Official 2013 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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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.

:luck: Cheers to 2013 :luck:
 
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I feel like reading forums and refreshing the page for 3 hours is not the best use of time, but I don't know if I can help myself. This wait has been killer for me.
 
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DrTomGr said:
I took the exams on June 4th.
mean=227 SD=22
Click to expand...


I guess the mean has gone up this year huh?




DrTomGr said:
I just got my Results! 257 🙂
Click to expand...
sashen said:
just got my score ... 249...and i am over the moon! was aiming for 240+... i know i might not be among the sdn elite to give advice but if anybody wants to know my stats, study prep and exam experience... do let me know! 🙂
Click to expand...

Great job guys!
 
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sashen said:
just got my score ... 249...and i am over the moon! was aiming for 240+... i know i might not be among the sdn elite to give advice but if anybody wants to know my stats, study prep and exam experience... do let me know! 🙂
Click to expand...
Please share. Study strategies, UWorld percentage, NBME practice scores, impressions leaving the exam, etc are very helpful to those of us yet to take it. Most of all, I think post-test impressions vs actual score will be very helpful as the test seems to have gotten substantially more difficult (based on what everyone posts on here). It will be interesting to see if scores reflect the increasing difficulty or if they will remain stable due to scaling.
 
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Haha I wonder if this site will crash just like it did when my MCAT scores were released... Those scores were delayed too and mass kiddies were refreshing this site on the day of reporting!
 
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sashen said:
just got my score ... 249...and i am over the moon! was aiming for 240+... i know i might not be among the sdn elite to give advice but if anybody wants to know my stats, study prep and exam experience... do let me know! 🙂
Click to expand...

Very interested. Congratulations to you all!

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
 
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Hi Guys,

Just want to share my experience, and inspire some others like me out there. I Basically cried after I finished the exams, first out of relieve and out of fear! I thought I had failed the exams, got a lot of endocrinology questions which is a weak area for me! I took the exam in early May and this wait has been pure torture! Plus I had nightmares where I failed the exam.

I got the email about score release this morning and couldn't for the life of me check my scores. When I finally opened the PDF file, was relieved to see PASS... Then couldn't bring myself to scroll down to the real score!
Final score 238... pheww what a relieve. But silly me spent a couple of minutes wailing like a child because I had hoped for at least a 240! And for crying out loud, I spent the whole step 1 prep scrolling through SDN and seeing 260's on a regular basis! Now in retrospect when I realize that I got a 205 on an NBME I did 3 weeks before my exam, I'm just grateful and thankful for my final scores. I am in awe of this exam called Step 1!

NBME 11 04/22/13 205
Real deal 05/15/13 238
 
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Lovemph said:
Hi Guys,

Just want to share my experience, and inspire some others like me out there. I Basically cried after I finished the exams, first out of relieve and out of fear! I thought I had failed the exams, got a lot of endocrinology questions which is a weak area for me! I took the exam in early May and this wait has been pure torture! Plus I had nightmares where I failed the exam.

I got the email about score release this morning and couldn't for the life of me check my scores. When I finally opened the PDF file, was relieved to see PASS... Then couldn't bring myself to scroll down to the real score!
Final score 238... pheww what a relieve. But silly me spent a couple of minutes wailing like a child because I had hoped for at least a 240! And for crying out loud, I spent the whole step 1 prep scrolling through SDN and seeing 260's on a regular basis! Now in retrospect when I realize that I got a 205 on an NBME I did 3 weeks before my exam, I'm just grateful and thankful for my final scores. I am in awe of this exam called Step 1!

NBME 11 04/22/13 205
Real deal 05/15/13 238
Click to expand...
thank you very much for sharing! congratulation!!
 
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Lovemph said:
Hi Guys,

Just want to share my experience, and inspire some others like me out there. I Basically cried after I finished the exams, first out of relieve and out of fear! I thought I had failed the exams, got a lot of endocrinology questions which is a weak area for me! I took the exam in early May and this wait has been pure torture! Plus I had nightmares where I failed the exam.

I got the email about score release this morning and couldn't for the life of me check my scores. When I finally opened the PDF file, was relieved to see PASS... Then couldn't bring myself to scroll down to the real score!
Final score 238... pheww what a relieve. But silly me spent a couple of minutes wailing like a child because I had hoped for at least a 240! And for crying out loud, I spent the whole step 1 prep scrolling through SDN and seeing 260's on a regular basis! Now in retrospect when I realize that I got a 205 on an NBME I did 3 weeks before my exam, I'm just grateful and thankful for my final scores. I am in awe of this exam called Step 1!

