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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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Perhaps. I just figure something like that which doesn't really show up in review books would have a pretty low % correct vs other questions. Just because it's experimental doesn't mean I think it's unfair. It could just be in testing. Perhaps it is low yield and non-experimental.
I will continue to pretend that things like that are, however, in the hopes that getting them wrong next week wont drive me nuts 😛
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I ran into a few of the tidbits I picked up from the "2010 test taking experience" thread... ("ran into" as in literally run into a wall... yes... that will do...)
Therefore, it must be a legitimate one then, right?
Therefore, it must be a legitimate one then, right?
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oh, i found it! thanks, i never would have looked otherwise.
http://www.usmle.org/Examinations/step1/step1_content.html
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Having done UW more times than is healthy, I found that doing them on unused, random would go like so:
First 45%: High-yield material that's new to you --> lower score.
Second 45%: Still high-yield, but many, many repeats start showing up if you are observant or do the bank quickly. (I estimate that there are about 600-900 unique concepts in the entire bank, the rest are direct repeats or slightly reconfigured to test knowledge of the same concept.) If you only studied from UWorld, you should expect a 10-20 percentile point increase if you truly master all used questions.
Last 10%: More esoteric facts tend to appear here, for whatever reason. The random question generator is not very random at all. While these facts seem bizarre, they are included because previous test takers give UWorld authors feedback. Of these seemingly "out there" questions, I noticed a good number of related items on the real test.
If you're nearing the end of the bank and doing them on random, the above is probably contributing to your score drop. Don't worry, but don't neglect the facts they're trying to impart, some will definitely appear on the real thing. Good luck!
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Thanks so much guys. Really making me feel better. I went through some of the answers I got wrong and all I have to say is WOW. UWorld is definitely making me overthink some very simple concepts and I just decided to consciously think about not overcomplicating things on the real test. Not every question is going to be try to trick me. Mini-freak out there, but I think I'm past it.
By the way, I see a Cubs logo in the thread. First time I've seen another team logo as an avatar on this site...what is it, Med school attracts fans of losing franchises?
By the way, I see a Cubs logo in the thread. First time I've seen another team logo as an avatar on this site...what is it, Med school attracts fans of losing franchises?
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Thanks so much guys. Really making me feel better. I went through some of the answers I got wrong and all I have to say is WOW. UWorld is definitely making me overthink some very simple concepts and I just decided to consciously think about not overcomplicating things on the real test. Not every question is going to be try to trick me. Mini-freak out there, but I think I'm past it.
By the way, I see a Cubs logo in the thread. First time I've seen another team logo as an avatar on this site...what is it, Med school attracts fans of losing franchises?
Yeah I was doing some UWorld questions for so long that when I went through some USMLE Rx questions, I tended to overthink them and come up with crazy ways of getting at answer... even when it was a simple, what is this? type of question. Freakin' UWorld.
Go Dodgers! haha...
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guess you weren't on much in 2008-09 haha. the cubs have been just dismal this year... i used to listen to the games on my iphone while i studied but it's just too sad now.Thanks so much guys. Really making me feel better. I went through some of the answers I got wrong and all I have to say is WOW. UWorld is definitely making me overthink some very simple concepts and I just decided to consciously think about not overcomplicating things on the real test. Not every question is going to be try to trick me. Mini-freak out there, but I think I'm past it.
By the way, I see a Cubs logo in the thread. First time I've seen another team logo as an avatar on this site...what is it, Med school attracts fans of losing franchises?
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Just got back from the exam.
Lessons learned:
Exogenous insulin is ravaging our community, while pesky things like heart disease are trivial. Foot anatomy is equally as important as the heart.
The only problems that require medications are AIDS and cancer. Understanding the pharmacology for anything else is worthless, because people don't have those problems. (Except for cough from an ACE-I ) This includes knowing the ideal chemotherapy for super rare cancers that most people will never actually see in their life, but illustrates a random immunopharm point.
While I thought I knew my neuroanatomy pretty well, they like to cluster 6 different choices within a little area of the correct answer to make REALLY sure I know it.
That guy with the ice pick is still on the loose.
Seriously though, I thought the test was very very random, but doable for the most part. I don't feel great or anything and I'm more than positive I made stupid mistakes or overcomplicated things but it was overall what I expected. Yes, there were lots of "What the hell?" type questions, but I honestly don't know how I would've studied for the ones that came up.
As mentioned before, uworld really does do a great job of simulating the interface.
My test was very very immuno heavy, which seems to be a recurring theme. I did have 1 question that was almost verbatim from NBME 12, but just changed what they were asking for. Both versions were easy, so it didn't really matter. The pharm was almost baby town frolics level with the occasional question that asked for a difference that I didn't know existed in the first place. On those questions, I was able to figure out by what it was NOT and at least get it to two answers.
