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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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Dont sweat it Master. I think someone else on this thread felt like they did horrible and ended up getting a 99... so yea.
@49ers- I don't know what the people at my school were on but they said a whole bunch of sections in FA were inadequate.. including Biochem and Embryology. If you say its fine though, that's good enough for me! Biochem/Embryo are sooo brutal to learn.
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Finally took it today. FA is money. Wish I spent more time with it. I've never been a rote-memorizer and spent too much time trying to understand stuff conceptually during prep.
-I studied biochem like a crazy man and only had like 3 Q's. DAMN. 2 were homocysteine related. WTF. I knew my storage diseases so well. Not a single Q. Oh well.
-ZERO Mo Bio Q's. Duudeee!
-Let's play a game. It's called "is it x-linked?"
-Let's play another game, it's called "we made a cool rat in the lab"
-Let's take a piece of a brain and put it on a piece of CARPET and take a picture. WTF? carpet? you pathologists, you...
-Woa crap, there's a mutant baby picture. Thanks for the warning...
-Like a million psych questions that involved asking an open ended question or not being a complete a-hole in the response. Seriously, like 10 or 15 Q's.
-Know 'yer biostats. Kaplan >>> FA.
-Decent amount of nerve injuries and anatomy. Kaplan > FA but overkill with details. Most of my anatomy was conceptual and not "What spine level is the spleen" type stuff.
-Wish I had spent more time w/ Kaplan physio.
-The pharm Q's I had were basically extensions of path. Like there's be an infection and the answer choices would be a) an antibiotic, b) an anti-viral, c) and anti-fungal. I spent very little time on pharm and it was a good gamble.
-If you did well in micro during the year I think FA or RR is enough. RR is enough for biochem, genetics, a lot of micro, and a lot of physio.
-My friend said he had like 20 paraneoplastic Q's. I had 1.
This test is so much odder than I expected. There seems to be substantial variability between test takers in terms of the subject matter tested and Q's used. My friend asked me about a bunch of her Q's after the test and I didn't have any of the same ones.
Back in 2 weeks 🙂
-I studied biochem like a crazy man and only had like 3 Q's. DAMN. 2 were homocysteine related. WTF. I knew my storage diseases so well. Not a single Q. Oh well.
-ZERO Mo Bio Q's. Duudeee!
-Let's play a game. It's called "is it x-linked?"
-Let's play another game, it's called "we made a cool rat in the lab"
-Let's take a piece of a brain and put it on a piece of CARPET and take a picture. WTF? carpet? you pathologists, you...
-Woa crap, there's a mutant baby picture. Thanks for the warning...
-Like a million psych questions that involved asking an open ended question or not being a complete a-hole in the response. Seriously, like 10 or 15 Q's.
-Know 'yer biostats. Kaplan >>> FA.
-Decent amount of nerve injuries and anatomy. Kaplan > FA but overkill with details. Most of my anatomy was conceptual and not "What spine level is the spleen" type stuff.
-Wish I had spent more time w/ Kaplan physio.
-The pharm Q's I had were basically extensions of path. Like there's be an infection and the answer choices would be a) an antibiotic, b) an anti-viral, c) and anti-fungal. I spent very little time on pharm and it was a good gamble.
-If you did well in micro during the year I think FA or RR is enough. RR is enough for biochem, genetics, a lot of micro, and a lot of physio.
-My friend said he had like 20 paraneoplastic Q's. I had 1.
This test is so much odder than I expected. There seems to be substantial variability between test takers in terms of the subject matter tested and Q's used. My friend asked me about a bunch of her Q's after the test and I didn't have any of the same ones.
Back in 2 weeks 🙂
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i dont think anyone knows they are talking about. With any predictor you can find people who have had it over estimate, under estimate, and anything in between. Most people ive talked to at my school have said that the free 150 was spot on, pepole here seem to think it overpredcits. Same with UW. In the end, it really doesnt matter. If you are scoring a 265 and it overpredicts by 20 points....great, you still got a 245.
D
deleted116380
I thought my exam had probably the most diversity...I was surprised to be honest. My studying involved a lot of path and I was a bit disappointed to not see as much (I went through every Webpath image and practice exam other than the intro path stuff).
