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

 

[hownowmauvecow]

So I took the beast today, and I must say I didn't think it was that bad. I did not encounter any questions that I couldn't at least reason my way through (although I do know I made a few stupid mistakes), but on the whole I actually felt pretty good coming out of it (granted this may prove to be unfounded once I get my score back). I just want to throw it out there that it is not necessarily all doom and gloom like other people have posted. Yes it is hard, but don't let yourself get psyched out thinking that it will be impossible. Most of you have spent a lot of time preparing and it will pay off in the end.

Just my two cents. I will post more on my study methods once I get my score back. Just on the off chance it was false confidence. hopefully not!


Addition: i know some people have been saying they didn't see that many buzzwords on their test, well I don't know if it was just my form but I had at least 80-100 questions that you could call "buzzword" questions. I mean drooling farmer straightforward, although these questions were usually the ones that were what I would call 2nd/3rd order questions. But they do exist. And I had way too many stupid interpret this graph questions, one was so easy i stared at it for a good 20sec before I realized that yes they did just want this simple answer. Oh and I had to find the median number. So its not all bad!

 

[Jamiu22]

So I took both NBME15 and the free 143 (138+5) from NBME today - to sort of simulate the real thing (7 total blocks)... and while I got 5 points (235) lower than my NBME 11 (240) which I took late last week... I got a 133/143 (93%) on the free questions from NBME.

I didn't particularly think NBME15 was that hard or on par with u-world... it just seemed like they had a good share of really lengthy questions - those questions ended up being easier with the typically buzzwords. As for the free 143 questions, is it just me, or were they just to easy and straight forward??? I felt like I had seen a bulk of the questions from somewhere before.... medfriends estimated that with a 93%, you would get 266 +/- 11 (I would be totally happy with their lower end estimate - this is still even higher than my USWAx average, lol). On real though... I think my score is set in stone to be between 225-241.... 4 more days to go... so let's finish this strong!

Oh and anyone who doesn't want to shell out mulah for the pre-practice exam at their testing center - you can take it at home or wherever you'd like, here's the link: http://download.usmle.org/2012/Step1Download.zip

I think it's good to use it, since the media (audio/video) has the virtual stethoscope that you could move around to hear the heart sounds and would be identical to the real thing.. good luck friends!!!

 

[TrueAntagonist]

So I took the beast today, and I must say I didn't think it was that bad. I did not encounter any questions that I couldn't at least reason my way through (although I do know I made a few stupid mistakes), but on the whole I actually felt pretty good coming out of it (granted this may prove to be unfounded once I get my score back). I just want to throw it out there that it is not necessarily all doom and gloom like other people have posted. Yes it is hard, but don't let yourself get psyched out thinking that it will be impossible. Most of you have spent a lot of time preparing and it will pay off in the end.

Just my two cents. I will post more on my study methods once I get my score back. Just on the off chance it was false confidence. hopefully not!


Addition: i know some people have been saying they didn't see that many buzzwords on their test, well I don't know if it was just my form but I had at least 80-100 questions that you could call "buzzword" questions. I mean drooling farmer straightforward, although these questions were usually the ones that were what I would call 2nd/3rd order questions. But they do exist. And I had way too many stupid interpret this graph questions, one was so easy i stared at it for a good 20sec before I realized that yes they did just want this simple answer. Oh and I had to find the median number. So its not all bad!

I felt the same way. We'll see if our confidence will pay off come July 10th.

It all just depends on the form. We might have gotten lucky in that our strengths were over-represented. And anyone who felt it was hard, the curve will take care of you.

Trust the curve, as my old man used to say.

 

[JP2740]

When should we expect to see our scores? Why can't they just make it clear like they did for the mcat damnit

 

[Zuhal]

Oh and anyone who doesn't want to shell out mulah for the pre-practice exam at their testing center - you can take it at home or wherever you'd like, here's the link: http://download.usmle.org/2012/Step1Download.zip

Strong work! 93% is pretty good and thanks for the link. Do you know if there's a specific program requirement for the software? I have a mac and for some reason it wouldn't let me open the file? It comes up as a "Text" document.
Good luck, you got this!

