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

 

[FIREitUP]

I am not speaking to the difficulty of last year. I don't think anyone here is or really can since we only have taken it once.

We are speaking to how resources were much less difficult, be it mock NBME forms or UWSAs

honestly i think it's a crime to offer nbme questions that are not indicative of the difficulty of the test. from the bottom of my heart, i hope the people who make these tests go **** themselves

 

[Benesyed]

I think other than length they are as difficult, but that review sources then incorporate that material as primary facts and principles so it becomes less reasoning it out and more oh ya i read that "high yield pearl"

 

[loveoforganic2]

honestly i think it's a crime to offer nbme questions that are not indicative of the difficulty of the test. from the bottom of my heart, i hope the people who make these tests go **** themselves

I may have missed what you said earlier, but did you find it comparable to UW? That's what I've heard from my classmates (maybe somewhere between NBME 15 and UW, but more to the side of UW)

 

[rabsa]

I definitely second the advice on reading the last sentence for the long vignettes.
I remember having a really long MI setup replete with vitals, labs and an ECG..then the patient said something, and the question pulled a bait-and-switch and asked "What defense mechanism was used here?" I shaved off a good 5 minutes per block just by going to the end of each question and realizing that some could be answered without all the superfluous info.

I'm not sure what extra anatomy source I would have used. I had very few gross anatomy questions. Half of them were easy and half were so obscure and low yield that you'd be better off memorizing virus classifications (had at least 3 of these). I also had 5-6 developmental milestone questions (some with up-down arrows) and really wish I had memorized that page in FA better--could have nailed those easily. So, cramming things like these would be a much better point gaining strategy (in my view) than anatomy. Though I am interested how they select questions from their massive question bank for each exam. I seriously had 5 CMV pharm tx questions, but not a single antiarrhythmic question.

Goljan RR is good, but only if you use it with classes. The problem is that (for me, at least) it felt like a wall of facts, and it was too much to absorb one time around. Though I will say my Uworld percentages went up a lot after going through it the second time. I agree with others on Pathoma--I think it's a must for this exam. At a minimum the general pathology chapters.

I also really liked the Netter pathology atlas. Found looking at a drawing of someone with tuberous sclerosis, etc. sealed the details in my brain better than trying to memorize it from FA. It's also easy to flip through and has some great charts.

 

[rabsa]

i agree; i was very surprised at how in depth and difficult the questions were, even the path (which is my strong suit). i'll reiterate that for sure the difficulty is reflected in the curve; and there are likely experimental questions.

@cassie the test I took was significantly harder than anything i've encountered in my prep

I agree. I also felt like they jammed the knife in harder the last 3 blocks, just when you're at the point of exhaustion. The first two blocks felt much easier.

 

[doctoritis]

heh .. you guys are scaring the crap out of me. 🙂 i mean, the advice is of course appreciated .. just feel doomed no matter what approach is taken and doesn't look like there is one right path ... like you never know what random topic they'll hit you with disproportionately heavily on, maybe you'll be lucky and it will be your strength ... or maybe SOL! i mean, if in an ideal world you could know everything well ... 😛

 

[Kal EI]

I don't understand- did the USMLE Step 1 suddenly get more challenging or does this happen every year? I find it hard to believe that thousands of new questions are being dumped into the "new" rounds of tests rather than gradually replacing old ones over time. Some of the hard core studiers that have posted in the post 2-3 days make it seem like the USMLE Step 1 just transitioned into a new era of difficulty, but I'm willing to bet this happens every year as this is coincidentally also the time most students take the exam.

I imagine the USMLE is wants to prevent their mean score from inflating every year, but a drastic change in difficulty, as some of these posts make it seem, doesn't seem likely as that would involve dumping in either a bunch of new "difficult" questions or taking out the old "easy" questions.

Just a guess, maybe it's the internet. Everyone is using Uworld, Pathoma, FA - people are able to work together on the most difficult concepts, share NBME answers, etc. Today's test taker has 5x the resources and they probably found they needed to adjust.

That's also my theory on why DIT is less useful (for some). At one point in time, they had all the questions/concepts that were frequently tested. "Good prep" was telling you how or what would be tested. I think USMLE figured this out (maybe a huge shift in %'s answering questions correctly) and they adjusted to make programs like DIT less useful.

 

[CDI]

Here's the thing I'm confused about, how do they "maintain" the exam score integrity after the May changes?

Say the 1st half of the year Step 1 average shot up to a 234. Courtesy of DIT, Pathoma, Phlostons powerpoints, whatever. An average score jump of 10 points would be ridiculous, the only way to "reduce" the average by the end of the year is to REMOVE the questions that the majority of students are answering correctly. So, the 2nd half of the year the average would be a 214. Thus keeping the yearly average at a 224.

 

[change77]

So what about the rest of us who are only in the 200-215 range of knowledge? I really hope I can just pass now at this point. A bunch of people I studied with took it yesterday and felt like they knew maybe every 5th question if that (and these are people who average 230s on their NBMEs) For someone like myself scoring around 205, I feel like I am going to know nothing. This is so frustrating! Can there really be THAT many experimental questions and THAT big of a curve? I mean some of the questions my friends got were not even close to anything they had studied or even learned the first two years of medical school. Where the heck are these test makers even coming up with this ****!?

 

[Choo]

If there is anything I have learned from this thread, it is don't read this thread 5 days before your test.

 

[rabsa]

So what about the rest of us who are only in the 200-215 range of knowledge? I really hope I can just pass now at this point. A bunch of people I studied with took it yesterday and felt like they knew maybe every 5th question if that (and these are people who average 230s on their NBMEs) For someone like myself scoring around 205, I feel like I am going to know nothing. This is so frustrating! Can there really be THAT many experimental questions and THAT big of a curve? I mean some of the questions my friends got were not even close to anything they had studied or even learned the first two years of medical school. Where the heck are these test makers even coming up with this ****!?

I still feel like the NBMEs/Uworld are good predictors. If you're at the range where you want to be, you'll do the same on the real deal. (Hopefully that holds true when I get my score back)

 

[tiedyeddog]

Yeah, I thought the exam was fair. I wish I had studied pathoma harder but it didn't feel any harder than UW or nbmes....

I'll report my score back if I hit my goal of 240+... Won't if not because you shouldn't use my prep if I didn't.