The total number of biochem questions is hard for me to guess as they mix them in with other subjects. I felt the biochem FA section could have been referenced on my exam like 25+ times minimum...I'm not exaggerating. Everything from specific enzymes involved in DNA transcriptions, to cell cycle check points, inheritance patterns, where something takes place in the cell (mito/cytosol/golgi, etc), lysosomal storage, glycogen storage, etc.
The thing I did for biochem FA was memorize that huge pathway picture alone over the course of a few hours. Once I saw the big picture, it was easier to get to the details.
Yes. I had every single section on FA tested and tested repeatedly except path I felt. Lots of behavioral science questions / psych like what coping method is this patient using, etc.
Overall, I think they tested my knowledge well, but it's clear to me I didn't know some stuff because UW and FA didn't go into those depths...
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Will not do an epic, subject-by-subject break down of my exam, but will talk about the few subjects that were most anxiety inducing for me. As others have said repeatedly, it is 85% straight from FA/UWorld and the other 15% is divided into easy stuff most students should know OR random things that you would have only picked up working in a related lab. Whether you're looking to push your score from 200-230 or 250-260, the details in FA and UWorld and QBank come STRAIGHT from the exam. Students at the prior level will benefit from nailing down the MOAs and side effects, whereas the 260 hopefuls will benefit from memorizing the minute details that seem irrelevant and are only there because they appeared on someone's actual exam.
Before I go on, I will note that if you come across "weird" questions in UWorld that you have not seen in other resources, there's probably a damn good reason. When you come across these questions, it's in your best interest to a) mark them b) get them purposefully incorrect so that they appear in your incorrects and c) write down the QID. Methylation of 5' G? Treatment for combined seizure disorders? Bone physiology?
The second most important point, if you are offered answer choices with which you are completely unfamiliar, they are probably not the correct answer. That said, if you can rule out the known entities with 100% certainty you may as well pick the unknown.
So, the stuff which I worried most about that was NOT in FA (keep in mind I felt 90% of the exam was answerable with FA/Uworld and standard med school curriculum alone):
Anatomy/Embryo: I went in expecting tons of pelvic CTs, prepared accordingly, and got none. My questions on pelvis were limited to lymphatic drainage. My anatomy overall was very easy and I do not think I benefited from spending 2-3 days on it. I had some finger anatomy not covered by FA, some neck communications, some nose anatomy, dermatomes, carpal tunnel, etc. All easy stuff, except the nose question which could be answered by an educated guess if you know your skull bones. My embryo was very limited, I can only recall two gene questions and MAYBE 3-5 questions after that. One crazy Q I can only find case reports of the condition. To avoid being specific, FA contains the gene names but is NOT nearly enough to pick between them.
Here is an excellent resource for CTs. Note that you can click the numbers and get the answer rather than scrolling. Increase the font size on your screen to increase the image size. Based on my and others experience, I'd recommend viewing at least pelvis and chest: http://www.med.wayne.edu/diagradiology/anatomy_modules/Pelvis/Pelvis.html
Biochem: In the days before my test, I began panicking about ATP production and metabolism in general. It was all unwarranted. I had some questions not specifically addressed in FA, but that were answerable if you really had a good grasp on what was there. I had 5-6 questions on fat disorders, which were answerable only with an advanced understanding. I would supplement your fat reading with another resource... All my memorization of regulation, RLSs, and other minutiae was for nothing. Most questions were single enzyme disorders, choose the enzyme or choose the accumulated substrate. They also do like you to know enzyme/process compartments. I had probably 4-5 questions on compartments. Overall I had many questions that could be lumped into biochem, probably 30-40 total, and FA was excellent.
Behavior/Stats: You hear of many people getting insane situations, but I only had one that I felt was even a little difficult out of approximately 20 total. 3-4 questions on the intersection of personal beliefs with medical care. Always, always inquire for more information when you don't understand a practice. I can say very few positive things about Qbank, but felt that its behavior questions were GREAT preparation for these. UWorld and FA were not enough for second year students. Is it worth $89 with code? Probably not. My stats questions were mad easy. [I do think a lot of posters here misunderstand what a standard deviation is (e.g., "Don't be upset at your score drop between NBMEs, your 238 and 226 are within a std dev" is kind of a scary statement from a future prescriber honestly), but that's a topic for another day.]