 

[Zuhal]

Addition: i know some people have been saying they didn't see that many buzzwords on their test, well I don't know if it was just my form but I had at least 80-100 questions that you could call "buzzword" questions. I mean drooling farmer straightforward, although these questions were usually the ones that were what I would call 2nd/3rd order questions. But they do exist. And I had way too many stupid interpret this graph questions, one was so easy i stared at it for a good 20sec before I realized that yes they did just want this simple answer. Oh and I had to find the median number. So its not all bad!

So would you say the last few pages of FA (Rapid Review section) is actually worth looking at the night before? I was debating between that or Goljan's blue notes.

 

[Jamiu22]

Strong work! 93% is pretty good and thanks for the link. Do you know if there's a specific program requirement for the software? I have a mac and for some reason it wouldn't let me open the file? It comes up as a "Text" document.
Good luck, you got this!

Yeah, I just looked up the NBME website... and it specifies that "MacIntosh (Mac) and Linux are not supported."... that sorta blows since half of test takers today use a mac! With all the money they make from us, I'm surprised that they can't support the other major form of computer platform. I guess you are left with either taking it at the public library, a friend's PC or at the prometric site. The there's the paper version - but that sorta takes away from the exam feeling. Thanks man.. and good luck to you too.

 

[dduckyoda]

I took it on Friday. I must say, it was a hard test, but definitely not as hard as some have been making it out to be here. I'm sure we all get different sections though, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I did have quite a few "buzzword" questions, and some of the hard ones could be reasoned out. I made an educated guess on a lot of them, and as I've been remembering some of those questions in the last couple of days, I'm relieved to say I got most of those right.

My last 3 NBME's (which I took within a week of the exam) have been stable (245, 247, 247), so that's basically what I'm expecting (although if I break 250, I will be super, super happy). Anyway, my point is, don't let people psyche you out. I was totally psyched out about neuro and anatomy (my two weakest subjects) and 99% of the neuro questions I got weren't THAT bad. From what I can remember, I flubbed on 2 anatomy questions, but the questions themselves weren't nearly as detailed I had thought they would be. In retrospect, I'm glad I reviewed neuro and anatomy the last day before my exam, but I definitely wish I was calmer and not as psyched out as I was.

My study materials were basically FA (didn't actually use this as much as I thought I would; don't get me wrong, I used it, but I didn't read it through 5 times like some people on here do... I'm just not that type of learner); Pathoma (golden... hiked my score up by 30 points within 2 weeks); U-World q-bank. I read the italicized sections in HY Anatomy and a couple of chapters from HY neuro the 2 days before my exam (due to all the neuro-and-anatomy-are-overrepresented posts here), and it helped me, but as I said before, I wish I wasn't THAT psyched out.

I'll post more detailed study habits once I get my score... IF my score is decent and my advice would be worth something. 🙂

 

[dduckyoda]

This is a really dumb question, but how exactly do we check to see if our scores have been posted? Do we log in to the NBME website where we scheduled our exam? Do we get an email saying our exam scores are out? Any pointers there would be awesome. Thanks!

 

[stronghold]

I am doing kaplan qbank. Many tricky questions that depend on one word in the stem. Is real deal like this?!
Also, what subjects in Rx are most important?

EDIT: Kaplan micro questions make me crazy! They ask questions where answers depend on the geographic area of the disease/tick!!

 

[ppppp]

How many wrong questions correlated to what score for the NBMEs.
I know it'll vary with each NBME and such but just wanted to get an idea.

I got 48 wrong on NBME 11 a couple weeks back and came out to a 210. Haven't taken any NBME since.

 

[Jamiu22]

How many wrong questions correlated to what score for the NBMEs.
I know it'll vary with each NBME and such but just wanted to get an idea.

I got 48 wrong on NBME 11 a couple weeks back and came out to a 210. Haven't taken any NBME since.

Its roughly your percentage right times 2.76 (typically within 2pts from my nbmes)

 

[ppppp]

Its roughly your percentage right times 2.76 (typically within 2pts from my nbmes)

And will that be a similar trend to expect on the real deal?
I hate how secretive the whole scoring process is for the USMLE.

 

[Jamiu22]

How many wrong questions correlated to what score for the NBMEs.
I know it'll vary with each NBME and such but just wanted to get an idea.

I got 48 wrong on NBME 11 a couple weeks back and came out to a 210. Haven't taken any NBME since.