My test was NOT very calculation intensive. I had to calculate the filtration fraction and then a couple of basic stats things.
We had one kid start later than everyone else because the sound wasn't working on his computer. We all felt bad for him when we realized that he still hadn't really started when we were halfway through, but he wanted to take the test today, so he waited around, which I don't really blame him for.
The general flow of my day went something like this:
Woke up at 6:10 a.m. -> Head a headache, so popped some ibuprofen to end that. Did some pushups, showered, packed up my little cooler and made sure I had everything in order. I then did 15 practice questions on uworld just to get the wheels turning a bit.
Swung by panera around 7:15 and picked up a breakfast sandwich and a small coffee (usually go for the large). Drove to the center listening to my own little inspirational songs.
Hurried up and then waited once at the center. Didn't officially start till 8:30 a.m.
Intended to shoot through 2 blocks at first, but decided to pound a little caffeine in between, pee and have something to drink since nerves had my mouth really dry.
Did my two blocks and then pounded a sandwich and chatted with people while having more caffeine.
Two more blocks -> break. At this point I realized that I only had about 6 minutes of total break time left evidently. Did my lightning pee and came back and ripped off the last two.
Just like I expected, it is an odd and somewhat surreal feeling to be done. The day went REALLY fast. I don't have any clue how I performed and honestly wouldn't be surprised if I got a 230 or a 255. Ok, I'd probably be more surprised with the 255, but you get the point.
Study materials/prep:
I got a year long uworld back in September for my bday. I didn't use it that entire time. I probably did about 20% of the questions in the fall semester, usually along with class. The real uworld questions started around spring.
I listened to goljan and DIT audio or every unit. Sundays were my day where I worked through the audio in the correct order. I made a checklist to make sure I hit every lecture. During that time, I TRIED to do about 25 questions a day in addition to school work.
My real studying started around spring break in March. I put a pretty significant amount of time in. Mostly using first aid and rapid review with supplements from various areas. The week AFTER springbreak, I took UWSA 1 and got a 230 estimate.
I then stopped using uworld with about 10+% left. I did all of the pretest question book, most of the NMS question book, a good chunk of the kaplan question book, 6 or 7 blocks from a kaplan step 2 question block and maybe about 200 internal medicine board questions for funsies. I then decided to throw down on kaplan qbank. Did all of that till the second week of May.
I then followed the basic DIT schedule, but without actually using DIT for most of the stuff. Once in a while I'd supplement in kaplan or PASS videos for variety. Really, just focused on doing tons of uworld questions and spent the afternoons reading.
For the last 3 or 4 months, whenever I walked or drove anymore it was goljan or DIT playing about 90% of the time.
The last 6 days of studying were a grind. I did the NBME 7 and 12 on the Thursday. Once done, I started from the beginning of first aid for my final run through. I made flashcards along the way for stuff I didn't feel I knew very well. Whenever I got board, I'd go and do the incorrect and marked questions on uworld. (Only have about 150 incorrect now)
Monday I wrapped up my first aid run through and had a plastic bag full of notecards banded into friggin bricks. Tuesday, I did 2 more blocks and then went somewhere else and just went through those flash cards. I threw away the ones I didn't know. Shut down around 4 p.m. and got groceries, worked out and chilled.
If I had to do it all over again, I might've gotten kaplan qbank first. I hated it overall, but the questions are a little more detail oriented and would've helped me more probably. Other than that, I honestly don't know what else I COULD have done. I sacrificed a LOT to the USMLE gods this semester. I've lost over 20 pounds of mass since the beginning of MS2, chose studying over hanging with a few girls and other social events and just lived and breathed this stuff. I know I didn't fail, but I honestly have no idea what the outcome will be.
Lessons learned:
Exogenous insulin is ravaging our community, while pesky things like heart disease are trivial. Foot anatomy is equally as important as the heart.
The only problems that require medications are AIDS and cancer. Understanding the pharmacology for anything else is worthless, because people don't have those problems. (Except for cough from an ACE-I ) This includes knowing the ideal chemotherapy for super rare cancers that most people will never actually see in their life, but illustrates a random immunopharm point.
While I thought I knew my neuroanatomy pretty well, they like to cluster 6 different choices within a little area of the correct answer to make REALLY sure I know it.
That guy with the ice pick is still on the loose.
Seriously though, I thought the test was very very random, but doable for the most part. I don't feel great or anything and I'm more than positive I made stupid mistakes or overcomplicated things but it was overall what I expected. Yes, there were lots of "What the hell?" type questions, but I honestly don't know how I would've studied for the ones that came up.
As mentioned before, uworld really does do a great job of simulating the interface.
