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

 

[glossoph]

Move on from uworld. You should've been doing NBMEs by now

how many nbmes should i try to do?

 

[JP2740]

how many nbmes should i try to do?

I would've at least done 7,11,12,13,15. And 6 if there's time. But with 1 week left, I think you should do at least 13 and 15, and just stick to reviewing materials. In my personal opinion, re-doing uworld at this point is a time killer. I'm sure other people in this thread can advise too. I think the last week should be reviewing + a couple nbmes.

Cramming micro, biochem, embryo, pharm won me a lot of pointsi n that last week.

 

[glossoph]

I would've at least done 7,11,12,13,15. And 6 if there's time. But with 1 week left, I think you should do at least 13 and 15, and just stick to reviewing materials. In my personal opinion, re-doing uworld at this point is a time killer. I'm sure other people in this thread can advise too. I think the last week should be reviewing + a couple nbmes.

Cramming micro, biochem, embryo, pharm won me a lot of pointsi n that last week.

yea, i've been feeling the same way, that i would prefer to just cram instead of re-doing uworld, but by that same thought process, i don't entirely see the benefit of doing nmbes at this point, i mean i definitely plan on doing a couple at least but I almost feel my time would be better spent on first aid

 

[Phloston]

form 13 was a joke compared to my exam. 11 was slightly harder and closer to the real thing but still barely comparable. the new step 1 is a new caliber of test that has strayed from the style of the nbme's

This is true with respect to the old, retired NBMEs, but the current Step1 is very similar to the later NBME forms. There are 30 versions of Step1 currently being tested. There is more than likely variation with respect to how they compare to the NBMEs.

 

[TrueAntagonist]

This is true with respect to the old, retired NBMEs, but the current Step1 is very similar to the later NBME forms. There are 30 versions of Step1 currently being tested. There is more than likely variation with respect to how they compare to the NBMEs.

Just out of curiosity, how do you know this?

 

[Pons Asinorum]

This is true with respect to the old, retired NBMEs, but the current Step1 is very similar to the later NBME forms. There are 30 versions of Step1 currently being tested. There is more than likely variation with respect to how they compare to the NBMEs.

Agree. Everyone feels the one exam they have exposure to is how they all are. My real deal felt very similar to NBME's 13 and 15. Def not as hard as UW. Everyone's mileage will vary.

 

[hardee17]

This is true with respect to the old, retired NBMEs, but the current Step1 is very similar to the later NBME forms. There are 30 versions of Step1 currently being tested. There is more than likely variation with respect to how they compare to the NBMEs.

Yeah, how do you know this?

I love your posts, but you didn't have the "new" exam.

 

[iansarria]

Just out of curiosity, how do you know this?

Just because He's Batman!
Grrr I meant He's Phloston!

 

[CDI]

Yeah, how do you know this?

I love your posts, but you didn't have the "new" exam.

He's got sources like Chris Broussard. Ask him where Dwight's headed.

 

[FIREitUP]

Agree. Everyone feels the one exam they have exposure to is how they all are. My real deal felt very similar to NBME's 13 and 15. Def not as hard as UW. Everyone's mileage will vary.

just by looking at the many people who agree with my opinion lately make me think that what my test was like is not due to a variation in one test. by looking at last years thread you can see that people were not as vocal about the test being more difficult, the vignettes being longer, etc. i really don't think it's a coincidence, especially considering that the people claiming the increase in difficulty are people who have been scoring quite well on their practices.

 

[skyblue2000]

just by looking at the many people who agree with my opinion lately make me think that what my test was like is not due to a variation in one test. by looking at last years thread you can see that people were not as vocal about the test being more difficult, the vignettes being longer, etc. i really don't think it's a coincidence, especially considering that the people claiming the increase in difficulty are people who have been scoring quite well on their practices.

That's the part I don't get... If the 250 people are freaking out... how will the 200-230 people do on this "new" form? Like wtf...

 

[Pons Asinorum]

just by looking at the many people who agree with my opinion lately make me think that what my test was like is not due to a variation in one test. by looking at last years thread you can see that people were not as vocal about the test being more difficult, the vignettes being longer, etc. i really don't think it's a coincidence, especially considering that the people claiming the increase in difficulty are people who have been scoring quite well on their practices.