Its roughly your percentage right times 2.76 (typically within 2pts from my nbmes)

 

[res1cue]

This is a really dumb question, but how exactly do we check to see if our scores have been posted? Do we log in to the NBME website where we scheduled our exam? Do we get an email saying our exam scores are out? Any pointers there would be awesome. Thanks!

I would like to know too, cant find where to view it on nbme website

 

[ppppp]

So I'm kinda devastated.. I know I'm far below the avg for SDN, but I need help.


3 weeks ago NBME 11: 210
2 weeks ago UWSA 1: 228
1 week ago UWSA 2: 234
3 days before my step 1 NBME 15: 210

.......

What do I do? What can I do?

 

[skyblue2000]

Ppl say the UWSAs do overestimate, so based on what others have reported you are at around a 210. Are u AMG or IMG? Do you know what specialty you want?

I'd defer it if I was you, but you need to give more info on what you've done so far. But I'm an IMG.

 

[ppppp]

I'm an AMG. I was hoping for anything around 240 so I'd have a shot at surgery. I can't move onto third year if I don't take the step 1 before school starts, and school starts in two weeks. I already have las vegas trip booked for the week before.... I don't know what I should do.

 

[g8orlife]

I'm an AMG. I was hoping for anything around 240 so I'd have a shot at surgery. I can't move onto third year if I don't take the step 1 before school starts, and school starts in two weeks. I already have las vegas trip booked for the week before.... I don't know what I should do.

I feel like you'll get alot of different replies to your situation.

But if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't go to Vegas (a lot of people will likely disagree with me). I just know that I wouldn't have my mind clear enough to enjoy myself. I'd then use that extra week to study.
I'd spend the first week focusing on 3-5 of my weakest areas (1-2 days per subject) via videos & questions. The second week, I'd do questions on random for half of the day while spending the second half redoing exactly what I did during the first week in my weaknesses.

Hope that helps; others may have better suggestions.

 

[ssdk]

Just took the thing today.
Pretty much what everyone in this thread has been saying is true:

Step I >> UWorld >>> NBME

Stats: FA 2x, NBME 11 (237), NBME 13 (~250--offline), UWorld 1x (72%), random Pathoma videos

The questions were very very tricky. They would make a simple concept difficult by throwing in lots of confounders. It seemed like every vignette had the patient's entire medical history, 10 different drugs they were taking and lab values. I would say only 25% of my questions were autoclicks.

I marked 5-10 questions per block in the first 3 blocks. Then 15-20 in the last 4 (crushed any optimism I had that I would have one of the more "fair" exams).

My exam seemed very heavy on renal, cardio, repro, pharm. There was hardly any immuno, psych, endocrine.

I was expecting more neuro/neuroanatomy (and hoping for it too b/c that's my strength), but didn't get it. Instead I got repro, my weakest section.

Biostats/ethics were the highlight of my exam. Felt a little joy every time one of those questions came up.

I think someone mentioned earlier in this thread that the heart sounds on Step I are better than UWorld. I disagree. I had 2 heart sounds, and both of them I couldn't even hear S1/ S2.

Things I wish I did:

More Pathoma, especially the general path/cancers sections. They are glossed over in FA but are a heavy part of the real exam.

Take more shorter breaks than fewer longer breaks. I was getting pretty darn tired in the last 3 blocks. But at that point, I just wanted to get the exam over with, so I tried to power through. I should have taken breaks after blocks 3, 4, 5 and 6 to re-gather my thoughts.

Overall, I rank the resources as: FA > Pathoma > UWorld

Don't get me wrong, UWorld is crucial for reinforcing concepts. But, I feel the explanations go into too much frivolous detail that aren't worth your time. Instead of spending 4 hours reviewing 1 block of questions like I was doing at the beginning, all the key concepts could be obtained by reviewing in <1.5 hours.

Hoping for a generous curve...

 

[beatsbydre]

Just took the thing today.
Pretty much what everyone in this thread has been saying is true:

Step I >> UWorld >>> NBME

Stats: FA 2x, NBME 11 (237), NBME 13 (~250--offline), UWorld 1x (72%), random Pathoma videos

The questions were very very tricky. They would make a simple concept difficult by throwing in lots of confounders. It seemed like every vignette had the patient's entire medical history, 10 different drugs they were taking and lab values. I would say only 25% of my questions were autoclicks.