My test was very very immuno heavy, which seems to be a recurring theme. I did have 1 question that was almost verbatim from NBME 12, but just changed what they were asking for. Both versions were easy, so it didn't really matter. The pharm was almost baby town frolics level with the occasional question that asked for a difference that I didn't know existed in the first place. On those questions, I was able to figure out by what it was NOT and at least get it to two answers.
My test was NOT very calculation intensive. I had to calculate the filtration fraction and then a couple of basic stats things.
We had one kid start later than everyone else because the sound wasn't working on his computer. We all felt bad for him when we realized that he still hadn't really started when we were halfway through, but he wanted to take the test today, so he waited around, which I don't really blame him for.
The general flow of my day went something like this:
Woke up at 6:10 a.m. -> Head a headache, so popped some ibuprofen to end that. Did some pushups, showered, packed up my little cooler and made sure I had everything in order. I then did 15 practice questions on uworld just to get the wheels turning a bit.
Swung by panera around 7:15 and picked up a breakfast sandwich and a small coffee (usually go for the large). Drove to the center listening to my own little inspirational songs.
Hurried up and then waited once at the center. Didn't officially start till 8:30 a.m.
Intended to shoot through 2 blocks at first, but decided to pound a little caffeine in between, pee and have something to drink since nerves had my mouth really dry.
Did my two blocks and then pounded a sandwich and chatted with people while having more caffeine.
Two more blocks -> break. At this point I realized that I only had about 6 minutes of total break time left evidently. Did my lightning pee and came back and ripped off the last two.
Just like I expected, it is an odd and somewhat surreal feeling to be done. The day went REALLY fast. I don't have any clue how I performed and honestly wouldn't be surprised if I got a 230 or a 255. Ok, I'd probably be more surprised with the 255, but you get the point.
Study materials/prep:
I got a year long uworld back in September for my bday. I didn't use it that entire time. I probably did about 20% of the questions in the fall semester, usually along with class. The real uworld questions started around spring.
I listened to goljan and DIT audio or every unit. Sundays were my day where I worked through the audio in the correct order. I made a checklist to make sure I hit every lecture. During that time, I TRIED to do about 25 questions a day in addition to school work.
My real studying started around spring break in March. I put a pretty significant amount of time in. Mostly using first aid and rapid review with supplements from various areas. The week AFTER springbreak, I took UWSA 1 and got a 230 estimate.
I then stopped using uworld with about 10+% left. I did all of the pretest question book, most of the NMS question book, a good chunk of the kaplan question book, 6 or 7 blocks from a kaplan step 2 question block and maybe about 200 internal medicine board questions for funsies. I then decided to throw down on kaplan qbank. Did all of that till the second week of May.
I then followed the basic DIT schedule, but without actually using DIT for most of the stuff. Once in a while I'd supplement in kaplan or PASS videos for variety. Really, just focused on doing tons of uworld questions and spent the afternoons reading.
For the last 3 or 4 months, whenever I walked or drove anymore it was goljan or DIT playing about 90% of the time.
The last 6 days of studying were a grind. I did the NBME 7 and 12 on the Thursday. Once done, I started from the beginning of first aid for my final run through. I made flashcards along the way for stuff I didn't feel I knew very well. Whenever I got board, I'd go and do the incorrect and marked questions on uworld. (Only have about 150 incorrect now)
Monday I wrapped up my first aid run through and had a plastic bag full of notecards banded into friggin bricks. Tuesday, I did 2 more blocks and then went somewhere else and just went through those flash cards. I threw away the ones I didn't know. Shut down around 4 p.m. and got groceries, worked out and chilled.
If I had to do it all over again, I might've gotten kaplan qbank first. I hated it overall, but the questions are a little more detail oriented and would've helped me more probably. Other than that, I honestly don't know what else I COULD have done. I sacrificed a LOT to the USMLE gods this semester. I've lost over 20 pounds of mass since the beginning of MS2, chose studying over hanging with a few girls and other social events and just lived and breathed this stuff. I know I didn't fail, but I honestly have no idea what the outcome will be.
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"baby town frolics"? Where did that term come from?
I'm sure you did well, though. There are always the wtf questions, like the ones on UW that 11% of people get right.
And good to know only that I will only ever see AIDS patients. UW gave me the impression that all my patients would be homeless alcoholics with a few IVDU people thrown in for good measure.
I'm sure you did well, though. There are always the wtf questions, like the ones on UW that 11% of people get right.
And good to know only that I will only ever see AIDS patients. UW gave me the impression that all my patients would be homeless alcoholics with a few IVDU people thrown in for good measure.