And I think there are like 5 levels of selection bias of the people whom are on SDN saying that it was impossibly tougher than anything else in their prep. I think your test was harder than mine, I think there are forms easier than mine, that shouldn't cause people to think that the proven way of prepping is no longer valid. I think there are plenty of people who don't think it was impossible but are a little loath to come on here and gunnerbrag about how they crushed their real exam. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think the ground has shifted under our feet as much as some people think. Some forms are hard (with more accommodating curves), and some are easier. Just like last year and all the years before that.

 

[FIREitUP]

And I think there are like 5 levels of selection bias of the people whom are on SDN saying that it was impossibly tougher than anything else in their prep. I think your test was harder than mine, I think there are forms easier than mine, that shouldn't cause people to think that the proven way of prepping is no longer valid. I think there are plenty of people who don't think it was impossible but are a little loath to Coe on here and gunnerbrag about how they crushed their real exam. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think the ground has shifted under our feet as much as some people think. Some forms are hard (with more accommodating curves), and some are easier. Just like last year and all the years before that.

we can just agree to disagree, then.

 

[Jamiu22]

And I think there are like 5 levels of selection bias of the people whom are on SDN saying that it was impossibly tougher than anything else in their prep. I think your test was harder than mine, I think there are forms easier than mine, that shouldn't cause people to think that the proven way of prepping is no longer valid. I think there are plenty of people who don't think it was impossible but are a little loath to come on here and gunnerbrag about how they crushed their real exam. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think the ground has shifted under our feet as much as some people think. Some forms are hard (with more accommodating curves), and some are easier. Just like last year and all the years before that.

Honestly... I think they made significant changes this year. You can tell direction of a test by looking at how the NBMEs are written (15 was the most wordy - but not necessarily more difficult)... it's not that the concept has changed... it just seems to be how the material is presented on the test... .longer vignette gives little time to feel assured about a particular answer... another thing is that neuro has always been under-represented on this step exam - that's been common knowledge, but that's not the case this year - and I love neuro and I'm sure I did well on those questions, I was just surprised that I had at least 5 neuro questions per block... and minimal cardio (which I'm glad).

When I did u-world, I typically finished with about 20mins left... for the actual thing, it seemed like I was rushing through whole blocks... always trying to catch up due to the longer vignettes.

Don't get me wrong, the blocks weren't different in difficulty - I had about 3.5 difficult blocks with really long vignettes, and 3 blocks which I had a normal level mix of vignette length (I finished with 10mins on those last three)..... all in all... I kinda like the direction.

 

[CDI]

And I think there are like 5 levels of selection bias of the people whom are on SDN saying that it was impossibly tougher than anything else in their prep. I think your test was harder than mine, I think there are forms easier than mine, that shouldn't cause people to think that the proven way of prepping is no longer valid. I think there are plenty of people who don't think it was impossible but are a little loath to come on here and gunnerbrag about how they crushed their real exam. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think the ground has shifted under our feet as much as some people think. Some forms are hard (with more accommodating curves), and some are easier. Just like last year and all the years before that.

I disagree. Just compare the previous NBMEs to the latest - thats something all of us can see. They're clearly two different sets of beasts.

The exam itself may have gotten tougher to deal with, but the scores will also be scaled accordingly.

 

[IkeBoy18]

just by looking at the many people who agree with my opinion lately make me think that what my test was like is not due to a variation in one test. by looking at last years thread you can see that people were not as vocal about the test being more difficult, the vignettes being longer, etc. i really don't think it's a coincidence, especially considering that the people claiming the increase in difficulty are people who have been scoring quite well on their practices.

I agree with this.. I took 15 the week of.. and 13 literally the day before my exam.. and I didnt have a problem with time or question difficulty. I felt like I missed no more than 20 by the end and felt very confident after each block. HOwever with the real test on 6/26.. that was a mess! More difficult than Uworld and not even in the same league as NBMEs 13 and 15. I can think of a couple gimmes that I missed but the questions were just waay too long. I probably had 10 questions per block that were even close to the avg NMBE length question. The rest were insane. It would take a minute just to read the background and question and glance at the labs, now you have 15 seconds to come up with an answer. I felt like there was no time to actually think.

