Official 2013 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[Phloston]

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I figure now is a good time to jump-start this thread.

Even though some of us who had taken the exam in late-2012 are still awaiting our scores (amid the holiday delays) and could technically still post within last year's thread, it is after all mid-January now, so it's probably apposite that we move forward and hope for a great year.

Cheers to 2013

 

[sharklasers]

Do you recommend those videos with 2 weeks left??

 

[coolforschool]

Do you recommend those videos with 2 weeks left??

I watched them with VLC player on 2x. I went through and selected stuff like the all the repro embryo development and the pharyngeal arches, etc. - stuff that I never learned. It was worth it because now I have a nonzero chance of getting those questions right. It took about maybe three half-days to watch all of the embryo, gut and upper/lower limb. I was two weeks out at the time. I think the guy organized the upper and lower limb pretty well. Everything made a lot of sense. Watch them if you're weak on it. I literally remembered nothing about the brachial or the sacral plexus, but now I understand their organization and innervations pretty well. Wish I would've watched them during my actual anatomy course.

 

[sharklasers]

I can get all of the stuff in first aid... but its just the other stuff that I miss. I guess all of that extra anatomy info might be too low yield to worry about at this point.

 

[sharklasers]

Also, I've noticed that I am mostly missing questiosn that >60% of people get right at this point lol...

Does that mean I just need to suck it up and go through all of the material again??

I'm still doing well overall, I guess I need to just increase my knowledge base at this point instead of relying on reasoning.

 

[coolforschool]

Also, I've noticed that I am mostly missing questiosn that >60% of people get right at this point lol...

Does that mean I just need to suck it up and go through all of the material again??

I'm still doing well overall, I guess I need to just increase my knowledge base at this point instead of relying on reasoning.

You're hitting 250s now, right? I'm doing an a**load of questions until my exam. Not sure how much I can increase my knowledge base with less than a week to go. Not really worried about it though. Pretty happy about where I am right now, just hoping for a good test day.

 

[sharklasers]

I've only done nbme 13, that was last monday with a 247. I hit 256/263 on the UWSAs, but that doesn't necessarily mean I am in the 250 range considering their notorious reputation for overpredicting. Taking nbme 11 tomorrow, crossing my fingers that I'm in the range I want to be!

 

[Looking120]

Is anyone else struggling to study after Game of Thrones last night?? ..... holy ****

 

[sharklasers]

Is anyone else struggling to study after Game of Thrones last night?? ..... holy ****

damnn i didn't get to watch it 🙁

i read up to book 3 though, so i have a hunch about what happened

that or mad men + game 7 will be my study breaks today (if you don't count religiously checking sdn lmao)

 

[coolforschool]

I've only done nbme 13, that was last monday with a 247. I hit 256/263 on the UWSAs, but that doesn't necessarily mean I am in the 250 range considering their notorious reputation for overpredicting. Taking nbme 11 tomorrow, crossing my fingers that I'm in the range I want to be!

Sweet, dude. That's pretty consistent performance. Good luck.

Is anyone else struggling to study after Game of Thrones last night?? ..... holy ****

This is precisely why I quit watching TV in January. Didn't want to get hooked on anything. I keep hearing about how good GoT is though... it'll all be over soon.

 

[addy]

Is anyone else struggling to study after Game of Thrones last night?? ..... holy ****

so effing crazy. especially as a non-reader.

 

[Akr]

so effing crazy. especially as a non-reader.

Serious question... Would you say it's a bad idea to watch it the day before the real deal? That's how I was going to relax today... I haven't read the books either... But I wouldn't want to zone out in block 6 or 7 tomorrow and start thinking about whatever happened in this episode!!

In reference to discussion about UWorld scores, I've been into my second pass for at least a week, still can't quite break 90%...

 

[sharklasers]

Serious question... Would you say it's a bad idea to watch it the day before the real deal? That's how I was going to relax today... I haven't read the books either... But I wouldn't want to zone out in block 6 or 7 tomorrow and start thinking about whatever happened in this episode!!

In reference to discussion about UWorld scores, I've been into my second pass for at least a week, still can't quite break 90%...