Took mine today. This is from my phone at a bar, I felt had to post because of all the recent sour posts about FA and how crazy it's been. Mine was not that crazy, very random. Lots of micro and immuno and path/pathophys. Pharm was incredibly easy, and I'm REALLY not great. Anatomy was only crazy twice (weird perineum questions). Finished an hour and a half early. I'll write up later but have some faith in yourselves and your study plan. If you see 1 out of 6 answers you don't know, then eliminate the others. Relax the day before And let your mind rest. I'd say if you know FA and did UW and RR 30% were gimmes( you've seen this question before) 60% are the let's think this through Ans the last ~30 questions you're like yea I'm not a dental student I don't care about some kids teeth problems (and no it wasn't jobs). Know your immunopath. Thanks to this board for making me so neurotic i was well prepared. Best of luck to everyone, it's doable. Set your Phazers to kill.
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Just wanted to reemphasize and agree with this. FA definitely does have most of the material necessary. I forget who, but a couple posters commented on my original "FA isn't enough" post and made some good points. Namely, that most of it is in FA or Uworld, just said differently. And like some of the people who have posted recently, even the few that aren't in there I'm not really sure where in the world you could find the answers. So like Fahi and I's back and forth a little earlier said, definitely feel confident in FA for content, Uworld for content/test taking skills and you should be golden. Once I find out my score I will be able to better support this though.
Congrats to all who finished today! I'm so thankful I didn't get any of these crazy teeth questions I keep hearing about!
Just got back from the test. Overall, I'm not too sure how it went because I have no clue as to the scaling (i.e., how many you can miss to get a certain score). If it's like the NBME's and you can only miss 5-6 questions per block to land in the 240's, then I don't think I did that. I marked very liberally, which is making me think I missed more than what I probably did, but I'd say I marked anywhere from 5 to 20 questions per block.
I only saw maybe 3 questions on the whole test where I didn't have a clue what was going on. I'm really glad I didn't look at anything for the 2 days prior to the test; it wouldn't have made a difference based on what I saw today, and I'm glad I was well-rested.
If I had to guess, I'd say that I scored a 230 (95% CI 218-242), which I can live with. As far as what I studied, I made one pass of FA and I made it through the whole UW qbank, then I reviewed 1/2 of my incorrects from UW and re-read 4 sections of FA (biochem, micro, pharm, immuno).
I only saw maybe 3 questions on the whole test where I didn't have a clue what was going on. I'm really glad I didn't look at anything for the 2 days prior to the test; it wouldn't have made a difference based on what I saw today, and I'm glad I was well-rested.
If I had to guess, I'd say that I scored a 230 (95% CI 218-242), which I can live with. As far as what I studied, I made one pass of FA and I made it through the whole UW qbank, then I reviewed 1/2 of my incorrects from UW and re-read 4 sections of FA (biochem, micro, pharm, immuno).
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Nice job to everyone who got done today. You guys are making my faith in FA come back.
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I second that. When is your exam Seeker?
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Next Wednesday (6/22). What about you? I am ready to get this thing over with. I just can't study anymore...I start hearing voices in this empty room now and it's just getting creepy.
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Don't retract your statement! Diversity and unique opinions should be valued.
I signed up for emedicine's weekly case file report...
There was a particular long case history...
It turned out to be C1 esterase deficiency (it did not focus on the facial angioedema aspect though)
Although the lipase was very high (it was mentioned first in the stem), the history also stated that CT scan showed no pancreatic abnormalities.
On the first multiple choice, 44% of health care professionals (incorrectly) chose acute pancreatitis.
I am not saying who is right or wrong... rather do not cave into pressure. Unless you are unequivocally wrong, you should have stick with your original statement to maintain integrity....... or at the very least "agree to disagree" or pull the good old lawyer trick ("I do not agree with what you said. But I will defend to the death your right to say it."
I signed up for emedicine's weekly case file report...
There was a particular long case history...
It turned out to be C1 esterase deficiency (it did not focus on the facial angioedema aspect though)
Although the lipase was very high (it was mentioned first in the stem), the history also stated that CT scan showed no pancreatic abnormalities.
On the first multiple choice, 44% of health care professionals (incorrectly) chose acute pancreatitis.
I am not saying who is right or wrong... rather do not cave into pressure. Unless you are unequivocally wrong, you should have stick with your original statement to maintain integrity....... or at the very least "agree to disagree" or pull the good old lawyer trick ("I do not agree with what you said. But I will defend to the death your right to say it."
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Do you think that only knowing the immuno from FA is sufficient to tackle the immuno stuff you saw?
Congrats on finishing--sure ya killed it!
took the test today. i don't post on here but have been reading often lately, so i thought i'd give my thoughts real quick. overall i thought the test was pretty easy actually. there were some random questions but for the most part, the question stem gave you more than enough info to get the question right. i feel like for most of the wtf/random questions, they were either experimental or no one got them right so the curve isn't really effected. first aid, uworld and all of the nbme tests are solid. as far as specifics go, i didn't have any immuno really. maybe a tnf-alpha question or two. no IL stuff. it wouldn't have hurt to study more anatomy (pelvic and everything else). GI and resp were pretty heavy. that's about all i can say. im officially done with this thread. good luck everyone else.