I marked 5-10 questions per block in the first 3 blocks. Then 15-20 in the last 4 (crushed any optimism I had that I would have one of the more "fair" exams).

My exam seemed very heavy on renal, cardio, repro, pharm. There was hardly any immuno, psych, endocrine.

I was expecting more neuro/neuroanatomy (and hoping for it too b/c that's my strength), but didn't get it. Instead I got repro, my weakest section.

Biostats/ethics were the highlight of my exam. Felt a little joy every time one of those questions came up.

I think someone mentioned earlier in this thread that the heart sounds on Step I are better than UWorld. I disagree. I had 2 heart sounds, and both of them I couldn't even hear S1/ S2.

Things I wish I did:

More Pathoma, especially the general path/cancers sections. They are glossed over in FA but are a heavy part of the real exam.

Take more shorter breaks than fewer longer breaks. I was getting pretty darn tired in the last 3 blocks. But at that point, I just wanted to get the exam over with, so I tried to power through. I should have taken breaks after blocks 3, 4, 5 and 6 to re-gather my thoughts.

Overall, I rank the resources as: FA > Pathoma > UWorld

Don't get me wrong, UWorld is crucial for reinforcing concepts. But, I feel the explanations go into too much frivolous detail that aren't worth your time. Instead of spending 4 hours reviewing 1 block of questions like I was doing at the beginning, all the key concepts could be obtained by reviewing in <1.5 hours.

Hoping for a generous curve...

May I ask what made them different from UWorld/NBME? Is it because they were longer and tested obscure cancers?

 

[ssdk]

They don't usually give the classic presentations of a disease. I felt like NBMEs had 3-5 clues pointing to a diagnosis in each of their stems. Step I would give a couple less common symptoms, include symptoms of comorbidities the patient has.

It definitely makes it more confusing. I don't think it changes how you will the question though. If you read the question carefully and know FA, you will still answer correctly. It just slow you down alot. And you need the time to work through those WTF questions they throw at you.

 

[999999]

was pathoma enough for general path like cancers or pathoma+ uw? how much path you got in real exam?

 

[ssdk]

was pathoma enough for general path like cancers or pathoma+ uw? how much path you got in real exam?

Pathoma is enough. I didn't have much pure path. Most was tied to physiology.

 

[operaman]

I am doing kaplan qbank. Many tricky questions that depend on one word in the stem. Is real deal like this?!
Also, what subjects in Rx are most important?

EDIT: Kaplan micro questions make me crazy! They ask questions where answers depend on the geographic area of the disease/tick!!

Some are, but not overall. What you're describing is my main beef with the Kaplan bank and largely why my scores there were much lower than my World averages. They give you much less to work with and many questions hinge on your catching the buzzword.

The real deal gave me a LOT more to work with, though much of that was distraction or simply ruling out wrong answer choices. Even so, a big part of hitting the high scores I believe rests on your ability to intuit what is going on in a question and what the concept is you're being tested on. Sometimes this can hinge on a tiny detail or buzzword and knowing it can help you break the question open.

For example: [just making this up]

A researcher discovers that expression of the OBSC-1 and URE-3 genes is downregulated in a group of patients being treated for multiple myeloma[or they may just give you a peripheral smear and s/sx]. Which of the following is most likely influenced by these genes?
A) Wt-11
B) Ret-4
C) Nog-3
D) FGF-1
E) CYP2D6

These are the annoying seemingly impossible questions that pop up, but if you recall that thalidomide is often used in treating MM, and the limb defects associated with it, then the question is really asking about limb development and FGF is heavily involved in that. Kaplan is annoying, but sometimes those tiny little associations like thalidomide and MM can pay off in the really weird ones.

Kaplan also wins for exposing you to the most annoying graphs and diagrams and most insane micro and cell bio questions, but you'll be well prepared for the real deal!

 

[Stingarov]

lmbo at the OBSCURE. Quite a talent for throwing out a great 2nd order question willy nilly.

Anyone else take it today / impressions?

 

[Sloo0]

Just took the thing today.
Pretty much what everyone in this thread has been saying is true:

Step I >> UWorld >>> NBME

Stats: FA 2x, NBME 11 (237), NBME 13 (~250--offline), UWorld 1x (72%), random Pathoma videos

The questions were very very tricky. They would make a simple concept difficult by throwing in lots of confounders. It seemed like every vignette had the patient's entire medical history, 10 different drugs they were taking and lab values. I would say only 25% of my questions were autoclicks.

