I saw that there was a similar thread for 2011 that had plenty of useful info so I figured its best to start one for 2012. 👍
Official 2012 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread
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Just took my exam today. I think it's entirely possible that my testing center still hasn't updated with the new questions. Myself and a few other people that took the test there thought it was easier than UW.
My prep (2 weeks of studying before classes ended, + 6 weeks dedicated):
UW (70% questions finished, mid 70s average on timed, random blocks)
FA/DIT 2011 (started by annotating DIT into FA, then went over FA/DIT twice, but still a lot of details that I forgot by test day)
Pathoma (went through the videos, then re-read the book twice)
Kaplan videos (some pharm, biochem, and cell bio)
Goljian RR (flipped through some of the pictures only for some organ systems)
Practice exams:
CBSSE (school administered): 200
NBME 6 (6 weeks out): 212
NBME 11 (4 weeks out): 224
UWSA 1 (3 weeks out): 252
NBME 7 (2 weeks out): 252
UWSA 2 (1 weeks out): 256
NBME 12 (2 days before): 235 (<---???)
If I had to give a rough breakdown, I'd say about 50% were the 1-step "knee jerk" questions... like... this guy has episodic hypertension and elevated metanephrines... what's wrong with him? A: pheo. Another 30-40% required some thought and it was more like the questions in UW. Several steps required in solving the problem. The last 10% were things that are either beyond the scope of what's in our prep materials, or are "WTF" questions.
I believe FA+UW is all you need to solve most (80%) of these questions, ASSUMING you have complete mastery of those two sources. No, I didn't memorize all of FA. No, I didn't even finish all of UW much less review all the questions, so there were probably a ton of questions I missed that I probably could have solved if I had studied for another month. Interestingly, I don't remember a single question where the answer could be found in pathoma, but not in FA/UW. I think Pathoma definitely helps you understand pathology in general, but if I had to do it again, I would've skipped memorizing those things in pathoma like letterer-siwe disease.
I don't really remember enough to go through all the sections (my mind is BLANK right now), but of note was that my test had a disproportionate amount of GI anatomy and imaging. I think I had 8-10 CTs of different parts of the abdomen :< Also, the pharm that I got was really easy. I think there were maybe 3 or 4 drug names in the entire exam (including answer choices) that I haven't heard of before, and they weren't used in the stem, and I don't think they were the correct answer choices.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head. If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask, and I'll see if I can answer. My goal originally was a 240+, but after that last NBME 12, I decided I'd be happy with a 230+ as well. So here's to hoping that I reach my goal
TL;DR: it was easier than I had expected it to be based on SDN's scare mongering, but that might have been due to the fact that they haven't updated the question bank at my test center. I had about 80% that was answerable from FA+UW.
My prep (2 weeks of studying before classes ended, + 6 weeks dedicated):
UW (70% questions finished, mid 70s average on timed, random blocks)
FA/DIT 2011 (started by annotating DIT into FA, then went over FA/DIT twice, but still a lot of details that I forgot by test day)
Pathoma (went through the videos, then re-read the book twice)
Kaplan videos (some pharm, biochem, and cell bio)
Goljian RR (flipped through some of the pictures only for some organ systems)
Practice exams:
CBSSE (school administered): 200
NBME 6 (6 weeks out): 212
NBME 11 (4 weeks out): 224
UWSA 1 (3 weeks out): 252
NBME 7 (2 weeks out): 252
UWSA 2 (1 weeks out): 256
NBME 12 (2 days before): 235 (<---???)
If I had to give a rough breakdown, I'd say about 50% were the 1-step "knee jerk" questions... like... this guy has episodic hypertension and elevated metanephrines... what's wrong with him? A: pheo. Another 30-40% required some thought and it was more like the questions in UW. Several steps required in solving the problem. The last 10% were things that are either beyond the scope of what's in our prep materials, or are "WTF" questions.
I believe FA+UW is all you need to solve most (80%) of these questions, ASSUMING you have complete mastery of those two sources. No, I didn't memorize all of FA. No, I didn't even finish all of UW much less review all the questions, so there were probably a ton of questions I missed that I probably could have solved if I had studied for another month. Interestingly, I don't remember a single question where the answer could be found in pathoma, but not in FA/UW. I think Pathoma definitely helps you understand pathology in general, but if I had to do it again, I would've skipped memorizing those things in pathoma like letterer-siwe disease.
I don't really remember enough to go through all the sections (my mind is BLANK right now), but of note was that my test had a disproportionate amount of GI anatomy and imaging. I think I had 8-10 CTs of different parts of the abdomen :< Also, the pharm that I got was really easy. I think there were maybe 3 or 4 drug names in the entire exam (including answer choices) that I haven't heard of before, and they weren't used in the stem, and I don't think they were the correct answer choices.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head. If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask, and I'll see if I can answer. My goal originally was a 240+, but after that last NBME 12, I decided I'd be happy with a 230+ as well. So here's to hoping that I reach my goal
TL;DR: it was easier than I had expected it to be based on SDN's scare mongering, but that might have been due to the fact that they haven't updated the question bank at my test center. I had about 80% that was answerable from FA+UW.
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congrats! you've made it, yay!
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Congrats Jonhdoe!
Can you talk a little bit about what you did the day before the test. I'm taking the plunge on Friday and have used similar prep strategies and materials as you. So anything you did that was particularly helpful? Or not helpful? Or something you wish you had done? I'm already planning on checking out some rapid review pictures, my last minute first aid pages and flipping through some anatomy.
Thanks for your help and CONGRATS! You're half a doctor!!!!
Can you talk a little bit about what you did the day before the test. I'm taking the plunge on Friday and have used similar prep strategies and materials as you. So anything you did that was particularly helpful? Or not helpful? Or something you wish you had done? I'm already planning on checking out some rapid review pictures, my last minute first aid pages and flipping through some anatomy.
