Official 2011 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[ProtossCarrier]

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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.

 

[bbydoc]

i hope it went well shemarty!!!
i still have 50% of gunner training flashcards to do, mostly basic sciences with most of the organ systems complete... im just freaking out that 4 weeks after classes end wont be enough but its all i got!! i wanna break 240 so badly.... gonna take a practice NBME right after classes end to see where i am.. which one do you guys think i should take? i only wanna take 2 NBME's and the 2 UWorld assessments.. should i change that? i was thinking NBME 6 and 7 should be best??
freakingggg outttttt ughhh i feel like its just not enough time!!

history tells us NBME 6 and 7 are the best predictors.
I wouldnt do UWorld asssessments as they would give you a wrong picture of where you stand. past experiences tell us that they overestimate by at least 10 points. maybe thats because everyone adapts so much to the way UWorld asks questions.

 

[BlackDr2b]

Wassup fam! It has been a long time! How is everybody? Well I too am on my step 1 grind. Im using FA, usmleRx, World, brs path and phys, and goljan audio. So we shall see what happens. I am taking my exam on June 13th. Ill be praying for everybody! God bless!

 

[Mr hawkings]

Wassup fam! It has been a long time! How is everybody? Well I too am on my step 1 grind. Im using FA, usmleRx, World, brs path and phys, and goljan audio. So we shall see what happens. I am taking my exam on June 13th. Ill be praying for everybody! God bless!

1. Is your school still a Kaplan teaching site
2.If so, are you taking it

 

[Decicco]

i hope it went well shemarty!!!
i still have 50% of gunner training flashcards to do, mostly basic sciences with most of the organ systems complete... im just freaking out that 4 weeks after classes end wont be enough but its all i got!! i wanna break 240 so badly.... gonna take a practice NBME right after classes end to see where i am.. which one do you guys think i should take? i only wanna take 2 NBME's and the 2 UWorld assessments.. should i change that? i was thinking NBME 6 and 7 should be best??
freakingggg outttttt ughhh i feel like its just not enough time!!

NBMEs are the best predictor. I took 5 because they only tell you what you missed on 6 and 7 so I wanted to save them for later. You don't need to see what you missed if you just are trying to set a baseline. Save 6 and 7 until you have some stuff memorized.

 

[hyrule]

NBMEs are the best predictor. I took 5 because they only tell you what you missed on 6 and 7 so I wanted to save them for later. You don't need to see what you missed if you just are trying to set a baseline. Save 6 and 7 until you have some stuff memorized.

Is 5 free? I have a voucher for a test. Wondering which one to spend it on.. or does it not matter

 

[Decicco]

Is 5 free? I have a voucher for a test. Wondering which one to spend it on.. or does it not matter

5 is not free. 6 and 7 are the greatest predictors and tell you what you missed. Make sure you do 6 and 7 at some point, do 5 if you want to set a baseline.

 

[ar2388]

sorry, whats the benefit? is the score report different than what you get with 6 and 7?

 

[Decicco]

sorry, whats the benefit? is the score report different than what you get with 6 and 7?

Yea, for $10 extra 6 and 7 will show you what questions you missed (without the right answers however). The other tests will just give you a score and tell you your general strengths/weaknesses. This early on, I didn't really want to go through all my missed questions anyway since I assumed most of them would be stuff I just hadn't memorized in FA.

 

[BlackDr2b]

1. Is your school still a Kaplan teaching site
2.If so, are you taking it

Yeah we are a Kaplan teaching site but Im not gonna take the course. I mean I paid for it so I might do some things, but for the most part no. Kaplan is too much for me. I tend to miss the main point that I am supposed to get.

 

[MossPoh]

history tells us NBME 6 and 7 are the best predictors.
I wouldnt do UWorld asssessments as they would give you a wrong picture of where you stand. past experiences tell us that they overestimate by at least 10 points. maybe thats because everyone adapts so much to the way UWorld asks questions.

I was just reading over older threads about the uworld assessments and the consensus seemed to be that there is no consensus. Many people were actually really close to their real score, a few reported it being lower than their score and then some said it was overestimated. I suspect the biggest determinant of those differences is what kind of learner and test taker you are. It seemed that the big picture type people had more consistent scores than the memorize every detail type.

 

[IMnotgivingup!!]

I took my exam on March 22, Tuesday. Any idea when I might get my scores, April 6 or 13?
Thanks

 

[michigator04]

I have a question for all of you. I have been doing a bunch of practice questions on USMLERx and noticed that on about 1/3 of the questions, the answer choices/concept tested are not found at all within First Aid. For example: vignette describes a condition associated with a drug side effect, I figure out what class of drug, but answer is the one example of this class that isn't in FA.

