Official 2012 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[amavir281]

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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. 👍

 

[alternatego]

How is it even possible to do 3 UW blocks between 8am and 11am? I take 2.5-3 hours for each block, most of the time reading the explanations. I barely annotate anymore though, Qbank was pretty good as a first question bank.

 

[Phloston]

How is it even possible to do 3 UW blocks between 8am and 11am? I take 2.5-3 hours for each block, most of the time reading the explanations. I barely annotate anymore though, Qbank was pretty good as a first question bank.

He said during his prep-time he was doing his second, not first, pass of UWorld, so these blocks were likely just for review and rapid recall.

I actually think that if you are only taking 2-3 hrs per block during your first pass, and you are reading and annotating, that pace is actually quite fast.

 

[Prodromo]

Phloston not calling you out or trying to be obnoxious at all. You have been posting since I started studying for step in mid May and now scores are back. When are you taking yours? I can't imagine studying that long. At the end of my 5 weeks I was burnt out.

 

[WashMe]

Phloston not calling you out or trying to be obnoxious at all. You have been posting since I started studying for step in mid May and now scores are back. When are you taking yours? I can't imagine studying that long. At the end of my 5 weeks I was burnt out.

I think he said in a previous post that he sits for the exam in DECEMBER

my god, we may be dealing with the first known 290

 

[bbaggins]

Active poster with throwaway account since I don't hide my identity that well.

Took the exam first week of June. 5 weeks of dedicated prep time.

Real deal: 275/92

NBME 7 (school administered in March): 254
NBME 11 (5 weeks out, start of dedicated prep): 264
UWSA 1 (4 weeks out): 265
NBME 12 (3 weeks out): 273
UWSA 2 (2 weeks out ): 265
NBME 13 (1 week out): 275

I don't think any of the NBMEs were more similar to the exam than any other.

QBanks:
Uworld, 1st pass from January to start of prep: 77% in untimed tutor
Uworld, 2nd pass during dedicated prep: 94% in timed random
Kaplan during dedicated prep: 85%

Interesting that you did Uworld the first time during classes and saved Kaplan for dedicated prep. Most people do the reverse. Did you remember question specifics during your second pass of Uworld? Not sure the right questions to ask, but I actually like this idea and wonder if you can expand on how that helped you. Thanks!

 

[throwaway1987]

Lol. Great job on the exam (and for calling me out). I hope I hadn't offended you at any point based on my catering to detail. However you've even said it yourself: you relied on much of what you had learned via your undergrad and research. This isn't to say that learning how things work should ever be or have been neglected, but you yourself have learned lots of detail, somewhere and somehow. A 275 is based on knowing how things work and having garnered the detail, because there must have been a few "obscure" questions that showed up. Correct?

How do you think Kaplan QBank factored into your exam performance?

Did you spend the last few days / week any differently than the rest of the prep time?

1. Stuff I used from undergrad/research was like how to read an RFLP blot (mechanistic knowledge and techniques). Not specific factoids like "this small GTPase is used in the renal inflammatory response".
2. Yes, getting a high score is about mechanisms AND detail, but detail shouldn't be crammed in a 3-6 week study period. It may work for you since you're going with a 38-month study plan, but it's not realistic for other people.
3. Kaplan Qbank style was nothing like the actual exam, but I thought the pharm, physio, behavioral science explanations were excellent. Definitely shored up those areas for me.
4. Finished reading schedule/Qbanks about 4 days before exam. Spent last few days reading through FA again at about 75% effort.

How is it even possible to do 3 UW blocks between 8am and 11am? I take 2.5-3 hours for each block, most of the time reading the explanations. I barely annotate anymore though, Qbank was pretty good as a first question bank.

I didn't read or annotate from 8-11am. I just did three timed question blocks. I then read/annotated from ~3pm until ~8pm. Plus, this was my second pass through UWorld, so I had annotated a large chunk of that.

 

[throwaway1987]

Interesting that you did Uworld the first time during classes and saved Kaplan for dedicated prep. Most people do the reverse. Did you remember question specifics during your second pass of Uworld? Not sure the right questions to ask, but I actually like this idea and wonder if you can expand on how that helped you. Thanks!

I didn't treat Uworld as an assessment tool. I treated it as a learning tool. So I didn't mind recognizing questions I had seen before on the second pass. I think the idea of "saving" a question bank is ridiculous. Save NBMEs, but go over content as many times as possible.

