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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
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Hey nerdbombers, haven't used this site much in the past prior to board prep, but it was helpful in figuring out what resources to use. My goal going into this was a 230.
I had no coherent study plan, I pretty much just studied whatever I felt like I didn't know very well each day. One thing I did do was alot of questions. I studied 2 months and did at least 50 questions a day for the first month from kaplan, and then the last month I did 100-200 from usmlerx and world.
Kaplan questions - started at 50% ended around 65%
World started at - 48% ended around 58%, the last 300 or so I was getting around 70-75% correct on new timed random blocks.
UsmleRx- did these a week before the test because i had run out of questions. The scorrelator predicted something absurd like a 268 on their 200 question practice test thingy.
CBSE after a month of studying equated to 215
UWSA-2 taken about 3 weeks before 238
NBME 11- 228 3 weeks before
NBME 12 - 214 2 weeks before
Free 150 - 87% correct 2 days before
I used questions as mentioned above. I thought the kaplan raymond guy was helpful. I did the Uworld statistics tutorial which I thought was helpful. First Aid was helpful of course, probably read through 3/4 of this. Anatomy - didnt really make it through this subject, it seemed futile. Gouljan - managed to listen to most of the lectures, and read maybe half the book.
The exam: Big surprise to me was the amount of statistics..I probably had 20 stats questions, which was awesome, because I had studied stats the night before. I think I only had <5 anatomy questions (and they were really easy), 1 or 2 embryology, maybe 10-15 neuro questions which i didnt study very much but i think i made pretty educated guesses ( only 1 or 2 images), my friend said he had a ton of weird worms and parasites and stuff like that, but I only had one question on helminths and it was a super easy one. There was def. alot of immunology which is one of my strengths, but I think first AID would be sufficient. Pathology - gouljan is good, but I think I probably could have saved alot of time and just focused on memorizing first AID and done equally as well or better. The most helpful thing I did on the day before was read Robbins (yes, the actual big fatty book) chapters 1 to4 or 5, and the lung and heart chapter. It took about 7 hours, but I think was well worth it as it helped me answer some of those WTF questions that arent mentioned in first aid, gouljan, or world.
The exam seemed easier than uworld by farrrrrrrrr, and also easier than NBME 11 or 12. Im sure the curve will be just as harsh though, so I don't imagine my score will be higher than 220-230, and would be shocked if it was below 210.
I felt like I knew the correct answer on 80%, and the other 20% narrowed down to 2, and felt like I made pretty good guesses. There were no questions where I was like WTF, ive never heard of this, with the exception of one immuno drug.
I had no coherent study plan, I pretty much just studied whatever I felt like I didn't know very well each day. One thing I did do was alot of questions. I studied 2 months and did at least 50 questions a day for the first month from kaplan, and then the last month I did 100-200 from usmlerx and world.
Kaplan questions - started at 50% ended around 65%
World started at - 48% ended around 58%, the last 300 or so I was getting around 70-75% correct on new timed random blocks.
UsmleRx- did these a week before the test because i had run out of questions. The scorrelator predicted something absurd like a 268 on their 200 question practice test thingy.
CBSE after a month of studying equated to 215
UWSA-2 taken about 3 weeks before 238
NBME 11- 228 3 weeks before
NBME 12 - 214 2 weeks before
Free 150 - 87% correct 2 days before
I used questions as mentioned above. I thought the kaplan raymond guy was helpful. I did the Uworld statistics tutorial which I thought was helpful. First Aid was helpful of course, probably read through 3/4 of this. Anatomy - didnt really make it through this subject, it seemed futile. Gouljan - managed to listen to most of the lectures, and read maybe half the book.
The exam: Big surprise to me was the amount of statistics..I probably had 20 stats questions, which was awesome, because I had studied stats the night before. I think I only had <5 anatomy questions (and they were really easy), 1 or 2 embryology, maybe 10-15 neuro questions which i didnt study very much but i think i made pretty educated guesses ( only 1 or 2 images), my friend said he had a ton of weird worms and parasites and stuff like that, but I only had one question on helminths and it was a super easy one. There was def. alot of immunology which is one of my strengths, but I think first AID would be sufficient. Pathology - gouljan is good, but I think I probably could have saved alot of time and just focused on memorizing first AID and done equally as well or better. The most helpful thing I did on the day before was read Robbins (yes, the actual big fatty book) chapters 1 to4 or 5, and the lung and heart chapter. It took about 7 hours, but I think was well worth it as it helped me answer some of those WTF questions that arent mentioned in first aid, gouljan, or world.