Does that mean they are low yield, or that FA is skipping over a lot of important stuff?

Also, does having a practice question on a concept/fact mean it is fair game, or are the test prep sites guessing just like I am about what is testable?

So far I have been trying to learn everything covered in the questions, but the list of things not in FA that are in this qbank is getting out of control and I am starting to wonder how important some of these seemingly nitpicky details are in terms of my performance on the real thing.

 

[Mr hawkings]

I have a question for all of you. I have been doing a bunch of practice questions on USMLERx and noticed that on about 1/3 of the questions, the answer choices/concept tested are not found at all within First Aid. For example: vignette describes a condition associated with a drug side effect, I figure out what class of drug, but answer is the one example of this class that isn't in FA.

Does that mean they are low yield, or that FA is skipping over a lot of important stuff?

Also, does having a practice question on a concept/fact mean it is fair game, or are the test prep sites guessing just like I am about what is testable?

So far I have been trying to learn everything covered in the questions, but the list of things not in FA that are in this qbank is getting out of control and I am starting to wonder how important some of these seemingly nitpicky details are in terms of my performance on the real thing.

What did it show you when you clicked on the explanation. I have never seen a question on Rx that did not have a screen shot of the FA page in the explanation.

 

[mrmandrake]

What did it show you when you clicked on the explanation. I have never seen a question on Rx that did not have a screen shot of the FA page in the explanation.

This is true. He means that the FA screenshot does not have the answer to the question although it may show the relevant section in FA.

For example, I just did a question where you had to know that azathioprine is one of the treatments for ulcerative colitis. This information is not found in FA anywhere and for the answer they just show the ulcerative colitis section from FA but azathioprine is not found there.

Even in the azathioprine section in FA, which I think is in the Immunology section, azathioprine is not listed as a treatment for ulcerative colitis.

 

[mrmandrake]

I've done around 2000 USMLERx questions and it seems like 25% of questions are how you explained. If it seems important, then I write it down but sometimes, if it seems really nitpicky, I just mark it and move on. Don't get too bogged down by details.

I have a question for all of you. I have been doing a bunch of practice questions on USMLERx and noticed that on about 1/3 of the questions, the answer choices/concept tested are not found at all within First Aid. For example: vignette describes a condition associated with a drug side effect, I figure out what class of drug, but answer is the one example of this class that isn't in FA.

Does that mean they are low yield, or that FA is skipping over a lot of important stuff?

Also, does having a practice question on a concept/fact mean it is fair game, or are the test prep sites guessing just like I am about what is testable?

So far I have been trying to learn everything covered in the questions, but the list of things not in FA that are in this qbank is getting out of control and I am starting to wonder how important some of these seemingly nitpicky details are in terms of my performance on the real thing.

 

[radmed]

Yea I agree with some of the details not being in FA, but it's kind of nice to actually make me realize how much I know from FA and not just me sitting and passively reading the book again and again.

I have done about 700 questions, timed, random and have an average about 75% so far. Any comments on that or how does it evaluate in terms of the Step 1 score similarity? I know URx has the simulated step 1 score with 95% CI, but was wondering if anyone knew or had score comparisons to share?

 

[Chemist0157]

I took my test today. Now I just get to wait...🙂

 

[shemarty]

i hope it went well shemarty!!!
i still have 50% of gunner training flashcards to do, mostly basic sciences with most of the organ systems complete... im just freaking out that 4 weeks after classes end wont be enough but its all i got!! i wanna break 240 so badly.... gonna take a practice NBME right after classes end to see where i am.. which one do you guys think i should take? i only wanna take 2 NBME's and the 2 UWorld assessments.. should i change that? i was thinking NBME 6 and 7 should be best??
freakingggg outttttt ughhh i feel like its just not enough time!!

I felt fairly ok-ish after my test, but I have no idea what kinda score that translates to.

I kinda regret not taking more practice tests. I only did NBME 5, and USMLEWorld 1 and 2. I was intending to do 6 and 7 closer to the actual test date but never actually did it. I like practice tests because it at least gives you a few data points about what range you might be in. So, I'm actually really kinda scared, because I have no idea where I stood going into the test. The last practice test I did was 2 weeks before test day.

 

[512TA]

.

 

[hyrule]

How are antiarrhythmics tested?
So far, I'm blindly just memorizing the mnemonics on the 3 pages of FirstAid. I could tell you the MOA or toxicities... but if you were to ask me

"What drug would you use to treat this kind of arrhythmia" I wouldn't do so well.

 

[shemarty]

did RR help you any??