 

[xenophila]

1. Stuff I used from undergrad/research was like how to read an RFLP blot (mechanistic knowledge and techniques). Not specific factoids like "this small GTPase is used in the renal inflammatory response".
2. Yes, getting a high score is about mechanisms AND detail, but detail shouldn't be crammed in a 3-6 week study period. It may work for you since you're going with a 38-month study plan, but it's not realistic for other people.
3. Kaplan Qbank style was nothing like the actual exam, but I thought the pharm, physio, behavioral science explanations were excellent. Definitely shored up those areas for me.
4. Finished reading schedule/Qbanks about 4 days before exam. Spent last few days reading through FA again at about 75% effort.

If you have 2 weeks left, would you suggest doing Kaplan Qbanks High Yield mode for pharm, physio, behavioral science? Not sure if I should be reading low yield questions/explanations at this point. thanks for the input and post

 

[Alvarez13]

I didn't treat Uworld as an assessment tool. I treated it as a learning tool. So I didn't mind recognizing questions I had seen before on the second pass. I think the idea of "saving" a question bank is ridiculous. Save NBMEs, but go over content as many times as possible.

I agree. I wish I had done a better job of this. UW explanations are a great learning source.

 

[dragon529]

So is it more useful to use UWorld during the year then kaplan (and maybe Rx) during dedicated study time..? or the other way around..? What a dilemma!!!

 

[fuzzybear30]

Learn the lac operon and everything about it.

With the ~9000 practice questions I've done so far, I've seen probably 5 or 6 on it, so it could definitely show up on the USMLE. Two of the questions had been fairly abstract too, such that if I were to encounter them on exam day and weren't fully rested, I would be supremely unhappy. Be aware of what would happen if your "student is conducting an experiment using some animal model" and he or she induces mutations (those that inactivate AND those that induce constitutive activation) at the various components/proteins associated with the lac operon. It sucks, but just learn it.

I'm sorry but I have to point out that he requested for someone who has already taken the exam to answer his question. Constantly mentioning how many practice questions you have done does not make you any more knowledgeable about the real thing.

 

[Boardz]

How long should my 2nd run through of Uworld take and when should I do it?

I have two weeks left to go and finished it a couple days ago with 76%.

 

[FutureDoc1125]

So, I took my exam on June 23rd and was pretty convinced I'd get my score on July 11th. I didn't. Then I come across all of this print permit talk that it has to disappear before receiving a score. Mine was still there on July 11th, but continues to be there still. Is there anyone who took the exam on 06/23 or soon after that still has this link there?

 

[CALLR001]

Took me about 3 weeks. To tell you the truth I don't know if repeating it was worth it. Looking back I think it would have been better to start a new qbank.

 

[Aclamity]

My take on the whole "doing UW 500x" thing is that it's completely unnecessary. As someone mentioned before, UW is meant to be used as a learning tool. If you thoroughly read the explanations--I took about 2-3 hrs to review each block--and annotate FA prn you should have no reason to do it twice. I personally did UW 1x with the intention of doing it twice (because people on here said to), but when I started my 2nd run-through I stopped after about 100 questions because I was remembering everything, as I had made a true effort to learn it the first time around. I suspect this is an issue for many people, but they still do it 2x, 3x, 4x because they saw it on SDN and it just makes them feel like they're doing something... when they're really not. Your time would be better spent with another qbank or another pass through FA. That's just my 2 cents, though, but I honestly believe people do UW more than once just for the sake of it.

Note: the above only applies if you're studying over a short (4-6 wk) time period. Obviously if you did UW slowly over the year you're less likely to remember things and it would be crucial for you to redo UW during dedicated study period. But really, 2-3x over a 5 week period? Does your memory suck that bad?

 

[Aclamity]

Phloston not calling you out or trying to be obnoxious at all. You have been posting since I started studying for step in mid May and now scores are back. When are you taking yours? I can't imagine studying that long. At the end of my 5 weeks I was burnt out.

Philosoton, what field are you interested in btw? With your expansive knowledge you could either be the world's best PCP or the world's biggest derm/plastics gunner

 

[MDPhDyeah]

Okay I don't have a ton of time to write this up but I appreciated everyone else's input so here is mine:

Background: I'm not a prodigy. I'm not too crazy or "motivated" or whatever it is you want to call it to get a 260+ score. I didn't totally bust my balls off for the first 1.5 years `and mostly had fun. Had 6 weeks of dedicated study time. Hoping for something in the 240s.