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This Saturday, I'm ready to get it done with. All these months of studying, I'm so done. I'm just doing my last pass of First Aid and then I'm done.
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Good luck man. You will kill it!
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You too!
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I'd say I marked about the same amount I did on my NBME exams and I changed fewer answers than usual. My change percentage is normally pretty high in the correct department, but if I couldn't justify it then I avoided it.
But yea, the last 2 days of review actually did get me a few questions. There were probably 4 or 5 questions because of my flashcards yesterday. Maraviroc being the major one that I remember.
They did try to bait me into answering asbestos for one when it was something else. That was kind of a repeating theme though. The general theme seemed to be that they didn't want you to follow the standards exactly. I had a 10 y/o male with some disease (can't remember what specifically) that I really never even thought of with that age and gender, but none of the other answers fit at all. If one reads most of the questions carefully it will automatically knock it down to two answers and there is usually one little thing in there that tips the scales.
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hahah yeah. I got one question that talked about a boy who just got a specific tooth pulled. (like upper left 2nd premolar or something) Then asked if the unnamed nerve that innervated that tooth were damaged while pulling the tooth, which other teeth would be affected. Haha, then it listed combinations of "2nd right incisor, left 1st premolar, etc etc." Ahhh, good times.
Of course, I also got one that described someone with MS, then said a whole paragraph about how she didn't have any other problems at all, then asked which of the following cell/tissue types were most likely affected: is it.... muscle? is it... skin? is it... bone? Or how about... Neurons??? haha. amazing.
Yeah I had a dental question too on my boards, it had something to do with an overbite on someone with deciduous teeth or some nonsense. I was pretty much just staring at it and decided screw it, this one will be thrown out. I feel like they must have made a mistake when putting it on.
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They need new ways of maintaining that normal curve.
Once medical schools incorporate dentistry, they are going to incorporate Latin and law school material as well! 👍
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It's such a shame because even if these dental questions were more like the ethical "what would you do next" questions, we still know that they would penalize us for choosing "Refer to a dentist"
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I had a weird question about drugs. According to First Aid, both drugs would cause this condition and they were both(!!) in the answer choices. Anyone know anything about this??
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I am currently on my second pass through world, and I noticed the same thing. I guess thats a good idea, cos most people who buy world dont get through all the questions. Having the highest yield facts on the front end is helpful if you arent doing a lot of questions.
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I'm T-11 days!
I'm SOO NERVOUS!!! I have about 30% of FA left and I'm using my remaining time to plow thru 3 blocks per day. And I'm going to look at FA hopefully 1-2 more passes.
I also wanna check out the Free 150 and maybe NBME 7. I still feel like I haven't learn much as everything seems so free to me. For the past 8 blocks I've been around 68-69%. My overall is a 63%.
What do you guys recommend?!?!?!
I'm weak in anatomy and biochem. Thoughts!?
EDit: I'm also wondering... how much emphasis was place on histology? I recall quite a few UW questions that ask you to name some characteristics of particular parts of the body (e.g. Where are such and such glands found? Or what histological changes occur as you transition from this part of the resp tract to this part...)
I'm SOO NERVOUS!!! I have about 30% of FA left and I'm using my remaining time to plow thru 3 blocks per day. And I'm going to look at FA hopefully 1-2 more passes.
I also wanna check out the Free 150 and maybe NBME 7. I still feel like I haven't learn much as everything seems so free to me. For the past 8 blocks I've been around 68-69%. My overall is a 63%.
What do you guys recommend?!?!?!
I'm weak in anatomy and biochem. Thoughts!?
EDit: I'm also wondering... how much emphasis was place on histology? I recall quite a few UW questions that ask you to name some characteristics of particular parts of the body (e.g. Where are such and such glands found? Or what histological changes occur as you transition from this part of the resp tract to this part...)
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I have a question about the tutorial (I apologize if this has been asked before), but if you elect to do the tutorial - then do you loose the WHOLE 15 minutes? Or only the time you used to check to see if your head phones work?
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Outside of certain obvious areas, anatomy is tough to study for. I'd know all the porto-systemic, celiac, sma, ima type stuff cold, as well as the relationship of things in a CT and what might happen if you mucked around with that area. I'd also spend a little more time on sacral plexus than most people do. It has the potential to be a few slam dunk point if you do.
Most of my anatomy questions were relatively straightforward.