Physiology arrows: These were easy, but the NBME gives you no freebies ala UWorld in which you can answer based on knowing half of the changes and test taking ability. There are fewer hormones/electrolytes to track, but IMO this makes the questions a bit more challenging. Nonetheless, none of these were difficult.
Micro/Immuno: Mostly easy. I did have some ridiculous culture questions (had to look up product mfg methods sheet) and treatment for a zoonosis which is probably on MicroCards (knew this from med shelf prep), but I'm unwilling to spend the energy to check. Either way, FA micro is solid except for the bacteria they try to condense into charts. I had zero MOAs on protozoal/helminth drugs and MAYBE 2-3 on protozoa period and only 1 very classic helminth.
Media: Do not answer the cardio sounds based on the stem. I had one question that set you up for one murmur, but it was so obviously NOT the murmur that was given that I took 3-5 minutes just staring at it. Physical exam should take precedence over any associations you have memorized.
On test day and anxiety: I usually have none, but my last 2 days were a complete mess. I DID get some questions right based on that frantic, whirlwind flipping through FA, but it didn't feel productive at the time. If you've an important topic to refresh, do NOT put off a final review until your last day, it just won't happen. I did have trouble setting the books down at 8pm the night before. However, I slept my usual 6h without problem, took 2 cliff bars, some lightly caffeinated low sugar drinks, and had a smooth test experience. In the days leading up to the exam, I noticed that I became exquisitely caffeine and sugar-high sensitive to the point where I reduced coffee by over 50%.
My prep was so different from other posters that it's not worth detailing. My main resources were UWorld (many times, long story), FA, Qbank and incorrects x1, BRS phys, and an anatomy atlas. Only took 11 & 12, scoring 26(4?) and 268 about 4 weeks and 1 week out respectively. Having completed rotations helped a great deal, but that I feel the exam is "fair and balanced" for both second and third year students. There are big picture clinical items that will be easy after a medicine rotation and there are minutiae of path, micro, and anatomy that will be many times harder because of the extra year separating you from those courses.
In closing, keep in mind the exam may focus may shift after May 17th. And just out of curiosity, not that it's at all relevant to what appeared on my step, what do second year students know about complications from angiography/angioplasty? Finally, doesn't Goljan mention the knuckle-knuckle-dimple-knuckle assocation?
EDIT: Please do not quote or only selectively quote this massive post. Thread-stretching and making others re-read this jumbled mess of thoughts will not be appreciated. 😛
Before I go on, I will note that if you come across "weird" questions in UWorld that you have not seen in other resources, there's probably a damn good reason. When you come across these questions, it's in your best interest to a) mark them b) get them purposefully incorrect so that they appear in your incorrects and c) write down the QID. Methylation of 5' G? Treatment for combined seizure disorders? Bone physiology?
The second most important point, if you are offered answer choices with which you are completely unfamiliar, they are probably not the correct answer. That said, if you can rule out the known entities with 100% certainty you may as well pick the unknown.
So, the stuff which I worried most about that was NOT in FA (keep in mind I felt 90% of the exam was answerable with FA/Uworld and standard med school curriculum alone):
Anatomy/Embryo: I went in expecting tons of pelvic CTs, prepared accordingly, and got none. My questions on pelvis were limited to lymphatic drainage. My anatomy overall was very easy and I do not think I benefited from spending 2-3 days on it. I had some finger anatomy not covered by FA, some neck communications, some nose anatomy, dermatomes, carpal tunnel, etc. All easy stuff, except the nose question which could be answered by an educated guess if you know your skull bones. My embryo was very limited, I can only recall two gene questions and MAYBE 3-5 questions after that. One crazy Q I can only find case reports of the condition. To avoid being specific, FA contains the gene names but is NOT nearly enough to pick between them.
