions while others get a test that was entirely based off first aid or easier concepts.
That being said, the test isn't easy by any means, It's also not impossible. I would agree most with step1Hash's breakdown , I think close to 80% or so of the questions are answerable based on first aid/uworld, maybe 85% if you really memorized the crap out of uworld. Based on First aid ALONE, I would say you can probably regurgitate 50% of the test, and with some proper test taking and deducing skills + FA , likely around 65-70%.
It's not harder than Uworld, It's not easier than Uworld, I would say there are some questions that are harder, and some that are easier, with most around the same difficulty. Difficulty wise it seemed most similar to nbme 11, but with more 'gimmie' questions.
Okay, subject wise, here is what I felt :
Behavioral : super easy. dumb easy. Only a few difficult 'what would you say', or 'what would you do' questions on which more than 1 answer seemed right. This was expected based on other's experiences. The equations/statistics questions were mostly pretty easy, i had 1 really bizarre obscure one.
Embryo: Not a ton. Either very easy or very obscure. Maybe 7-8 questions total. Half i knew from FA, the rest i just guessed.
Biochem : Very straightforward. Not a ton , maybe 5-7 per block. Most of them were straightforward, a few tough ones as expected. Basic diseases/pathways/disorders they always ask.
Cell/Molecular Bio/Genetics : Wow. I would say this section had most of the 'tricky'/difficult questions on this exam. A lot of it was the obvious G receptor/CAMP stuff, but they really made you work for the answer - they often wrapped what they were asking in an obscure experiment or hard to understand concept. There were some easy pedigrees and genetics questions, but also some really hard obscure questions involving random genes and knockout/deletions i hadn't heard of. I can absolutely see why people would say they had questions here that they had never seen/heard of. Again - i think the difficulty was in figuring out WHAT they were asking without wasting a crapload of time. For the ones i didn't know, not even sure where i'd look - they were that obscure.
Micro/Immuno - pretty straightforward for the most part. Immuno was harder than micro. Reasonable amount of easy questions, but a lot of 'made you think' questions. Again, stuff that isn't really mentioned in FA, but you can probably deduce based on what they gave you in First aid. I had a few here that I just didn't know..Probably only 2-3 markers/IL's that i hadn't seen before though. First aid is enough.
Physiology: Some easy, some hard. Some of the arrow questions were definitely tricky, but many were doable based on common sense/ general knowledge. For the most part, first aid was enough.
Anatomy : Expectedly difficult. Some of it I was able to get based on First aid, but a fair amount of it was harder. A good amount of pelvic anatomy as others have mentioned. If i messed up on this test, it's mostly becuase of this section, but Honestly, not anything worth studying. You'll probably get the easier ones right, and the harder ones aren't worth wasting time going through a atlas for. The answers weren't really in HY anatomy either.
Path : Mostly bread and butter. The occasional difficult 'wtf' question on some random pathology or presentation that i had never heard of. Mostly your bread and butter stuff, first aid was enough.
Repro: A decent amount of questions, nothing hard, nothing that wasn't in FA or could be figured out from FA.
Endo: Not too bad. first aid definitely enough.
Neuro: Not too bad, basic lesions/blood supply/diseases you would expect. Mostly bread and butter. First aid is more than enough. Some pics of the brain/stem etc, easy though.
Psych: Easy. Nothing too hard. First aid enough.
GI: Mostly bread and butter. common presentations and drugs, first aid enough.
Cardio: First aid was mostly enough. most questions were physio based. I only had 2-3 murmur questions; but you could often 'figure it out' based on presentation. Path was straightforward. First aid is enough.
Heme/onc - some easy, some hard. most of it is in FA, the stuff that isn't you can likely figure out from FA.
Overall it was a difficult test, but a fair test. As i said before, I can easily see where people would say some questions were out of the blue / way too hard - but again, if you really read into them you could usually see what they were getting at/implying/asking. Wether these are 'experimental' or not is beyond me. I probably had 5-6 questions per block where i really didn't know what they were talking about. I marked questions pretty liberally on some blocks, up to 15-20 on the high end, 5-8 on the low end. I made some dumb mistakes, got some easy questions wrong, and definitely missed stuff that i thought wasn't in first aid - when i got home and looked over FA I saw that most of the stuff i got wrong was in there, just not presented as clearly.