Thanks for your help and CONGRATS! You're half a doctor!!!!
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Hey Johndoe, I took the test yesterday as well. I agree for the most part about the difficulty of the test and it seems we are pretty similar in our practice tests. Approximately how many questions per section did you star/not sure of? I found it amazing how little info is actually tested on the real deal, like, they barely touched kidney nephrotic syndrome and so many other topics.
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My exam had MAYBE one neuroanatomy question that couldn't have been answered directly from FA knowledge... and that one topic (brainstem cross-sections) happened to be covered fairly well in DIT. This particular topic was actually mentioned in FA, but it was a brief enough mention so that I wouldn't have been able to answer it if I hadn't gone through DIT.
So based on that, I'm glad I didn't spend any time on HY Neuro. I think it would have raised my score by zero points.
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Honestly, I sat there and just crammed the day before the test. Everyone said it was a bad idea, but there were major topics that I hadn't done since like over a month ago (viruses, vitamins, MSK anatomy, and several other topics). I also tried to flip through pathoma and RR for the pictures. In all honesty, none of it was necessary. I think I got maybe ONE question from all of that review that I did the night before.
So recommendations? Relax and chill.
I like to go back and flag every thing that I'm unsure of (anything with less than 70% certainty), so I can get a good estimate on how I'm doing on a block. I was flagging about 6-10 questions per block, which is on par with the amount I flagged during the UWSAs. I actually thought the test was on par with UWSA difficulty as a whole.
What about yourself?
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Thanks for the comment.👍
I wonder if people could comment on the UsmleRx vs Kaplan qbank to work on during the year. I've heard some say Kaplan all the way and others who prefer UsmleRx.
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I took the test yesterday.
My prep:
UWorld (once through plus incorrect) - 80% on first time through
Kaplan Q Bank for Step 1 (once through, no time for incorrect) - 78%
Kaplan Q Bank for Level 1 (didn't finish it) - 80-something
First Aid once through (slowly, in detail), and then I went back over all the FA general principles chapters and a few select systems. I also listened to Goljan audios while driving and walking my dog, and looked at patho slides online.
My school did an NBME diagnostic back in March, I got a 245.
UWSA1 a few weeks after that - around 245
UWSA2 a couple weeks ago - 265
CBSSA13 a week ago- 259
Overall, I'd say the difficulty was similar to UWorld, some sections were a little easier. My first block was rough, I was thinking "crap I hope the whole test isn't like this" and starting to freak out. Thankfully, it got easier after that. I can't recall a single question for which I couldn't at least narrow down the answer choices, but there were definitely a handful that I had to narrow down and then guess. I did a LOT of practice questions, and they still managed to find brand new ways to ask about concepts. Some of the questions took me a few minutes just to realize what the concept was that they were testing! They asked several "arrow questions" - with all the variables that either go up, down, or stay the same. There were several of those on acid/base, Ca/PTH/Vit D/Phosphate and cardio physio. The difficulty of those questions surprised me. I don't think I've EVER gotten a Ca/PTH/Vit D question wrong on UWorld, but the way USMLE did it was confusing and I very well could have gotten it wrong. The cardio one was also difficult, not straightforward at all. Like someone else said on this thread, I don't think more studying would have really helped me with the questions I had a hard time with. Those questions weren't asking about something I could just look up in FA, they were about taking my understanding of concepts/mechanisms and applying them to different situations.
I'll be surprised if I got less than a 245 or better than 255. I'm taking the comlex next week so I'll update then too.
My prep:
UWorld (once through plus incorrect) - 80% on first time through
Kaplan Q Bank for Step 1 (once through, no time for incorrect) - 78%
Kaplan Q Bank for Level 1 (didn't finish it) - 80-something
First Aid once through (slowly, in detail), and then I went back over all the FA general principles chapters and a few select systems. I also listened to Goljan audios while driving and walking my dog, and looked at patho slides online.
My school did an NBME diagnostic back in March, I got a 245.
UWSA1 a few weeks after that - around 245
UWSA2 a couple weeks ago - 265
CBSSA13 a week ago- 259
Overall, I'd say the difficulty was similar to UWorld, some sections were a little easier. My first block was rough, I was thinking "crap I hope the whole test isn't like this" and starting to freak out. Thankfully, it got easier after that. I can't recall a single question for which I couldn't at least narrow down the answer choices, but there were definitely a handful that I had to narrow down and then guess. I did a LOT of practice questions, and they still managed to find brand new ways to ask about concepts. Some of the questions took me a few minutes just to realize what the concept was that they were testing! They asked several "arrow questions" - with all the variables that either go up, down, or stay the same. There were several of those on acid/base, Ca/PTH/Vit D/Phosphate and cardio physio. The difficulty of those questions surprised me. I don't think I've EVER gotten a Ca/PTH/Vit D question wrong on UWorld, but the way USMLE did it was confusing and I very well could have gotten it wrong. The cardio one was also difficult, not straightforward at all. Like someone else said on this thread, I don't think more studying would have really helped me with the questions I had a hard time with. Those questions weren't asking about something I could just look up in FA, they were about taking my understanding of concepts/mechanisms and applying them to different situations.
I'll be surprised if I got less than a 245 or better than 255. I'm taking the comlex next week so I'll update then too.
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This is pretty depressing. My first run through UWorld and I am getting around 50%. I just don't get how people are cranking out 80s on their first run.
Anyone want to share their tactics for studying? Are you running questions cold?
I try to look through a section and review topics or relearn things I know I'm weak in / haven't seen. I'll then run the QBank, 46Qs. Review wrong answers, using Goljian HY for Path, various resources for Pharm and FA for all else. Then I'll do it again with 46 fresh Qs.