If you want to get your mind off of the material, i don't think there would be a better way lol

 

[addy]

Serious question... Would you say it's a bad idea to watch it the day before the real deal? That's how I was going to relax today... I haven't read the books either... But I wouldn't want to zone out in block 6 or 7 tomorrow and start thinking about whatever happened in this episode!!

In reference to discussion about UWorld scores, I've been into my second pass for at least a week, still can't quite break 90%...

You should totally do it. If anything it'll motivate you to finish your tests faster so you can go home and watch GoT!

Side note: look at this http://distractionsoflola.tumblr.com/image/4736562133 before or while watching the series

 

[Akr]

You should totally do it. If anything it'll motivate you to finish your tests faster so you can go home and watch GoT!

Side note: look at this http://distractionsoflola.tumblr.com/image/4736562133 before or while watching the series

Sweet, thanks! That's the only challenge with the series, is keeping up with all the characters. But it's definitely worth it. And I would like to keep my mind off anything that will make me anxious about the test tomorrow. I just did one last UWorld question set. 89%... that will have to do for me!

 

[Looking120]

Sweet, thanks! That's the only challenge with the series, is keeping up with all the characters. But it's definitely worth it. And I would like to keep my mind off anything that will make me anxious about the test tomorrow. I just did one last UWorld question set. 89%... that will have to do for me!

Yup, definitely do it. You won't be able to think about anything else the rest of the day haha

Tomorrow I think the magnitude of the moment will stop you from thinking about GoT

 

[dragon529]

Good luck tomr Akr! Don't forget to report back 😎

 

[Goober11]

Speaking of reporting back, Jonari where you at???

 

[tiedyeddog]

Sweet, thanks! That's the only challenge with the series, is keeping up with all the characters. But it's definitely worth it. And I would like to keep my mind off anything that will make me anxious about the test tomorrow. I just did one last UWorld question set. 89%... that will have to do for me!

Good luck tomorrow Akr!

 

[dragon529]

Jonari is probably too busy having a life unlike the rest of us lol

 

[Greenbayslacker]

what do the red asterisks on the right mean on the NBME score reports?

behavioral ****ed me so hard on NBME 15 i think i still have some anal bleeding.

 

[normtheniner]

what do the red asterisks on the right mean on the NBME score reports?

behavioral ****ed me so hard on NBME 15 i think i still have some anal bleeding.

It means your performance was shifted off the chart. Good job.

 

[223556]

* = boss

 

[sharklasers]

what do the red asterisks on the right mean on the NBME score reports?

behavioral ****ed me so hard on NBME 15 i think i still have some anal bleeding.

Wow wtf.... you did awesome man!! At least it looks like you did lol, I wouldn't be too concerned about behavioral.

 

[CDI]

Jonari is probably too busy having a life unlike the rest of us lol

I'm sure he'll be back here soon..

 

[doctorspeed]

great stuff! I'm particularly excited for u for more selfish reasons bc my nbme score is about what urs is 😛 my exams in less than 2 weeks but I gotta ask, were abatomy/molecular tested in ways that uworld+first aid wasn't enough? Or was Kaplan an important supplement for those two subjects? I only ask caus I've just seen some people wrote about random minutiae that's been thrown in from those particular two

I read the anatomy/neuro kaplan as well as the biochem kaplan. I definitely think it fills in gaps from FA and UW and I had tons of low yield from both subjects on my exam, some of which HAD to be experimental questions. I didn't really "study" the kaplan books, just spent about 6 hours speed reading through those two and taking note of anything I wasn't strong in. There were several anatomy questions on things I'd never heard of, even in MS1 anatomy. Good Luck!

 

[Pons Asinorum]

I'm sure he'll be back here soon..

I think basically every post Jonari has ever made on SDN has been in this thread. In the absence of needing this thread as part of his Step 1 preparation, might not be back. We'll see 🙂 Look for him back in year for 2CK I guess.