Study Material:
First Aid 2012 (it was hell correcting all the errata. It was a decent book but I would definitely be open minded about the kaplan alternative)
Pathoma- GREAT. Wish I had used it during classes. He is way more talented than 90% of the lecturers anyone will encounter in med school. Went through everything once with the videos then read through my weaker sections one more time. Wish I had had enough time to run through it an extra time.
BRS Phys- read through most of it once. great and enjoyable book. Not sure how helpful it ended up being but I like physio.
HY Embryo- not super necessary but it was good to have as a casual supplement to FA
Road Map Anatomy- ONLY read the "clinical" bulletpoints. Was decent. I simply just didn't want to spend much time on anatomy.


Kaplan Q bank- did 2/3 of it then quit. Was fairly useful. I liked using it along with my first pass in first AID.
U World- did all the questions and probably read the answer in full for about 2/3 of the questions then just read through the correct answer portion of the remaining questions. During the last 3 days or so I went through about half of the questions I got incorrect.
UWorld Results: 76% average for my final 8 blockers (random untimed unused)

Practice Exams:
NBME 7 219 (4 weeks)
NBME 12 228 (2 weeks out)
NBME 13 242 (1 week out)

Exam experience-

Anatomy- not too much. 1 or 2 muskuloskeletal. About 4 CTs which were fairly easy. Two of them were definitely from levels I have never seen sections from though so prepping wouldn't have helped there.
Behav/Biostats- a 2-3 VERY straightforward "calculate the PPV with these numbers we are spoon feeding you" questions.
Genetics- had two questions on this that really stumped me. Most of it was basic recall of inheritance patterns for specific diseases though.
Phys- Pretty meh. Not a ton of "arrows questions" but there were 2 questions that had about 10 answer choices that I had no clue on and the topics were not in FA or BRS. Physio has never been a very difficult topic for me though.
Path- Not too terrible. I think Pathoma prepared me well. I didn't use Goljan at all and really think it would have been a waste of my time to do it. There were surprisingly very few path images on my exam and really only one question that needed a basic understanding of histology to answer.
Micro- lots of diarrhea questions. 1 question on some bacteria I have never heard of or seen before. ~2-3 parasitology questions that I probably got wrong.
Pharm- mostly a joke. Seeing people post on here about minutia of drugs I had never heard of had me a little worried but my exam pretty much confirmed my suspicion: people on here are mostly-bat **** insane. I disappointing had zero questions on pharm kinetics. Most of my questions were on mechanisms.
Repro- I actually had a lot of repro stuff. It wasn't super hard but there was lots for me.

Anyways, I thought I walked out knowing I missed about 10 stupid questions. Overall though, my exam felt very fair. I didn't feel like a single one of my questions was verbatim from UWorld but plenty of the concepts were there.


Other thoughts: although UWorld and all the other review material was great, it still felt surprisingly different than the real exam and I would have been in trouble had I not done decently during my first 2 years of med school- I could tell I was definitely pulling on a decent amount of information from my lectures that wasn't directly stated in any of the other review resources. I'm having trouble putting it into words, but I'm beginning to suspect the review material pool is feeding off itself- in other words, each resource is not to truly independent. FA especially seems to have just jacked material from other resource.

 

[Belleza156]

Hey question for u since u seem to remember ur exam well.....is there any way to pick out which questions are the "experimental" questions that don't even count towards the score? How many questions total are there on the exam? Taking mine in 9 days!

Sent from my PC36100 using SDN Mobile

 

[Phloston]

I'm sorry but I have to point out that he requested for someone who has already taken the exam to answer his question. Constantly mentioning how many practice questions you have done does not make you any more knowledgeable about the real thing.

People's exams differ heavily. Some have lots of biochem. Some have lots of anatomy. That's not news to any of us. Therefore, it is irrelevant whether somebody has or has not actually sat the Step1 with regard to positing the probability of the lac operon specifically appearing on someone else's future form. Doing thousands of practice questions teaches you what is and is not high-yield. There are absolutely patterns as to which topics tend to show up more often than not. The lac operon is not exceedingly HY, but it's also not super-low-yield. It has shown up several times through practice questions I have done, and I haven't even touched Kaplan QBank or UWorld yet.

Philosoton, what field are you interested in btw?

I would probably look to apply gen surg or integrated vascular, but the tentative idea would be cardiothoracic surgery down the road, or cosmetic plastic surgery. Before I open my mouth though, I'll have to see how Step1 goes (and 2CK, because I'm an IMG, so invariably I'll have to push equally hard for that as well). The PhD that I'm working on is in cardio. I've actually just finished a review article on the left atrium - some general anatomy, qualitative- and equation-based analyses of the pressure waveform, and PCWP. I won't be publishing for a while though, since I won't be doing confirmation until around next April, and anything I publish prior to that I can't use toward my thesis, and I'd rather know that I already have a chapter done.