Long story short I shouldve worn a diaper in there.

 

[MDSlacker]

I just took my exam yesterday and it really wasn't that bad. I've included a basic write-up below just PM me if you have any other questions.

During the school year:
M1 year I basically just followed along with courses and didn't really do any board studying. I bought BRS phys for physiology but that was pretty much it and besides that just tried to do well in class. For microbiology and immunology I used rapid review micro and immuno and clinical microbiology made ridiculously simple. My school teaches micro and immunology really well so I felt that this was probably my strongest subject.

M2 year I bought pathoma and would watch the videos once while we did each organ system and would read along in first aid. I probably ended up reading each organ system of first aid once and watched all of pathoma throughout the year. I also bought the Kaplan QBank to complete throughout the year and probably completed about 50% of it.

Step 1 Dedicated study: My school gave us about 5 weeks to prepare for step 1 but I probably studied for about 8 weeks because I stopped studying for class during our last unit (dermatology) which was 3 weeks long. During dedicated study I ended up watching all of the pathoma videos again. I also read First Aid a total of 2.5 times during the dedicated study and then also read through pathoma again. I went through certain sections of High Yield Neuro after I heard that the exam was very neuro heavy and that didn't take me too long (prob spent a total of 5-6 hours doing this). I also had the UWorld QBank and went through all of that and then did all of the questions that I missed again.

Stats:
CBSE (January of M2 year): 200
UWSA 1 (7 weeks out): 240
CBSE (4 weeks out): >260 (this was probably inflated b/c I had taken the same CBSE before)
NBME 12 (3 weeks out): 252
NBME 13 (2 weeks out): 252
NBME 15 (1 week out): 252
NBME 11 (4 days out): 259

I was a little disappointed because I kept getting the same score on all of my NBMEs so I ended up taking NBME 11 which I wasn't originally planning on taking but just took it hoping that my score would improve. Not sure if that is very accurate because it was one of the older forms.

Step 1:
Definitely a lot easier than what I had expected and what a lot of people are posting. I think I got one of the easier forms which I'm not sure if is a good thing because I'm sure the curve is harder and I already know some easy ones that I missed. I really thought the exam wasn't too bad. It was probably a little more difficult than NBME 15 and definitely easier than UWorld. My exam was heavy in micro which was one of my better subjects but slightly disappointed because I didn't study it as much thinking it would be low yield. I prob marked like 6-12 per block and usually end up missing about half of those. I usually had like 5-10 minutes left per block to go over some that I marked. I'm hoping to score in the high 250s. I would be disappointed if I scored below 250 but hopefully I can score in the high 250s or low 260s. If anyone has any questions feel free to PM me.

 

[lira126]

[/B]

That's the part I don't get... If the 250 people are freaking out... how will the 200-230 people do on this "new" form? Like wtf...

The bottom line here is that the people scoring in these two score ranges will have two very different sets of mentalities come out of the test. I would venture to say that the mental pressure of keeping your score above 250 is a little bit higher than the pressure of keeping your score in the 200-230 range. Those scoring in the 250 range will likely perceive the test as being much harder as they cannot stand the thought of missing more than a handful of questions and having uncertainty over more than a handful of questions. Those scoring in the 200-230 range might not have these thoughts bother them that much as scoring in this range on practice exams means that you know that you're missing a handful of questions anyways.

 

[skyblue2000]

The bottom line here is that the people scoring in these two score ranges will have two very different sets of mentalities come out of the test. I would venture to say that the mental pressure of keeping your score above 250 is a little bit higher than the pressure of keeping your score in the 200-230 range. Those scoring in the 250 range will likely perceive the test as being much harder as they cannot stand the thought of missing more than a handful of questions and having uncertainty over more than a handful of questions. Those scoring in the 200-230 range might not have these thoughts bother them that much as scoring in this range on practice exams means that you know that you're missing a handful of questions anyways.

hmmm well that range was huge. I was just referring to the average or under average test takers, but I appreciate the reply. That makes sense... guess we'll see if the curve at least holds up in 10 days when scores come out.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

I disagree. Just compare the previous NBMEs to the latest - thats something all of us can see. They're clearly two different sets of beasts.