 

[startswithb]

I read the anatomy/neuro kaplan as well as the biochem kaplan. I definitely think it fills in gaps from FA and UW and I had tons of low yield from both subjects on my exam, some of which HAD to be experimental questions. I didn't really "study" the kaplan books, just spent about 6 hours speed reading through those two and taking note of anything I wasn't strong in. There were several anatomy questions on things I'd never heard of, even in MS1 anatomy. Good Luck!

Kaplan book? Which book?

 

[stronghold]

As of UW, can I complete the whole bank, annotate on FA, and re-do the wrong questions in just a month? I have the month completely dedicated

 

[normtheniner]

As of UW, can I complete the whole bank, annotate on FA, and re-do the wrong questions in just a month? I have the month completely dedicated

I'd say consider quality over quantity. A thorough pass of FA and 70-80% of uworld before your test is much better use of your time than trying to rush through both.

 

[doctorspeed]

Kaplan book? Which book?

edited

 

[bobow98]

Holy SHIAT that was a long test.
I was pooped by the end. It's finally over.

 

[Phange]

Just took it, after two months of studying, quiz banks, etc.

In my experience, pardon my french, it was "balls hard"

But I'm 99% sure I at least passed.

 

[teratomas]

For those of you hitting 240's and 250's on NBME's, how confident do you feel with your answers for majority of the questions? Is it normal to be hitting this range feeling that a huge percent of the correct answers are due to good educated guesses rather than being 100% confidence in the answer?

 

[sharklasers]

For those of you hitting 240's and 250's on NBME's, how confident do you feel with your answers for majority of the questions? Is it normal to be hitting this range feeling that a huge percent of the correct answers are due to good educated guesses rather than being 100% confidence in the answer?

i hope so. i'm in this range and probably feel 100% confident about half, pretty confident on 25%, then do what feels like a random guess on the rest lol

but by "random guesses" i mean more so between just two answer choices, because i can usualyl always eliminate most of the other ones.

 

[coolforschool]

For those of you hitting 240's and 250's on NBME's, how confident do you feel with your answers for majority of the questions? Is it normal to be hitting this range feeling that a huge percent of the correct answers are due to good educated guesses rather than being 100% confidence in the answer?

i hope so. i'm in this range and probably feel 100% confident about half, pretty confident on 25%, then do what feels like a random guess on the rest lol

but by "random guesses" i mean more so between just two answer choices, because i can usualyl always eliminate most of the other ones.

Yep, agree with sharklasers. That's the power of doing UW. The questions that I miss are usually due to narrowing down to 2 answer choices, or if I misunderstand or don't understand what they're trying to ask. Missing clues in the question stem often leads to said misunderstanding for me (i.e., stupid mistakes). I don't think I've run into very many questions where I had no idea what was going on except for a few anatomy ones. Occasionally I miss some gimmes, but it doesn't happen a lot.

 

[normtheniner]

For those of you hitting 240's and 250's on NBME's, how confident do you feel with your answers for majority of the questions? Is it normal to be hitting this range feeling that a huge percent of the correct answers are due to good educated guesses rather than being 100% confidence in the answer?

I feel like I'm guessing on a considerable part of the NBME's on NBME 11 and 15 I got a 242 and 245 respectively. I was pretty sure I bombed NBME 15 and ended up doing even better than NBME 11.

I think it stems from being extremely comfortable from knowing most of the answers on school tests (I did fairly well) to being uncomfortable with having to think a little (a lot) harder to get the answer.

Most of my friends that have taken NBME's have echoed the same sentiments. You just have to learn to trust your gut instinct when you aren't absolutely sure of something. With that said I went back and looked at my percentage right on the questions I marked on Uworld and I generally get greater than 50% right and I think that would hold true for most people.

 

[Akr]

Yup, definitely do it. You won't be able to think about anything else the rest of the day haha

Tomorrow I think the magnitude of the moment will stop you from thinking about GoT

I'll try to report something back tomorrow evening 🙂 I have some stuff typed up too about how I studied, I'll wait til the scores come out so that can all be in the same post.

That GoT episode got out of hand! At least my test can't possibly get that rough...

 

[step1april2013]

Just took it, after two months of studying, quiz banks, etc.

In my experience, pardon my french, it was "balls hard"

But I'm 99% sure I at least passed.