For biochem I'd just know first aid stuff and the uworld questions cold. Nearly every question I had was relatively straightforward. I'm sure I missed 1 or 2, but that was due to me playing the odds and studying other stuff. Of course, I literally had around 12 questions that were direct, "Fair game but not hugely high yield" topics from DIT as well, so who knows.
Both of these topics are things where it is entirely possible to spend ungodly amounts of time reviewing and getting the questions right, but at the cost of missing more questions in another topic. If it makes you feel better to spend 3 days reviewing over stuff, then have at it but I wouldn't do it at the cost of multiple other areas.
One thing I did do for anatomy was just read brs or high yield anatomy on whatever system I was covering and then transfer over a few of the more random clinical correlations, which did help a little.
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I don't even know where they sell ice picks in Florida. There has to be a special store where they sell those and ski masks somewhere around here.
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I think I know what my next business venture will be!
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I took the test today. Predictability my sleep was awful the night before. Started the beast at 7:40 finished at 3:30, did 2 blocks break 2 blocks lunch 2 blocks break 1 block. They started mowing the lawn during my last block!!! WTF! The day felt short all those 12 hours days helped build endurance.
My test was a mixed bag overall, I left feeling ok about it, although the thought of seeing my score makes me want to puke at the moment, waiting is going to be rough. Block 5 right after my lunch break, holy hell I marked at least half of it. There were definitely questions from left field, that I never encountered in board studying or medical school. There was a lot of micro, mostly figure out what the organism was, it wasn't bread and butter stuff some more obscure organism choices or info to base your answer off of. A few pictures of diseased body parts and pick the organism, I had never seen the presentation of 3 of them and didn't know what they were. For my test knowing the biostat equations was very very high yield. I had at least 10 questions where this was critical. At least 5 other calculations too. 3-5 pedigrees. Lots of pics of various things. A decent amount of anatomy, some left field stuff that I had no clue about. Not too many straight biochem questions, a few vitamin q's. A good amount of neuroanatomy with pictures brain stem, spinal cord, and brain. A ton of the up down arrow questions. I was hoping for more behavioral/pysch questions, both were very light. 2 heart sound questions, you needed to listen to figure it out, both were pretty basic. I think I only had a handful of GI questions. A decent amount of immuno. I had several questions based on experimental setups, involving mice, assays, etc that seemed more appropriate for a science phd/masters program than med school. I had more embryology than I was expecting, 5-10 q's. No linked q's. 1 ekg.
First aid and uworld had the majority of information that was represented on my test, but I feel like there were plenty of questions that I had no idea what they were talking about. I am not sure where I would have obtained that information, so I don't think I would have studied anything beyond FA and UW if I had to do it all over again(oh god please no). One question that I was clueless about an answer choice was snake venom which I picked because it sounded cool, great reasoning I know. The Interface was exactly like uworld, I loved that fact. Best of luck to everyone.
My test was a mixed bag overall, I left feeling ok about it, although the thought of seeing my score makes me want to puke at the moment, waiting is going to be rough. Block 5 right after my lunch break, holy hell I marked at least half of it. There were definitely questions from left field, that I never encountered in board studying or medical school. There was a lot of micro, mostly figure out what the organism was, it wasn't bread and butter stuff some more obscure organism choices or info to base your answer off of. A few pictures of diseased body parts and pick the organism, I had never seen the presentation of 3 of them and didn't know what they were. For my test knowing the biostat equations was very very high yield. I had at least 10 questions where this was critical. At least 5 other calculations too. 3-5 pedigrees. Lots of pics of various things. A decent amount of anatomy, some left field stuff that I had no clue about. Not too many straight biochem questions, a few vitamin q's. A good amount of neuroanatomy with pictures brain stem, spinal cord, and brain. A ton of the up down arrow questions. I was hoping for more behavioral/pysch questions, both were very light. 2 heart sound questions, you needed to listen to figure it out, both were pretty basic. I think I only had a handful of GI questions. A decent amount of immuno. I had several questions based on experimental setups, involving mice, assays, etc that seemed more appropriate for a science phd/masters program than med school. I had more embryology than I was expecting, 5-10 q's. No linked q's. 1 ekg.
First aid and uworld had the majority of information that was represented on my test, but I feel like there were plenty of questions that I had no idea what they were talking about. I am not sure where I would have obtained that information, so I don't think I would have studied anything beyond FA and UW if I had to do it all over again(oh god please no). One question that I was clueless about an answer choice was snake venom which I picked because it sounded cool, great reasoning I know. The Interface was exactly like uworld, I loved that fact. Best of luck to everyone.
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Just the time you use to check if the headphones work, mine were air raid siren loud even at 1!
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Congrats on being done. Were the biostats and eqns covered in FA?
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yup it was all there
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Oh life is good. I don't have to go through BRS anymore than I have. Just let me get this over with!
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Even the embryo?