The exam seemed easier than uworld by farrrrrrrrr, and also easier than NBME 11 or 12. Im sure the curve will be just as harsh though, so I don't imagine my score will be higher than 220-230, and would be shocked if it was below 210.
I felt like I knew the correct answer on 80%, and the other 20% narrowed down to 2, and felt like I made pretty good guesses. There were no questions where I was like WTF, ive never heard of this, with the exception of one immuno drug.
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Sweet flying space monkeys I'm finally done with that. Off for some sun soon!
Quick brief recap (I may post a bigger one later)
Exam was overall pretty fair. It was about UW difficulty, with a few easier questions, a few harder questions, mostly in the middle. My preparation definitely helped me for most of them and even the ones which I wasn't entirely sure about, I managed to make educated guesses on. Until I know how the curve is however I absolutely refuse to speculate on the score.
By subject:
Embryo - pretty simple, often very straightforward. There was only one embryo question which took me a minute and then I smacked myself in the head. Overall not that many, maybe 1-2 per section.
Anatomy - straightforward anatomy was fairly low yield, but I had something like 3 or 4 questions on the prostate/pelvis, which has always been tough for me. However I think I managed to approximate a good answer for many of them and that's really all I can ask for. There were a couple of ridiculously easy ones too though to even it out (including a common peroneal nerve fracture at the fibular neck).
Path/Pathophys/Phys - by far the biggest component of the exam. There were a few up/down arrows per section which weren't too bad, and only one of them really stumped me for a bit, but I think I figured it out. Also I really wish they didn't use "+" signs as it confuses me which answers I crossed out and which ones I didn't sometimes as a result. Overall this is fairly high yield stuff, and ranges from very straightforward to somewhat tough.
Pharm - surprisingly, this was one of the simplest. Most of the questions were straightforward mechanisms of action or side effects. A few required some thinking but otherwise it was fairly good. Only one of the questions really confused me and I think I made a good educated guess nonetheless.
Biochemistry - also surprisingly, not that hard. A few questions were on lipid metabolism, a few were glycogen storage diseases, and a few were lysosomal storage diseases as well. This was probably the biggest surprise for me since I had spent a lot of time expecting very very tough vignettes on these, and I came out feeling pretty good about it.
Molecular bio/Genetics - also not that bad, fair mix of easy and hard questions. There was one random question about "hydropathicity" for which I had no effing clue what they were talking about but otherwise it was pretty straightforward. A lot of them involved lab techniques and interpreting them, and there were a few pedigrees. There were also 2 or 3 questions amazingly which involved hardy weinberg stuff, so I'm glad that I paid attention to this.
Immunology/Micro - there's been speculation on whether this was super high yield since they're "shaking it up" a bit and adding new questions... and to be honest I don't know. Most of the immuno questions were very simple and straightforward, or required a little understanding of maturation processes (which you should be able to dredge up from your immuno courses if you were taught it well). I had only one vaccine question, and it was the expected "which of these has the most immunogenicity" one. There were a couple micro diseases I was unsure of but I managed to narrow it down and guess for one, and the other was some random disease "from Minnesota" and asked for what two other diseases were carried by the same vector. Not too bad.
Behavioral - ooo this got a little tricky at times. The ethics questions/"situation" questions could get a little rough and there was one situation I had never come across on a practice question but I think I guessed it correctly. The psych was for the most part simple and straightforward. Amazingly I had a grand total of ONE psych drugs question, and it was a mechanism of action question... definitely overstudied those, but better safe than sorry.
Neuro - THANK GOD, no brainstem pictures. There were a few side views/gross views of the brain talking about different lesions and such, but they were either obvious or they required a small bit of thinking to figure out (aphasias, middle cerebral artery strokes, etc). Had some extraocular muscle questions and a spinal cord cross section question which were easily discernible. I had only 2 or 3 drug questions on neuro and they were all very straightforward.
Biostats - I'm very thankful I looked at the equations and definitions last night. I had at least 3 or 4 questions on study designs and a couple questions on math stuff. These are very easy points to get and you can do yourself a favor by not skimping on the biostats!
What I did, and also what I shouldn't have done:
- Raymon's pharm lectures were CLUTCH for this exam, and I am so glad I did them.
- UW and FA are golden. There were a few details from FA that I got as questions on the exam which people sometimes skim over. DON'T.
- Kaplan qbank was definitely waaaaaaay harder and more nitpicky, but it provided good practice. Also, the font used by them is the same as the one on the real interface, which was nice.