I marked 5-10 questions per block in the first 3 blocks. Then 15-20 in the last 4 (crushed any optimism I had that I would have one of the more "fair" exams).

My exam seemed very heavy on renal, cardio, repro, pharm. There was hardly any immuno, psych, endocrine.

I was expecting more neuro/neuroanatomy (and hoping for it too b/c that's my strength), but didn't get it. Instead I got repro, my weakest section.

Biostats/ethics were the highlight of my exam. Felt a little joy every time one of those questions came up.

I think someone mentioned earlier in this thread that the heart sounds on Step I are better than UWorld. I disagree. I had 2 heart sounds, and both of them I couldn't even hear S1/ S2.

Things I wish I did:

More Pathoma, especially the general path/cancers sections. They are glossed over in FA but are a heavy part of the real exam.

Take more shorter breaks than fewer longer breaks. I was getting pretty darn tired in the last 3 blocks. But at that point, I just wanted to get the exam over with, so I tried to power through. I should have taken breaks after blocks 3, 4, 5 and 6 to re-gather my thoughts.

Overall, I rank the resources as: FA > Pathoma > UWorld

Don't get me wrong, UWorld is crucial for reinforcing concepts. But, I feel the explanations go into too much frivolous detail that aren't worth your time. Instead of spending 4 hours reviewing 1 block of questions like I was doing at the beginning, all the key concepts could be obtained by reviewing in <1.5 hours.

Hoping for a generous curve...

Man, I only had 2 calculations in Biostats throughout blocks 1-6 and then in block 7 when I was the most fatigued and had barely any time to go over marked I was hit with 4 insane calculations. Had those 4 been either earlier in my exam or spread out over the blocks they woulda been free points, sigh.


Anyone else get questions on the 5 stages of Relapse or w/e? The biggest cringe of my entire exam was that I read FA tons of times, I put tick marks on each page when I read it, some pages have like 8 none have less than 5, and I glanced over that little tidbit so often and I always told myself "lol,they'd never put something this dumb on the real thing". Guess what? I had two of them, and I did UW1.5x Kaplan .8x and USMLERx .8x and I don't think I ever encountered one of those before. That's probably a -2 on some ridiculously easy ****e!

 

[wanderer]

I took about 2 weeks ago but have similar impressions to others here. Very few buzzword questions and the few questions that have buzzwords will minimize them. Instead extended descriptions of physical exam findings are used . Somewhat more minutiae are included than are on the NBME, including several things that I never saw in first aid or even heard anything about in ms1 and ms2. A lot of the more difficult questions are logical extensions of basic concepts, but you will often have to knock out everything but 2 choices and guess based on that.

IMO first aid vastly underprepares you if you are aiming for 235+. Their 5 word blurbs are usually not enough to answer. I had several questions where including a few more words would have made the question easy to answer instead of wasting time which could have been used for harder questions. A lot of histopathology questions were pretty straightforward if you can identify cellular changes but they often asked on more obscure diseases/findings. Goljan's RR and in depth histology review helped me out a ton on those questions. Pathoma I found to be pretty ineffective. Rare "low yield" diseases in aggregate appeared almost as much as many of the typical diseases. Somewhat atypical presentation of classic diseases were very common.

I suspect that several of the questions were experimental as they are beyond the knowledge that ms2s should be expected to have. If I had to guess the percent to get a particular score on the real deal is significantly lower than on the NBMEs (e.g. ~88% to get a 245)

 

[ppppp]

I feel like you'll get alot of different replies to your situation.

But if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't go to Vegas (a lot of people will likely disagree with me). I just know that I wouldn't have my mind clear enough to enjoy myself. I'd then use that extra week to study.
I'd spend the first week focusing on 3-5 of my weakest areas (1-2 days per subject) via videos & questions. The second week, I'd do questions on random for half of the day while spending the second half redoing exactly what I did during the first week in my weaknesses.

Hope that helps; others may have better suggestions.

Thanks for the advice. It was probably the right one to make. I canceled my trip and I rescheduled my step 1 to 7/6.

On a separate note, I can't understand why people's actual step 1 scores are so close to their UWSA scores.