Here is an excellent resource for CTs. Note that you can click the numbers and get the answer rather than scrolling. Increase the font size on your screen to increase the image size. Based on my and others experience, I'd recommend viewing at least pelvis and chest: http://www.med.wayne.edu/diagradiology/anatomy_modules/Pelvis/Pelvis.html
Biochem: In the days before my test, I began panicking about ATP production and metabolism in general. It was all unwarranted. I had some questions not specifically addressed in FA, but that were answerable if you really had a good grasp on what was there. I had 5-6 questions on fat disorders, which were answerable only with an advanced understanding. I would supplement your fat reading with another resource... All my memorization of regulation, RLSs, and other minutiae was for nothing. Most questions were single enzyme disorders, choose the enzyme or choose the accumulated substrate. They also do like you to know enzyme/process compartments. I had probably 4-5 questions on compartments. Overall I had many questions that could be lumped into biochem, probably 30-40 total, and FA was excellent.
Behavior/Stats: You hear of many people getting insane situations, but I only had one that I felt was even a little difficult out of approximately 20 total. 3-4 questions on the intersection of personal beliefs with medical care. Always, always inquire for more information when you don't understand a practice. I can say very few positive things about Qbank, but felt that its behavior questions were GREAT preparation for these. UWorld and FA were not enough for second year students. Is it worth $89 with code? Probably not. My stats questions were mad easy. [I do think a lot of posters here misunderstand what a standard deviation is (e.g., "Don't be upset at your score drop between NBMEs, your 238 and 226 are within a std dev" is kind of a scary statement from a future prescriber honestly), but that's a topic for another day.]
Physiology arrows: These were easy, but the NBME gives you no freebies ala UWorld in which you can answer based on knowing half of the changes and test taking ability. There are fewer hormones/electrolytes to track, but IMO this makes the questions a bit more challenging. Nonetheless, none of these were difficult.
Micro/Immuno: Mostly easy. I did have some ridiculous culture questions (had to look up product mfg methods sheet) and treatment for a zoonosis which is probably on MicroCards (knew this from med shelf prep), but I'm unwilling to spend the energy to check. Either way, FA micro is solid except for the bacteria they try to condense into charts. I had zero MOAs on protozoal/helminth drugs and MAYBE 2-3 on protozoa period and only 1 very classic helminth.
Media: Do not answer the cardio sounds based on the stem. I had one question that set you up for one murmur, but it was so obviously NOT the murmur that was given that I took 3-5 minutes just staring at it. Physical exam should take precedence over any associations you have memorized.
On test day and anxiety: I usually have none, but my last 2 days were a complete mess. I DID get some questions right based on that frantic, whirlwind flipping through FA, but it didn't feel productive at the time. If you've an important topic to refresh, do NOT put off a final review until your last day, it just won't happen. I did have trouble setting the books down at 8pm the night before. However, I slept my usual 6h without problem, took 2 cliff bars, some lightly caffeinated low sugar drinks, and had a smooth test experience. In the days leading up to the exam, I noticed that I became exquisitely caffeine and sugar-high sensitive to the point where I reduced coffee by over 50%.
My prep was so different from other posters that it's not worth detailing. My main resources were UWorld (many times, long story), FA, Qbank and incorrects x1, BRS phys, and an anatomy atlas. Only took 11 & 12, scoring 26(4?) and 268 about 4 weeks and 1 week out respectively. Having completed rotations helped a great deal, but that I feel the exam is "fair and balanced" for both second and third year students. There are big picture clinical items that will be easy after a medicine rotation and there are minutiae of path, micro, and anatomy that will be many times harder because of the extra year separating you from those courses.
In closing, keep in mind the exam may focus may shift after May 17th. And just out of curiosity, not that it's at all relevant to what appeared on my step, what do second year students know about complications from angiography/angioplasty? Finally, doesn't Goljan mention the knuckle-knuckle-dimple-knuckle assocation?
EDIT: Please do not quote or only selectively quote this massive post. Thread-stretching and making others re-read this jumbled mess of thoughts will not be appreciated. 😛
D
deleted116380
^^I got a couple fat processing questions, but nothing FA or UW didn't answer.