The exam itself may have gotten tougher to deal with, but the scores will also be scaled accordingly.

I'm not referring to the general trend overall, of course NBME 15 is different than 6. I mean that the forms offered from May 13 till now are fundamentally different than anything in the past, which some people feel.

 

[lira126]

I'm not saying that the difficulty of the exam hasn't changed. I just think that the magnitude of this change is not as large as we perceive it to be because of the overall over-reactions to knowing that you missed questions on a once in a lifetime opportunity.

 

[CDI]

I'm not referring to the general trend overall, of course NBME 15 is different than 6. I mean that the forms offered from May 13 till now are fundamentally different than anything in the past, which some people feel.

Got it. The only thing I can see happening to "fix" increasing averages is to adjust the curve by bringing down those top scores somehow.

 

[FIREitUP]

Honestly... I think they made significant changes this year. You can tell direction of a test by looking at how the NBMEs are written (15 was the most wordy - but not necessarily more difficult)... it's not that the concept has changed... it just seems to be how the material is presented on the test... .longer vignette gives little time to feel assured about a particular answer... another thing is that neuro has always been under-represented on this step exam - that's been common knowledge, but that's not the case this year - and I love neuro and I'm sure I did well on those questions, I was just surprised that I had at least 5 neuro questions per block... and minimal cardio (which I'm glad).

When I did u-world, I typically finished with about 20mins left... for the actual thing, it seemed like I was rushing through whole blocks... always trying to catch up due to the longer vignettes.

Don't get me wrong, the blocks weren't different in difficulty - I had about 3.5 difficult blocks with really long vignettes, and 3 blocks which I had a normal level mix of vignette length (I finished with 10mins on those last three)..... all in all... I kinda like the direction.

i experienced something similar; i had 3 blocks where i thought the difficulty was between the nbme's and uworld, whereas the other 4 were much more pronounced in difficulty and length.

 

[Zuhal]

Congrats on being done Jamiu and MDSlacker, I'm sure you guys did well 🙂
Just wanted to know if you guys had a lot of anatomy on your tests? Was it crazy random stuff or straightforward FA anatomy. What do you think could have improved your performance in anatomy?

 

[Armadillos]

Congrats on being done Jamiu and MDSlacker, I'm sure you guys did well 🙂
Just wanted to know if you guys had a lot of anatomy on your tests? Was it crazy random stuff or straightforward FA anatomy. What do you think could have improved your performance in anatomy?

I dont know if this is the case for everyone, but I and most other people had 1 or 2 easy anatomy questions, then a few where really all you can do is hope to guess well, I would spend my time elsewhere.

 

[Jamiu22]

Congrats on being done Jamiu and MDSlacker, I'm sure you guys did well 🙂
Just wanted to know if you guys had a lot of anatomy on your tests? Was it crazy random stuff or straightforward FA anatomy. What do you think could have improved your performance in anatomy?

Thanks Zuhal... actually I didn't have too much anatomy... but the ones I had were fairly easy and obvious... nothing in the neck or perineal area like I keep hearing... I had one x-ray with an obvious fractured in an elderly person... and they asked what was the cause of their discomfort.. duh! (imo, that was a junior college level question)...

I had one really dumb one where they you had to know the exact dermatome (but the answer choices where between two adjacent vertebrae.. so that was a guess for me (I used the umbilicus as frame of reference). and then a bunch of upper and lower limb lesions.. nothing to scary..no blood vessels....so you know basic anatomy.. I think you should be fine.

But all in all... I still think I'll fall in the 230 range like predicted before the exam.. I started at 230 pre-dedicated study period... and 8wks later, I was still in the 230s except for twice where I got 240 on the NBMEs.... I scored in the 250s on USWAs and then 93% on the free 150... uworld average was 73% (but did it in ~14days timed random - maybe I should have spread it over the semester and spent more time on each question.... but at this point, I'm just glad to be done)

Good luck... when's urs?

 

[cx007]

prepping for step 1. Can anyone that recently took the exam give me their thoughts and how hard was the actual exam compared to UWORLD questions and NBME. If you don't mind give an example of a hard questions. I heard a lot of people been saying that it is harder now compare to a few months ago due to changes.