 

[lyth0s]

I marked 8 questions per block. If I only missed those 8 questions per block (82% correct) , what type of USMLE score do you guys think that'd be? I hate waiting for exam scores, especially 3 weeks....zzz 🙁

 

[Zareh Ali]

I marked 8 questions per block. If I only missed those 8 questions per block (82% correct) , what type of USMLE score do you guys think that'd be? I hate waiting for exam scores, especially 3 weeks....zzz 🙁

Certainly better than me haha marked 20-25 pero block and for what i read most people come out feeling like me u.u so i bet your score will be high
NBME -240 (mean)
Uworld -75%

 

[lyth0s]

Certainly better than me haha marked 20-25 pero block and for what i read most people come out feeling like me u.u so i bet your score will be high
NBME -240 (mean)
Uworld -75%

Oh wow you're Uworld average was a good 5% above mine (only 70% for me). 240 is my goal, but a 250 would sureee make me happy haha

 

[Benesyed]

Just a guess, maybe it's the internet. Everyone is using Uworld, Pathoma, FA - people are able to work together on the most difficult concepts, share NBME answers, etc. Today's test taker has 5x the resources and they probably found they needed to adjust.

That's also my theory on why DIT is less useful (for some). At one point in time, they had all the questions/concepts that were frequently tested. "Good prep" was telling you how or what would be tested. I think USMLE figured this out (maybe a huge shift in %'s answering questions correctly) and they adjusted to make programs like DIT less useful.

This is my exact thought as well. The idea is they want to test your ability to synthesize diverse information on the spot and get to an answer not have a pre-canned response because you saw it before.

For people around the average, I expect no major change. I think that they scooped mid level (what Id consider 230-240 questions) and added more 250+ questions to compensate for all the resources etc. My friends who scored average on NBMEs did not find the test to be harder than the forms. It was only the kids who scored 240+ on the forms that were like WTF just happened. Interestingly the kids who did worse than avg on their forms also felt the real deal was hard. I think its very oriented towards pulling to the middle.

As far as block marking. I wouldn't go off that alone. I tend to mark lots of questions if I am anything less than 100% about my answer. For example I marked a question about river blindness because i was not 100% that it was blackfly. The person had nodules but they were not described as hyper pigmented so I had some doubts. They did a lot of stuff like that to not make it the classic picture and blur it between clinical presentations.

I have an odd sense of respect for the beast.

 

[CDI]

So what about the rest of us who are only in the 200-215 range of knowledge? I really hope I can just pass now at this point. A bunch of people I studied with took it yesterday and felt like they knew maybe every 5th question if that (and these are people who average 230s on their NBMEs) For someone like myself scoring around 205, I feel like I am going to know nothing. This is so frustrating! Can there really be THAT many experimental questions and THAT big of a curve? I mean some of the questions my friends got were not even close to anything they had studied or even learned the first two years of medical school. Where the heck are these test makers even coming up with this ****!?

At this level, you'll know answers when you see them but a lot of the time you'll find yourself stuck between 2 easy answers on the real deal. FA is how you fix that.

Also, the latest NBMEs are still strong predictors. NBMEs are actually more useful at this level in terms of feedback. Like any practice exam w/ feedback, they are more valuable to people scoring averages than the extremes who will have a tougher time determining what their glaring weaknesses are. (Either they're weak in everything or hardly anything at all.)

The moment you really focus on your weakest areas your score will move.

 

[FIREitUP]

I may have missed what you said earlier, but did you find it comparable to UW? That's what I've heard from my classmates (maybe somewhere between NBME 15 and UW, but more to the side of UW)

significantly harder than UW. i was in the mid eighties consistently towards the end of my prep in UW as a reference (I know you're in that range, too) and the questions had longer stems, were more vague and had more confounding facts in them.

 

[change77]

At this level, you'll know answers when you see them but a lot of the time you'll find yourself stuck between 2 easy answers on the real deal. FA is how you fix that.

Also, the latest NBMEs are still strong predictors. NBMEs are actually more useful at this level in terms of feedback. Like any practice exam w/ feedback, they are more valuable to people scoring averages than the extremes who will have a tougher time determining what their glaring weaknesses are. (Either they're weak in everything or hardly anything at all.)

The moment you really focus on your weakest areas your score will move.

Yeah this last week I have really been focusing on my week spots based on what NBME 15 said and I made sure I knew all the wrong answers I got. I feel pretty solid in what I do know. I take it tomorrow, so this will be my last post until after the exam (because I am going to go over all the high yield FA stuff now and re-look at biostats today). I will post my exam experience and whatnot in a few days after I recover. Hopefully I can do slightly better than my last NBME since I do feel I have improved in my knowledge base since then.

Here goes nothing!

 

[Ugen]

Yeah, I thought the exam was fair. I wish I had studied pathoma harder but it didn't feel any harder than UW or nbmes....

I'll report my score back if I hit my goal of 240+... Won't if not because you shouldn't use my prep if I didn't.

I'm going to second this, I hope you guys realize that there are people that took it recently and didn't really think it was as bad as some people are posting here. I wouldn't get to psyched up if you are about to take it, just trust your studying and realize they are testing your ability to apply your knowlege.

Some of my blocks were easier than uworld some were a little harder. I really had only one or two questions that I sat there and thought, omg wtf is going on here? I also only had a handful of questions with ridiculously long vignettes (one was incredibly long). Some blocks I finished with enough time to go through my marked questions some I didn't. Most of the questions gave sufficient hints to guide you to a least two answers, and usually there was one small detail that pointed to one over the other (even if it meant that one answer was just more likely even if the other was still possible, for example a woman with extreme RLQ pain and the only hint seperating the two obvious choices would be a history of an STD). There were a few long calculations but they were just long, not hard (thats what she said?). Of course the "experiment logic" questions were foreign but not impossible to figure out. And with as much adrenaline you'll have, the seven hours will fly by like no mans business.

I think if you make sure you understand the topics in depth and why things are happening, there really aren't a lot of ways they can ask you something that would make it impossible to figure out. If your idea of studying is just memorizing how they might ask you every disease instead of why something is right or wrong then I can see how asking about a disease in a new way might confuse you. UWorld is invaluable because it gives you excellent explanations as to why the other answers (which usually are plausible choices) are wrong.