My studying material:
FA 2011 that I annotated with UWorld.
RR Path (waste of time, too much detail)
UWorld qbank (x2 with one of the passes during my last block of 2nd year)
NBME 6
Free 150
Kaplan miniQbook (250q)
UW SA1 and 2
Webpath images (1000 of them about)
Webpath practice questions (500+ of them)
I don't think NBME 6, free 150, Kaplan miniQbook, or RR path were needed at all. FA and UW is all you need imo. I memorized FA like the back of my hand and still got crap that wasn't in there. :/
Webpath images I think were overkill. Their practice questions were pretty good at reinforcing concepts that were never taught at all elsewhere. I.e. lipid pneumonia? WTF?! lol...wasn't on step 1 though...
My studying material:
FA 2011 that I annotated with UWorld.
RR Path (waste of time, too much detail)
UWorld qbank (x2 with one of the passes during my last block of 2nd year)
NBME 6
Free 150
Kaplan miniQbook (250q)
UW SA1 and 2
Webpath images (1000 of them about)
Webpath practice questions (500+ of them)
I don't think NBME 6, free 150, Kaplan miniQbook, or RR path were needed at all. FA and UW is all you need imo. I memorized FA like the back of my hand and still got crap that wasn't in there. :/
Webpath images I think were overkill. Their practice questions were pretty good at reinforcing concepts that were never taught at all elsewhere. I.e. lipid pneumonia? WTF?! lol...wasn't on step 1 though...
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I had 1-2 that FA couldn't answer and the other 3 or so were not explicitly answered by FA. For the latter 3, the disorders weren't there, but the enzymes were at least listed and you could reason it out if you were patient. I count a question as difficult if FA can't answer it for me. 🙂
Great stuff about completing the exam that nobody mentions: Doing 4 weeks of laundry, vacuuming and "dust Buster"-ing the apartment, unloading all those useless review books that you've been holding onto for 2 years just in the off chance that you'll really, really need it one day, organizing the bookshelf, dusting behind those unused review books you just got rid of, not going back to your study/lunch spot, deleting step 1 relevant bookmarks and UWorld shorcut, not clicking on any circles for at least a few weeks, moving onto clinically relevant material that when learned can actually improve your ability to keep patients safe, pleasure reading, not lugging around a 40 lb backpack with at least a laptop, FA, and RR path in there, the list could go on forever.
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Haha, enjoy it!
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My heartiest congratulations! It sounds like you went through a crazy study period (after your rotations no less), so you deserve the rest and relaxation and pleasure reading. I can't wait to be in the same situation in a few days.
I do have a question for you though - is this planned addition of questions supposed to occur ON the 17th or after the 17th? Because that's the day my test is, lol
Took the beast on Wednesday.
Someone make me feel better about this... did anyone else just flat out forget things for questions that should have been easy (such as drug names and second messengers for hormones)? I feel so dumb right now. I focused too much on my weaknesses during that last week of studying that a lot of the pharm slipped my mind.
My NBME scores were in the 230-240 range... I definitely feel I underperformed due to test pressure and missing a few easy ones.
I wish this test was pass fail :-(
Someone make me feel better about this... did anyone else just flat out forget things for questions that should have been easy (such as drug names and second messengers for hormones)? I feel so dumb right now. I focused too much on my weaknesses during that last week of studying that a lot of the pharm slipped my mind.
My NBME scores were in the 230-240 range... I definitely feel I underperformed due to test pressure and missing a few easy ones.
I wish this test was pass fail :-(
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I forgot downstream mediators of Gq. I can re-write all of GCFLATCHAMP, GGGOAAAAT, PETCAT (incl nuclear receptors mentioned by UWorld and Qbank), the JAK/STAT list, and the intrinsic tyrosine kinase list, but I never once thought I would have trouble remembering the grouping of IP3/Ca and DAG/PKC. Ended up getting it right, but the answer was buried so deep I spent like 4-5 minutes on the Q and finally just allowed my muscle memory to answer it.