Okay I don't have a ton of time to write this up but I appreciated everyone else's input so here is mine:

Background: I'm not a prodigy. I'm not too crazy or "motivated" or whatever it is you want to call it to get a 260+ score. I didn't totally bust my balls off for the first 1.5 years `and mostly had fun. Had 6 weeks of dedicated study time. Hoping for something in the 240s.

Study Material:
First Aid 2012 (it was hell correcting all the errata. It was a decent book but I would definitely be open minded about the kaplan alternative)
Pathoma- GREAT. Wish I had used it during classes. He is way more talented than 90% of the lecturers anyone will encounter in med school. Went through everything once with the videos then read through my weaker sections one more time. Wish I had had enough time to run through it an extra time.
BRS Phys- read through most of it once. great and enjoyable book. Not sure how helpful it ended up being but I like physio.
HY Embryo- not super necessary but it was good to have as a casual supplement to FA
Road Map Anatomy- ONLY read the "clinical" bulletpoints. Was decent. I simply just didn't want to spend much time on anatomy.


Kaplan Q bank- did 2/3 of it then quit. Was fairly useful. I liked using it along with my first pass in first AID.
U World- did all the questions and probably read the answer in full for about 2/3 of the questions then just read through the correct answer portion of the remaining questions. During the last 3 days or so I went through about half of the questions I got incorrect.
UWorld Results: 76% average for my final 8 blockers (random untimed unused)

Practice Exams:
NBME 7 219 (4 weeks)
NBME 12 228 (2 weeks out)
NBME 13 242 (1 week out)

Exam experience-

Anatomy- not too much. 1 or 2 muskuloskeletal. About 4 CTs which were fairly easy. Two of them were definitely from levels I have never seen sections from though so prepping wouldn't have helped there.
Behav/Biostats- a 2-3 VERY straightforward "calculate the PPV with these numbers we are spoon feeding you" questions.
Genetics- had two questions on this that really stumped me. Most of it was basic recall of inheritance patterns for specific diseases though.
Phys- Pretty meh. Not a ton of "arrows questions" but there were 2 questions that had about 10 answer choices that I had no clue on and the topics were not in FA or BRS. Physio has never been a very difficult topic for me though.
Path- Not too terrible. I think Pathoma prepared me well. I didn't use Goljan at all and really think it would have been a waste of my time to do it. There were surprisingly very few path images on my exam and really only one question that needed a basic understanding of histology to answer.
Micro- lots of diarrhea questions. 1 question on some bacteria I have never heard of or seen before. ~2-3 parasitology questions that I probably got wrong.
Pharm- mostly a joke. Seeing people post on here about minutia of drugs I had never heard of had me a little worried but my exam pretty much confirmed my suspicion: people on here are mostly-bat **** insane. I disappointing had zero questions on pharm kinetics. Most of my questions were on mechanisms.
Repro- I actually had a lot of repro stuff. It wasn't super hard but there was lots for me.

Anyways, I thought I walked out knowing I missed about 10 stupid questions. Overall though, my exam felt very fair. I didn't feel like a single one of my questions was verbatim from UWorld but plenty of the concepts were there.


Other thoughts: although UWorld and all the other review material was great, it still felt surprisingly different than the real exam and I would have been in trouble had I not done decently during my first 2 years of med school- I could tell I was definitely pulling on a decent amount of information from my lectures that wasn't directly stated in any of the other review resources. I'm having trouble putting it into words, but I'm beginning to suspect the review material pool is feeding off itself- in other words, each resource is not to truly independent. FA especially seems to have just jacked material from other resource.

Thanks for posting that. The more of these posts I read, the more I really wish FA had radiology in it. If anyone comes across some 10-15 page high-yield CT/CXR/ultrasound (or whatever) package for the USMLE, please share that!

 

[metallica81788]

Hey question for u since u seem to remember ur exam well.....is there any way to pick out which questions are the "experimental" questions that don't even count towards the score? How many questions total are there on the exam? Taking mine in 9 days!

Sent from my PC36100 using SDN Mobile

I couldn't really pick any "for sure" out of my exam. There were definitely some weird ones, but I chalked those up to either me not knowing stuff or just difficult questions.

There are 322 questions on the test.

 

[VTBuc]

So is it more useful to use UWorld during the year then kaplan (and maybe Rx) during dedicated study time..? or the other way around..? What a dilemma!!!

In hindsight I wish I had done UWorld first, as it does not have First Aid reference pages and was therefor a little bit slower to go through. Doing it over, I would have done it like this:

Before M2: take a day or two to skim first aid
Use Kaplan QBank to help study for M2 exams, annotating first aid along the way
Finish Kaplan QBank by end of MS2 year:
6 weeks out from test date redo Kaplan Q bank and subject study - should take 3 weeks
Take 2 days to reread first aid
3 weeks out purchase UWorld and do randomized blocks up until 2 days before
2 days before reread First Aid.