During workouts or driving I have Goljian audio.
I'm about to start my 3rd run through FA and will use Missed + Marked in UWorld. If I have enough time I'll do a complete run of random timed blocks in my last week of UWorld.
My preclinical grades have been above average and I'm not an idiot yet my practice isn't really inspiring confidence.
I did CBSSA in January and got a predicted 179 (my baseline)
UWorld Form 1 last week yielded a predicted 200
Everyone says "You have to find your own way to study" but I'd like to know what the successful people are doing. A day in the life? What's the secret?
Anyone want to share their tactics for studying? Are you running questions cold?
I try to look through a section and review topics or relearn things I know I'm weak in / haven't seen. I'll then run the QBank, 46Qs. Review wrong answers, using Goljian HY for Path, various resources for Pharm and FA for all else. Then I'll do it again with 46 fresh Qs.
During workouts or driving I have Goljian audio.
I'm about to start my 3rd run through FA and will use Missed + Marked in UWorld. If I have enough time I'll do a complete run of random timed blocks in my last week of UWorld.
My preclinical grades have been above average and I'm not an idiot yet my practice isn't really inspiring confidence.
I did CBSSA in January and got a predicted 179 (my baseline)
UWorld Form 1 last week yielded a predicted 200
Everyone says "You have to find your own way to study" but I'd like to know what the successful people are doing. A day in the life? What's the secret?
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Questions, questions, questions is all I did. You already hit First aid twice, do as many questions as possible and refer to the first aid page and review it. That is what I did and it seemed to work well
If you keep doing this with various q banks I think you will be fine IMO.
If you keep doing this with various q banks I think you will be fine IMO.
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UWorld scores are completely dependent on whether or not the subject matter was reviewed immediately prior to the questions or not. When I first started, I was doing random questions. I quickly realized this was not a very efficient use of my time and started doing question blocks based on whichever systems I was reviewing or had just reviewed.
Most of the time, I used a whiteboard while studying and pretended like I was teaching people. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy, but my dog knows all about glycolysis. That's why I only got one complete run through FA, I did it really slowly but tried really hard to get down to concepts and mechanisms, particularly for my weaker areas, like biochem (I never took it in undergrad). Factual stuff for me is all mnemonics - my goal with that is to use the mnemonic so many times while studying that it becomes second nature and I don't even have to think about it. I have so many mnemonics it would take me all day to type them all.
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I find that this happens to me on a lot of the NBME questions. I end up getting them right in the end (and my reasoning works out and everything), but it's not as satisfying as simply "knowing" the answer right off the bat. I think part of it is because the NBMEs (or at least NBME 12, which I just took) tend to test things that are diagnoses of exclusion. In other words, in order to arrive at the correct answer you have to rule out all the other ones before saying "ok I guess this one HAS to be it". Did you feel that way on your exam? Or were things relatively straightforward. Also, what do you think of NBME 13, was it representative of the actual thing?
Thanks and congrats on being done. Your post should help alleviate a lot of people's concerns about NBME suddenly upping the level of difficulty!
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To be honest, I have trouble even remembering the NBME 13, lol. Like others I would put the difficulty of the usmle between an NMBE and UW. On the real exam, I did find myself needing to go through the process of excluding choices to arrive at the answer, especially on those damn arrow questions, and particularly for physio. I get into trouble with some questions involving homeostatic mechanisms because I feel like I can argue for multiple answer choices, depending on how well the compensatory mechanisms are working, you know? I overthink things. But there were plenty that were fairly straight forward, especially the path and micro. You know the high yield charts in the back of FA? If you know that stuff cold, plus the "how" or "why," you will be golden for a good chunk of the test, in my opinion. For example - HPV - cervical cancer. How? E6 & E7 - p53 and Rb. Bam. It's not enough to know that the Hb-O2 curve is right-shifted in acidosis, you have to know why.
To people who are worried about the new questions or whatever, I would say to expect to get questions and not know WTF they are talking about, because they are testing a simple concept cloaked in BS. Know that it is the intention of the exam writers, and don't feel stupid for not recognizing what you're looking at, because you're not supposed to recognize it. You're supposed to figure it out.
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Yes! As someone mentioned before me, do the questions on tutor and subject mode! The same thing was happening to me when I first did UW. Then I had to restructure my whole study plan. I did the Kaplan videos for everything except path, for which I used pathoma. Then I would do subject specific blocks on tutor and would make notes on stuff I didnt understand as I was going thru the videos and LN's. To my jaw dropping amazement I would get very few wrong, compared to the first time I did UW where I was getting at best in 40%'s. I finished the bank over 9 months about 1 month ago.
Now (after marking all the questions, and redoing the qbank that way) I'm consistently scoring in the 70's. You would think oh you'll remember the answers, but not at all. So my advice to you, find a resource stick to it and do subject specific questions to master the material....good luck!
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Does oasis trick still works? I tried registering and it let me apply. Bad sign huh
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Well, what did you use? Kaplan high yield course?
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i think i posted this a little bit earlier, but in a nutshell
path: pathoma + Rapid review
rest --> kaplan videos
didnt really study physio directly
qbank: usmleworld
i didnt like first aid too much. i think it sets you up for a 220-230ish score. the other sources above let you dig in deeper.
with that said, if you know your stuff, first aid would probably work well
path: pathoma + Rapid review
rest --> kaplan videos
didnt really study physio directly
qbank: usmleworld
i didnt like first aid too much. i think it sets you up for a 220-230ish score. the other sources above let you dig in deeper.
with that said, if you know your stuff, first aid would probably work well
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I took the test one day after you (5/5) but no score today - do you/anyone have any idea if I have to wait a full week now since the scores seem to come out of Wednesdays?