People with multiple NBMEs in a certain range very, very rarely score below that range and often score above. Those 5-10 questions you aren't 100% sure of and spend the last 10 minutes of your test fretting over can really mess with you and aren't a reflection of how you did on the other 35 questions.
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I've actually no idea, as I tuned that message out since my exam was before that. I believe some posters were saying that the grouping of some test items was being changed and that more immunology was added AND that there would be an 3-8(?) week score delay for those taking after the 16th or 17th. Sorry I don't know more.
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hey arc
i think they might be adding some more immuno questions (they are making immuno its own section, which IMO probably means that you are less likely to get a test with very little immuno, but not particularly more likely to get tons of immuno). Also all tests taken may 17th and later will receive scores in mid july.
i think they might be adding some more immuno questions (they are making immuno its own section, which IMO probably means that you are less likely to get a test with very little immuno, but not particularly more likely to get tons of immuno). Also all tests taken may 17th and later will receive scores in mid july.
i was thinking the same thing, i doubt they're making it harder, just putting more emphasis on immuno, probably being tested more on those T-Cell and B-Cell disorders, etc. ... could be good for some people and not so good for others
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Thanks guys - it was a little confusing because I heard the news about this too (though this delay thing apparently happens every year anyway). I've noticed on NBME 11 and 12 there were also more immunology questions too. I'll definitely make sure to put in a couple hours though for it... it can't hurt.
Scuba, when you say fat processing, what exactly do you mean? Sorry, may be a dumb question but Im confused if you're referring to all the lipoprotein stuff or fatty acid metabolism and CHL synthesis. Thanks and big congrats on being done! Since you already did rotations, are you planning on taking Step 2 soon?
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Both, and no.
The 4 pages in FA (have only 2010 available) that covered FA ox and synthesis, chylomicron and VLDL metabolism, and actions of lipoprotein particles were relevant to 10+ questions on my exam. Only other pages that were as high yield were maybe the vitamins, autonomic pharm, cytokines, immune deficiencies, and biostats. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say that those 10-20 pages were 10-15%+ of my exam. Everyone draws different questions, but those topics will be well represented on every exam I'd think.
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wont you need them for step 2?
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I think Goljan is considered pretty good for Step 2 material as well so I'd at least keep that lol. Other than that... anatomy? biochem? who gives a crap for step 2
My younger brother is going to med school soon so I might just keep my review books for now
My younger brother is going to med school soon so I might just keep my review books for now
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eh, my exam didnt have very many questions on those topics. I instead had about 15-20 questions on heart failure. The 'theme' of your exam may have just been metabolism or something...
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I too am looking forward to "The Bonfire of the Inanities"
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Not the mnemonic he's talking about, but the one FA has for the various actions of the receptors is pretty awesome:
"qiss and qiq until you're siq of sqs"
q - alpha 1
i - alpha 2
s - beta 1
s - beta 2
q - M1
i - M2
q - M3
s - D1
i - D2
q - H1
s - H2
q - V1
s - V2
The first mnemonic he has there is the cAMP ones I believe
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Hahah.. Oh yea.. good point
@Merit2011 Oh yeah!! I just went over these! Check out page 294 on FA 2011 on cAMP signaling pathways
I didn't think these would be important but USMLE Rx keeps testing the crap out of these
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this mnemonic never made sense to me. If you just memorize the mnemonics on the bottom of that page (inhibitory is "mad 2s," Gq coupled is"HAV 1 M&M," and everything else is Gs), then you have memorized everything in that above mnemonic.... with the one you posted you have to not only remember the mnemonic but hten also remember which order to put the receptors in...just seems like a lot of unnecssary work. But i guess if it works...
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I found the long one easier just because eith the exception of M1-M3 they are in alphabetical order. So I just had to remember where M1-M3 went. But ya, different things stick for different people I guess!
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I've used it since day one... so yes it works for me. And the order isn't exactly rocket science, it's by class and alphabetical/numerical within each class
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Easy tiger, I wsnt comin at you. Like I sid if it works then it works. Whether its rocket science or not, its still something else to remember. Seemed odd to me that FA would use noth sense they are for the same thing. I just went with the one that required me to remember the least amount of stuff!