Yes it possible that we just got easy forms and everyone else got the hardest test everrr but it's more likely the reality is somewhere in the middle, and yes a 230 might be a 70% like on UWorld instead of a 80% like on NBME

 

[suji0]

hey guys, took exam a few days ago. reading people's experiences and preparation helped me for sure, so i thought i would contribute whatever i can, though it probably isn't much.

prep materials - FA, UW, parts of kaplan qbank, tiny bit of rx, some kaplan neuroanatomy, and a little flipping through brs anatomy/high yield anatomy (select sections and the clinical stuff at end of chapter), pathoma, and goljan rapid review (mostly throughout school year), kaplan pharm at the end of school year

-did kaplan qbank in second semester of 2nd year, goljan and pathoma throughout school year, kaplan pharm near the end of school year. went through some first aid with classes but honestly, once i began my prep, i realized i didnt retain like ANY of the first aid, goljan, or kaplan qbank. perhaps it was lack of being thorough, or lack of focus, but if anything it helped me build a foundation - more on this later
-1st year, was a pretty average student, and committed nothing to long term memory (except probably physiology) (by average i mean mostly Bs with some low As here and there)
-2nd year, never listened to a single lecture except the first month of pharm. sucked at memorization based subjects like micro, etc

score progression + what i did between each test

school adminstered cbse at beginning of march - 210

nbme 5 in april (about 6 weeks later, but 1-2 weeks after i got my score from the school nbme) - 210
-began UW and STUPIDLY blasted through it without reading/annotating first aid along with it, made a document where i wrote notes alongside but i did not use UW effectively at all. finished it in like a month with 70% overall, scoring 80s for my last few blocks.
uwsa 2 at beginning of prep (5 weeks out) - 240
- went through FA renal, pulm, and repro, and did the corresponding kaplan wbank physiology and some random other sections (not path though)
nbme 11 (4.5 weeks out) - 245-248 (based on offline calculations)
nbme 12 (4.5 weeks out) - 245-248 (offline calculations)
-ended up taking most of weekend off for family stuff)
-began UW again, this time taking better note of things in first aid. realized that the majority of UW is definitely in first aid, and i highly reccomend that one should go through first aid either throughout the school year or hardcore just once before doing UW because i feel like it reinforces the material better that way (this is just a personal opinon/thought, i didnt do it, i just feel like it would be a good idea)

nbme 13 (i think 3.5 weeks out? dont remember) - about 250 (offline)
nbme 15 (maybe 2.5 weeks out?) - 252 (online)


finished uw second time in mid-high 80s, didnt remember a single question, relearned many concepts because never learned them the first time. pretty much my first time through wasnt as effective of a pass as it could have been.
did maybe 40% of kaplan and 25% rx during the study time
reviewed kaplan neuroanatomy (parts of it, didnt read much of the text thoroughly), random rapid review blue-print, and most of pathoma during the study period

daily schedule was usually a modification of:
8-12 study
12-2:30 - gym lunch
230-5 - work
5-530 - break
530 - 730 - work
730-830 dinner

but there were times obviously that i ate dinner earlier, took a longer break in the mid afternoon, etc. dont think i ever really studied more than 8-9 hours/day, never studied past 9 o clock. went through about 7 seasons of a tv show on netflix during this time period (uually wile i ate), so remember, this experience is written by someone who obviously didnt put in as much hard work as he could have/should have.

test day:
moved my date up a few days, realized i should have probably just taken my exam a solid 2 weeks earlier than what it was scheduled but it all good
days leading up to the test, studying was super low, just reviewed some missed questions in uw, random sections in first aid, and tahts really it. last two days did next to nothing except some biostats

-had about 15-20 cts, id say 75% of these werent even directly clinically oriented so i FA/UW did not help. nothing i read in the anatomy sources i skimmed helped either, i just not good enough at CTs and general anatomy. definitely got most of these wrong. one question asked me to arrange 4 slices from cranial to caudal, and they were of upper thorax so i could narrow it down to 2 of the 8 choices and then guessed.
-many difficult reproductive questions relating to path and phys and micro, id say it was most difficult subject on my exam (aside from general anatomy)
-barely any psych, behavioral, which i was hoping for more of
-ethics was okay, some questions were def tricky, others based on general concepts where uw prepped you well for
-biostats good with uw/fa, few questions
-pharm was similar to uw, confused couple simple questions, jut know your psych drugs and indications well
-had one two step question, got the first part wrong because it asked "what is next step in diagnosis/treatment" something like that
biochem - first aid/uw enough, nothing too tricky

like everyone has said, FA/UW/Pathoma def best combo of thigns you can do. i got owned with anatomy images and general questions, felt like it was a little overrepresented, but what can you do. having a strong understanding of pathology via pathoma and some goljan helped me narrow most of everything to two choices, but they would be very similar so im hoping i picked the better of the two. didnt walk out of the exam feeling like complete **** (maybe because i at leat had a "general" idea of what most questions answers were), but i have already counted at least 15 questions i definitely got wrong.

goal was 250+, hoping nbme predictions hold true. any questions, pm me or post on here and i try and help. sorry this is unorganized, i am writing it on the spur while watching tv

mistakes i made - not going through FA thoroughly enough when i had chance during school year
not going through UW thoroughly enough the first time (def read FA with it)
not studying enough during the day (ie too much tv)
not strengthening my anatomy enough via images and stuff (but this was particular to the test i got, so id say it would be generally inefficient to spend too much time on obscure anatomy)
not finishing rx (shoulda done during school year or something, got sick of sitting in front of computer during dedicated)
and many more, ill add to the list when i remember haha

 

[999999]

That was heartening. As they say, FA is still gold.

 

[Armadillos]

Took it a couple days ago and I think all the doom and gloom people have really bad self awareness of their own knowledge, or more likely are just hedging psychologically so they won't be disappointed if things don't go as well as planned.

Test was exactly like uworld ( note, not exactly the same questions, but was exactly like it in that every block some are super easy, there are some you have no idea what disease they are talking about and some where you feel like you know everything except the one detail they asked.)

It feels harder because you actually care, I think I probably scored like 5 lower than my practices just because I kind I cracked under the pressure and tanked the second half of a block bc I had been too stressed to eat enough snacks. But after that I forced my self to eat and got back to the u world as usual feel.

U world assessments put me at 254, nbme 15 mid 250s, guessing real thing will be 248-255, with a chance to be lower depending how bad my nervous breakdown block was.

 

[FIREitUP]

Took it a couple days ago and I think all the doom and gloom people have really bad self awareness of their own knowledge, or more likely are just hedging psychologically so they won't be disappointed if things don't go as well as planned.