 

[MDPhDyeah]

Thanks for posting that. The more of these posts I read, the more I really wish FA had radiology in it. If anyone comes across some 10-15 page high-yield CT/CXR/ultrasound (or whatever) package for the USMLE, please share that!

FYI I also briefly (about 2-3 hours) skimmed through Imaging Atlas of Human Anatomy, 4e by Abrams. Our school told us to purchase it during anatomy and it is great if you feel you need some CT slice practice. Again, there were two odd slices in my exam I had never seen before but the questions were still very answerable with help of the question stems. I really don't think in my case any more radiology review would have been helpful.

 

[rocketbooster]

People's exams differ heavily. Some have lots of biochem. Some have lots of anatomy. That's not news to any of us. Therefore, it is irrelevant whether somebody has or has not actually sat the Step1 with regard to positing the probability of the lac operon specifically appearing on someone else's future form. Doing thousands of practice questions teaches you what is and is not high-yield. There are absolutely patterns as to which topics tend to show up more often than not. The lac operon is not exceedingly HY, but it's also not super-low-yield. It has shown up several times through practice questions I have done, and I haven't even touched Kaplan QBank or UWorld yet.

If it makes you happy, Phloston, then I will let you know that I did have a lac operon-like question on my test. You only needed to know basic bacterial cell/molecular bio to answer it, but it was still definitely referring to the lac operon model.

Thanks for posting that. The more of these posts I read, the more I really wish FA had radiology in it. If anyone comes across some 10-15 page high-yield CT/CXR/ultrasound (or whatever) package for the USMLE, please share that!

Webpath. I looked through some of the basic imaging and clinical questions the day or 2 before my test. There were a few questions on my test identical to some of the Webpath clinical radiology questions. Also, I ended up going maximum points or whatever on Anatomy + Embryology (the asterisk on the right side of the bar graph), so I think it was all I needed.

 

[eastcoastdr]

Hi! this is my first time posting on SDN...I've been lurking for the last 8 weeks while doing board prep. First of all I want to complement all those who good such great scores on step 1. Well done! and thank you EVERYONE for contributing so much to this thread..it is very helpful. Anyways I'm taking step 1 this friday (6 days aaah!!)

Took a NBME 11 this morning (238), and took the USMLE-released pratice questions at the Prometrics testing center last week and got a 247 according to medfriends. I've taken two other NBMEs but today's was the highest so far. I hope I haven't peaked!! I'm planning on reviewing my mistakes from today and then taking NBME 12 tomorrow.

My weak areas are neuro and biochem so I plan on reviewing those.

My question is - should I do UWSAs this week? I still haven't done them. I keep reading on SDN that they overestimate your score. I feel like I should just buy a couple more NBMEs and spend the rest of the week reviewing those exams as well as going over neuro and biochem again.

I'm aiming for 240+ but honestly I'd be happy with anything above the national average. I'm just ready for this exam to be over with. Unforunately, I have to move in a couple weeks so I'll still be stressed out after the exam! Just a different kind of stress, I guess.

 

[VisionaryTics]

Hi! this is my first time posting on SDN...I've been lurking for the last 8 weeks while doing board prep. First of all I want to complement all those who good such great scores on step 1. Well done! and thank you EVERYONE for contributing so much to this thread..it is very helpful. Anyways I'm taking step 1 this friday (6 days aaah!!)

Took a NBME 11 this morning (238), and took the USMLE-released pratice questions at the Prometrics testing center last week and got a 247 according to medfriends. I've taken two other NBMEs but today's was the highest so far. I hope I haven't peaked!! I'm planning on reviewing my mistakes from today and then taking NBME 12 tomorrow.

My weak areas are neuro and biochem so I plan on reviewing those.

My question is - should I do UWSAs this week? I still haven't done them. I keep reading on SDN that they overestimate your score. I feel like I should just buy a couple more NBMEs and spend the rest of the week reviewing those exams as well as going over neuro and biochem again.

I'm aiming for 240+ but honestly I'd be happy with anything above the national average. I'm just ready for this exam to be over with. Unforunately, I have to move in a couple weeks so I'll still be stressed out after the exam! Just a different kind of stress, I guess.

I think the UWSAs are good for content (8 good question blocks), but tend to overestimate your score a bit. I wouldn't try to do multiple "simulated exams" in the last six days. You'll just burn yourself out.