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Well, that sucked. And, I'm typically a "good test taker". My exam was significantly more difficult than UWorld AND rather than being concept-heavy it was detail-oriented--pretty much EXACTLY the opposite of dogma I was brainwashed with.
- Fairly detailed anatomy of the limbs and the pelvic region complete WITH lots of confusing answer choices. (And, my anatomy percentile on UW was pretty darn high, like 80th percentile or something).
- Not only do you need to know the cause of many popular diseases, but you also needed to be able to know definitively which exact one was THE most common because they definitely listed only legitimate causes. Some things you expect this on, others not so much.
- WTF is FOXO gene? That gene doesn't exist in all of FA 2010.
- Was told that images weren't that high-yield, and I was operating on really short time so I focused on learning mechanisms and skimming pics. WRONG. The first half of my exam was absolutely littered with images, some of them both poor in quality and asking for very specific details. E.g. Take a picture of a beat-up brain steam, pixelate it, and then put an arrow pointing somewhere in the general vicinity of the pons and ask me which nerve is there.
I could go on for a while, but I don't feel like it.
All I know is that I had more red flags marked than I ever imagined I would.
I went in fairly confident after having an uptrend in my scores to pretty decent numbers, but now I'm hoping I didn't fail and that if I did pass it's at least >200.
I figured that given I had a pretty good handle on pretty much everything in FA, was scoring fairly well, and considering there are 8 blocks of 46 question there was NO WAY they'd hit me with a bunch of stuff I didn't know. Boy was I wrong.
FML
- Fairly detailed anatomy of the limbs and the pelvic region complete WITH lots of confusing answer choices. (And, my anatomy percentile on UW was pretty darn high, like 80th percentile or something).
- Not only do you need to know the cause of many popular diseases, but you also needed to be able to know definitively which exact one was THE most common because they definitely listed only legitimate causes. Some things you expect this on, others not so much.
- WTF is FOXO gene? That gene doesn't exist in all of FA 2010.
- Was told that images weren't that high-yield, and I was operating on really short time so I focused on learning mechanisms and skimming pics. WRONG. The first half of my exam was absolutely littered with images, some of them both poor in quality and asking for very specific details. E.g. Take a picture of a beat-up brain steam, pixelate it, and then put an arrow pointing somewhere in the general vicinity of the pons and ask me which nerve is there.
I could go on for a while, but I don't feel like it.
All I know is that I had more red flags marked than I ever imagined I would.
I went in fairly confident after having an uptrend in my scores to pretty decent numbers, but now I'm hoping I didn't fail and that if I did pass it's at least >200.
I figured that given I had a pretty good handle on pretty much everything in FA, was scoring fairly well, and considering there are 8 blocks of 46 question there was NO WAY they'd hit me with a bunch of stuff I didn't know. Boy was I wrong.
FML
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Yep. It did. Pretty sure I got it right based on what I researched when I got home, but it was fantastically frustrating given that I don't think I've ever heard of that in my life o_0
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I didn't have a lot of prep time, but I took UWSA form 1 as a diag and got ~200 (~53% correct); did some UWorld q's that same day and I was still there at about that 52% mark. That 52% UW qbank score estimator estimate (http://usmle-score-correlation.blogspot.com/) correlated almost exactly with my UWSA diag estimate, so I figure it was a fair representation of my capabilities at the time.
After that, I studied quite a bit (of course focusing on most of my weaknesses) and after a few weeks my scores trended toward 65-70% for random, timed blocks. Again, i didn't have a lot of time and I decided not to take a practice exam near my testing date because I was concerned that if i didn't do well it'd just be a blow to my confidence with no real educational benefit so I opted to keep studying and doing random 46's in UW. I mean, while I know the predictive value isn't what UW is good for, at a very minimum I think it's safe to say that averaging 65+% on uworld for random, timed blocks isn't half bad--I feel comfortable with that assessment based on what I'd seen people post online, especially considering the mean is usually around 53-57%, which includes people who completed questions more than once, studied in tutor mode, by systems, etc. o_0
Step 1 just wanted lots of details that I wasn't prepared for, many of which weren't in FA. FA wasn't enough for a lot of the sections. Biostats, pharm, a decent chunk of path, and anatomy immediately come to mind. And, while you didn't need to know every single detail in FA to get a decent percentage correct in UW, it felt as if that wasn't the case for my Step 1 exam.