- Goljan was... sort of helpful in the end. He helped me learn some of the concepts but not that many of his "high yield" things came up on the exam, and most of them were in FA already anyway. It was definitely absolutely worth it to go through though.
- I would have spent more time on Behavioral Ethics in retrospect.
- You're going to come out of some sections feeling like crap. Don't worry about it. You probably did fine.
- I doubt an extra week would have helped me get a higher grade and I think the time I spent was sufficient.
All in all, glad I'm done, and glad that's over. Peace out!
Quick brief recap (I may post a bigger one later)
Exam was overall pretty fair. It was about UW difficulty, with a few easier questions, a few harder questions, mostly in the middle. My preparation definitely helped me for most of them and even the ones which I wasn't entirely sure about, I managed to make educated guesses on. Until I know how the curve is however I absolutely refuse to speculate on the score.
By subject:
Embryo - pretty simple, often very straightforward. There was only one embryo question which took me a minute and then I smacked myself in the head. Overall not that many, maybe 1-2 per section.
Anatomy - straightforward anatomy was fairly low yield, but I had something like 3 or 4 questions on the prostate/pelvis, which has always been tough for me. However I think I managed to approximate a good answer for many of them and that's really all I can ask for. There were a couple of ridiculously easy ones too though to even it out (including a common peroneal nerve fracture at the fibular neck).
Path/Pathophys/Phys - by far the biggest component of the exam. There were a few up/down arrows per section which weren't too bad, and only one of them really stumped me for a bit, but I think I figured it out. Also I really wish they didn't use "+" signs as it confuses me which answers I crossed out and which ones I didn't sometimes as a result. Overall this is fairly high yield stuff, and ranges from very straightforward to somewhat tough.
Pharm - surprisingly, this was one of the simplest. Most of the questions were straightforward mechanisms of action or side effects. A few required some thinking but otherwise it was fairly good. Only one of the questions really confused me and I think I made a good educated guess nonetheless.
Biochemistry - also surprisingly, not that hard. A few questions were on lipid metabolism, a few were glycogen storage diseases, and a few were lysosomal storage diseases as well. This was probably the biggest surprise for me since I had spent a lot of time expecting very very tough vignettes on these, and I came out feeling pretty good about it.
Molecular bio/Genetics - also not that bad, fair mix of easy and hard questions. There was one random question about "hydropathicity" for which I had no effing clue what they were talking about but otherwise it was pretty straightforward. A lot of them involved lab techniques and interpreting them, and there were a few pedigrees. There were also 2 or 3 questions amazingly which involved hardy weinberg stuff, so I'm glad that I paid attention to this.
Immunology/Micro - there's been speculation on whether this was super high yield since they're "shaking it up" a bit and adding new questions... and to be honest I don't know. Most of the immuno questions were very simple and straightforward, or required a little understanding of maturation processes (which you should be able to dredge up from your immuno courses if you were taught it well). I had only one vaccine question, and it was the expected "which of these has the most immunogenicity" one. There were a couple micro diseases I was unsure of but I managed to narrow it down and guess for one, and the other was some random disease "from Minnesota" and asked for what two other diseases were carried by the same vector. Not too bad.
Behavioral - ooo this got a little tricky at times. The ethics questions/"situation" questions could get a little rough and there was one situation I had never come across on a practice question but I think I guessed it correctly. The psych was for the most part simple and straightforward. Amazingly I had a grand total of ONE psych drugs question, and it was a mechanism of action question... definitely overstudied those, but better safe than sorry.
Neuro - THANK GOD, no brainstem pictures. There were a few side views/gross views of the brain talking about different lesions and such, but they were either obvious or they required a small bit of thinking to figure out (aphasias, middle cerebral artery strokes, etc). Had some extraocular muscle questions and a spinal cord cross section question which were easily discernible. I had only 2 or 3 drug questions on neuro and they were all very straightforward.
Biostats - I'm very thankful I looked at the equations and definitions last night. I had at least 3 or 4 questions on study designs and a couple questions on math stuff. These are very easy points to get and you can do yourself a favor by not skimping on the biostats!
What I did, and also what I shouldn't have done:
- Raymon's pharm lectures were CLUTCH for this exam, and I am so glad I did them.
- UW and FA are golden. There were a few details from FA that I got as questions on the exam which people sometimes skim over. DON'T.
- Kaplan qbank was definitely waaaaaaay harder and more nitpicky, but it provided good practice. Also, the font used by them is the same as the one on the real interface, which was nice.