 

[Stingarov]

Done with it! Thoughts:

had a neuro heavy form (also my forte, got one wrong on the neuro out of like 30 so will take it) that was otherwise well-balanced.

Had some wicked crazy looking one in the Micro section, won't go into details but never seen anythign like that on one of them.


had no idea on exactly 3 questions.

Was done with all blocks with about 15-18 minutes to spare with exception to one REALLY HARD OUTLIER block. Coincidentally, was able to change 2 answers to the right answer in the final 17 seconds. Will take.

Difficulty was Uworld level on some, but really just about like this: UWorld > Step 1 > NBME 15.

Had about 30 50/50's that I know of. Most were educated and thus skewed 60/40. Of the true 50/50s, wound up 4 for 6 so far. Will take that too.


Doubt I did well enough to match some of my later NBME scores. Probable score: 235-258 (massive range).

Minimal buzzwords, but could rely on other things to reason it out. Only 3 questions were absolute true Question marks in the sense that I said "wtf, where's the rest of the question stem?" because it left out some important differentiation features. Relied more on the epidemiological considerations on those.

Edit: have found 6-7 that i know I've gotten wrong, add in a few more and I'm over it and glad to be done.

 

[cx007]

Done with it! Thoughts:

had a neuro heavy form (also my forte, got one wrong on the neuro out of like 30 so will take it) that was otherwise well-balanced.

Had some wicked crazy looking one in the Micro section, won't go into details but never seen anythign like that on one of them.


had no idea on exactly 3 questions.

Was done with all blocks with about 15-18 minutes to spare with exception to one REALLY HARD OUTLIER block. Coincidentally, was able to change 2 answers to the right answer in the final 17 seconds. Will take.

Difficulty was Uworld level on some, but really just about like this: UWorld > Step 1 > NBME 15.

Had about 30 50/50's that I know of. Most were educated and thus skewed 60/40. Of the true 50/50s, wound up 4 for 6 so far. Will take that too.


Doubt I did well enough to match some of my later NBME scores. Probable score: 235-262 (massive range).

Minimal buzzwords, but could rely on other things to reason it out. Only 3 questions were absolute true Question marks in the sense that I said "wtf, where's the rest of the question stem?" because it left out some important differentiation features. Relied more on the epidemiological considerations on those.

Edit: have found 3-4 that i know I've gotten wrong, add in a few more and I'm over it and glad to be done.

You think kaplan qbank worth giving it a shot?

 

[loveoforganic2]

You think kaplan qbank worth giving it a shot?

I did the majority of Qbank and just a bit of Rx and think Rx is far better

 

[MDSlacker]

Congrats on being done Jamiu and MDSlacker, I'm sure you guys did well 🙂
Just wanted to know if you guys had a lot of anatomy on your tests? Was it crazy random stuff or straightforward FA anatomy. What do you think could have improved your performance in anatomy?

My anatomy really wasn't too bad. I can't remember any specifically right now but I do remember thinking that they weren't too bad. There were a few neuroanatomy questions that I probably would of missed if I didn't read HY Neuro but general anatomy FA should be enough. I think I actually had a couple way out there anatomy questions that nothing could of prepared me for besides first year but I still was able to make an educated guess. Overall, I wouldn't focus on anatomy too much.

 

[blaqmamba]

He's got sources like Chris Broussard. Ask him where Dwight's headed.

I'm torn between a sign-and-trade of his lazy bum or just keep him and straighten him up

 

[CDI]

I'm torn between a sign-and-trade of his lazy bum or just keep him and straighten him up

Get rid of him. Dude's a whiny version of TO/Moss.

 

[223556]

Took it today. Found lots of typos and such. You think that they would at least run it by their secretary or something.

Example:

A blood pressure of 120/180? QUICK! What's the drug of choice for isolated diastolic superhypertension!?!

I also had one question that was just out of this world unanswerable. Really can't expound much on it but lets just say that the internet doesn't have the answer (nor will it ever).

Test is comparable to Uworld.

 

[arconis]

So I took it yesterday, figured I would add my experience as another data point since lurking here helped me so much.