 

[xenophila]

it seems like people are saying that PATHOMA is gold on the exam... for people who have taken it, did any of you drill out pathoma a day or two before? Path is around 50-60% of the exam so it would make sense to really really REALLY know that stuff cold in order to maximize points.

 

[xenophila]

Hi! this is my first time posting on SDN...I've been lurking for the last 8 weeks while doing board prep. First of all I want to complement all those who good such great scores on step 1. Well done! and thank you EVERYONE for contributing so much to this thread..it is very helpful. Anyways I'm taking step 1 this friday (6 days aaah!!)

Took a NBME 11 this morning (238), and took the USMLE-released pratice questions at the Prometrics testing center last week and got a 247 according to medfriends. I've taken two other NBMEs but today's was the highest so far. I hope I haven't peaked!! I'm planning on reviewing my mistakes from today and then taking NBME 12 tomorrow.

My weak areas are neuro and biochem so I plan on reviewing those.

My question is - should I do UWSAs this week? I still haven't done them. I keep reading on SDN that they overestimate your score. I feel like I should just buy a couple more NBMEs and spend the rest of the week reviewing those exams as well as going over neuro and biochem again.

I'm aiming for 240+ but honestly I'd be happy with anything above the national average. I'm just ready for this exam to be over with. Unforunately, I have to move in a couple weeks so I'll still be stressed out after the exam! Just a different kind of stress, I guess.

From the few friends from school who have taken their exam and have their results back, it seems like UWSA1 (more than UWSA2) can be pretty accurate unless if you are scoring 265 on them then there seems to be a bigger range like -/+ 10. ex- friend scored 221 on actual and UWSA1 also 221, but 236 on UWSA2. A few posters before have said they had 250s but scored 265 on both UWSA1 and 2. But yeah, I wouldn't destroy myself taking that many within the last week... I am taking mine in about 11 days and im taking nbme 11 and 13 this week and saving UWSA2 for last week (time permitting) for a lil confidence booster.
goodluck👍👍👍👍

 

[Boardz]

it seems like people are saying that PATHOMA is gold on the exam... for people who have taken it, did any of you drill out pathoma a day or two before? Path is around 50-60% of the exam so it would make sense to really really REALLY know that stuff cold in order to maximize points.

I would like to know this too. I have about 12 days or so left and I'm doing:

1. Pathoma chapter (2nd time)
2. Uworld incorrects on that topic (before I do the whole qbank again)
3. Rx questions on that topic

i seriously sat here for a couple minutes just looking around yesterday because i didn't know what to do or where to start
Doing pathoma again seemed legit.

 

[Phloston]

If it makes you happy, Phloston, then I will let you know that I did have a lac operon-like question on my test. You only needed to know basic bacterial cell/molecular bio to answer it, but it was still definitely referring to the lac operon model.

I actually think I remember you having mentioned that at one point. Good to know though.

Webpath. I looked through some of the basic imaging and clinical questions the day or 2 before my test. There were a few questions on my test identical to some of the Webpath clinical radiology questions. Also, I ended up going maximum points or whatever on Anatomy + Embryology (the asterisk on the right side of the bar graph), so I think it was all I needed.

That's essentially what I was planning on doing. However I've only seen some CT-type images on their learning pages rather than in their questions. Was there a particular section on that website you were thinking of that you can mention?

 

[Phloston]

FYI I also briefly (about 2-3 hours) skimmed through Imaging Atlas of Human Anatomy, 4e by Abrams. Our school told us to purchase it during anatomy and it is great if you feel you need some CT slice practice. Again, there were two odd slices in my exam I had never seen before but the questions were still very answerable with help of the question stems. I really don't think in my case any more radiology review would have been helpful.

I guess if I really start to bug out or something I may find an atlas at some point in time. I'll probably just nail Webpath for a little to refresh things closer to the exam. I also just thought I should mention that I own HY GIT, by Dudek, and it has some good CTs in there. I've glanced at some sections, but I'll probably spend several minutes on the radiology section later on, which has 13 pages and everything on each image is labeled well.

Edit: now that I've just mentioned that, I've just taken a more closer look at the HY Lung, HY Heart and HY Kidney books, all by Dudek, which have been collecting dust on my shelf, and they all have short radiology sections with good, labeled images. So I'll probably shoot to blast through the radiology between these four HY books, as well as that in Webpath, perhaps within a few-hour-span, closer to the exam. The lung book has some good laterals as well.

 

[Chirurg]

I guess if I really start to bug out or something I may find an atlas at some point in time. I'll probably just nail Webpath for a little to refresh things closer to the exam. I also just thought I should mention that I own HY GIT, by Dudek, and it has some good CTs in there. I've glanced at some sections, but I'll probably spend several minutes on the radiology section later on, which has 13 pages and everything on each image is labeled well.