I got 68% of the questions correct that translated into a 234.
where as I got 74% on NBME 15 and got a 210.
I'm just curious as to how the actual one is graded since the real deal is supposedly harder than either USWA and NBME(the consensus here). If I dont improve drastically from here to my test date, then am I looking at around 200?

 

[operaman]

Thanks for the advice. It was probably the right one to make. I canceled my trip and I rescheduled my step 1 to 7/6.

On a separate note, I can't understand why people's actual step 1 scores are so close to their UWSA scores.

I got 68% of the questions correct that translated into a 234.
where as I got 74% on NBME 15 and got a 210.
I'm just curious as to how the actual one is graded since the real deal is supposedly harder than either USWA and NBME(the consensus here). If I dont improve drastically from here to my test date, then am I looking at around 200?

I personally found the UWSA harder (or trickier) than NBMEs or the real deal, but I took them before doing much of World (<10%). After doing more of World, I think many people find them easier because they learn how the World question writers do things and how to recognize the correct answers by intuition if you aren't 100% sure. You also learn how to recognize their standard wrong answer choices.

The scaling differences are simply based on how many people answer each question correctly and therefore how difficult your test was overall. The NBMEs have about a 6 pt standard error in the 3 digit score so you may have scored on the low end of that while your UWSA reflects a greater intuition for World questions. If it were me, I would make sure I did every publicly available NBME question before exam day. Not only will you catch some repeats, but you'll develop a better intuition for their questions.

 

[thaverford]

Did anyone get their scores last week?

 

[Sileni]

Did anyone get their scores last week?

Scores won't be released until July 10th for anyone who took the exam after May 13th.

 

[thaverford]

I realize that is what the announcement said, but I thought the consensus was that was merely a way of deterring frantic emails complaining of short delays in score reporting and that some people who took the exam after that date have received scores already.

 

[Sloo0]

I personally found the UWSA harder (or trickier) than NBMEs or the real deal, but I took them before doing much of World (<10%). After doing more of World, I think many people find them easier because they learn how the World question writers do things and how to recognize the correct answers by intuition if you aren't 100% sure. You also learn how to recognize their standard wrong answer choices.

The scaling differences are simply based on how many people answer each question correctly and therefore how difficult your test was overall. The NBMEs have about a 6 pt standard error in the 3 digit score so you may have scored on the low end of that while your UWSA reflects a greater intuition for World questions. If it were me, I would make sure I did every publicly available NBME question before exam day. Not only will you catch some repeats, but you'll develop a better intuition for their questions.

Sad day for me. I have a list of about 20 questions I know I got wrong 100%.

90% of those are easy questions like "guy with erection problem, what nerve?" Or " here is an image showing a R shift in the cardiac AP curve, which drug caused this?"


Most of the questions I get wrong are 1 step regurgitation easy questions, I guarantee you I got more "super hard experimental" questions right than 1/5 difficulty ones, especially since there was only 1 question that I found to be wtf worthy.


Looks like the "curve" won't be doing me any good

 

[Jamiu22]

I realize that is what the announcement said, but I thought the consensus was that was merely a way of deterring frantic emails complaining of short delays in score reporting and that some people who took the exam after that date have received scores already.

yeah, lol... I look at last years thread... and they did exact same thing.... I think they do this yearly when they add new sets of questions to the mix.. and wanted to get a better idea how people perform to re-adjust the curve... hence they need a larger sample data.

 

[FIREitUP]

Sad day for me. I have a list of about 20 questions I know I got wrong 100%.

90% of those are easy questions like "guy with erection problem, what nerve?" Or " here is an image showing a R shift in the cardiac AP curve, which drug caused this?"


Most of the questions I get wrong are 1 step regurgitation easy questions, I guarantee you I got more "super hard experimental" questions right than 1/5 difficulty ones, especially since there was only 1 question that I found to be wtf worthy.


Looks like the "curve" won't be doing me any good

i hear you, i got a bunch of the q's i got wrong were easy, but i think it was a consequence of having more difficult questions and less time. i think it'll balance out

 

[Sloo0]

i hear you, i got a bunch of the q's i got wrong were easy, but i think it was a consequence of having more difficult questions and less time. i think it'll balance out

I mean, I have no idea how its graded and I haven't really done much research, but just by seeing posts here and there it sounds like people are claiming that there are a certain amount of super hard experimental questions that don't count. So for someone like me (who even during MS1/2 on regular tests) has a tendency to over think questions and get very easy ones wrong and very hard ones right, it seems I would be at a disadvantage.