NBME 6 – 228 (9 weeks before)
NBME 13 – 247 (1 month before)
NBME 12 – 250 (3 weeks before)
NBME 11 – 238 (2 weeks before)
NBME 15 – 259 (1 week before)

Cumulative World – 76%

Prep: First Aid x3, Uworld x1 + about half of my incorrects (went over all the answer choices extensively and reviewed flashcards w/ relevant concepts), ½ of USMLE Rx

Test:
Overall: The difficulty, content, length of stems, and length of blocks were all comparable to Uworld. There were a fair amount of questions that were straight out of First Aid. Definitely some questions I had no idea on (about four questions where I hadn't even seen the answer choices before) and a bunch of questions that you had to make an educated guess on since there was no way you had ever seen that tidbit in any review source. Often they took it just one level beyond First Aid, but you could reason from First Aid's foundation. One thing I did notice was that they asked about the same information contained in first aid, but the correct answer was another name for what was given in First Aid. This happened at least 3 times that I can think of.

Anatomy: Upper limb, lower limb, abdominal/thoracic vasculature. The high yields were high yield.

Embryo: I was close to skipping this for some reason but I'm really glad I didn't. I had 2 questions straight off the pharyngeal cleft/arch/pouch tables.

Micro: Tons and tons. I would say 40 questions at least. Every part of micro was covered extensively. Several nit-picky antiviral side effect questions (but were in first aid).

Pharm: Know Uworld. I had at least 2 questions on drugs that were in Uworld but not in first aid.

If anyone has any questions, just let me know!

 

[operaman]

Congrats on being done Jamiu and MDSlacker, I'm sure you guys did well 🙂
Just wanted to know if you guys had a lot of anatomy on your tests? Was it crazy random stuff or straightforward FA anatomy. What do you think could have improved your performance in anatomy?

Don't remember seeing much anatomy on mine and only remember marking a couple of them.

Brainstem sections (myelin stains) were high yield for me and I wish I'd taken 5 minutes and just looked at them all again. Ditto for some coronal gross brain sections. There were some that you just have to remember from first year, but thankfully I did for those. One brainstem slice continues to haunt me because I know the pathway but just can't remember if the vignette said 'left' or 'right' for the various neuro deficits.

So, high yield AND easy-to-review things would be:
1) Brainstem slices (myelin stains) for all major pathways
2) Gross brain slices
3) Angiograms from all major distributions (circle o' willis, ext carotid aa, thyrocervical/costocervical trunks and areas, celiac, sma, ima, lower extremity[fits w/ vignettes about PAD])
4) CTs/MRI from all vertebral levels, especially abdomen and around the heart
5) MR of knee, coronal and sagittal
6) Brainstem pic for cranial nerves
7) Coronal CT of face for sinuses
8) CT/MR of brain, both coronal and axial

Others can add more, but I think those would all be worth a quick look. None of them alone are as high yield as other things, but together may be worth a few points. They're also all visual and the kind of thing you can review in a short period of time. I think I could thoroughly get through this list in under a half hour, so maybe flip through them sometime when you need a break between World sections or at the end of the day when you're tired. These are things we all had to learn at some point in first year, so it all comes back fast.

The test is definitely striving to become more clinical, so I tried to pick all the things that would be easiest to fit into a clinical vignette.

 

[999999]

Don't remember seeing much anatomy on mine and only remember marking a couple of them.

Brainstem sections (myelin stains) were high yield for me and I wish I'd taken 5 minutes and just looked at them all again. Ditto for some coronal gross brain sections. There were some that you just have to remember from first year, but thankfully I did for those. One brainstem slice continues to haunt me because I know the pathway but just can't remember if the vignette said 'left' or 'right' for the various neuro deficits.

So, high yield AND easy-to-review things would be:
1) Brainstem slices (myelin stains) for all major pathways
2) Gross brain slices
3) Angiograms from all major distributions (circle o' willis, ext carotid aa, thyrocervical/costocervical trunks and areas, celiac, sma, ima, lower extremity[fits w/ vignettes about PAD])
4) CTs/MRI from all vertebral levels, especially abdomen and around the heart
5) MR of knee, coronal and sagittal
6) Brainstem pic for cranial nerves
7) Coronal CT of face for sinuses
8) CT/MR of brain, both coronal and axial

Others can add more, but I think those would all be worth a quick look. None of them alone are as high yield as other things, but together may be worth a few points. They're also all visual and the kind of thing you can review in a short period of time. I think I could thoroughly get through this list in under a half hour, so maybe flip through them sometime when you need a break between World sections or at the end of the day when you're tired. These are things we all had to learn at some point in first year, so it all comes back fast.