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Could someone tell me what Kaplan videos are?
They have a comprehensive source on their site that costs $2-3,000, but then they also have a High Yield video set for $700. What are people referring to when they say, "Kaplan videos"?
They have a comprehensive source on their site that costs $2-3,000, but then they also have a High Yield video set for $700. What are people referring to when they say, "Kaplan videos"?
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I was helped by this site so I thought I would share my experience and give some tips:
US traditional medical student, All qbank scores = random, timed, unused.
I am open to questions about any part of it,
Kaplan q bank = 68% finished before school ended (march 18)
UWorld 77% average
Cbsse = 235 8 weeks
NBME 13 254 4 weeks
Free 150 at site 90% 260
UWSA 1 265 3 weeks
NBME 12 254 1 week
.UWSA 2 259 2 days,
Real thing 252
What I did: Started doing some stuff over xmas break. A good time since there you dont have new information coming in at the same time. A good chance to review / solidify what you learned early 2nd year. In January I started the Kaplan q bank doing 1 block a day. School ended march 18 and I started dedicated studying until end of April when I took my test.
Resources: Goljian throughout school + lectures at the gym. Read the blue notes in margin in last week. FA- I recommend writing stuff into first aid as much as you can from the q banks / goljian / even some school notes. BRS physio-skim read HY neruo anatomy- look at pictures/ skim. DIT-did in first 2 weeks of dedicated study, I found it helpful to keep me on task and the things he added in were on my test.
Tips:
1. Do all you q bank stuff on random. You have to be used to thinking about all systems and integrating information quickly. Doing it system based handicaps you.
2. I highly recommend doing kaplan q bank through before uworld. It is painful and annoying but you get a serious base of information and a good feel for questions even if the answers are crazy.
3. test day- watch out for the time. I finished blocks with 20 min left on u world. I am always someone finished early with tests but I was seriously pressed for time on the first block. You will be over excited / anxious / nervous. What happens is you want to make sure you don't have dumb mistakes and you you spend more time on even the easy questions and don't leave time for the longer experimental types. It can happen to you! Also, don't take too long breaks. Taking breaks longer than 15 min can get you out of focus.
.
US traditional medical student, All qbank scores = random, timed, unused.
I am open to questions about any part of it,
Kaplan q bank = 68% finished before school ended (march 18)
UWorld 77% average
Cbsse = 235 8 weeks
NBME 13 254 4 weeks
Free 150 at site 90% 260
UWSA 1 265 3 weeks
NBME 12 254 1 week
.UWSA 2 259 2 days,
Real thing 252
What I did: Started doing some stuff over xmas break. A good time since there you dont have new information coming in at the same time. A good chance to review / solidify what you learned early 2nd year. In January I started the Kaplan q bank doing 1 block a day. School ended march 18 and I started dedicated studying until end of April when I took my test.
Resources: Goljian throughout school + lectures at the gym. Read the blue notes in margin in last week. FA- I recommend writing stuff into first aid as much as you can from the q banks / goljian / even some school notes. BRS physio-skim read HY neruo anatomy- look at pictures/ skim. DIT-did in first 2 weeks of dedicated study, I found it helpful to keep me on task and the things he added in were on my test.
Tips:
1. Do all you q bank stuff on random. You have to be used to thinking about all systems and integrating information quickly. Doing it system based handicaps you.
2. I highly recommend doing kaplan q bank through before uworld. It is painful and annoying but you get a serious base of information and a good feel for questions even if the answers are crazy.
3. test day- watch out for the time. I finished blocks with 20 min left on u world. I am always someone finished early with tests but I was seriously pressed for time on the first block. You will be over excited / anxious / nervous. What happens is you want to make sure you don't have dumb mistakes and you you spend more time on even the easy questions and don't leave time for the longer experimental types. It can happen to you! Also, don't take too long breaks. Taking breaks longer than 15 min can get you out of focus.
.
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Nemostar, how did you feel during the actual test? Did you feel the difficulty was what you expected, better or worse? I'm just asking because we had similar assessment scores so I'm trying to get an idea of what my real score will be. For some people it seems the assessments are very accurate, and for others it's pretty far off.
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Took the test today. Was difficult. Quick facts.
CBSE sometime back in early February before any studying 205
Kaplan qbank 75% done (61%)
UWORLD random, time, unused, completed (65%)
UWSA1 3 weeks prior and halfway done with the bank (248)
NBME 13 2 weeks prior (228)
UWSA2 1 week prior, was a little worried about this (244)
Free 150 86% 4 days before test
walked into the test and was EXTREMELY nervous. I hadn't taken a standardized test that I had done well on since the SAT (yes i know, its been a minute). Felt like it was hard to get into a good groove on 3 of the 7 sections. I always have trouble with time, and this test was no different, barely finished each section. I really think everything you need is in FA/UW. Right now I'm looking up a few things i missed and most stuff is all in there. I'd say the hardest part of the test for me was just trying to control my emotions. I was so amped up it was hard to get into a groove. I'd say best thing i did the last week of studying was avoiding this message board. As far as specifics on the test, I don't really know what to say. It was somewhat anticlimactic. Some easy crap and some stuff I was just like well no one is getting this question correct. Didn't have much audio, barely any embryo, other than that a nicely balanced test in my opinion. I am praying that I hit a 240, that was my goal coming in, but Im just not sure. Anyone with similar numbers hit 240? I guess I will repost on July 11th with either good news or sadness, in reality I will be happy being above the national average. Best of luck to all the test takers in the next couple weeks.