I liked the RR audio because sometimes its easier to remember stuff when somebody charismatically narrates a story about it.

The book -- I only speed-read half of it and skimmed the blue notes for the other half... I think all the factual info is also in FA, but I liked that RR had so many pictures, so I knew what stuff was supposed to look like.

 

[WashMe]

Since we're on the topic of prep materials and their uses... how are you guys finding the correct sections in FA to annotate as you go through uworld? Maybe I'm just missing something, but I did my first uworld block yesterday and it seems like a PITA to find the right pages in FA. The index is not very helpful... please help! Thanks 😀

And yes, I tried the search function for 5-10 minutes and I couldn't find what I was looking for. If the info is already out there, I blame the thread title-maker!

 

[Encephalectomy]

Since we're on the topic of prep materials and their uses... how are you guys finding the correct sections in FA to annotate as you go through uworld?!

it is a bit of a PITA. Basically if I know approximately where it is in first aid (you will have this more and more as you go through), I flip to that part of the book and turn pages until I find it. If not I try a few stabs at the index. If both of those fail, I just find a blank spot in the book in the approximately correct section and put my notes in there.

 

[Decicco]

Congrats Shemarty, I'm sure you did well! This all reminds me of when we were applying to med school, haha. I bet you beat your practice scores. Are you in Venice Beach or Venezia, Italia? Either way, have fun!

 

[badasshairday]

I liked the RR audio because sometimes its easier to remember stuff when somebody charismatically narrates a story about it.

The book -- I only speed-read half of it and skimmed the blue notes for the other half... I think all the factual info is also in FA, but I liked that RR had so many pictures, so I knew what stuff was supposed to look like.

Whoa. UCSF'ers are already taking Step 1? I gotta call up my buddy that's in your class!

 

[pato1985]

Hi Im plannin on takin the Step 1 in June 2011 too, I was wondering if doing FA 2011 plus use as Resources FA Organ System and FA Basic Sciences plus Obviously Uworld is good enough or not?

 

[wank]

Comment deleted.

 

[hyrule]

Guys is the CBSSA basically the NBME practice tests?

And about timing, should I choose timed or should I time myself? I heard about people not having enough time to review answers because they don't show them

 

[ar2388]

shemarty, i need your smarts lol.
i cant believe i did so poorly on my first practice test. 390/198 on NBME 5... granted with pretty much zero board studying but i thought i would do better after seeing people get 490/220 on NBME 5 .... i am glad to have passed but i really want to break 240... i have 3 weeks of class and then 4 weeks of dedicated study time... i hope i can do it but i am definitely feeling a little down right now.. :'(

 

[am9451]

shemarty, i need your smarts lol.
i cant believe i did so poorly on my first practice test. 390/198 on NBME 5... granted with pretty much zero board studying but i thought i would do better after seeing people get 490/220 on NBME 5 .... i am glad to have passed but i really want to break 240... i have 3 weeks of class and then 4 weeks of dedicated study time... i hope i can do it but i am definitely feeling a little down right now.. :'(

Don't stress - you have plenty of time. My first NBME was also 5, and I got a 205 - that's probably 1 or 2 lucky guesses better than your 198. Now I'm 2 weeks into boards study period and have scored 580/240 on both NBME 4 and 6. Granted, they were a week apart, and I'm a little frustrated that my score hasn't gone up at all considering how many hours I've put in. But a big jump is definitely do-able! Even if you eventually plateau out just shy of your goal... sigh.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

I think all the factual info is also in FA, but I liked that RR had so many pictures, so I knew what stuff was supposed to look like.

No way. There is a metric ton of stuff in Goljan RR that isn't in FA.

 

[Decicco]

No way. There is a metric ton of stuff in Goljan RR that isn't in FA.

There is also info in Robbins that is not in Goljan. The point is that all the info worth learning is in FA, although clarification may be needed from other sources. I know too many people with incredible step scores that are FA purists.

 

[ProtossCarrier]

Haven't started studying yet besides some qbank. Just started Uworld, sitting at 73% currently.

Plan is to do more qbank and start first pass, I am about 10 weeks out. Can anyone recommend a good study schedule maker?

Also I am not seeing the diffculty discrepancy between Uworld and RX. Though RX is "either you know it or you don't", it's very, very minuate heavy where as many uworld questions can be "figured out"

 

[wank]

I know too many people with incredible step scores that are FA purists.

How many FA runs did they do?

 

[WashMe]

There is also info in Robbins that is not in Goljan. The point is that all the info worth learning is in FA, although clarification may be needed from other sources. I know too many people with incredible step scores that are FA purists.