The test is definitely striving to become more clinical, so I tried to pick all the things that would be easiest to fit into a clinical vignette.

Which book or source for those? Anyway very useful list. Thanks a lot.

 

[21385]

can anyone comment on the real test's pharm questions? It seems from the NBME that they only test the major drugs and stay away from the less used + more obscure drugs in FA (ex. memantine (NMDA receptor antagonist for alzheimer's), tetrabenazine (VMAT inhibitor for Huntington's).

bump? anyone?

thanks

 

[res1cue]

bump? anyone?

thanks

my tests pharm was all softball questions, on more common drugs

i'd say instead, look at phys, and do all the up/down arrow questions you can find

 

[Kovach]

So I took it yesterday, figured I would add my experience as another data point since lurking here helped me so much.

NBME 6 – 228 (9 weeks before)
NBME 13 – 247 (1 month before)
NBME 12 – 250 (3 weeks before)
NBME 11 – 238 (2 weeks before)
NBME 15 – 259 (1 week before)

Cumulative World – 76%

Prep: First Aid x3, Uworld x1 + about half of my incorrects (went over all the answer choices extensively and reviewed flashcards w/ relevant concepts), ½ of USMLE Rx

Test:
Overall: The difficulty, content, length of stems, and length of blocks were all comparable to Uworld. There were a fair amount of questions that were straight out of First Aid. Definitely some questions I had no idea on (about four questions where I hadn't even seen the answer choices before) and a bunch of questions that you had to make an educated guess on since there was no way you had ever seen that tidbit in any review source. Often they took it just one level beyond First Aid, but you could reason from First Aid's foundation. One thing I did notice was that they asked about the same information contained in first aid, but the correct answer was another name for what was given in First Aid. This happened at least 3 times that I can think of.

Anatomy: Upper limb, lower limb, abdominal/thoracic vasculature. The high yields were high yield.

Embryo: I was close to skipping this for some reason but I'm really glad I didn't. I had 2 questions straight off the pharyngeal cleft/arch/pouch tables.

Micro: Tons and tons. I would say 40 questions at least. Every part of micro was covered extensively. Several nit-picky antiviral side effect questions (but were in first aid).

Pharm: Know Uworld. I had at least 2 questions on drugs that were in Uworld but not in first aid.

If anyone has any questions, just let me know!

What about immunology? I have done only NBME 15 so far, and had great performances from all subjects but immunology. Somehow found it so hard.

 

[Greenbayslacker]

anyone know if we are scaled against other people that had the same questions as us, or just against everyone else in general?

also, my 3rd and likely final question from my exam that i'm posting for you guys:

Male with trouble urinating, painless enlarged prostate, what is it?

 

[hardee17]

anyone know if we are scaled against other people that had the same questions as us, or just against everyone else in general?

also, my 3rd and likely final question from my exam that i'm posting for you guys:

Male with trouble urinating, painless enlarged prostate, what is it?

bph

 

[223556]

my tests pharm was all softball questions, on more common drugs

i'd say instead, look at phys, and do all the up/down arrow questions you can find

Pharm was easier than I thought...and its my school's weakest teaching area (the professor is absolutely horrible).

I did have a question though where you had to
1) recognize the disease
2) know how to treat it
3) understand that the DOC wouldn't be tolerated well by the patient
4) know the second DOC
5) know the SE of the second drug

 

[loveoforganic2]

anyone know if we are scaled against other people that had the same questions as us, or just against everyone else in general?

also, my 3rd and likely final question from my exam that i'm posting for you guys:

Male with trouble urinating, painless enlarged prostate, what is it?

My guess is BPH as well, but I don't really recognize the histo. It just doesn't look anything like adenocarcinoma or prostatitis, which I think I would recognize

 

[loveoforganic2]

Don't remember seeing much anatomy on mine and only remember marking a couple of them.