NBME 11 04/22/13 205
Real deal 05/15/13 238
Click to expand...

Congrats!!!
 
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Lovemph said:
Hi Guys,

Just want to share my experience, and inspire some others like me out there. I Basically cried after I finished the exams, first out of relieve and out of fear! I thought I had failed the exams, got a lot of endocrinology questions which is a weak area for me! I took the exam in early May and this wait has been pure torture! Plus I had nightmares where I failed the exam.

I got the email about score release this morning and couldn't for the life of me check my scores. When I finally opened the PDF file, was relieved to see PASS... Then couldn't bring myself to scroll down to the real score!
Final score 238... pheww what a relieve. But silly me spent a couple of minutes wailing like a child because I had hoped for at least a 240! And for crying out loud, I spent the whole step 1 prep scrolling through SDN and seeing 260's on a regular basis! Now in retrospect when I realize that I got a 205 on an NBME I did 3 weeks before my exam, I'm just grateful and thankful for my final scores. I am in awe of this exam called Step 1!

NBME 11 04/22/13 205
Real deal 05/15/13 238
Click to expand...

That's inspirational!
 
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CaliAtenza said:
What do you mean by structure identifications? In biochem?
Click to expand...

I'm not allowed to give any specifics of course but I can give you an example: they show you a structure of a chemical and ask where would adenylate cyclase have to work to turn this chemical into cAMP. and just number the structure and you have to pick an answer. I'm pretty sure at one point in undergrad I knew its site of action but not now, not yesterday.


p.s. to give you a little taste of how random some phram questions were: What's THE FIRST side effect that a patient taking bisphosphonate complains of? (obviously not the same q, but similar). I would say 90% of the drugs were in FA. so I have no complains but as operaman suggested a few posts ago, they don't just ask for a side effect or a MOA, they find a way to make it tricky. like what's the 'first' side effect. I hope this helps.don't worry though, pharm wasn't too bad if you knew your stuff. I would worry about anatomy
and by the way, just before I took the test, my nbme's highlighted anatomy as one of my weakest areas. So if this is something you're good at, you'll probably ace the test.
 
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UrbanDweller said:
Hey guys, so I haven't been on this site in a couple years but finally decided to log back on cause I've been freaking out after taking the test today. I felt like I literally bombed it. I thought it was way harder than NBMEs and Uworld. In both of the latter, most of the time I was able to pick up on what point was tested and the tricky questions quite easily but I felt Step 1 was more obscure. I also feel like the test wasn't well rounded in terms of the content. Like a few topics and diseases kept getting tested over and over. I barely finished every block with maybe a couple minutes to spare.

In terms of topics not much pharm, biochem, or behavioral science. Nutrition was definitely hit hard.

Pre-test. I started doing Kaplan Qbank slowly...started in February and finished 4 weeks before the exam. 74%


Before dedicated prep time:
School administered NBME(8 weeks out) - 230
Read FA through the second half of the school year and annotated details in.
Listened to Goljan months out.
Watched all pathoma videos in my car

During my 4.5 week dedicated prep time:
Finished DIT 2.5 weeks from test
Reviewed FA again
Uworld timed/random(finished 1week out): 85%
NBME 15(2weeks out): 261 - felt short on time. harder than 13
NBME 13(6 days out): 266 - felt quite easy and straightforward - set false hope for the real thing 🙁

Spent the last several days reviewing FA and going over Q's that I missed in Uworld. Kind of kicking myself for not doing more NBMEs to give me a better predictor. Also, others said many questions were repeats or very similar to NBME one. What do you guys think?

Anyways, just wanted to vent and say I feel bad cause I think I blew it. Hope you guys have a better experience than I did.
Click to expand...

Real Deal: 263

Worried a lot after the test as you can see in the above quote(now I feel like a douche for whining). To all the people taking the exam, don't worry that much after the exam. The predictors going in seem to work well.
 
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courtnes said:
Haha, that's just the lack of sleep from night float.
Click to expand...

Truth.

I should be feeling pretty tired right now after getting about 4 hours of sleep in the last 30 hours... but my heart is racing and I don't feel sleepy. I just feel nervous. My score hasn't been posted yet and I haven't gotten an email either.
 
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thedoctor8706 said:
Haha I wonder if this site will crash just like it did when my MCAT scores were released... Those scores were delayed too and mass kiddies were refreshing this site on the day of reporting!
Click to expand...