Test was exactly like uworld ( note, not exactly the same questions, but was exactly like it in that every block some are super easy, there are some you have no idea what disease they are talking about and some where you feel like you know everything except the one detail they asked.)

It feels harder because you actually care, I think I probably scored like 5 lower than my practices just because I kind I cracked under the pressure and tanked the second half of a block bc I had been too stressed to eat enough snacks. But after that I forced my self to eat and got back to the u world as usual feel.

U world assessments put me at 254, nbme 15 mid 250s, guessing real thing will be 248-255, with a chance to be lower depending how bad my nervous breakdown block was.

actually it felt harder because it was indeed harder (at least my test was). in uworld you can clearly distinguish the right answer from the wrong answer, this was not the case on my test. not only that, but my vignettes were 2-3x longer than uworld, at least.

 

[999999]

so basically still Fa+ UW.

 

[Tire2545]

I think it comes down to what your mindset is coming into the test. I took the test last week and was averaging 250's on my nbmes and uwsa. I came in hoping to dominate and was surprised with how much reasoning I had to do to get to right answers. I marked 5- 10 per block and felt like I could never quite dominate a block like I had been able to on the practice tests. I know now of at least 10 questions I missed that I should've known. Nothing I can do now, but even if you are prepared its all down to what you perceive the test to be.

if you come in expecting to dominate test, you are going to feel like you got owned.

If you come in thinking the test is some unconquerable beast, I think you will realize that it was not as bad as you thought and that it was very comparable to what you practiced for. (uworld/nbme/fa)

 

[Benesyed]

I think it comes down to what your mindset is coming into the test. I took the test last week and was averaging 250's on my nbmes and uwsa. I came in hoping to dominate and was surprised with how much reasoning I had to do to get to right answers. I marked 5- 10 per block and felt like I could never quite dominate a block like I had been able to on the practice tests. I know now of at least 10 questions I missed that I should've known. Nothing I can do now, but even if you are prepared its all down to what you perceive the test to be.

if you come in expecting to dominate test, you are going to feel like you got owned.

If you come in thinking the test is some unconquerable beast, I think you will realize that it was not as bad as you thought and that it was very comparable to what you practiced for. (uworld/nbme/fa)

Exactly.

 

[kedrin]

No, I am quite sure my exam far surpassed the difficulty of NBME and Uworld. I had a pretty good idea of what was going on in the majority of questions with those. The questions on my exam were consistently more complicated than an average Q on the NBME and Uworld, far fewer gimmi Qs on the real deal. This experience probably varies according to exam form.

 

[TrueAntagonist]

I'm going to second this, I hope you guys realize that there are people that took it recently and didn't really think it was as bad as some people are posting here. I wouldn't get to psyched up if you are about to take it, just trust your studying and realize they are testing your ability to apply your knowlege.

Some of my blocks were easier than uworld some were a little harder. I really had only one or two questions that I sat there and thought, omg wtf is going on here? I also only had a handful of questions with ridiculously long vignettes (one was incredibly long). Some blocks I finished with enough time to go through my marked questions some I didn't. Most of the questions gave sufficient hints to guide you to a least two answers, and usually there was one small detail that pointed to one over the other (even if it meant that one answer was just more likely even if the other was still possible, for example a woman with extreme RLQ pain and the only hint seperating the two obvious choices would be a history of an STD). There were a few long calculations but they were just long, not hard (thats what she said?). Of course the "experiment logic" questions were foreign but not impossible to figure out. And with as much adrenaline you'll have, the seven hours will fly by like no mans business.

I think if you make sure you understand the topics in depth and why things are happening, there really aren't a lot of ways they can ask you something that would make it impossible to figure out. If your idea of studying is just memorizing how they might ask you every disease instead of why something is right or wrong then I can see how asking about a disease in a new way might confuse you. UWorld is invaluable because it gives you excellent explanations as to why the other answers (which usually are plausible choices) are wrong.

Yes it possible that we just got easy forms and everyone else got the hardest test everrr but it's more likely the reality is somewhere in the middle, and yes a 230 might be a 70% like on UWorld instead of a 80% like on NBME

This. I took it 10 days ago and would wholeheartedly agree. If I were someone who hadnt taken the test, I'd be freaking out after reading this thread. So for those who haven't taken it, please know that the test was certainly very challenging, but not impossible.

At best the easy questions are like gimmes on NBMEs and at worst they're like the <40% correct on Uworld. I had maybe 5-6 questions TOTAL that I think were the impossible <20% correct.

I remember only 2 questions that absolutely just didnt know. The rest were concepts I'd seen in one the resources I used (FA/Pathoma/UWorld/GT).

For those who have already taken it, I'm sure you'll do around your NBME average or HIGHER. Those things are pretty specific.

 

[suji0]

hey guys, took exam a few days ago. reading people's experiences and preparation helped me for sure, so i thought i would contribute whatever i can, though it probably isn't much.

prep materials - FA, UW, parts of kaplan qbank, tiny bit of rx, some kaplan neuroanatomy, and a little flipping through brs anatomy/high yield anatomy (select sections and the clinical stuff at end of chapter), pathoma, and goljan rapid review (mostly throughout school year), kaplan pharm at the end of school year

-did kaplan qbank in second semester of 2nd year, goljan and pathoma throughout school year, kaplan pharm near the end of school year. went through some first aid with classes but honestly, once i began my prep, i realized i didnt retain like ANY of the first aid, goljan, or kaplan qbank. perhaps it was lack of being thorough, or lack of focus, but if anything it helped me build a foundation - more on this later
-1st year, was a pretty average student, and committed nothing to long term memory (except probably physiology) (by average i mean mostly Bs with some low As here and there)
-2nd year, never listened to a single lecture except the first month of pharm. sucked at memorization based subjects like micro, etc