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It's time to make my first post. I learned a lot about how to tackle this beast by reading this forum, so I thought I'd give back a little bit.
I took the test today. It was about what I expected, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
How I studied:
I went through the FA sections in Micro, Immuno, and Biochem prior to my set study period over the course of the last semester. I used Micro Made Simple for micro, Levinson for immuno, and RR Biochem to lightly annotate into my FA. I used BRS physio during my course work and annotated that thoroughly into FA. I did about 600 USMLErx questions during this period also. I did maybe 1-2 hours a day during the semester.
My school gave me eight weeks to study for Step I. I decided to take 7 weeks to study. I'm a veerrryy slow reader, as I try to memorize things as I go, so it took me a while to get through things. I probably went through 4-5 pages of FA an hour. I ended up doing:
-2 passes completely through FA
-60% of RR path (gave up on it 3 weeks in; big waste of time imo) However, I read it 1x over the course of the past year. So take what you want from that. My reading of FA picked up after I stopped.
-1x through UWorld (1.5 blocks per day roughly)- annotated thoroughly into FA.
Scores:
-UWorld average: 67.3% (First week 57% --> 6th week 74%)
-NBME 5 (7 weeks out; pre-study period) - 198
-NBME 6 (4 weeks out; after 3 weeks) - 228
-NBME 11 (2 weeks out; after 5 weeks; finished my 1st pass of FA) - 247
I studied 6 days per week about 12 hours a day. I spent half my day reading, and half my day doing/going over questions. I burned out HARD in the final 2 days. I don't feel that it impacted my score that much though.
The beast (Step 1):
I had a 12 pm test, which was great for me because I keep late hours. The actual test flew by. I felt groggy during the first 10 min of block 1 and the last 20 min of Block 7.
I thought it was fair. There were plenty of "OMG, is it really this simple?" all the way to "WTF" questions. Most of them were in the middle range. On a scale between NBME (easier) and UWorld (more difficult), I would say its difficulty is closer to a NBME exam.
The subjects:
Immuno, immuno, immuno. There was so much immuno on this test. I thought most of it was fair (all in FA for the most part). The rest of it (more along the lines of inflammation) is covered in the first few chapters of RR path.
Biostats/behavioral: I had a ton of these. Most of the biostats involving calculations were straightforward. However, I struggled on most of the biostats involving studies. I feel that for me, FA didn't cover this well.
Biochem: didn't have a lot. Straightforward for the most part.
Path: very straightforward.
The rest of the test was just mix of everything else. If the test had a theme, I would say it was the "Prostate Gland Exam". I probably had at least 10-15 questions about this in one form or another.
How I think I did:
Who knows? I thought it was easy coming out of the exam, but now that I'm starting to think about it, I gave away MULTIPLE easy questions. However, that's probably to be expected. My goal was a 240. My dream score was a 250. I'd be disappointed with anything below a 230. If I had to guesstimate based on how I feel, I probably got between a 230-250 (I really hope!).
If I had to do it over again (despite the fact I haven't received my scores back yet):
-Read FA and RR during 2nd year along with classes
-Do a question bank (preferably USMLErx) during the school year
-FA and UWorld ONLY during dedicated study time
All in all, I'm glad it's done. I'm happy with the effort I put forward, but I probably could have been more efficient.
Thanks to all of you who have posted on this forum! You all really helped out a lot.
I took the test today. It was about what I expected, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
How I studied:
I went through the FA sections in Micro, Immuno, and Biochem prior to my set study period over the course of the last semester. I used Micro Made Simple for micro, Levinson for immuno, and RR Biochem to lightly annotate into my FA. I used BRS physio during my course work and annotated that thoroughly into FA. I did about 600 USMLErx questions during this period also. I did maybe 1-2 hours a day during the semester.
My school gave me eight weeks to study for Step I. I decided to take 7 weeks to study. I'm a veerrryy slow reader, as I try to memorize things as I go, so it took me a while to get through things. I probably went through 4-5 pages of FA an hour. I ended up doing:
-2 passes completely through FA
-60% of RR path (gave up on it 3 weeks in; big waste of time imo) However, I read it 1x over the course of the past year. So take what you want from that. My reading of FA picked up after I stopped.
-1x through UWorld (1.5 blocks per day roughly)- annotated thoroughly into FA.
Scores:
-UWorld average: 67.3% (First week 57% --> 6th week 74%)
-NBME 5 (7 weeks out; pre-study period) - 198
-NBME 6 (4 weeks out; after 3 weeks) - 228
-NBME 11 (2 weeks out; after 5 weeks; finished my 1st pass of FA) - 247
I studied 6 days per week about 12 hours a day. I spent half my day reading, and half my day doing/going over questions. I burned out HARD in the final 2 days. I don't feel that it impacted my score that much though.