Nope, there were thousands on the MCAT threads waiting for the Mid-June score release. Luckily, only 300-400 on here, b/c that was super annoying 🙄
 
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coagulase said:
Please share. Study strategies, UWorld percentage, NBME practice scores, impressions leaving the exam, etc are very helpful to those of us yet to take it. Most of all, I think post-test impressions vs actual score will be very helpful as the test seems to have gotten substantially more difficult (based on what everyone posts on here). It will be interesting to see if scores reflect the increasing difficulty or if they will remain stable due to scaling.
Click to expand...

my "soft-prep" began a long while back during my one year hectic internship and 5 month elective. i mainly did kaplan notes and videos (all of them), micro (made ridiculously simple), biochem (LWW), BRS physio, Goljjan (made notes and listened to audio). But honestly, i don't think i had much recall of any of this by the end of April 2013.. :naughty: which is when i decided to take things seriously. I had done kaplan qbank during March and my final percentage was 66%; did one kaplan simulated exam and got 68%. :scared:

i started Uworld in April.. my Uworld aggregate was 73%. even though i wanted to re-do the entire thing I did not get the time (I wish I had). And then I drowned myself in FA while doing NBMEs... I did a total of 3 reads of FA - and undoubtedly it is the single best resource for step 1! 👍

NBME 11 (mid april): 228
I had trouble shifting from the UWorld difficulty to NBME... while doing NBME 11, I really felt it was very easy (cos I was comparing it to Uworld) and was done with 15 mins remaining for each block. 🙄
NBME 12 (april end): 231
at which point I decided to finish FA properly before getting discouraged with my NBME scores. :idea:

I finished FA 2 reads by mid may; and also did all the old NBMEs (for questions)
The old NBMEs (offline) were quite easy (as has been mentioned in SDN many times) and I was scoring in the higher 250 range (using the 1.4 multiplication)..
then i moved onto the online NBMEs left:

NBME 7: 252
NBME 13: 248
NBME 15: 245

with 1 week remaining, I went through FA again... I left the UWSAs and Free 150 for the end because i knew they were over-predictors and I knew a boost in my confidence towards the end would help.

UWSA 1: 259
UWSA 2: 248 (i totally lost it during the 2nd block cos it was much tougher than what I expected from reading SDN and kinda gave up) 🙁
Free 150: 92%

I tend to study best on the eve of exams. I went through all the questions I got incorrect (all the NBMEs, UWSAs and Free 150) with self noted explanations on the eve. I also went through around 200 questions in uworld i had made annotations for. I had also written down volatile topics to review (like mechanisms of resistance, AIDS opportunistic infections, vaccines etc) I usually pull all nighters, but was not ballsy enough to do so on the eve of an 8 hour exam! ...

EXAM ON 06/03

The exam was not easy.
Even though I never ran out of time during practice exams; I barely had enough time to look through marked questions at the end of each block and for one block I ran out of time while reviewing my last marked question.
I barely took any breaks, cos I did not want to lose momentum. I guess this depends on what sort of test taker you are... I took 2 minutes after block 1,2 and 3; and 5-7 minutes after block 4,5 and 6... I had about half hour break time left at the end of the exam. 😀

the questions were 60% NBME difficulty; 30% Uworld difficulty and the rest were WTF.
Unlike most questions in the practice exams which were 2 questions rolled into one (one being the diagnosis and the second real question being something about the particular disease), i felt the questions in the real exam were mostly 3 questions rolled into one (one being the diagnosis, second being something about the disease and third being the real question about that something). I dunno if that makes sense :eyebrow:

My exam was 60% hemat oncology!!! i know that is hard to believe, but the biochem, pharmac, physio and anat questions all had either hemat or onco settings! there were only around 10 neuro questions, lots of tables arrow up/down questions (which take forever for me), heavy on micro/immuno, less pharmac, around 3-4 questions per block with some image (ct/histo/x-ray,lesion,stain) lots and lots of patho. the behavioural science questions were all WTF. all the options seemed completely plausible and this was a shocker for me cos I normally did well on ethics questions.

as soon as i walked out, i thought the exam was ok-ok but as weeks have passed i had been doubting whether i would a get a 220... i sat and wrote down all the questions and reviewed entire FA again to calculate how many mistakes I made (OCD - I know). i got down to around 200 questions and 13 wrong. but im sure i must've gotten more like around 30 wrong since i had marked around 6 per block.