Edit: now that I've just mentioned that, I've just taken a more closer look at the HY Lung, HY Heart and HY Kidney books, all by Dudek, which have been collecting dust on my shelf, and they all have short radiology sections with good, labeled images. So I'll probably shoot to blast through the radiology between these four HY books, as well as that in Webpath, perhaps within a few-hour-span, closer to the exam. The lung book has some good laterals as well.

why not HY Anatomy instead?

 

[bubblesmd]

Hey guys, I just wanted to post this for a bit of diversity with all of those 250s floating around out there.

I had 5-6 weeks to study for the boards after finals and didn't really do much of anything except using UWORLD to study for path finals. I used DIT, Uworld, and first aid. I think UWORLD was the best resource. If i had any advice it would be to finish all of the uworld qs and to review all of First Aid thoroughly before the exam.

UWSA1: 228
NBME12:221
UWSA2: 232
NBME7:219 (freakout)

I just reviewed for the last week before the exam. Real thing: 236.

 

[xenophila]

hey thanks for posting your score and congrats on the awesome score! Its nice to see how you shot up that many points from you nbmes. Which one was your last test that you took before your actual?Also, When do you recommend taking the last nbme leading up the test date? I was thinking a week before mine. Did you do anything else besides read first aid the week before such as pathoma or uworld wrong qs?

 

[HelpPleaseMD]

philoston the CT's in RoadMap is really high yield.

 

[HelpPleaseMD]

I would like to know this too. I have about 12 days or so left and I'm doing:

1. Pathoma chapter (2nd time)
2. Uworld incorrects on that topic (before I do the whole qbank again)
3. Rx questions on that topic

i seriously sat here for a couple minutes just looking around yesterday because i didn't know what to do or where to start
Doing pathoma again seemed legit.

I spent 2 days on pathoma the week before my exam. I read it cover to cover looking at the accompanying images. I wouldn't rewatch the videos though maybe with renal being an exception. Renal is a lot more difficult image wise with the EMs and stuff

 

[victor1974]

Hi there I'm a foreing MD and planning to do the step 1 my question is
What kind of documents do I need to update because my visa expired some years ago but not my passaport?
Thanx for any info.

 

[Allsta2003]

Hey guys, I just wanted to post this for a bit of diversity with all of those 250s floating around out there.

I had 5-6 weeks to study for the boards after finals and didn't really do much of anything except using UWORLD to study for path finals. I used DIT, Uworld, and first aid. I think UWORLD was the best resource. If i had any advice it would be to finish all of the uworld qs and to review all of First Aid thoroughly before the exam.

UWSA1: 228
NBME12:221
UWSA2: 232
NBME7:219 (freakout)

I just reviewed for the last week before the exam. Real thing: 236.

Thanks for your post, I got a similar score on NBME 7, my only practice exam so far after going thru all of Kaplan and it also freaked me out. I'm around 70% correct with UWorld (random, unused) and I couldnt believe i didnt crack 220 on NBME7. I'm hoping I can make as much an improvement as you did so thanks, you made me feel a lot better.

 

[friedymeister]

June 22nd test date, results came out on July 11 at ~12pm.

I just read 2011 First Aid cover to cover twice. Didn't do particularly well in anatomy in school, nor did I use any extra resources to study it.

Went through USMLE World QBank once, and about 60% of the Kaplan QBankonline.
Took NBME 13 about 6 days before the test.

UWorld QBank Score: 63%
NBME 13: 235

Real Deal: 246, 87

I thought the test was horrendously difficult, anatomy heavy, and I thought I failed it...
Time was a major issue for me on the test, yet I had tons of time to spare on NBME 13.

 

[highlighter0]

Quick question - took my exam on July 8th, does anyone know when I can expect results? Oh and I definitely walked out of my exam feeling like I had emerged from a storm.

 

[Dr McSexy]

Quick question - took my exam on July 8th, does anyone know when I can expect results? Oh and I definitely walked out of my exam feeling like I had emerged from a storm.

3-4 weeks on a wednesday. Do the math.

 

[Bmw325]

So, I took my exam on June 23rd and was pretty convinced I'd get my score on July 11th. I didn't. Then I come across all of this print permit talk that it has to disappear before receiving a score. Mine was still there on July 11th, but continues to be there still. Is there anyone who took the exam on 06/23 or soon after that still has this link there?