CBSE sometime back in early February before any studying 205
Kaplan qbank 75% done (61%)
UWORLD random, time, unused, completed (65%)
UWSA1 3 weeks prior and halfway done with the bank (248)
NBME 13 2 weeks prior (228)
UWSA2 1 week prior, was a little worried about this (244)
Free 150 86% 4 days before test
walked into the test and was EXTREMELY nervous. I hadn't taken a standardized test that I had done well on since the SAT (yes i know, its been a minute). Felt like it was hard to get into a good groove on 3 of the 7 sections. I always have trouble with time, and this test was no different, barely finished each section. I really think everything you need is in FA/UW. Right now I'm looking up a few things i missed and most stuff is all in there. I'd say the hardest part of the test for me was just trying to control my emotions. I was so amped up it was hard to get into a groove. I'd say best thing i did the last week of studying was avoiding this message board. As far as specifics on the test, I don't really know what to say. It was somewhat anticlimactic. Some easy crap and some stuff I was just like well no one is getting this question correct. Didn't have much audio, barely any embryo, other than that a nicely balanced test in my opinion. I am praying that I hit a 240, that was my goal coming in, but Im just not sure. Anyone with similar numbers hit 240? I guess I will repost on July 11th with either good news or sadness, in reality I will be happy being above the national average. Best of luck to all the test takers in the next couple weeks.
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Can someone who has taken the test speak to the number of audio/media questions they had as well as the sequential "locked" questions? Also, I was told that they tend to be at the end of blocks if they are included, is that true? Do people feel like questions get harder within each block toward the end? Do the later test blocks get harder? Or is that just endurance from being tired towards the end of taking an 8 hour exam... Thanks for the help! Congrats to all of you who have taken the test for crossing over to the other side.
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I think I had two cardio questions with heart sounds. I can only vaguely recall one "locked pair" but there might have been another. I felt the first block was the hardest, and I did not notice it getting harder toward the end of each block or toward the end of the test.
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1) I got 2 audio questions. One of them was easy (you just needed to know the murmur was in the mitral location and you could solve it from history), the second one... you actually needed to know what you were listening to. Solved the first one, missed the second. I always sucked at heart sounds even in school, so I never bothered wasting time trying to learn it for the step.
2) I had one group of locked questions, and it was maybe #30 or so. So not all the way at the end. First question presented a guy with a condition, and asks you which receptor the drug of choice would act on. Second question says you used that medication, but you used too much of it, and asks which receptor an antidote to that medication would work on.
3) I don't think the blocks get objectively "harder", I think it just feels that way (it did for me) towards the end. I had 10 or so minutes of break left, but I was just so tired of the whole thing that I decided to do the 7th block right after the 6th so I could go home. Bad idea :<
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- Nov 8, 2009
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They're referring to a pirated 2010 copy of the 3 grand one.
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- Jul 6, 2009
- Messages
- 157
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- 0
So I'll post this before I forget everything:
Overall Prep:
7.5 weeks
Pathoma, Uworld 2x, QBank HY only 1x, FA 3-4x times
NBME (4.5 weeks out): 212
NBME (3 weeks out): 228
NBME (2 weeks out): 235
NBME (5 days out): 242
Overall impressions:
-Definitely way harder than the NBMEs. These are jokes compared to the real test. I came in hoping I could pull off a 240. In retrospect, I just wanna pass now. And ideally, get something over 220 so I can be at least competitive for normal specialties.
- Don't feel like I did very well. Missed a lot of things I should have gotten right (combination of nerves and forgetting simple facts). A lot of the exam was VERY difficult. Overall though, I felt as though it was at least relatively fair. Just hard fair.
- Questions stem are very long. I had one section that was giant paragraph after giant paragraph with images (sometimes 3! in one question).
- Nervousness is not beneficial to helping you do better. Though the Prometric people were very nice. I even thought one of them flirted with me.
- Overall exam was probably about 10% Gimmee, 20% easy/fair/straight-forward, 40% difficult, and 30% WTF?
Study tips for the last week/taking the test:
- Re-read through Pathoma. I cannot tell you how many questions I got right because of Dr. Sattar's brilliance. Especially chapters 1-3.
- I went through bootlegged copies of NBMES 1-4 the week before the exam (with answers to the side). I cannot tell you how many of those concepts showed up on the real exam. This saved me on a lot of questions I would have gotten wrong.
- Uworld >>>>>> QBank. I definitely had some UWorld repeats on my exam. Different question phrasing and context, but same content essentially. QBank, in my mind, is a waste of time.
- Always look at the answer choices and last sentence of the vignette before starting a question. I had a couple times where they were these long 8 sentence stories, only to find the question was just asking for the mechanism of a named drug.
My Exam:
Overall, I did have some recurring themes. They were mainly Arachdonic Acid pathway components (must have had 10-15 questions on these), Pregnant women with some sort of disease, children and teenagers with weird rashes, and three-panel CT/Brain scans. I though Sections 1-3, 6-7 were difficult but fair, Section 5 was considerably easier, and Section 4 was INSANELY difficult. I think I marked 50-60% of the questions on that section and guessed on most of them. Overall, I felt as though the content was similar to past NBMEs (i.e. concepts they were testing), but the questioning was much more convoluted and difficult. They love to add in graphs to interpret...even if it's something that probably could be better accomplished in a short sentence.
Embryo: My first section had a ton of this, and all obscure things that weren't in First Aid. Don't know how I could have studied this. Though, I did remember learning them at some point. Just couldn't remember them 🙁
Anatomy/MSK/Skin: Difficult. I felt like I didn't get questions about any of the anatomy in First Aid. It was mainly complicated blood supplies (for instance, atypical venous drainage of the suprarenal gland? I had no idea.), or muscle locations I hadn't really studied (i.e. what makes up the lateral wall of a abdominal hernia?). Overall just felt destroyed on this section. Also, a fair amount of difficult CT scans (one was a 3 panel to identify the mitral valve and different layers...though I think I pulled this one off). Also had a weird question about different subtypes of melanin and what knocking out one subtype would do.