If i could do it again, I don't know what i'd do different. I made some really dumb mistakes, overthought some questions, wasted too much time on the 'superhard' questions..but that's the kind of stuff you can't really prepare for. I'm just happy to be done. Not sure how many questions per block it takes to 'pass', but if the curve is anything like the NBME, where you need 30/46 just to get a 190 - i'm in trouble, haha.
good luck to everyone and feel free to ask if you have any questions.
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Hey guys. I just had a question regarding the last week of studying. I have been studying for 6 weeks and taken 4 practice tests. I took my first two UWORLD practice tests and got a 224 and 228. A week later I took the NBME 7 and got a 217. The most recent test last week was nbme 11 and scored a 238. I am perfectly happy with a 238. I think the big difference in the scores was due to goljian RR. I read the RR pathology book after doing the lectures. My school was absolutely terrible in pathology which is a problem because its key to understanding everything. Of course it prides itself on its OMM department though.....lol....thats for another blog.
Think I should take another practice test? I am half way going over uworld for the second time. I plan on reading first aid one more time. I really hate kaplan q bank questions and stopped doing those. I took the free 150 yesterday and got an %88.
I take the comlex three days after the USMLE and while everyone else is out partying the night of the USMLE I get to look forward to doing OMM for three days before the COMLEX.
Another NBME?
Think I should take another practice test? I am half way going over uworld for the second time. I plan on reading first aid one more time. I really hate kaplan q bank questions and stopped doing those. I took the free 150 yesterday and got an %88.
I take the comlex three days after the USMLE and while everyone else is out partying the night of the USMLE I get to look forward to doing OMM for three days before the COMLEX.
Another NBME?
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I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way. The point of this post is to help calm the nerves of my fellow brothers in arms who have yet to take the USMLE. I took it today and was shocked by how easy it was. I went in there with feelings of dread, terrified actually. All I could think about was all of the stuff that I did not know, sure that all of that stuff would be what they tested me on and that I would bomb the damn thing. After every block, I was left thinking "ok, the next block is surely going to kick my ass." Anyway, I got done with the 7th block and realized that I never got my ass kicked. YOU CAN DO IT!
I can say that I went over FA 2X and did 14,000 DIFFERENT practice questions and was still asked MANY RANDOM questions that I had never come across before. For example, random thing about iritis and tattoo removal. Folks, this was a THINKING test. I had very few questions that just straight up required me to regurgitate facts from FA. I'm sure that if I had only read FA 7 times, as opposed to doing so many questions, I would have had a MUCH rougher time. Having done so many questions, I had such a fine tuned sense of what the question was going to ultimately ask after having only read the opening 2-3 sentences of the vignettte. With that being said, I give the test writers a TON of credit for originality. Like I said, this is a THINKING test, requiring more common sense, strategy, and test taking skills than knowing facts from FA.
I don't want to come across as toolish or arrogant, but there was only 1 question out of 322 that I had no idea wtf they were even asking. I spent 3 minutes on the damn thing, reading it over and over, and could not piece it together. I left there thinking I may have missed 10 questions on the entire exam. I mean, 90% of the questions it just seemed like I knew the answer with ultimate certainty. Out of the remaining 10%, 8% of those I felt comfortable choosing the answer that I did after narrowing it down to 2.
As for the breakdown of the exam, it's all a blur. I can say that the previous poster was dead on about the cell bio/genetics stuff being the most challenging. Those were the ones I had the hardest time with. They like to just show you an image, and then they will ask you "What does this mean?" w/o any other background info. Otherwise, the exam didn't seem to have questions that were just straight path, phys, etc. The questions were so unlike UW or any other of the 14000 questions I did. I was really surprised by how original the test writers were. Instead of having specific questions by discipline, my exam as a whole seemed to require the ability to INTEGRATE all of the disciplines for one question. It makes sense though, since that is how real medicine is. If anyone has any questions, I will try to answer. I think I did VERY well, and will post a copy of my score report whenever I get it so as to substantiate everything I've said.