Brainstem sections (myelin stains) were high yield for me and I wish I'd taken 5 minutes and just looked at them all again. Ditto for some coronal gross brain sections. There were some that you just have to remember from first year, but thankfully I did for those. One brainstem slice continues to haunt me because I know the pathway but just can't remember if the vignette said 'left' or 'right' for the various neuro deficits.

So, high yield AND easy-to-review things would be:
1) Brainstem slices (myelin stains) for all major pathways
2) Gross brain slices
3) Angiograms from all major distributions (circle o' willis, ext carotid aa, thyrocervical/costocervical trunks and areas, celiac, sma, ima, lower extremity[fits w/ vignettes about PAD])
4) CTs/MRI from all vertebral levels, especially abdomen and around the heart
5) MR of knee, coronal and sagittal
6) Brainstem pic for cranial nerves
7) Coronal CT of face for sinuses
8) CT/MR of brain, both coronal and axial

Others can add more, but I think those would all be worth a quick look. None of them alone are as high yield as other things, but together may be worth a few points. They're also all visual and the kind of thing you can review in a short period of time. I think I could thoroughly get through this list in under a half hour, so maybe flip through them sometime when you need a break between World sections or at the end of the day when you're tired. These are things we all had to learn at some point in first year, so it all comes back fast.

The test is definitely striving to become more clinical, so I tried to pick all the things that would be easiest to fit into a clinical vignette.

Thanks for the input. You've provided a lot of good stuff in barely any posts. I'd also be interested in what resource(s) you used for the quick review of this stuff

 

[RIPSanto]

anyone know if we are scaled against other people that had the same questions as us, or just against everyone else in general?

also, my 3rd and likely final question from my exam that i'm posting for you guys:

Male with trouble urinating, painless enlarged prostate, what is it?

My guess would be chronic prostatitis. That looks like interstitial inflammation. I dont see glandular hyperplasia in that histology. However, I could be very wrong.

 

[loveoforganic2]

My guess would be chronic prostatitis. That looks like interstitial inflammation. I dont see glandular hyperplasia in that histology. However, I could be very wrong.

In retrospect, the stroma does look hypercellular, and it looks like there might be granulation tissue, but the ducts/glands were what I was focusing on, and they seem to have multiple layers (don't even look close to pseudostratified to me). I'm thinking you're probably right though

 

[arconis]

On that list of anatomy images, I just wanted to throw in that I had a sagittal shoulder MRI on mine (for a rotator cuff injury), so I would review that too.

What about immunology? I have done only NBME 15 so far, and had great performances from all subjects but immunology. Somehow found it so hard.

Immunology on my test was mostly from First Aid or UWorld. The ones that weren't you couldn't study for though, you had to reason through them on the exam. Overall there weren't all that many questions on it. More specifically (from what I remember):

1 lymph drainage
1 HLA subtype association
2 questions that required you know the different functions of Igs
1 complement deficiency
1 cytokine
1 superantigen
4 hypersensitivity reactions
3 autoantibodies
2 immune deficiencies
1 transplant rejection
1 immunosuppressant MOA
1 therapeutic antibody that wasn't in first aid or Uworld (guessed and got it wrong)

Pretty much all of these (except the last one) were gimme's if you knew FA cold and had worked though Uworld. That entire chapter in FA is really high yield.

 

[operaman]

Which book or source for those? Anyway very useful list. Thanks a lot.

Google images are great. Utah webpath has some great sections that are beautifully annotated. Our library has some radiology atlases that are great for the images. Can't remember the names, but I'm sure yours has some too. Not a lot of variation in those things anyhow.

Hope it helps though! Just remember that anatomy is pretty low yield so I would keep it to a lower priority than other well-known high yields. I absolutely LOVE reviewing imaging, slides, etc., when I'm tired and don't feel like thinking about pathways and anything that requires much though. Doesn't take much though at all to look at a brainstem section and quiz yourself about which spot is which! 🙂

 

[paul411]

A heads up to those wondering about the cardiac auscultation questions: here's a screenshot of the interface (published by the NBME)

You can move the stethoscope around to the four different locations and also visualize the carotid pulse in the neck area.

Oh, and you can also see some parameters that the NBME uses to characterize question difficulty/quality in the top half of the pic.