- Goljan was... sort of helpful in the end. He helped me learn some of the concepts but not that many of his "high yield" things came up on the exam, and most of them were in FA already anyway. It was definitely absolutely worth it to go through though.
- I would have spent more time on Behavioral Ethics in retrospect.
- You're going to come out of some sections feeling like crap. Don't worry about it. You probably did fine.
- I doubt an extra week would have helped me get a higher grade and I think the time I spent was sufficient.
All in all, glad I'm done, and glad that's over. Peace out!
congrats arc, and thanks for that breakdown.
@samrat - nbme 5 is a good place to start, just don't expect any feedback. the others (6,7,11,12) are better "predictors" with tougher curves (which can be demoralizing early on). my advice is take something now and get a baseline, along with subjects you're weak on to gauge progress later on.
@samrat - nbme 5 is a good place to start, just don't expect any feedback. the others (6,7,11,12) are better "predictors" with tougher curves (which can be demoralizing early on). my advice is take something now and get a baseline, along with subjects you're weak on to gauge progress later on.
doubt he's going to answer (i sure won't for about 1 week after my test), but i can offer advice. there a legal, and slightly less legal means to obtain them. kaplan sells the set of videos for their webprep. upperclassmen/friends might have them bootleg. the internet definitely has them (if you're so inclined). i will vouch for them though, i'm currently reviewing physio + pharm and raymond is the man. i never new antiarrhythmics could be easy...
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Im actually hoping for a score tomorrow, any idea what time those emails come out? Anyone else waiting?
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... shadily. I'm sure someone will oblige (anyone please?) but I can't think of er, a legit way.
And thanks everyone!
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I also thought NBME 11 and 12 were definitely tougher than the real exam at times. The closest was definitely NBME 7 for me. However my experience is subjective.
BTW. I did have one giant WTF question on my exam, namely a DENTISTRY question (some kid with an overbite, and it asks for the mechanism of the overbite after giving a vignette). That was probably the only one I had no clue what it was talking about.
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When did you take it? How long is it normally for the score report?
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Took it on the 28th of April, tomorrow will be the 3rd wednesday after my test, which seems to be the general consensus as to when I should expect a score.
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If you take it after mid-May it typically takes somewhat longer though (5-6 weeks)
Another EDIT: (i keep remembering random details)... there were a few tough cardiac cath/auscultation media questions where you can listen at different points. The vignette DOES NOT always indicate the right thing - for example one of the vignettes suggested tricuspid endocarditis but on auscultation it was mitral valve prolapse. There was one I definitely guessed on but thankfully most of the other questions that section I felt good about. Also don't be fooled too easily by "associations" when looking at catheter questions!! Do not blindly assume things like "DiGeorge = truncus arteriosus" or "Down's = endocardial cushion defect"... I had a question with a Down's syndrome kid who had a systolic murmur... I immediately thought of an ASD, and the cath completely pointed to it being a NORMAL physiological murmur (no pressure abnormalities, no step up/step down).
In conclusion... BE CAREFUL.
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those trolls
Hey Arc, in reference to Behavioral Ethics... do you think reading those 1 or 2 chapters in BRS/KAPLAN is worth the time then? Was first aid enough for the rest of the behavioral section of your exam?
and congrats on being done - I have no doubt you killed it.
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Dang, now I'm happy I went to those weird research classes... they taught us about that in a longevity lecture we had during geriatrics week
I take mine the 24th, moved up the test from the 31st
National Basic Science Shelf school provided: 230 (this was way back)
NBME 11: 228
NBME 12: 235 (One week later)
Uworld so far (still doing it 46 random) 70%
I figure I'll go over high yield stuff and quick read through FA again. Some stuff I wanna hit is the arteritises and storage diseases etc... bioethics and biostats and pelvic anatomy apperently haha
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i thought kaplan was pretty good. if you follow their 'rules' the questions are pretty straight forward and you can immediately eliminate most of the answers right off the bat.
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what are the rules if you don't mind sharing 😛? behavioral science one of my few weakest subjects...
Oh I was just about the ask that question, about the "rules". I was thinking of going over BRS behave and conrad, but that'd take a lotta time ,so I think i ll stick to kaplan now. 👍
Btw ryster, which other subjects did you do kaplan from besides behave?
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Who else is expecting scores today?????
GOOD LUCK
i am. took it on 26th april.
what time do they start rolling e mails. i guess they keep sending them out till late evening.
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Got my results back today at exactly 9 am!!! 252/99, it was 10 more points then I expected, cant explain how thrilled I am with this score, nbme 3 and 7 underpredicted by 10 points, in the end it was a combination of my uworld average and the nbme, ill upload mystudy experience in a little while gonna call my parents!