Holy SHIAT that was a long test.
I was pooped by the end. It's finally over.

Congratz to both of you. I'm looking forward to both of your write ups on the experience

 

[blaqmamba]

I'll try to report something back tomorrow evening 🙂 I have some stuff typed up too about how I studied, I'll wait til the scores come out so that can all be in the same post.

That GoT episode got out of hand! At least my test can't possibly get that rough...

Good luck! Looking forward to what you have to say about the test, especially with my own coming up in uhhhh a few days

 

[Phange]

I can't believe we have to wait until July 10th to get our scores.

I'm guessing it has something to do with this round of tests being harder than previous ones and they have to re-bell-curve it? I've heard from dozens of people who all think that this USMLE was much harder than they expected.

 

[HolySmokes]

Got out of the exam about two hours ago. It seemed noticeably tougher than the NBMEs to me, though maybe it was just because it was longer. I lucked out on my exam and didn't get too many "how do the lab values change" questions since I'm terrible at those.

It sucks, but it's manageable. Now I just have to wait until July 10th to get scores back. Woo.

If anyone wants, I'll try to do a write up sometime in the next few days.

 

[blaqmamba]

I can't believe we have to wait until July 10th to get our scores.

I'm guessing it has something to do with this round of tests being harder than previous ones and they have to re-bell-curve it? I've heard from dozens of people who all think that this USMLE was much harder than they expected.

How did they feel it was harder?

Got out of the exam about two hours ago. It seemed noticeably tougher than the NBMEs to me, though maybe it was just because it was longer. I lucked out on my exam and didn't get too many "how do the lab values change" questions since I'm terrible at those.

It sucks, but it's manageable. Now I just have to wait until July 10th to get scores back. Woo.

If anyone wants, I'll try to do a write up sometime in the next few days.

Yes. We want

 

[stronghold]

I'd say consider quality over quantity. A thorough pass of FA and 70-80% of uworld before your test is much better use of your time than trying to rush through both.

Thanks. I am not talking on FA as I will do a second pass of annotated FA for 2-3 weeks. I am asking if I can do the whole UW within a dedicated month, annotate UW on FA, and re-do wrong UW questions during that month? Is that possible and comfortable?

 

[Phange]

Got out of the exam about two hours ago. It seemed noticeably tougher than the NBMEs to me, though maybe it was just because it was longer. I lucked out on my exam and didn't get too many "how do the lab values change" questions since I'm terrible at those.

It sucks, but it's manageable. Now I just have to wait until July 10th to get scores back. Woo.

If anyone wants, I'll try to do a write up sometime in the next few days.

It definitely was a lot harder. And I was stunned by how a lot of it was stuff that wasn't covered in FA, Doctors in Training, or Uworld.

It focused on entirely different concepts than I expected.

 

[Phange]

I also found it -vastly- harder than Uworld. Very similar questions, but much more detailed and difficult.

Oh well, it's a bell curve test so harder isn't necessarily "worse"

 

[Leonidis I]

It definitely was a lot harder. And I was stunned by how a lot of it was stuff that wasn't covered in FA, Doctors in Training, or Uworld.

It focused on entirely different concepts than I expected.

how would you have prepared differently knowing the types of questions that were asked?

 

[suji0]

how would you have prepared differently knowing the types of questions that were asked?

yeah id be curious to know like what kind of concepts they are asking instead of the more "popular" or "well known" concepts that we learn about in school or are found in FA/UW?

 

[Phange]

how would you have prepared differently knowing the types of questions that were asked?

There really was no way. There were quite a few questions that I simply had never seem before in any capacity - school or otherwise. You can't prepare for that.

And at least in my case, there was very little "high yield" anywhere on the test. It was all stuff I would consider fairly low yield, but lots of it.

The psychology and behavior was super easy though, so there's that.

 

[sharklasers]

I haven't been keeping up with this, but isn't it true for MOST people that they come out of the exam just hoping they get X score that is significantly lower than their practice scores, but end up with a score very similar to their NBMEs?

 

[JP2740]

Just got 263 on UWSA1, any chance that stays above a 260 when I take an NBME?