Having said that, I do understand that the scoring system is relative and your score is given based on your performance within your testing cohort. And, that should mean I probably did okay o_0 But, I just felt so unprepared and abused that I just absolutely cannot imagine doing well and right now I'm just hoping I passed. I had some personal issues put me behind and I had a short study period, so I wasn't expecting to kill the exam. But, I didn't expect to get completely raped.
Hopefully I'm wrong. I thought I bombed my MCAT, too. 🙁
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Since a few people asked: the mnemonics I posted are in FA's endocrine section. At least they are in the 2010? I added a few signals to each as appropriate when they came up in UWorld or Qbank. I am not responsible for the accuracy of my addtions to FA's list, nor do I think they will prove very high yield. 🙂
Gs = GCFLATCHAMP is glucagon, calcitonin, FSH, LH, ACTH, TSH, CRH, hCG, ADH (V2 aquaporins), MSH, PTH.
Gq = GGGOAAAT is gastrin, GnRH, GHRH, oxytocin, ADH(V1, vasoconstrictor), alpha1 adrenergics, angiotensin 2, and TRH.
PETCAT is a list of steroid hormones, though it's admittedly kind of stupid to have a mnemonic for these.
JAK/STAT is the intracellular cascade transmitting signals for GH, prolactin, and most cytokines. There are 2 UWorld questions on these.
Intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity is possessed by the receptors for insulin, IGF-1, PDGF, and other growth factors.
I also loved "qiss and qiq til siq of sqs," though you need to remember SPDHV as well ("Speed have" for me, stupid but it worked). Write them across the top of the page with spaces like so.
--S----P----D----H----V
qiss---qiq--si----qs---qs
Final note, I got zero questions on these on my exam. For me, it was far more useful (by 1 question) to know the downstream mediators of Gq. Others' exam experiences will differ..
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No worries, I wasn't trying to be snappy. But yeah I guess they just put it in there and let the reader choose.
Thanks for sharing your experiences guys ...
The fact that a lot of you took the test around the same time/day and have very different experiences, makes me wonder what kind of a beast this is... I guess I ll find out soon
The fact that a lot of you took the test around the same time/day and have very different experiences, makes me wonder what kind of a beast this is... I guess I ll find out soon
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I'm pretty sure that reading this this morning caused a sympathetic response. Eek!
ugh these responses crank that anxiety up. i can't wait to hear what differences (or if people even notice them?) after the new crop of questions rolls out...thanks to everyone who writes these things though, it's incredibly informative.
Yeah I definitely appreciate everyone who is taking time to write about their experiences. 👍👍👍
And also, I refuse to study pelvic anatomy until I hear from the post-May 19th test takers! 😉
[Dear pelvis,
I hate you.
Regards,
quepatho]
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The pelvic anatomy wasn't THAT horrible. Just worse than I imagined. Muscles, innervation, lymph nodes, veins, arteries, etc but nothing like the various fascia layers of the pelvis and perinium w/ f"luid breaking one compartment, where does it aacumulate?" type of questions. More than what you'll find in FA, but don't crack open Grey's anatomy.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences guys ...
The fact that a lot of you took the test around the same time/day and have very different experiences, makes me wonder what kind of a beast this is... I guess I ll find out soon
Most people gets different exams. I imagine the curves for each individual exam vary quite a bit. If anything, it's just very demoralizing to think you'd seen the worst of it, talk to a few friends who said the test was easy like the free 150, then go in and get a beast of an exam that LOL'd at all the test prep material.
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Give the guy a break, man. He's not even 24 hours removed from taking his test, and you're already asking him for details.
EDIT: 9 posts, 9 questions. If everyone used the forum this selfishly, there would never be any answers, just questions. Ironically (and maybe hypocritically), I'm criticizing selfish posts by making a selfish post. . . This is just something that really annoys me.