score progression + what i did between each test

school adminstered cbse at beginning of march - 210

nbme 5 in april (about 6 weeks later, but 1-2 weeks after i got my score from the school nbme) - 210
-began UW and STUPIDLY blasted through it without reading/annotating first aid along with it, made a document where i wrote notes alongside but i did not use UW effectively at all. finished it in like a month with 70% overall, scoring 80s for my last few blocks.
uwsa 2 at beginning of prep (5 weeks out) - 240
- went through FA renal, pulm, and repro, and did the corresponding kaplan wbank physiology and some random other sections (not path though)
nbme 11 (4.5 weeks out) - 245-248 (based on offline calculations)
nbme 12 (4.5 weeks out) - 245-248 (offline calculations)
-ended up taking most of weekend off for family stuff)
-began UW again, this time taking better note of things in first aid. realized that the majority of UW is definitely in first aid, and i highly reccomend that one should go through first aid either throughout the school year or hardcore just once before doing UW because i feel like it reinforces the material better that way (this is just a personal opinon/thought, i didnt do it, i just feel like it would be a good idea)

nbme 13 (i think 3.5 weeks out? dont remember) - about 250 (offline)
nbme 15 (maybe 2.5 weeks out?) - 252 (online)


finished uw second time in mid-high 80s, didnt remember a single question, relearned many concepts because never learned them the first time. pretty much my first time through wasnt as effective of a pass as it could have been.
did maybe 40% of kaplan and 25% rx during the study time
reviewed kaplan neuroanatomy (parts of it, didnt read much of the text thoroughly), random rapid review blue-print, and most of pathoma during the study period

daily schedule was usually a modification of:
8-12 study
12-2:30 - gym lunch
230-5 - work
5-530 - break
530 - 730 - work
730-830 dinner

but there were times obviously that i ate dinner earlier, took a longer break in the mid afternoon, etc. dont think i ever really studied more than 8-9 hours/day, never studied past 9 o clock. went through about 7 seasons of a tv show on netflix during this time period (uually wile i ate), so remember, this experience is written by someone who obviously didnt put in as much hard work as he could have/should have.

test day:
moved my date up a few days, realized i should have probably just taken my exam a solid 2 weeks earlier than what it was scheduled but it all good
days leading up to the test, studying was super low, just reviewed some missed questions in uw, random sections in first aid, and tahts really it. last two days did next to nothing except some biostats

-had about 15-20 cts, id say 75% of these werent even directly clinically oriented so i FA/UW did not help. nothing i read in the anatomy sources i skimmed helped either, i just not good enough at CTs and general anatomy. definitely got most of these wrong. one question asked me to arrange 4 slices from cranial to caudal, and they were of upper thorax so i could narrow it down to 2 of the 8 choices and then guessed.
-many difficult reproductive questions relating to path and phys and micro, id say it was most difficult subject on my exam (aside from general anatomy)
-barely any psych, behavioral, which i was hoping for more of
-ethics was okay, some questions were def tricky, others based on general concepts where uw prepped you well for
-biostats good with uw/fa, few questions
-pharm was similar to uw, confused couple simple questions, jut know your psych drugs and indications well
-had one two step question, got the first part wrong because it asked "what is next step in diagnosis/treatment" something like that
biochem - first aid/uw enough, nothing too tricky

like everyone has said, FA/UW/Pathoma def best combo of thigns you can do. i got owned with anatomy images and general questions, felt like it was a little overrepresented, but what can you do. having a strong understanding of pathology via pathoma and some goljan helped me narrow most of everything to two choices, but they would be very similar so im hoping i picked the better of the two. didnt walk out of the exam feeling like complete **** (maybe because i at leat had a "general" idea of what most questions answers were), but i have already counted at least 15 questions i definitely got wrong.

goal was 250+, hoping nbme predictions hold true. any questions, pm me or post on here and i try and help. sorry this is unorganized, i am writing it on the spur while watching tv

mistakes i made - not going through FA thoroughly enough when i had chance during school year
not going through UW thoroughly enough the first time (def read FA with it)
not studying enough during the day (ie too much tv)
not strengthening my anatomy enough via images and stuff (but this was particular to the test i got, so id say it would be generally inefficient to spend too much time on obscure anatomy)
not finishing rx (shoulda done during school year or something, got sick of sitting in front of computer during dedicated)
and many more, ill add to the list when i remember haha

to echo what people have just posted, the exam isnt going to leave you sh*tting your pants or crying while you are taking it. knowing FA+UW well will give you a good idea and familiarity with the exam, it just comes down to reasoning for the last couple you narrow it down to. i walked into the exam expecting the mot complicated, crazy, minutiae-licious questions ever, and was surprised to see the exam just being a morecomplex version of what youd see in UW questions. long questions, vaguer answer choices, but you won't be like "i dont even know what that is" except for a few (depends on your luck with minutiae molecular bio, anatomy, etc, based on what random questions you get that day)

 

[CDI]

so basically still Fa+ UW.

That won't change anytime soon.

Regardless of what changes may or may not occur, the most efficient resources for an average score tend to stay consistent and keep up based on feedback.

 

[Benesyed]

It comes down to expectations and length. The questions we can probably disagree over the individual difficulty, but if you are someone who normally has tons of time to review then this test will feel hard. For me 5-10 average is low and makes me, upon reflection, nervous. In addition I am used to a high level of confidence in my answers. Sadly, I had neither because of the very small hints given.

Although it might also just be the fact that you get results immediately with the forms and if you do we'll you sort of underplay the stress while you took them.

It is hard to say.

The only objective advice I can give is that I had more questions I wanted to look over relative to the time that I had and that the length was certainly longer on average for the stems.

 

[Phange]

actually it felt harder because it was indeed harder (at least my test was). in uworld you can clearly distinguish the right answer from the wrong answer, this was not the case on my test. not only that, but my vignettes were 2-3x longer than uworld, at least.

There really was no comparison. I can say without a shred of doubt that the USMLE was harder than Uworld, despite being similar in writing and question design.

It was, however, much easier in physiology. The only problem is that physiology was a very small percent of questions.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

This. I took it 10 days ago and would wholeheartedly agree. If I were someone who hadnt taken the test, I'd be freaking out after reading this thread. So for those who haven't taken it, please know that the test was certainly very challenging, but not impossible.

At best the easy questions are like gimmes on NBMEs and at worst they're like the <40% correct on Uworld. I had maybe 5-6 questions TOTAL that I think were the impossible <20% correct.

I remember only 2 questions that absolutely just didnt know. The rest were concepts I'd seen in one the resources I used (FA/Pathoma/UWorld/GT).

For those who have already taken it, I'm sure you'll do around your NBME average or HIGHER. Those things are pretty specific.