Biochem- Relatively straightforward. I didn't have a whole lot of this, but some of them were tricky. I had one asking about a kid with bilateral cherry maculas. It said nothing about splenomegaly (which is how I thought you had to differentiate Tay-Sachs and NP). I chose Tay-Sachs assuming they didn't include hepatosplenomegaly because it wasn't there. Also lots of kids with failure to thrive and trying to figure out the enzyme deficiency. There was a ton of genetics and molecular biology as well. I think I did OK at this, but then again, I was an undergraduate major in Mol Bio. Felt as though they were probably past the level of difficulty for a normal med student. Know the autosomal dominant page in First Aid cold. I had so many questions on this.
Immuno: Tons of IMMUNO. I must have gotten 5 questions on different inherited immunodeficiencies. Also a few vaccine questions. One about poliovirus and IgA immunity I think was straight out of UWorld. Fair though in the end.
Bugs- Very fair and straight forward for the most part. There were some I didn't know, but I still thought the questions were relatively fair. No insanely weird bugs, I think the "hardest" level bugs were probably a teenager with babesia and another with ricksettia from a camping trip. I will say though...the only 2-part question on my exam was a bug question. It was the most ridiculous exam question I've ever seen (involving the creation of a new organism species with a novel virulence factor which was specifically named--- I later looked up this "virulence" factor and found it was some element protein of the shell of insects. I have no idea WTF they were thinking when they wrote this question and pray it was experimental).
Pharm: Straightforward, but again just facts. I had maybe 5-6 (mainly HIV drugs) that I had no clue about and guessed. Some of these were drugs I had never heard of. Or, diseases I had never even thought about how you treated. I had a question about head lice being resistant to topical treatment and what the next step would be in management (WTF?!?!?!). Overall though, it was fair. I missed ones here, but it was mainly my own fault.
Phys: So many arrows and graphs. I felt like most were do-able and fair to an extent. The problem was they usually add an extra variable that you've never thought about in the context of disease and you have to figure out how it was affected. I feel like 1/2 of these I narrowed down to 2 answers and had to guess which one it was.
Behavioral Science: I found the ethical usually straight-forward. There was 1 or 2 where I literally didn't even see a real difference between 2 answer choices besides personal preference of phrasing a sentence. The biostats was much harder, like way harder than UWorld. I still don't know exactly what they were asking for in some of those questions, and in general, just felt as though they were poorly worded.
Neuro: Mix of very fair and much harder. I had a ton of MRI/CT scans of the head that were presented as 3 panels (at different brain slice levels). I just felt as though as though these were too complicated for medical students to answer. I had a couple of spinal cord slices (which were very fair and generally easy). And a few questions along the lines of....a patient has these symptoms...where is the lesion? I also had one that I guessed was "opsoclonus myoclonus ataxia syndrome". Think I was right-, But believe me, that wasn't in First Aid.
Endocrine/Repro: A lot of this on my exam. Mainly reproductive. I wish I had studied the hormones a little better. Got maybe 5-6 wrong because I just couldn't remember how they interacted. They had some very complicated questions about sexual development (i.e. not typical disorders mentioned in First Aid, but new diseases they imagined from certain components or hormones being knocked out. The majority of the up and down arrow questions came from endocrine.
Pulm/Cardio: Not too much on these sections to be honest. I had maybe 3 heart sounds. One I could sort of make out from the question and the fact that the only murmur was over the mitral valve and the only mitral valve lesion was prolapse. The other sounded just like a normal heart sound with a S2 split only on the pulmonary valve (which I didn't think was even really considered pathologic in most patients), so I just chose normal exam. I got one ridiculously easy question asking me where I would be hear "aortic stenosis" best on the chest wall with a stethoscope.
Hem/Onc: A fair amount of Hem/Onc. Most were pretty easy (i.e. stage of disease, figuring out what protein was knocked out, etc.). Others were a little more difficult (i.e. woman with breast cancer who I think has rib metastases).
Renal: Not bad. Some easy pharm questions...2 nephrotic syndromes that were pretty simple (one was amyloidosis and they even showed an image labeled "congo red" stain). Not many of these to be honest.
Overall: Exhausting, glad it's over, wish I did better. Just felt like when 10% of the exam you're flat-out guessing, and another 25% you're guessing between 2 answers...you just don't feel confident about how you did. But...sleep for now. 🙂
Overall Prep:
7.5 weeks
Pathoma, Uworld 2x, QBank HY only 1x, FA 3-4x times
NBME (4.5 weeks out): 212
NBME (3 weeks out): 228
NBME (2 weeks out): 235
NBME (5 days out): 242
Overall impressions:
-Definitely way harder than the NBMEs. These are jokes compared to the real test. I came in hoping I could pull off a 240. In retrospect, I just wanna pass now. And ideally, get something over 220 so I can be at least competitive for normal specialties.
- Don't feel like I did very well. Missed a lot of things I should have gotten right (combination of nerves and forgetting simple facts). A lot of the exam was VERY difficult. Overall though, I felt as though it was at least relatively fair. Just hard fair.
- Questions stem are very long. I had one section that was giant paragraph after giant paragraph with images (sometimes 3! in one question).
- Nervousness is not beneficial to helping you do better. Though the Prometric people were very nice. I even thought one of them flirted with me.
- Overall exam was probably about 10% Gimmee, 20% easy/fair/straight-forward, 40% difficult, and 30% WTF?
Study tips for the last week/taking the test:
- Re-read through Pathoma. I cannot tell you how many questions I got right because of Dr. Sattar's brilliance. Especially chapters 1-3.