I can say that I went over FA 2X and did 14,000 DIFFERENT practice questions and was still asked MANY RANDOM questions that I had never come across before. For example, random thing about iritis and tattoo removal. Folks, this was a THINKING test. I had very few questions that just straight up required me to regurgitate facts from FA. I'm sure that if I had only read FA 7 times, as opposed to doing so many questions, I would have had a MUCH rougher time. Having done so many questions, I had such a fine tuned sense of what the question was going to ultimately ask after having only read the opening 2-3 sentences of the vignettte. With that being said, I give the test writers a TON of credit for originality. Like I said, this is a THINKING test, requiring more common sense, strategy, and test taking skills than knowing facts from FA.
I don't want to come across as toolish or arrogant, but there was only 1 question out of 322 that I had no idea wtf they were even asking. I spent 3 minutes on the damn thing, reading it over and over, and could not piece it together. I left there thinking I may have missed 10 questions on the entire exam. I mean, 90% of the questions it just seemed like I knew the answer with ultimate certainty. Out of the remaining 10%, 8% of those I felt comfortable choosing the answer that I did after narrowing it down to 2.
As for the breakdown of the exam, it's all a blur. I can say that the previous poster was dead on about the cell bio/genetics stuff being the most challenging. Those were the ones I had the hardest time with. They like to just show you an image, and then they will ask you "What does this mean?" w/o any other background info. Otherwise, the exam didn't seem to have questions that were just straight path, phys, etc. The questions were so unlike UW or any other of the 14000 questions I did. I was really surprised by how original the test writers were. Instead of having specific questions by discipline, my exam as a whole seemed to require the ability to INTEGRATE all of the disciplines for one question. It makes sense though, since that is how real medicine is. If anyone has any questions, I will try to answer. I think I did VERY well, and will post a copy of my score report whenever I get it so as to substantiate everything I've said.
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And one other thing...I put in at least 14 hrs/day, doing a MINIMUM of 250 questions per day, annotating in FA. I gained ~10 lbs and became ghost-white. At this point, I haven't been laid (layed?) in over 2 months, and I felt like a weirdo-recluse any time I rarely went out in public to briefly do this or that. I actually cried on the way home from the exam, and I thanked GOD for blessing me with the drive and discipline to get through this. IT WAS NOT EASY.
I would like to congratulate you on a job well done! I really like the confidence in you and I am sure you killed it! Looking forward to seeing your score.....👍
I know you said u did a ton of questions, may I ask from which sources?..... since u said UW questions were different on your exam...
I only did UW twice since everyone is saying FA and UW is all you need, and I heard kaplan was worthless....
Thanks a lot!
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Not even close, lol. I am barely clinging on to any sense of normalcy. Thank the CREATOR this is just a temporary insanity. However, in case you were being serious (which I'm sure you weren't), yes, I am very stable. I know myself well enough and am comfortable enough with who I am to unflinchingly express who I really am. Yes, I cried. The people that scare me are the ones who are afraid to confront themselves. Those are the ones who are unstable. The fact of the matter is is that I'm a grown-ass man who taught high school science and had a family before I went to med school. No one in my family is a doctor. I decided to do this because I was made for it. I don't know you, but just in case you fit the mold of the majority in this forum, then you can't possibly understand how insulting you seem. In the case that you meant to put a smiley face or a "lol" after your post, then disregard this lecture.
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Ok, here's the breakdown:
I did all of UW, Kaplan, RX, USMLE Consult and thepoint
Most people rank as such: UW>Kaplan>RX>Consult
The way I see it is: thepoint>UW>Consult>RX>Kaplan
I know a lot of people will question ranking Consult above RX and Kaplan. There has been a lot of negative feedback regarding all of the errors in consult. But, let me tell you, even with the MINIMAL errors in consult, it was well worth it. The diversity of the questions in consult was unparalleled. I knew enough from basic sciences that when I saw something that didn't seem right, I looked it up. With that being said, there were maybe 10 blatant errors out of the 2600 questions. I was dismayed after completing consult; I just didn't understand why so many people have bagged on it.