Thanks to all of the frequent posters got alot from the collective experience; Ive never been what you may call an a+ student, and far from being considered a genius I allways had a reputation for being a little on the slow side (long story since waaay back in school), nevertheless this goes to show u hard work and Gods help goes a long way
Thanks to all of the frequent posters got alot from the collective experience; Ive never been what you may call an a+ student, and far from being considered a genius I allways had a reputation for being a little on the slow side (long story since waaay back in school), nevertheless this goes to show u hard work and Gods help goes a long way
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Haha, I noted the same in my post-test post. Had a perfect set up for HCM, I marked a HCM murmur and put off listening to the audio until last to avoid switching twice between headphones and earplugs. Imagine my surprise when it was NOT a HCM murmur. 🙂
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Took it on the 25th. No email yet...
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People have previously reported that they were able to obtain their scores from the NBME about an hour before they received the email.
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Did my exam on the 26 of april
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you sure about that? 🙂
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haha maybe i'm over exaggerating....but it does suck. I never had dreams of the step before i took it, but AFTER, i had dreams of getting scores like 4 nights in a row. I even had a dream that I missed my exam b/c i came on the wrong day....wtf? I woke up and was like "ah, what, ahhh....whats the date? Wait, im pretty sure i already took it...phew."
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haha... yeah, the wait is definitely worse. 2 weeks to go for me.
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Are you ****ting me? I thought it was 3-4 weeks tops!
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Took it late April, just got my score back at 11am EST this morning.
My last few NBMEs were:
NBME 12 -- 252 -- 2 weeks out
UWSA 2 -- 258 -- 2 weeks out
NBME 7 -- 259 -- 1 week out
I used UsmleRx for classes throughout the year, and then UW, FA, BRS phys and Rapid Review over my ~4 month study period. I studied a couple hours each day over those four months while classes were in session and then studied more hours per day toward the end of school. I took the exam about a week into my "summer" break. I used Robbins, HY Anatomy and other more detail-oriented sources as references to expand on information that was not clear in FA or RR. I also used about 600 Qs of Kaplan, but it irritated me more than anything else. I think it's a good question bank to use second to UW for actual board studying. I probably made it through FA 5-6 times. And I made it through UW once and repeated about 200 questions I got wrong two days before my exam.
Over the past year, I barely studied for classes using the class material. Our exams were generally NBMEs, so if we were taught details that were not in FA, BRS phys or RR, I did not learn them. This cost me some points in classes, but I'm at a P/F school so I didn't care. As a result, I was a very average student.
Bottom line: If you aren't a superstar student, you can still do very well on the boards if you put in the time. I put in an extended effort at a leisurely pace because I knew repetition would be important for me. In the end, it paid off.
Also, I slept terribly the night before and could barely keep my eyes open toward the end of the day. I walked out of the exam thinking I scored in the 220s (lower than any practice exam I took), so your post-exam feelings really mean nothing.
My last few NBMEs were:
NBME 12 -- 252 -- 2 weeks out
UWSA 2 -- 258 -- 2 weeks out
NBME 7 -- 259 -- 1 week out
I used UsmleRx for classes throughout the year, and then UW, FA, BRS phys and Rapid Review over my ~4 month study period. I studied a couple hours each day over those four months while classes were in session and then studied more hours per day toward the end of school. I took the exam about a week into my "summer" break. I used Robbins, HY Anatomy and other more detail-oriented sources as references to expand on information that was not clear in FA or RR. I also used about 600 Qs of Kaplan, but it irritated me more than anything else. I think it's a good question bank to use second to UW for actual board studying. I probably made it through FA 5-6 times. And I made it through UW once and repeated about 200 questions I got wrong two days before my exam.
Over the past year, I barely studied for classes using the class material. Our exams were generally NBMEs, so if we were taught details that were not in FA, BRS phys or RR, I did not learn them. This cost me some points in classes, but I'm at a P/F school so I didn't care. As a result, I was a very average student.
Bottom line: If you aren't a superstar student, you can still do very well on the boards if you put in the time. I put in an extended effort at a leisurely pace because I knew repetition would be important for me. In the end, it paid off.
Also, I slept terribly the night before and could barely keep my eyes open toward the end of the day. I walked out of the exam thinking I scored in the 220s (lower than any practice exam I took), so your post-exam feelings really mean nothing.
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224/95, not tryin to do derm/plastics/ortho or go to the mayo, so im happy