so final score: 249. 😀

i know it isnt a 260+ to rant on about... but i was aiming for a 240+ and am uber happy...
hope this was helpful! 😎
 
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Zuhal said:
Just took the test. Super exhausted, running on 3.5hrs of sleep (2 nightmares about heart murmurs and ekgs). test was very pharm heavy (about 40%), anatomy heavy (crazy, crazy random questions on surgical procedures and arteries ligated/anastomosed. anatomy is one of my weakest areas so I definitely guessed on those. I would say overall, I had about 30 anatomy questions. one was easy tho, straight up FA anatomy, rest were outta nowhere or at least thats how I felt). LOTS OF BIOCHEM! 2 structures identifications (almost died when I saw them), pretty sure got them wrong (and no they werent pencillin-related structures). Specific enzyme deficiencies and substrate accumulation. LOTS of neuro. and of course lots of path. the questions were very, very long. lots of distractors. qs weren't anything like nbmes. more like uworld. I don't think I did welll. I ran out of time towards the end. will see. i'll write a better review i guess if i end up with a decent score altho i highly doubt it.
Good luck to those getting their scores tmrw, you guys are among the gunnest gunners I've ever met, you'll do just fine 🙂
Click to expand...

Good luck, Zuhal. I know you've been trying, man. :xf:
 
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UrbanDweller said:
Real Deal: 263

Worried a lot after the test as you can see in the above quote(now I feel like a douche for whining). To all the people taking the exam, don't worry that much after the exam. The predictors going in seem to work well.
Click to expand...

Nicely done! No Rx/GT/Robbins Review, etc?
 
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Brain Bucket said:
Nicely done! No Rx/GT/Robbins Review, etc?
Click to expand...

Thanks! Nope, I didn't use any of those although many others in my class have. I didn't want to spread myself too thin on resources and it would have been impossible trying to get through everything. Also, I feel like DIT was the least value add for me, but it helped me get through a pass of FA in a timely fashion.

Good luck to everyone!
 
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sashen said:
my "soft-prep" began a long while back during my one year hectic internship and 5 month elective. i mainly did kaplan notes and videos (all of them), micro (made ridiculously simple), biochem (LWW), BRS physio, Goljjan (made notes and listened to audio). But honestly, i don't think i had much recall of any of this by the end of April 2013.. :naughty: which is when i decided to take things seriously. I had done kaplan qbank during March and my final percentage was 66%; did one kaplan simulated exam and got 68%. :scared:

i started Uworld in April.. my Uworld aggregate was 73%. even though i wanted to re-do the entire thing I did not get the time (I wish I had). And then I drowned myself in FA while doing NBMEs... I did a total of 3 reads of FA - and undoubtedly it is the single best resource for step 1! 👍

NBME 11 (mid april): 228
I had trouble shifting from the UWorld difficulty to NBME... while doing NBME 11, I really felt it was very easy (cos I was comparing it to Uworld) and was done with 15 mins remaining for each block. 🙄
NBME 12 (april end): 231
at which point I decided to finish FA properly before getting discouraged with my NBME scores. :idea:

I finished FA 2 reads by mid may; and also did all the old NBMEs (for questions)
The old NBMEs (offline) were quite easy (as has been mentioned in SDN many times) and I was scoring in the higher 250 range (using the 1.4 multiplication)..
then i moved onto the online NBMEs left:

NBME 7: 252
NBME 13: 248
NBME 15: 245

with 1 week remaining, I went through FA again... I left the UWSAs and Free 150 for the end because i knew they were over-predictors and I knew a boost in my confidence towards the end would help.

UWSA 1: 259
UWSA 2: 248 (i totally lost it during the 2nd block cos it was much tougher than what I expected from reading SDN and kinda gave up) 🙁
Free 150: 92%

I tend to study best on the eve of exams. I went through all the questions I got incorrect (all the NBMEs, UWSAs and Free 150) with self noted explanations on the eve. I also went through around 200 questions in uworld i had made annotations for. I had also written down volatile topics to review (like mechanisms of resistance, AIDS opportunistic infections, vaccines etc) I usually pull all nighters, but was not ballsy enough to do so on the eve of an 8 hour exam! ...