Same here, again. Took it a week ago, thought it felt like NBME 15. Also, unlike someone posted on here, maybe FireItUp, my questions' answer choices felt morel like NBME's than UW, by which I mean I think UW does a good job of teaching you by including the all the similar/tricky not-correct answer choices in their answer selections. Makes you actually learn to discern between the actual pitfalls. On NBMEs, and on my actual Step 1, I thought that the answer choices always had maybe one incorrect confounder, but the rest of the answer choices were completely wrong. Like, hey this guy sure is licking his lips a lot, and he has a hx of mental illness, what drug did that: cipro, amiodorone, SSRI, haloperidol, allopurinol. Something like that. Yeah, SSRI is kinda close, but including that there are really only two answers that are even under consideration. Unlike UW, which would include nothing but neuroleptics and mood stabilizers in the answer choices. Not sure if that makes any sense, but I just felt like it was easily reducible to 50/50, pretty much always, and that my FA+UW gave me what I needed for the vast majority of the questions. I felt like I am easily going to end up >250, and UW + FA gave me more than enough to get there. Of course, I may eat crow on July 10, we'll see. But the curve is still the curve. Every year they roll out new questions and have this two month block of exam takers whose scores are all released together to let them smooth out the distribution. If you were at 240 going in, regardless of how hard you felt the exam was, I think you'll be at 240 on the real thing. I think a lot of the lamentations on here are more perceived than real, no offense. When the scores come back, mark my words, some of the "holy **** that was super duper harder than any UW block everrrrr!!!" crowd will be posting up their 260's, because they were 260 going into it. My opinion. We'll see.

 

[CDI]

Same here, again. Took it a week ago, thought it felt like NBME 15. Also, unlike someone posted on here, maybe FireItUp, my questions' answer choices felt morel like NBME's than UW, by which I mean I think UW does a good job of teaching you by including the all the similar/tricky not-correct answer choices in their answer selections. Makes you actually learn to discern between the actual pitfalls. On NBMEs, and on my actual Step 1, I thought that the answer choices always had maybe one incorrect confounder, but the rest of the answer choices were completely wrong. Like, hey this guy sure is licking his lips a lot, and he has a hx of mental illness, what drug did that: cipro, amiodorone, SSRI, haloperidol, allopurinol. Something like that. Yeah, SSRI is kinda close, but including that there are really only two answers that are even under consideration. Unlike UW, which would include nothing but neuroleptics and mood stabilizers in the answer choices. Not sure if that makes any sense, but I just felt like it was easily reducible to 50/50, pretty much always, and that my FA+UW gave me what I needed for the vast majority of the questions. I felt like I am easily going to end up >250, and UW + FA gave me more than enough to get there. Of course, I may eat crow on July 10, we'll see. But the curve is still the curve. Every year they roll out new questions and have this two month block of exam takers whose scores are all released together to let them smooth out the distribution. If you were at 240 going in, regardless of how hard you felt the exam was, I think you'll be at 240 on the real thing. I think a lot of the lamentations on here are more perceived than real, no offense. When the scores come back, mark my words, some of the "holy **** that was super duper harder than any UW block everrrrr!!!" crowd will be posting up their 260's, because they were 260 going into it. My opinion. We'll see.

I'm curious if there was a mid-Summer drop in scores in previous score threads, as a possible "correction".

 

[FIREitUP]

Same here, again. Took it a week ago, thought it felt like NBME 15. Also, unlike someone posted on here, maybe FireItUp, my questions' answer choices felt morel like NBME's than UW, by which I mean I think UW does a good job of teaching you by including the all the similar/tricky not-correct answer choices in their answer selections. Makes you actually learn to discern between the actual pitfalls. On NBMEs, and on my actual Step 1, I thought that the answer choices always had maybe one incorrect confounder, but the rest of the answer choices were completely wrong. Like, hey this guy sure is licking his lips a lot, and he has a hx of mental illness, what drug did that: cipro, amiodorone, SSRI, haloperidol, allopurinol. Something like that. Yeah, SSRI is kinda close, but including that there are really only two answers that are even under consideration. Unlike UW, which would include nothing but neuroleptics and mood stabilizers in the answer choices. Not sure if that makes any sense, but I just felt like it was easily reducible to 50/50, pretty much always, and that my FA+UW gave me what I needed for the vast majority of the questions. I felt like I am easily going to end up >250, and UW + FA gave me more than enough to get there. Of course, I may eat crow on July 10, we'll see. But the curve is still the curve. Every year they roll out new questions and have this two month block of exam takers whose scores are all released together to let them smooth out the distribution. If you were at 240 going in, regardless of how hard you felt the exam was, I think you'll be at 240 on the real thing. I think a lot of the lamentations on here are more perceived than real, no offense. When the scores come back, mark my words, some of the "holy **** that was super duper harder than any UW block everrrrr!!!" crowd will be posting up their 260's, because they were 260 going into it. My opinion. We'll see.

many questions I could narrow down to two option choices and had to guess. i think it's important to note that we had different tests and subsequently everyone's opinion of the test has validity in their own right. as for my projected score, I wouldn't be surprised if I scored in the 260's and I'm not trying to complain or anything, but the test was more challenging than anything I've encountered in my preparation.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

I'm curious if there was a mid-Summer drop in scores in previous score threads, as a possible "correction".

Good question. I guess I might be a rube, but I imagine that the NBME actually knows what they're doing, and since they have a massive amount of data to use for such statistical purposes, that the scores from exams written early in the year and later in the year are statistically comparable. The data that you get off SDN, it being such a tiny fraction of test takers (and inherently unreliable regardless of power), probably isn't the best place to base much off of.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

many questions I could narrow down to two option choices and had to guess. i think it's important to note that we had different tests and subsequently everyone's opinion of the test has validity in their own right. as for my projected score, I wouldn't be surprised if I scored in the 260's and I'm not trying to complain or anything, but the test was more challenging than anything I've encountered in my preparation.

Agree with that. I think every test is different, but the scores end up being valid. We'll both get the same 260, you with missing more questions on your much harder form, and me getting less wrong on my easier form. I still think these magical curves have validity and that you have to trust the process.

 

[Benesyed]

I think there is a lot of violent agreement going on haha

Could I have gotten a 250+, sure! I do believe the curve accounts to for the inter test variation. My only reason to give feedback was to say that the perceived difficulty was harder not that my score will turn out x or y. So don't be lulled if the forms and uwsa1 were easy for you.