The beast (Step 1):
I had a 12 pm test, which was great for me because I keep late hours. The actual test flew by. I felt groggy during the first 10 min of block 1 and the last 20 min of Block 7.
I thought it was fair. There were plenty of "OMG, is it really this simple?" all the way to "WTF" questions. Most of them were in the middle range. On a scale between NBME (easier) and UWorld (more difficult), I would say its difficulty is closer to a NBME exam.
The subjects:
Immuno, immuno, immuno. There was so much immuno on this test. I thought most of it was fair (all in FA for the most part). The rest of it (more along the lines of inflammation) is covered in the first few chapters of RR path.
Biostats/behavioral: I had a ton of these. Most of the biostats involving calculations were straightforward. However, I struggled on most of the biostats involving studies. I feel that for me, FA didn't cover this well.
Biochem: didn't have a lot. Straightforward for the most part.
Path: very straightforward.
The rest of the test was just mix of everything else. If the test had a theme, I would say it was the "Prostate Gland Exam". I probably had at least 10-15 questions about this in one form or another.
How I think I did:
Who knows? I thought it was easy coming out of the exam, but now that I'm starting to think about it, I gave away MULTIPLE easy questions. However, that's probably to be expected. My goal was a 240. My dream score was a 250. I'd be disappointed with anything below a 230. If I had to guesstimate based on how I feel, I probably got between a 230-250 (I really hope!).
If I had to do it over again (despite the fact I haven't received my scores back yet):
-Read FA and RR during 2nd year along with classes
-Do a question bank (preferably USMLErx) during the school year
-FA and UWorld ONLY during dedicated study time
All in all, I'm glad it's done. I'm happy with the effort I put forward, but I probably could have been more efficient.
Thanks to all of you who have posted on this forum! You all really helped out a lot.
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Naw, just in general. My biochem questions were all fairly straightforward. I thought the uworld ones were harder for the most part.
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I think all but 1 could be found in FA.
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I had exactly 1 question on it and it involved a combination effect with another drug that I never really thought of before.
I did have 3 questions on Vincristine.
Just took mine yesterday and overall I felt like crap after but I feel that's how everyone feels. A lotta my class took it together so we just went out immediately after and started drinking haha. Pharm and biochem wasn't bad which is good because I'm not good at those. Micro was everywhere, seriously know that micro. I also had a lot of anatomy that I didn't study for but I don't think you can unless you re-read gray's. Behavioral was ridiculous, mine and other people that I talked to .... I had to refer someone, which I know you never do but I didn't know what else to do. I suck at biostats so thankfully only one I was confused one. I had a couple dental which made me think I was taking the wrong exam. Mice was everywhere but I tried to reason thru the experiment and hopefully I ended up right. A lot of guessing which makes me worried but I don't think I would change how I studied. I thnk that's just the nature of the exam which throws us med students off. I could easy narrow it down to two then had to wildly hope for the best because the answer choices would be really similar. Also had a lot of arrow questions hate those lool
All I used to study during this period was FA, UW and some Rx questions. I referenced HY neuro atlas, CMMRS, Levinson Immuno section, Goljan pics/some blue margins, HY anatomy but mainly focused on FA. I annotated UW into FA and went through UW twice. We had 4 weeks in total. I was worried when people started saying FA wasn't enough but I didn't have time to read anything else and I did kinda burn out towards the end and didn't really study. Wished I could of changed my test day to a couple days early but whatever.
I really think that most of the info is in FA/UW if you studied the hard throughout the first two years i.e. Gray's, Robbins, Goljan, CMMRS etc but it was connecting the dots that was hard, and applying knowledge that you knew to reason through a new experiment and it was pretty hard. I would say know FA in and out lots of mistakes that keep coming back are in FA. and staying calm and confident so you can reason through things with the knowledge you have (which I didn't do haha). Good luck to everyone still taking it.
All I used to study during this period was FA, UW and some Rx questions. I referenced HY neuro atlas, CMMRS, Levinson Immuno section, Goljan pics/some blue margins, HY anatomy but mainly focused on FA. I annotated UW into FA and went through UW twice. We had 4 weeks in total. I was worried when people started saying FA wasn't enough but I didn't have time to read anything else and I did kinda burn out towards the end and didn't really study. Wished I could of changed my test day to a couple days early but whatever.
I really think that most of the info is in FA/UW if you studied the hard throughout the first two years i.e. Gray's, Robbins, Goljan, CMMRS etc but it was connecting the dots that was hard, and applying knowledge that you knew to reason through a new experiment and it was pretty hard. I would say know FA in and out lots of mistakes that keep coming back are in FA. and staying calm and confident so you can reason through things with the knowledge you have (which I didn't do haha). Good luck to everyone still taking it.
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