EXAM ON 06/03

The exam was not easy.
Even though I never ran out of time during practice exams; I barely had enough time to look through marked questions at the end of each block and for one block I ran out of time while reviewing my last marked question.
I barely took any breaks, cos I did not want to lose momentum. I guess this depends on what sort of test taker you are... I took 2 minutes after block 1,2 and 3; and 5-7 minutes after block 4,5 and 6... I had about half hour break time left at the end of the exam. 😀

the questions were 60% NBME difficulty; 30% Uworld difficulty and the rest were WTF.
Unlike most questions in the practice exams which were 2 questions rolled into one (one being the diagnosis and the second real question being something about the particular disease), i felt the questions in the real exam were mostly 3 questions rolled into one (one being the diagnosis, second being something about the disease and third being the real question about that something). I dunno if that makes sense :eyebrow:

My exam was 60% hemat oncology!!! i know that is hard to believe, but the biochem, pharmac, physio and anat questions all had either hemat or onco settings! there were only around 10 neuro questions, lots of tables arrow up/down questions (which take forever for me), heavy on micro/immuno, less pharmac, around 3-4 questions per block with some image (ct/histo/x-ray,lesion,stain) lots and lots of patho. the behavioural science questions were all WTF. all the options seemed completely plausible and this was a shocker for me cos I normally did well on ethics questions.

as soon as i walked out, i thought the exam was ok-ok but as weeks have passed i had been doubting whether i would a get a 220... i sat and wrote down all the questions and reviewed entire FA again to calculate how many mistakes I made (OCD - I know). i got down to around 200 questions and 13 wrong. but im sure i must've gotten more like around 30 wrong since i had marked around 6 per block.

so final score: 249. 😀

i know it isnt a 260+ to rant on about... but i was aiming for a 240+ and am uber happy...
hope this was helpful! 😎
Click to expand...
Awesome write-up! Very helpful. Thank you!
 
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paul411 said:
Just took it on the Thursday, Jun 13th (and hit up Vegas immediately after, hence the delay). I was expecting the real exam to be significantly harder than anything I had seen, so I didn't walk out feeling too horrible.

The real deal felt like UWorld with a few questions per block that came out of left field (mostly anatomy).The NBME's felt too easy and shorter in length compared to the real thing.

Jan - Apr: Slow first pass through First Aid (3-5h/d)
Mar 18: CBSE - 205 (73) - baseline
Apr 1 - Picmonic
Apr 15 - May 7: DIT (22d)
May 1: NBME 11 - 247 (610)
May 16: NBME 15 - 254 (640)
May 24: NBME 12 - 259 (660)
May 30: NBME 13 - 259 (660)
Jun 3: NBME 6 - 259 (660)
Jun 5: NBME 7 - 257 (650) BOOOO!
Last week: Partial pass through FA and 1.5 passes through Pathoma
Jun 13: Step 1

First pass through Uworld: 78%
Last 10 Uworld blocks: 85%

I was ready to take the test a week before my test date and I was somewhat burnt out. I was originally planning to do a final pass through FA in the last week but I was so tired of it that I just couldn't read it anymore. Instead, I decided to read Pathoma again. It was incredible. After finally having a relativel solid knowledge base, Pathoma really brought a lot of concepts together.

Picmonic - This was the real gem in my Step 1 prep! I am particularly weak at memorizing random information, so micro was my lowest score on the CBSE (Mar 18). I went hard on Picmonic and learned them well (takes a surprisingly short amount of time). I made sure I could recreate the pictures from memory and I started appreciating the stories as a solid memory tool. By the next NBME, micro was literally my best section... I realized that Picmonic was the best resource I had because it took so little time compared to how well I remembered the material. It was the only material I felt that I knew a 100% for sure. I started doing all the Picmonics (~350) and by the end I had finished at least 5 complete passes through Picmonic. Another way it helped was that it taught me how to make effective mnemonics for other things. I bought a tablet with a stylus just for drawing mnemonics and I memorized all the random neuro/psych drugs and strokes using Picmonic style mnemonics I made up.

UWorld - I started off in the high 60s and eventually got to high 80s towards the end. It was nice to see the progress. I spent a lot of time reviewing each test and writing down a page of notes on each test (side note: OneNote is a total boss for organizing study materials). I also screenshotted the pictures or found comparable pictures from other path sources so that by the end I had a solid collection on pictures with notes to review at the end. In the last few weeks, I went over a few test notes and pictures a day. It would take ~15mins a day and it was really high yield stuff. I also used the OneNote to-do tag feature to keep track of things I knew for sure so I wouldn't waste time reviewing them over and over. In the final week, I used a OneNote feature that lets you generate pages on notes that weren't checked off to help me go over all the things I wanted to review again.

I thought the NBMEs were deceptive in mirroring the difficulty of the exam... but apparently they're good score predictors. I was paranoid I was forgetting things after each exam, so I kept taking them to reassure myself.