I will post how I did once I get my score. I think more diligent precise reporting is useful for subsequent generations. I tried to give objective benchmarks of performance by giving time of study, time into study I did a form, and other tidbits that may alter how you interpret things like that.

 

[CDI]

Good question. I guess I might be a rube, but I imagine that the NBME actually knows what they're doing, and since they have a massive amount of data to use for such statistical purposes, that the scores from exams written early in the year and later in the year are statistically comparable. The data that you get off SDN, it being such a tiny fraction of test takers (and inherently unreliable regardless of power), probably isn't the best place to base much off of.

Very true.

Just has me thinking because the scores keep going up every calendar year, along with the minimum passing scores.

Yet they "fix" the exam in the middle of the year, after 6 months worth of exams are in, both increasing minimum passing scores and changing the exam test pool. We know for a fact they aren't making this thing easier, now or ever. It's that people are preparing longer and with better resources. Pathoma just gave everyone a leg up on Step 1. I bet its effect was pretty significant on the average test scores. There's got to be some correction going on as a result and some people are definitely falling "victim".

 

[Armadillos]

Also one thing I was shocked by is that the real deal actually used buzzwords on some of the questions when describing the path which was a really pleasant surprise, however I think behavioral science and ethics questions were more debatable than they were on uworld

 

[operaman]

Having found this thread and its siblings helpful, I thought I should add my thoughts to the mix....

About me: non-trad, no science background save for the pre-reqs in the 9 mos before M1.

Took the beast 3 days ago.

Dedicated Prep time: ~3wks (4wks, but took a week off for a conference)

Resources used:
Firecracker/GT since start of M1, banking as we went with classes
Pathoma: Worth its weight in gold. He should charge a lot more.
Picmonic for micro and random crap I hate to memorize
UWorld: Did it for 2 weeks in January (avg: 85-90% correct per block, random timed), but switched to Kaplan during the year because I was scoring much lower on each block and therefore learning more. Came back to UWorld for the last 2 weeks of prep time. Final avg: 88%; last 6 blocks avg: 93%

Read 20 pages of FA and hated it. Ditto for Kaplan Medessentials. Just weren't my style.

Baseline NBME pre-study: 250-260
All other SA's: 260+


Test Day:

Total number of super hard obscure detail questions: 0
Total number of questions I thought were unreasonably hard: 0
Total number of questions that fairly whooped my ass for not understand something well enough: more than I'd like to admit!


I truly expected to see 3-4 questions per block that were just insane, but that never happened. Even the questions that felt like crazy random details, I just thought through them and asked myself "what should a 2nd year med student be able to understand about this concept and apply appropriately?" Examiners glean nothing from random detail recall questions and as such I had none of them. Without fail, all the detail questions fell to thought and understanding the concept being tested. For example, one question wanted some obscure receptor, but by thinking through the question and what sort of immune response was happening, only 1 answer fit and had to be correct even though I'd never heard of it. Ditto for random diseases I'd never heard of: the other choices easily fell to clues in the vignette.

I did notice a concerted effort in the questions to avoid using any words that were in popular prep materials. I missed a stupid vitamin question because the presentation was nothing like any of the Sx in FC or FA or any other book, and my line of reasoning to answer it went down a nice rabbit hole to wrong-answer-land. There was a subtle clue though that hit me on the drive home that I should have picked up on, so I don't think it was unreasonable.

Many questions were simple click-and-move questions thanks to something in FC/FA. Nailed a lot of micro questions thanks to some stupid picture in picmonic (and I suuuuuck at micro). In retrospect, the biggest value in these resources was buying time for the harder ones. I would often ask myself during when reviewing FC: "how else could I ask a question about this without using these clues?" and I saw many such presentations on the real deal. I think we can safely assume that question writers are checking FA and the like when writing them and making sure people can't answer it with a quick recall. For those aiming for high scores, make sure you think beyond the stuff in FA. I remember another endocrine arrows question where FA would tell you the movement of the main regulatory hormone and the main end effector product, but Step 1 would ask about a middle step not mentioned in FA and expect you to deduce backwards.

In the end, I think I marked ~8 per block and probably got ~50% of those right which, along with a few brain farts, puts me square in the range of my UWorld averages of 88-92%. Not sure how this will correlate in the end, but I'm hopeful for at least 250.

I think the biggest help for me was absolutely busting my tail during the 1st two years. I've always hated memorizing things, so I made a concerted effort to learn things by concept as a way of minimizing the memorizing. I think FC was awesome for helping me keep things more fresh over these past years, though I admit I slacked off hugely with it toward the end of M2 as the other work grew overwhelming. Our curriculum seemed to really prepare me well and there were many questions that I swear were verbatim off class exams, both the words and many pictures. Picmonic was awesome too and I wish I had spent more time with it. It helped me ace some micro class exams and I definitely nailed some board questions thanks to them. Pathoma is absolutely invaluable and whenever he says "examiners like to go after this," make sure you know it!

I really didn't experience the exceptional difficulty that others speak of, but I did see a lot of questions that could appear unreasonably hard if you missed the clues to the concept being tested. Overall it was a very fair and rigorous test. I know I missed some and those I've looked up I realized that I either missed a clue or simply didn't understand something well enough or just had a brain fart and fell for a distractor.

Hope this epistle helps someone else like all the posts have helped me through these past 2 years. Good luck to those still waiting to take it!

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Even the questions that felt like crazy random details, I just thought through them and asked myself "what should a 2nd year med student be able to understand about this concept and apply appropriately?" Examiners glean nothing from random detail recall questions and as such I had none of them.

I think that's a great, great point/mindset. Well said.

 

[FIREitUP]

you must've been lucky then; i had more than enough obscure questions on my exam, including one on stereocilia, another on middle ear bones, as well as random other questions on where some enzyme is located in the cell that i couldn't even find on google.

 

[Benesyed]

Having found this thread and its siblings helpful, I thought I should add my thoughts to the mix....

About me: non-trad, no science background save for the pre-reqs in the 9 mos before M1.

Took the beast 3 days ago.

Dedicated Prep time: ~3wks (4wks, but took a week off for a conference)

Resources used:
Firecracker/GT since start of M1, banking as we went with classes
Pathoma: Worth its weight in gold. He should charge a lot more.
Picmonic for micro and random crap I hate to memorize
UWorld: Did it for 2 weeks in January (avg: 85-90% correct per block, random timed), but switched to Kaplan during the year because I was scoring much lower on each block and therefore learning more. Came back to UWorld for the last 2 weeks of prep time. Final avg: 88%; last 6 blocks avg: 93%

Read 20 pages of FA and hated it. Ditto for Kaplan Medessentials. Just weren't my style.