- I went through bootlegged copies of NBMES 1-4 the week before the exam (with answers to the side). I cannot tell you how many of those concepts showed up on the real exam. This saved me on a lot of questions I would have gotten wrong.
- Uworld >>>>>> QBank. I definitely had some UWorld repeats on my exam. Different question phrasing and context, but same content essentially. QBank, in my mind, is a waste of time.
- Always look at the answer choices and last sentence of the vignette before starting a question. I had a couple times where they were these long 8 sentence stories, only to find the question was just asking for the mechanism of a named drug.
My Exam:
Overall, I did have some recurring themes. They were mainly Arachdonic Acid pathway components (must have had 10-15 questions on these), Pregnant women with some sort of disease, children and teenagers with weird rashes, and three-panel CT/Brain scans. I though Sections 1-3, 6-7 were difficult but fair, Section 5 was considerably easier, and Section 4 was INSANELY difficult. I think I marked 50-60% of the questions on that section and guessed on most of them. Overall, I felt as though the content was similar to past NBMEs (i.e. concepts they were testing), but the questioning was much more convoluted and difficult. They love to add in graphs to interpret...even if it's something that probably could be better accomplished in a short sentence.
Embryo: My first section had a ton of this, and all obscure things that weren't in First Aid. Don't know how I could have studied this. Though, I did remember learning them at some point. Just couldn't remember them 🙁
Anatomy/MSK/Skin: Difficult. I felt like I didn't get questions about any of the anatomy in First Aid. It was mainly complicated blood supplies (for instance, atypical venous drainage of the suprarenal gland? I had no idea.), or muscle locations I hadn't really studied (i.e. what makes up the lateral wall of a abdominal hernia?). Overall just felt destroyed on this section. Also, a fair amount of difficult CT scans (one was a 3 panel to identify the mitral valve and different layers...though I think I pulled this one off). Also had a weird question about different subtypes of melanin and what knocking out one subtype would do.
Biochem- Relatively straightforward. I didn't have a whole lot of this, but some of them were tricky. I had one asking about a kid with bilateral cherry maculas. It said nothing about splenomegaly (which is how I thought you had to differentiate Tay-Sachs and NP). I chose Tay-Sachs assuming they didn't include hepatosplenomegaly because it wasn't there. Also lots of kids with failure to thrive and trying to figure out the enzyme deficiency. There was a ton of genetics and molecular biology as well. I think I did OK at this, but then again, I was an undergraduate major in Mol Bio. Felt as though they were probably past the level of difficulty for a normal med student. Know the autosomal dominant page in First Aid cold. I had so many questions on this.
Immuno: Tons of IMMUNO. I must have gotten 5 questions on different inherited immunodeficiencies. Also a few vaccine questions. One about poliovirus and IgA immunity I think was straight out of UWorld. Fair though in the end.
Bugs- Very fair and straight forward for the most part. There were some I didn't know, but I still thought the questions were relatively fair. No insanely weird bugs, I think the "hardest" level bugs were probably a teenager with babesia and another with ricksettia from a camping trip. I will say though...the only 2-part question on my exam was a bug question. It was the most ridiculous exam question I've ever seen (involving the creation of a new organism species with a novel virulence factor which was specifically named--- I later looked up this "virulence" factor and found it was some element protein of the shell of insects. I have no idea WTF they were thinking when they wrote this question and pray it was experimental).
Pharm: Straightforward, but again just facts. I had maybe 5-6 (mainly HIV drugs) that I had no clue about and guessed. Some of these were drugs I had never heard of. Or, diseases I had never even thought about how you treated. I had a question about head lice being resistant to topical treatment and what the next step would be in management (WTF?!?!?!). Overall though, it was fair. I missed ones here, but it was mainly my own fault.
Phys: So many arrows and graphs. I felt like most were do-able and fair to an extent. The problem was they usually add an extra variable that you've never thought about in the context of disease and you have to figure out how it was affected. I feel like 1/2 of these I narrowed down to 2 answers and had to guess which one it was.
Behavioral Science: I found the ethical usually straight-forward. There was 1 or 2 where I literally didn't even see a real difference between 2 answer choices besides personal preference of phrasing a sentence. The biostats was much harder, like way harder than UWorld. I still don't know exactly what they were asking for in some of those questions, and in general, just felt as though they were poorly worded.
Neuro: Mix of very fair and much harder. I had a ton of MRI/CT scans of the head that were presented as 3 panels (at different brain slice levels). I just felt as though as though these were too complicated for medical students to answer. I had a couple of spinal cord slices (which were very fair and generally easy). And a few questions along the lines of....a patient has these symptoms...where is the lesion? I also had one that I guessed was "opsoclonus myoclonus ataxia syndrome". Think I was right-, But believe me, that wasn't in First Aid.
Endocrine/Repro: A lot of this on my exam. Mainly reproductive. I wish I had studied the hormones a little better. Got maybe 5-6 wrong because I just couldn't remember how they interacted. They had some very complicated questions about sexual development (i.e. not typical disorders mentioned in First Aid, but new diseases they imagined from certain components or hormones being knocked out. The majority of the up and down arrow questions came from endocrine.
Pulm/Cardio: Not too much on these sections to be honest. I had maybe 3 heart sounds. One I could sort of make out from the question and the fact that the only murmur was over the mitral valve and the only mitral valve lesion was prolapse. The other sounded just like a normal heart sound with a S2 split only on the pulmonary valve (which I didn't think was even really considered pathologic in most patients), so I just chose normal exam. I got one ridiculously easy question asking me where I would be hear "aortic stenosis" best on the chest wall with a stethoscope.
Hem/Onc: A fair amount of Hem/Onc. Most were pretty easy (i.e. stage of disease, figuring out what protein was knocked out, etc.). Others were a little more difficult (i.e. woman with breast cancer who I think has rib metastases).