The reason I ranked RX over Kaplan is because of the utility of RX. Kaplan is cool bc it references the pages in FA, but RX actually displays the page. Another thing is that people say that Rx just regurgitates the exact same thing that FA says. This just is not true ALL of the time. There were MANY things in RX that were not in FA; it was like they had a separate team that knew what was lacking in the book and they added some extra details. Now, about thepoint. It isn't an actual test bank per se. I bought these books while in basic sciences, and you have online access to them (they have a different interface than FRED). They're Lippincott Williams and Wilkins books. I, more than even than the almighty UW, highly recommend the following: Lippencott Q & A of biochem, Q & A of micro and immuno, and especially the Q & A patholgy. I also did the BRS genetics and cell bio. People, the Q & A books are VERY challenging (way more challenging than even UW), but they teach you a hell of a lot. I mean, they're so challenging that I got pissed and almost quit a couple of times; but, those are the kind of questions that TEACH...
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I did exactly this. If I saw a graph or anything that looked really "sciencey," I immediately marked it and moved on without even trying to answer it. I usually ended up having 25 minutes at the end to do my 1 or 2 marked questions.
14000 Qs? how did you have that much time to do so many Qs?! Thats crazy...I'm just on my 2nd pass of UW and finished Combank for my COMLEX. I'm debating on either finishing UW or just focusing on DIT, FA and pathoma. lol
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Really just depends, but the most I was ever able to squeeze into a 14 hr day was 500 questions. Some days just go smoother than others.
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Well, I went against the grain and only did UW once. I figured seeing different questions would be more beneficial than seeing the same ones twice. I actually did most of Kaplan during second year, so in the 2 months before the exam, I really only did about 12,000 questions. I tried the FA thing, but it was not interactive enough and my mind kept wondering. I guess I just need something to keep me engaged, and doing questions was perfect for me.
I completely agree. You need to compare the gains from repeating FA vs the gains from covering new material from QBanks. I think 2-3 times covering FA is great - anything more than that is counter-productive.
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I firmly believe that luck definitely plays a huge part in it.
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Didn't do any NBMEs. Thought I would learn more doing questions w/ explanations
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What about uworld percentage?
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Final avg was in the upper 70s
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That's what I did too. I personally feel it's a great strategy. Let's you get into a rhythm and prevents you from being psyched out while still having enough time to answer those
Dear
I studied medicine in caribbean medical college
I completed MD in caribbean.
There is no necessity of step 1 before starting rotations.
I thought I can do step 1 after completing the rotations so that i will can correlate both the practical aspect so that iwill score good in step 1 and step 2 also
But it seems to be a wrong decision
I have to study everything from scratch
I have 8 months starting from july 30th
can you tell me what are the books which i have to study
what is the plan i can follow
what are the qbanks that i can study so that i can score something nearby 95
thanks so much
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Read above. I already went into the details of how I studied. Just remember that one size does not fit all.
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Thanks for the write up man. It took me a long time to figure this out, but I agree with you, reading FA over and over isn't very interactive. I've got 1.5 weeks left before exam day, and I'm just hitting UW hard. It's exhausting, but I hope it'll pay off in the end.
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no problemo and good luck to you!
I did the qbank questions on Consult from RR Biochem. Of the ~350 questions, I counted something along the line of 15-20 significant errors in either the answers or the explanations / justifications. If Consult's regular Qbank is anything like the one provided with the RR book, I'll have to take your own impression with more than a few grains of salt.
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took mine earlier today. i think it was very similar to a couple of people who posted a few weeks earlier about tests with a ton of repro. i probably had a repro question every 4th question, no joke. most stems started out with a pregnant chick, i had tumors in pregnant chicks, midgets trying to get pregnant, ethic questions regarding pregnant chicks, all of my pathophys questions were repro related, pregnant chicks with gallstones, pregnant chicks with mental problems, babies with mental problems, babies with big balls, etc.
i did the "memorize" first aid thing and it didn't really seem to help me much. i probably got 30ish questions right off the bat with it, but overall my time probably could have been better spent on another qbank (i did uworld and kaplan).
my drug questions were super easy, all moa's and of course which of the following would be contraindicated in pregnancy. i actually had a question RIGHT after another question i would have missed, but it literally answered the previous question in the stem so i went back and changed my answer.
i had very little phys, and the questions i did have were very easy (like how does adh work, seriously).