I mean, if what everyone is saying is true and they look at your performance on a question in relation to the thousands of other people who have answered that same question, obviously missing a super easy one is very bad, because the average for the thousands of others who answered that will most likely be overwhelmingly in the correct category.


On the other hand, answering a bunch of super hard experimental questions that apparently don't even count towards your score is very bad.

If there are 46 experimentals and I get 40 of them right and then some other guy gets 1 of them right but he got 20 super easy questions right more than me, he should score much higher.


I wish there was some guy looking at the exams and being like "well this guy answered all these super difficult experimentals but missed 1 step regurgitation questions, lets bump him up to the 250 range".

Although that's a fantasy since its definitely all computerized.


My average on NBMEs was about 250 and I got a 256 and 248 on UWSA 1+ 2 that I took back to back at the beginning of my studying. I looked at last years 2012 sister thread to this thread and it looked like most people who were scoring like I was actually ended up in the 260s, but again I highly doubt people scoring in the 260s miss 1 step regurgitation questions, at least definitely nowhere near as many as I have counted I missed.

I'm guessing I will score somewhere in the 230s which will be almost 20 points lower than expected, it definitely happens, tis a shame.

 

[TrueAntagonist]

yeah, lol... I look at last years thread... and they did exact same thing.... I think they do this yearly when they add new sets of questions to the mix.. and wanted to get a better idea how people perform to re-adjust the curve... hence they need a larger sample data.

So are you saying we may get our scores before July 10th?

 

[FIREitUP]

I mean, I have no idea how its graded and I haven't really done much research, but just by seeing posts here and there it sounds like people are claiming that there are a certain amount of super hard experimental questions that don't count. So for someone like me (who even during MS1/2 on regular tests) has a tendency to over think questions and get very easy ones wrong and very hard ones right, it seems I would be at a disadvantage.

I mean, if what everyone is saying is true and they look at your performance on a question in relation to the thousands of other people who have answered that same question, obviously missing a super easy one is very bad, because the average for the thousands of others who answered that will most likely be overwhelmingly in the correct category.


On the other hand, answering a bunch of super hard experimental questions that apparently don't even count towards your score is very bad.

If there are 46 experimentals and I get 40 of them right and then some other guy gets 1 of them right but he got 20 super easy questions right more than me, he should score much higher.


I wish there was some guy looking at the exams and being like "well this guy answered all these super difficult experimentals but missed 1 step regurgitation questions, lets bump him up to the 250 range".

Although that's a fantasy since its definitely all computerized.


My average on NBMEs was about 250 and I got a 256 and 248 on UWSA 1+ 2 that I took back to back at the beginning of my studying. I looked at last years 2012 sister thread to this thread and it looked like most people who were scoring like I was actually ended up in the 260s, but again I highly doubt people scoring in the 260s miss 1 step regurgitation questions, at least definitely nowhere near as many as I have counted I missed.

I'm guessing I will score somewhere in the 230s which will be almost 20 points lower than expected, it definitely happens, tis a shame.

the curve will allow you to get more questions incorrect and get the same score. based on the number of people that have expressed the test is magnitudes times harder than any other prep resource, I would venture to guess that the curve will be more forgiving. also, the difficult questions cause you to get flustered and will inevitably cause careless errors. I think the nbme takes all of this into account. if you look at phloston's posts you'll see that he did make the same kind of errors you are alluding to and still scored well. and it seems like he didn't get a form as difficult as ours, either.

 

[Jamiu22]

So are you saying we may get our scores before July 10th?

No, I was just giving a reason for the delay... last year.. they said scores would be out on 07/11/2012 and it came out at exactly their predicted date.. so I expect this year to be the same i.e. a larger batch of the scores would be out on 07/10/2013 as they predict.

And as for folks last year who took it at the end the last week of June.... their scores came out on 07/18/2012 (just a week later)... so what that means for me this year is that I'll be happy or crying on 07/17/2013.