Renal: Not bad. Some easy pharm questions...2 nephrotic syndromes that were pretty simple (one was amyloidosis and they even showed an image labeled "congo red" stain). Not many of these to be honest.
Overall: Exhausting, glad it's over, wish I did better. Just felt like when 10% of the exam you're flat-out guessing, and another 25% you're guessing between 2 answers...you just don't feel confident about how you did. But...sleep for now. 🙂
- Joined
- May 30, 2007
- Messages
- 2,559
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Wow, looks like your test was quite different from mine. But I guess that's life...
To answer the other person's question earlier - I had two heart sounds and no sequential/linked/locked questions.
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- Mar 15, 2010
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- 189
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Congrats, you have scared the shi* out of me. If I had an experience like that, I would probably jump off a building. Thanks
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- Aug 7, 2008
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there will be a good deal of questions on the test you just can't study for.
id say getting a 220-230 is about studying and knowing your stuff. above that, its test taking skills.
id say getting a 220-230 is about studying and knowing your stuff. above that, its test taking skills.
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- Nov 23, 2009
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One thing I will point out is that First Aid is woefully inadequate for board study. The more I use it the less impressive it is, actually.
At a minimum you need excellent physio, biochem, path and pharm references.
At a minimum you need excellent physio, biochem, path and pharm references.
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- May 23, 2012
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- 3
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Responding to question about impressions on test day:
I found that the difficulty varied by block. I thought my first block was harder than uworld and that my 3rd and 4th block were easier than nmbe and free 150. I had alot of experimental based genetics questions that were not that diffucult but took longer time to firgure out which made the rest of the test harder becuase of time. I think overall I had a more diffcult test than most people with a good amount of questions that were just some facts I did not know (quad screen for trisomy 18). On the day I did not think it went well and I am usually a fairly realistic person. But you have to remember that each question is scaled and having a harder test is better for trying to get a high score since it gives you a better chance to show what you know and you dont have to get 90 % to get a 250. Also, thinking back I realized that there were a lot of medium difficulty questions that I just knew and flew through and I was only remembering the hard ones after.
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The issue is that people come into their study period with a poor knowledge base and then treat First Aid as a master textbook/list of things to know. It's a superficial collection of high-yield principles, not a replacement for learning all of this stuff.
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- Jul 6, 2009
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To be fair though, I felt like most of the questions were testable knowledge. There were maybe 20-30 that I thought were above and beyond medical students should know. I'm mainly pissed at missing maybe 15-20 questions that I thought I should have known the answer to...or just was too nervous to answer correctly (i.e. I think I totally slipped up the landmark for pudendal nerve block with spinal tap and missed a neuroanatomy question about a cranial nerve exiting the brainstem. Also had a question about "nominal" variables and completely forgot what that meant).
Main gripe was the multi-panel images. I had one section that must have had 5 of these along with a lot of other paragraphs with images. These were just insane. I had a girl with hydrocephalus and they had 4 different images at different brain slices to show the ventricles and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where the block was. Some of my other neuroanatomy questions were much easier though (i.e. there's a patient with these symptoms...locate the lesion....or what happens when you lesion this area of the brain, etc.). There were a lot of thinking questions too. For example, in one question you not only had to know that mononucleosis caused an enlarged spleen...they asked for the most appropriate screening test to assess the risk for splenic rupture (I think I chose Direct Coomb's, other options being things like viral titer, etc.). They also had a few question I still don't know the answer to (i.e. what prevents milk letdown during pregnancy? but progesterone wasn't an answer choice.)
Anyway, the exam is tough but generally fair. I'm more kicking myself for nerves during the exam and letting my score sink a lot lower than it should have been. In other words, lots of missed questions that should have been right...this is always what fooled me up on the NBMEs and it seems the same case this time. I was hoping for 240, but I'm just praying for 220 at this point.
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was estrogen one of the choices?
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- Jun 1, 2009
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I think it's estrogen as well. It stimulates milk production by prolactin but it simultaneously inhibits its action at the breast.
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- Dec 23, 2011
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Estrogen+progesterone. Goljan said it this morning via my ipod.
Also...
Went back to try to find the post but couldn't. Someone asked about Kaplan or USMLERx for school and/or study period. I've done both for study period, and I would definitely recommend doing Kaplan during school time and SAVE USMLERx for dedicated study time. I just finished USMLERx and I'm doing my 2nd pass of UWorld and USMLERx has been so gold. It's like night and day my 2nd pass of UWorld vs my first pass, and I would have to say it's due to USMLERx.
Also, Kaplan is great for dedicated study time, if you have the time. I definitely think it's helped my learning exponentially. If not, however, it tests a lot of what you would see in your courses so using it during school is preferred, in my opinion, over the other QBanks.
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- 432
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Well, yes, but progesterone wasn't one of the choices...
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- Dec 23, 2011
- Messages
- 134
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so then pick estrogen? I had a similar question like this on UW; estrogen wasn't an answer choice but progesterone was. I knew it was both of em so I just picked progesterone (which was correct).
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- Dec 23, 2011
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- 134
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.
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- May 21, 2008
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- 86
Yes. This. I so wish I would have had First Aid by my side throughout my first two years, though, for a quick review after studying a topic and for annotating.
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- Oct 17, 2011
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What is an excellent Pharm reference? I've yet to hear what the best pharm source is.
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2009
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- 459
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I'm using Katzung's review of pharm and physio notes to understand mechanistically the drugs. The drug list I'm relying on FA and UWorld.
Don't follow my example though, I'm feeling like I'm going to fail the test lately. I throw this out there for the sake of discussion
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trying to figure out in my head what test is used to assess spleen rupture risk..were there only lab tests options?
doing the same thing, works for me