Baseline NBME pre-study: 250-260
All other SA's: 260+


Test Day:

Total number of super hard obscure detail questions: 0
Total number of questions I thought were unreasonably hard: 0
Total number of questions that fairly whooped my ass for not understand something well enough: more than I'd like to admit!


I truly expected to see 3-4 questions per block that were just insane, but that never happened. Even the questions that felt like crazy random details, I just thought through them and asked myself "what should a 2nd year med student be able to understand about this concept and apply appropriately?" Examiners glean nothing from random detail recall questions and as such I had none of them. Without fail, all the detail questions fell to thought and understanding the concept being tested. For example, one question wanted some obscure receptor, but by thinking through the question and what sort of immune response was happening, only 1 answer fit and had to be correct even though I'd never heard of it. Ditto for random diseases I'd never heard of: the other choices easily fell to clues in the vignette.

I did notice a concerted effort in the questions to avoid using any words that were in popular prep materials. I missed a stupid vitamin question because the presentation was nothing like any of the Sx in FC or FA or any other book, and my line of reasoning to answer it went down a nice rabbit hole to wrong-answer-land. There was a subtle clue though that hit me on the drive home that I should have picked up on, so I don't think it was unreasonable.

Many questions were simple click-and-move questions thanks to something in FC/FA. Nailed a lot of micro questions thanks to some stupid picture in picmonic (and I suuuuuck at micro). In retrospect, the biggest value in these resources was buying time for the harder ones. I would often ask myself during when reviewing FC: "how else could I ask a question about this without using these clues?" and I saw many such presentations on the real deal. I think we can safely assume that question writers are checking FA and the like when writing them and making sure people can't answer it with a quick recall. For those aiming for high scores, make sure you think beyond the stuff in FA. I remember another endocrine arrows question where FA would tell you the movement of the main regulatory hormone and the main end effector product, but Step 1 would ask about a middle step not mentioned in FA and expect you to deduce backwards.

In the end, I think I marked ~8 per block and probably got ~50% of those right which, along with a few brain farts, puts me square in the range of my UWorld averages of 88-92%. Not sure how this will correlate in the end, but I'm hopeful for at least 250.

I think the biggest help for me was absolutely busting my tail during the 1st two years. I've always hated memorizing things, so I made a concerted effort to learn things by concept as a way of minimizing the memorizing. I think FC was awesome for helping me keep things more fresh over these past years, though I admit I slacked off hugely with it toward the end of M2 as the other work grew overwhelming. Our curriculum seemed to really prepare me well and there were many questions that I swear were verbatim off class exams, both the words and many pictures. Picmonic was awesome too and I wish I had spent more time with it. It helped me ace some micro class exams and I definitely nailed some board questions thanks to them. Pathoma is absolutely invaluable and whenever he says "examiners like to go after this," make sure you know it!

I really didn't experience the exceptional difficulty that others speak of, but I did see a lot of questions that could appear unreasonably hard if you missed the clues to the concept being tested. Overall it was a very fair and rigorous test. I know I missed some and those I've looked up I realized that I either missed a clue or simply didn't understand something well enough or just had a brain fart and fell for a distractor.

Hope this epistle helps someone else like all the posts have helped me through these past 2 years. Good luck to those still waiting to take it!

If you spent two years using gt and did banks rigorously then yeah I imagine it was easy. I feel like this is relatively unhelpful advice. You came into it pre studying with a 250+. Most of us were not starting that well off. Kudos to you though. Biggest regret is not using gt starting day 1

 

[BP87]

I know old nbme are supposed to b outdated now but i was wmdering if any of u guys have taken a look at nbme4 recently? I was kinda browaing thru the questions over lunch and i actually feltt like they were pretty hard...i mean thwy were doable but required a lot f thinking. Anyone else experienced this?

 

[Akr]

Stupid question but also important .. how does timing for breaks work?

How much total break time do we get (assuming the extra 15)?
Can you take it whenever you want (assuming between sections)?
If you are running a little behind does it come out of time from your last section? (I remember with the MCAT there was a 'timer' but the section did not actually begin without you and you still could take the full time for the section...)

How did you guys disperse it?

1 hour if you skip the 15 min tutorial. Can split between sections any way you prefer. I planned to do 2 sections-break-2 sections-break-then break between every remaining section. I did that, but had like 20 minutes of unused break at the end... So I don't know how it would have been had I run over my break time instead.

 

[CDI]

1 hour if you skip the 15 min tutorial. Can split between sections any way you prefer. I planned to do 2 sections-break-2 sections-break-then break between every remaining section. I did that, but had like 20 minutes of unused break at the end... So I don't know how it would have been had I run over my break time instead.

If you go over your total break time, it comes out of the next blocks time. I remember I went like 5-10 seconds over my final break. (I'm not even sure why it happened, I was sitting there staring at the screen for a minute before, brain fart I guess....) The timer turned red and started deducting time from Block 7.

 

[sharklasers]

Wowww I literally want to die lol...

So freaking hard. My mind is completely numb, but to just echo what everyone else says, its really really hard, but all I used was UWorld, First Aid, and NBMEs with Pathoma for reference and I don't think I would have done anything differently. Hopefully it will work out, I was averaging pretty high on my NBMEs, but honestly don't feel like I hit it.

I'm a little bit more confident I didn't do as well as my NBMEs, because I know I missed a lot of questions I should have gotten. Oh well, we will see...

 

[carddoc33]

Wowww I literally want to die lol...

So freaking hard. My mind is completely numb, but to just echo what everyone else says, its really really hard, but all I used was UWorld, First Aid, and NBMEs with Pathoma for reference and I don't think I would have done anything differently. Hopefully it will work out, I was averaging pretty high on my NBMEs, but honestly don't feel like I hit it.

I'm a little bit more confident I didn't do as well as my NBMEs, because I know I missed a lot of questions I should have gotten. Oh well, we will see...

Felt same way after test. For the two days after the test, I thought of 10-12 I got wrong with atleast 2-4 being easy questions I over-thought.Couldn't really sleep.

I looked at the 2012 thread, and a lot of them had the same feelings and everything worked out for them.

Hoping that it turns out that way for all of us also.