 

[Sloo0]

the curve will allow you to get more questions incorrect and get the same score. based on the number of people that have expressed the test is magnitudes times harder than any other prep resource, I would venture to guess that the curve will be more forgiving. also, the difficult questions cause you to get flustered and will inevitably cause careless errors. I think the nbme takes all of this into account. if you look at phloston's posts you'll see that he did make the same kind of errors you are alluding to and still scored well. and it seems like he didn't get a form as difficult as ours, either.

Definitely hope you're right. The test wasn't even that difficult to be honest, like I said there is only 1 question I can even think of that was so difficult that I might possibly consider it "experimental", which had to do with some sort of skin condition. My exam just focused a lot on Anatomy/Behavioral, which are definitely my two weakest subjects by light years. I didn't even review anatomy since I was only noticing maybe 4-5 on each NBME.


On that note,any people out there yet to take it, or taking it next year, definitely review Anatomy, getting a question wrong asking you to identify a nerve is really really dumb. Save your wrong answers for something more worthy.

 

[skyblue2000]

Anyone notice that UW has the same questions as old NBMEs? Or is it just realllly similar? I noticed like 5 on nbme 6 last week and I've only been through 400 UW questions so far.

 

[FIREitUP]

Anyone notice that UW has the same questions as old NBMEs? Or is it just realllly similar? I noticed like 5 on nbme 6 last week and I've only been through 400 UW questions so far.

yeah i've noticed that. i also had a couple identical q's from UW on the real thing

 

[Charlie Hustle]

Anyone notice that UW has the same questions as old NBMEs? Or is it just realllly similar? I noticed like 5 on nbme 6 last week and I've only been through 400 UW questions so far.

Yeah I've noticed that too. I've also noticed that some of the more obscure UWorld questions that aren't anywhere to be found in FA have just been recently added. Any chance students are reporting difficult questions from the real deal to UWorld? I've always heard that the big question bank brands use student feedback to keep their banks fresh and up to date with the real deal.

 

[Stingarov]

*Taps fingers nervously awaiting today's verdict (feedback)*

 

[Stingarov]

Impressions from a classmate: (I know this is secondhand but it lines up well with what many have said so I decided to post it)

*Almost no buzzwords or buzz features, but that was offset by additional labs and information that ruled out certain answers. Bad part was less time to go back and review questions because of all the additional info.
*Barely any neuro or anatomy today
*ARROWS ARROWS ARROWS for physiology
*Calculations = instant points

 

[operaman]

Much of the sense that any given exam is heavy in one subject area may not have much basis in reality or may reflect the kinds of experimental questions on that exam.

From some older faculty at my school:
Back in the old old days when this was a paper exam like the old SAT with your #2 pencils, faculty at each school were allowed to review the exam and its content once everyone had taken it. Even then, students would often say their test was heavy in renal or endocrine or anatomy or whatever, but upon review the faculty would find that question distribution was approximately the same as that of lecture hours in the preclinical curriculum.

Much of the perception that an exam was heavy in one or two areas -- always coincidentally someone's weakness -- may simply be a matter of perception.

 

[skyblue2000]

How do you review a block in less than 3 hours? It takes me AT LEAST 3 hours and this with writing points once every maybe 5 questions.... I read every question and all the answers. Am I just reading too slow? What gives...

 

[redandblack07]

Sad day for me. I have a list of about 20 questions I know I got wrong 100%.

90% of those are easy questions like "guy with erection problem, what nerve?" Or " here is an image showing a R shift in the cardiac AP curve, which drug caused this?"


Most of the questions I get wrong are 1 step regurgitation easy questions, I guarantee you I got more "super hard experimental" questions right than 1/5 difficulty ones, especially since there was only 1 question that I found to be wtf worthy.


Looks like the "curve" won't be doing me any good

I also got alot of easy regurgitation questions wrong...i think i even had similar questions to what you described. I'm sure we're not the only ones. Are most people able to recall 10-20 silly questions they got wrong after the exam and still do fairly well in the end?

 

[RichieVallens]

Hello dear fellow colleagues. I'm a good Christian man, so I forgive the half-breed who deleted my last post. Just because my screen name is Richie Vallens doesn't mean I'm an SDN troll.

Genuine question here that I would greatly appreciate feedback from those with experience/knowledge related to the question:

What would a UWorld average of 82% equate to for the big one?

Jesus loves you.