Since I started studying last week, I've just been going through FA and answering UW questions. I also took NBME 5. So far, I haven't seen a single question that I couldn't have answered if I had my FA open in front of me. I own Goljan RR, but I'm tossing around the idea of sticking with ONLY FA, UW, and maybe (big maybe) just flying through the RR blue margin notes. Goljan audio is a little out of date and a bit passive, so I don't plan on listening to any more of it (I did like 5 lectures). I'd love to hear others' opinions about this plan. FWIW I hit 220 (490) on NBME 5 at baseline (well, like 4-5 days into studying), and my goal is like 240+, so I don't think I have a huge gap to fill... hopefully lol. 10 weeks out from the beast!

How many FA runs did they do?

I don't feel like that's the right question... because runs can be fast or slow, and the yield varies. I think a better question is "how solid were they with FA material?"

 

[bbydoc]

Since I started studying last week, I've just been going through FA and answering UW questions. I also took NBME 5. So far, I haven't seen a single question that I couldn't have answered if I had my FA open in front of me. I own Goljan RR, but I'm tossing around the idea of sticking with ONLY FA, UW, and maybe (big maybe) just flying through the RR blue margin notes. Goljan audio is a little out of date and a bit passive, so I don't plan on listening to any more of it (I did like 5 lectures). I'd love to hear others' opinions about this plan. FWIW I hit 220 (490) on NBME 5 at baseline (well, like 4-5 days into studying), and my goal is like 240+, so I don't think I have a huge gap to fill... hopefully lol. 10 weeks out from the beast!

out of date? just a little.
passive? I agree, some may disagree but I had a gap of 3 month between listening to the same lecture and I had forgotten most of it.

Im sure you will hit 240+ from your baseline and if you stick to your plan.
you are saying you could have answered most questions with FA and yet you got 220, am I right to assume that you get the big picture but need to fill in details??

 

[WashMe]

out of date? just a little.
passive? I agree, some may disagree but I had a gap of 3 month between listening to the same lecture and I had forgotten most of it.

Im sure you will hit 240+ from your baseline and if you stick to your plan.
you are saying you could have answered most questions with FA and yet you got 220, am I right to assume that you get the big picture but need to fill in details??

Yeah I mean I haven't seen even one question where I'm like "what the heck are they talking about?" It's more like "I remember that I've seen this in the past 2 years and I 100% retained the concept, but what was the name of that drug/enzyme/disease/etc. again? I am excellent at physiology, pathophys, and pharm when it's asking about a concept. I absolutely suck at embryology, anatomy, named genetic diseases, etc.

I'd say I'm really up there with the best of them when it comes to "thinking," but I'm a below-average "memorizer"...

 

[Brrooother]

Since I started studying last week, I've just been going through FA and answering UW questions. I also took NBME 5. So far, I haven't seen a single question that I couldn't have answered if I had my FA open in front of me. I own Goljan RR, but I'm tossing around the idea of sticking with ONLY FA, UW, and maybe (big maybe) just flying through the RR blue margin notes. Goljan audio is a little out of date...

Yeah, I've been wondering about this. I'm taking the Step on June 13th, and I do love Goljian but I wonder about how much I'm missing that's new and not covered on his audio. Thoughts?

 

[nuetronium]

I felt the DIT guy might be a little bit more HY if you are lacking on time; just b/c he seems to add in extra details and quiz you on stuff that is really similar to one another or really takes a lot of effort to memorize. What do you guys think?

 

[RySerr21]

Yeah, I've been wondering about this. I'm taking the Step on June 13th, and I do love Goljian but I wonder about how much I'm missing that's new and not covered on his audio. Thoughts?

Are you reading his book? Everything is in there, he just elaborates on specific topics when he talks. So if you read his book you arent missing anything.

 

[ProtossCarrier]

I am personally going to read through all of first aid as well as goljan, there are definitely materials on the USMLErx that's featured in goljan

Also, is it just me, or is USMLErx more diffcult (as in minuate focused) than uworld?

 

[happyoolongtea]

Also, is it just me, or is USMLErx more diffcult (as in minuate focused) than uworld?

THANK YOU! maybe it's just me as well, but I was totally frustrated with Rx because I assumed it tested precisely what's in F.A. but there was a lot of stuff I didn't know/couldn't find in the text. I used it as my first qbank and finished most of it with about 70%. now I'm on to Kaplan and feel really dumb. I'm around 66% after just starting but I feel I should be higher after doing Rx, some World, and reading more of F.A. not sure what I should be doing now 😕

 

[Brrooother]

Are you reading his book? Everything is in there, he just elaborates on specific topics when he talks. So if you read his book you arent missing anything.