I took mine 28th and still have my
Iink posted for permit schedule. Has anyone else's link disappeared that hasn't received their score on the 11th? And took it the28th or sooner than me?

I really hope to get my scores this Wednesday!!

 

[Phloston]

philoston the CT's in RoadMap is really high yield.

Good call. I just flipped through the book quickly and there do appear to be several good ones in there that I hadn't noticed previously.

Since I'm sitting the exam December 21st, I'll be flying to New York early that month. Given that that's so close to my exam date, I still have to try and be assiduous even while travelling, so I've decided that with all of the flight-time, my plan is to print out Goljan's 36-page PDF and read that along with HY Cell & Molecular Bio on the 15.5-hr trans-Pacific flight. Then with the 6-hr LA to NY transit, I'll blast through the clinical box sections of USMLE RoadMap.

Since you've pointed out the CT aspect (which I'm glad you have), I'll look at these before my flight, along with the images in Webpath and HY Lung, GIT, Heart and Kidney.

 

[B52]

Hey guys I took my test on June 26th and i still see my print permit link....can anyone tell me why that's happening

 

[thecalccobra]

Wow you're flying from Australia to New York to take the exam. Any reason?

 

[Muscledoc]

said I'd report back so here it is:

i had forgotten that my anonymity had been lost a while back, so for the sake of that, I won't be posting an exact score. however, for those of you who remember reading my original step 1 experience, NBME scores, etc. those NBME's sure don't lie and everything I said still stands.

My only small regret in terms of the exam is not getting enough sleep the night before. Obviously, it's hard to put aside your anxiety, but for you future test takers, do your best to get a solid night of sleep the night before your exam. I know that this seems obvious, but if it means taking the entire day off to relax your mind so that you can get to sleep that night, do just that. There are ~8-10 questions that I know I would've gotten right if I had set my best foot forward on test day -- questions I changed the answer to because the hamster in my brain wasn't giving that wheel his 100%.

On the flipside, there were a good handful of 50/50 questions I definitely got lucky and guessed correctly on, so I guess at the end of the day, it all works out.

That being said, I'm very happy with my score and for all you future test takers, great scores are definitely achievable no matter what your background.

 

[Alvarez13]

said I'd report back so here it is:

i had forgotten that my anonymity had been lost a while back, so for the sake of that, I won't be posting an exact score. however, for those of you who remember reading my original step 1 experience, NBME scores, etc. those NBME's sure don't lie and everything I said still stands.

My only small regret in terms of the exam is not getting enough sleep the night before. Obviously, it's hard to put aside your anxiety, but for you future test takers, do your best to get a solid night of sleep the night before your exam. I know that this seems obvious, but if it means taking the entire day off to relax your mind so that you can get to sleep that night, do just that. There are ~8-10 questions that I know I would've gotten right if I had set my best foot forward on test day -- questions I changed the answer to because the hamster in my brain wasn't giving that wheel his 100%.

On the flipside, there were a good handful of 50/50 questions I definitely got lucky and guessed correctly on, so I guess at the end of the day, it all works out.

That being said, I'm very happy with my score and for all you future test takers, great scores are definitely achievable no matter what your background.

5 mg melatonin the night before around 10:00 pm and you'll be gold 👍

 

[Zona Pellucida]

June 22nd test date, results came out on July 11 at ~12pm.

I just read 2011 First Aid cover to cover twice. Didn't do particularly well in anatomy in school, nor did I use any extra resources to study it.

Went through USMLE World QBank once, and about 60% of the Kaplan QBankonline.
Took NBME 13 about 6 days before the test.

UWorld QBank Score: 63%
NBME 13: 235

Real Deal: 246, 88

I thought the test was horrendously difficult, anatomy heavy, and I thought I failed it...
Time was a major issue for me on the test, yet I had tons of time to spare on NBME 13.

Congrats. I felt very similar about my exam, so this is good to hear. Hoping I don't drop below my range of practice scores on the real thing.

 

[ohyeahbaby]

I'm sorry but I have to point out that he requested for someone who has already taken the exam to answer his question. Constantly mentioning how many practice questions you have done does not make you any more knowledgeable about the real thing.

Word.

I agree.

There were maybe like 10 biochem questions on my exam, and I am positive I got them all right, AND biochem is hands down my worst subject.

If there is one thing I got out of taking the real thing, it is that there is some REALLY bad advice being thrown around on SDN. Thank God I took it all with a grain of salt.

 

[HelpPleaseMD]

Nice. Maybe you destroyed that test

 

[ohyeahbaby]

Nice. Maybe you destroyed that test

haha, i hope! 😀

btw, thanks for everything dude... I really appreciate all your help in my month or so of preparation