overall i didn't think it was too bad, just way too much repro for my taste. oh, and i almost forgot, i had the baclofen question someone mentioned earlier. make sure you wiki that drug and just read about it for a few mins. also, while you're at it, check out death cap mushroom.
i think i had a weird test so i don't think this will be of much help to most people, but you never know.
good luck to those taking it within the next few weeks !
i did the "memorize" first aid thing and it didn't really seem to help me much. i probably got 30ish questions right off the bat with it, but overall my time probably could have been better spent on another qbank (i did uworld and kaplan).
my drug questions were super easy, all moa's and of course which of the following would be contraindicated in pregnancy. i actually had a question RIGHT after another question i would have missed, but it literally answered the previous question in the stem so i went back and changed my answer.
i had very little phys, and the questions i did have were very easy (like how does adh work, seriously).
overall i didn't think it was too bad, just way too much repro for my taste. oh, and i almost forgot, i had the baclofen question someone mentioned earlier. make sure you wiki that drug and just read about it for a few mins. also, while you're at it, check out death cap mushroom.
i think i had a weird test so i don't think this will be of much help to most people, but you never know.
good luck to those taking it within the next few weeks !
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I didn't do those. Don't get me wrong. The questions were poorly written relative to the other banks and there were many editing errors, but I was referring to outdated/false info type of errors. If you can overlook the annoying little mistakes and make it through all of the questions, I believe you will have learned more from consult than kaplan. The main reason I ranked them the way I did was based on which banks taught me the most that I didn't already know. Take it with as many grains of salt as you need, or don't take it at all for all I care. I'm not trying to sell anyone anything; just gave my impressions, and impressions are like *******s.
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For those who already took the exam, would you say that there is less emphasis on "do you know this detail" questions and more emphasis on "can you apply this concept" questions?
Time is winding down for me, and I'm just nervous because I don't feel like I have FA memorized at all. I think I just know the main/important topics, but that's about it.
Time is winding down for me, and I'm just nervous because I don't feel like I have FA memorized at all. I think I just know the main/important topics, but that's about it.
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I was freaking out the night before, and I kept getting out of bed to look up random details in FA that I couldn't remember. I just knew that I'd be asked all of the stuff I didn't know, but it never happened. It's more of a conceptual exam.For those who already took the exam, would you say that there is less emphasis on "do you know this detail" questions and more emphasis on "can you apply this concept" questions?
Time is winding down for me, and I'm just nervous because I don't feel like I have FA memorized at all. I think I just know the main/important topics, but that's about it.
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y'all probably had a very similar exam
totally true.
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I guess there's really no way to tell 🙁
I'm just nervous because I've only done 1 pass of FA so far. I still have a good chunk of UW to do, so I'm working through that at the moment. The way things look so far, I'll be finishing UW 2 days before the exam, then I'll probably look over the sections of FA that I still have trouble with in 1 day, and then take the other day before the exam off.
There's so much pressure, I don't know how you guys deal with it. I wake up every morning looking at my calendar and feeling like I want to puke.
I'm just nervous because I've only done 1 pass of FA so far. I still have a good chunk of UW to do, so I'm working through that at the moment. The way things look so far, I'll be finishing UW 2 days before the exam, then I'll probably look over the sections of FA that I still have trouble with in 1 day, and then take the other day before the exam off.
There's so much pressure, I don't know how you guys deal with it. I wake up every morning looking at my calendar and feeling like I want to puke.
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that
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lol. ar2388, i know you had a tough time with the test, but i hope you get the score you want 🙂 i have a feeling i'm going to be going through what you went through on test day.
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Haha....sometimes I wake up, look at my calendar, and go back to bed...
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For those who already took the exam, would you say that there is less emphasis on "do you know this detail" questions and more emphasis on "can you apply this concept" questions?
Time is winding down for me, and I'm just nervous because I don't feel like I have FA memorized at all. I think I just know the main/important topics, but that's about it.
Universally, you will have the full range of replies. Of course there are going to be random factoid questions, but I felt that if you truly are strong at applying concepts and integration, then you are far better off.
Many people say they understand the concepts and they got pimped on random questions, but oftentimes they are lying to themselves. Even on the questions I was completely clueless about, I was able to calm myself down and narrow my choices by looking at the answer choices, word derivations, etc.