Thanks, Ry, BTW I love your avatar. I have been using his book with audio for topics covered during med school, but maybe I'll read through it now that you said that.

I'm starting DIT (video lectures) the first week of May, so any thoughts on what I should do now? They've been sending those question sets and I've done about half of them, but I kind of feel like the point of the question sets is to familiarize yourself with FA, so I'm thinking I'd rather spend the next month doing USMLEWorld on random and annotating into FA, and just blow off the question sets. Thoughts? Perhaps read through Goljian? I'm still in school for the next month, so I still have to pay attention and do well enough to pass our Hem/Onc block. 🙂

 

[RySerr21]

Thanks, Ry, BTW I love your avatar. I have been using his book with audio for topics covered during med school, but maybe I'll read through it now that you said that.

I'm starting DIT (video lectures) the first week of May, so any thoughts on what I should do now? They've been sending those question sets and I've done about half of them, but I kind of feel like the point of the question sets is to familiarize yourself with FA, so I'm thinking I'd rather spend the next month doing USMLEWorld on random and annotating into FA, and just blow off the question sets. Thoughts? Perhaps read through Goljian? I'm still in school for the next month, so I still have to pay attention and do well enough to pass our Hem/Onc block. 🙂

goljan's heme/onc chapters are awesome. His whole book is awesome. but seirously just read those chapters and youll kill your test. He makes everything so intuitive and easy to understand, especially the heme stuff.

I dont konw too much about DIT so i cant give advice either way since ive never used it. You deifnitely cant go wrong w/ Uworld, so that sounds like a plaln to me! Definitely read through Goljan toO!

 

[drosenb3]

Thanks, Ry, BTW I love your avatar. I have been using his book with audio for topics covered during med school, but maybe I'll read through it now that you said that.

I'm starting DIT (video lectures) the first week of May, so any thoughts on what I should do now? They've been sending those question sets and I've done about half of them, but I kind of feel like the point of the question sets is to familiarize yourself with FA, so I'm thinking I'd rather spend the next month doing USMLEWorld on random and annotating into FA, and just blow off the question sets. Thoughts? Perhaps read through Goljian? I'm still in school for the next month, so I still have to pay attention and do well enough to pass our Hem/Onc block. 🙂

I would try to make at least 1 complete pass of FA before starting DIT. I just got done with the videos using it for the end of my second pass and beginning of my 3rd. He really flies through the material fast and glosses over a couple sections. I was really glad I had a grip on most of the material before starting so I could focus on beating the High Yield material into my brain via the constant quizzing.

 

[Captopril]

did RR help you any??

Hi guys, Step I veteran here (took it over a year ago, got a 237/99). I like to drop by this forum to see what the kids are up to. To answer your question 512TA, RR Path is an awesome secondary book. If you have mastered FA and have time left (or if you are going for the Coup de Grace on that 250), definitely read RR a few times. My undoing was memorizing RR too early on, and not touching it again later on in my studying. If I had kept up on re-reading RR towards the end of my studying, I probably could have added 5-10 points to my score.

 

[match2011]

I am nervous now

nbme 6 510/225 online last Oct

nbme 7 510/225 online 2 weeks later last Oct

UW sim 1 610/242 one week before

2011 CD 10 days before 40/41/44


Friday is my test day

What score shall I aim for?

 

[Brrooother]

Hey guys,

So we were talking a bit on the last page about Goljian audio being a bit out of date... I noticed today that he mentions Robbins and Cotran, 6th Edition, which was published in 1997! Is Goljian audio this old? If so, is it really still accurate?

Also, is there any sort of audio from him floating around out there that is newer?

Thanks.

 

[Brrooother]

Hey guys,

So we were talking a bit on the last page about Goljian audio being a bit out of date... I noticed today that he mentions Robbins and Cotran, 6th Edition, which was published in 1997! Is Goljian audio this old? If so, is it really still accurate?

Also, is there any sort of audio from him floating around out there that is newer?

Thanks.

Nevermind - sorry to waste your time - I found some info on old threads. Apparently there's just one, and it's from before fall of 2002 or something. People seem to still think it's pretty accurate.

 

[RySerr21]

Hey guys,

So we were talking a bit on the last page about Goljian audio being a bit out of date... I noticed today that he mentions Robbins and Cotran, 6th Edition, which was published in 1997! Is Goljian audio this old? If so, is it really still accurate?

Also, is there any sort of audio from him floating around out there that is newer?

Thanks.

The pathology of the diseases he talks about havent had crazy medical breakthroughs. Iron deficiency is still iron deficiency. The pathology of congestive heart failure is still the same.....etc etc

You are listening to learn the basic principles of pathology, not to hear the latest updates and world breaking medical news.