DIT - mostly a waste of time. I stuck with it anyways because I was doing it with a study partner. On the plus side, it does force you to review most of FA once. My recommendation is strongly against purchasing it. $700 is NOT worth the structure it provides. And the lecturers are really annoying.

Pathoma - the best pathology resource. Dr. Sattar is the best lecturer I have encountered.

Bottom line:
Must-use resources:
  • First Aid
  • Pathoma
  • Picmonic
  • UWorld

Good Resources I didn't fully get to use, but I would use if I did it all over again:
  • USMLE Step 1 Secrets
  • USMLERx QBank
  • HY Anatomy and HY Neuroanatomy

Bad Resources I used that I wish I didn't:
  • Kaplan QBank (school gave us a 1yr subscription - I only did about 300 Q's)
  • Doctors in Training (DIT)

Hoping to break that 260 :xf:
Click to expand...

Final score: 263!!!!!

I'm so glad to be done with this beast.
 
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Score just came back...I'm in utter awe ladies and gents.

Score history:

NBME 5 (12/14/12): 179
UWSA 1 (3/17/13): 214
NBME 11 (4/20/13): 200
NBME 13 (5/10/13): 228
NBME 15 (5/17/13): 240

UWorld %: ~67%

Real Deal (5/24/13): 242

I started my prep by doing UWorld questions (untimed, tutor mode) and reading FA applicable to each part of my 2nd year curriculum, then really ramped up review with a dedicated study schedule for the month before taking the exam. Used a combo of UWorld, FA, Goljan and Goljan audio. Got through all audio lectures, about half of Goljan (realized I should be spending more time with FA about halfway through the month-long period), Uworld 1.5x, and FA 2x.

I am overjoyed right now. With that NBME 11 score 1 month out, I knew that hitting a more desirable target score would not be easy, but it just goes to show that hard work and dedication most definitely pay off. Good luck to everyone else getting scores back today! :luck:
 
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My score is up.Checked the website at 11:10 AM EST, didn't get the email yet. I took it mid-June. I don't think I'll post my score but it was several points higher than NBME 15 which I took 3 days before the real test.
 
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SO do we get an email when our scores are available to be checked??? Thought I would have gotten something by now. Also, I heard that schools generally get the scores first-true?
 
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Question regarding score report:

Just to make sure, it's the PDF right? And the 2 boxes? The top one says Pass and the bottom one is the one that contains your score, right? Just want to make sure I'm reading this correctly and that it's my actual score. Thanks!
 
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Thanks for all your helpful posts everyone! Though I would add my numbers because I know I liked going through last years to get a feel for where I was at:

Materials used: Pathoma x2, FAx3, Kaplan Qbank, ~2,000 Lange questions, DIT, Uworld

NBME 15: 226- 6 weeks out
NBME 7: 238- 4 weeks out
NBME 11: 242- 3 weeks out
NBME 12: 257- 1 week out
UWORLD: 76%- first pass, timed random

USMLE: 249
COMLEX: 667

I felt pretty good walking out of my exam and was hoping to break 250. I marked an average of 9 questions per section and usually miss just under half of those. My last NBME got my hopes up for a 255+ score, but I have no complaints. I hope everyone is happy with their scores! Message me with any questions.
 
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Thanks all for your great posts! Definitely helped keep me sane during studying. Thought I'd throw in my stats because reading everyone else's was so helpful.

Studied for 6 weeks, averaging about 10 hrs a day.
During the school year I read through big Robbins once, Pathoma 1-1.5x depending on the section, and skimmed through the pathology section of each organ segment of FA. Did maybe 500 questions of UWorld randomly throughout the year

Weeks 1-2: read through basic sciences of FA + 3-4 blocks of Uworld/day
Week 3: read through systems of FA + 5-6 blocks of Uworld/day
UWSA 1 (4 weeks out): 244 (620)
NBME 15 (4 weeksout): 221 (500)
UWorld Pass I: 63%
Weeks 3-6: re-read systems of FA + pathoma + 5-10 blocks of Uworld/day
NBME 6 (3 weeks out): 217 (480) - this one made me cry/useless for the rest of the day
NBME 11 (2.5 weeks): 245 (600)
NBME 12 (1.5 weeks): 228 (530) - seriously considered pushing back my test...
NBME 13 (1 week out): 247 (610)
UWSA II (5 days out): 256 (700)
UWorld Pass II: 83%

Took the test on 6/21 - don't remember much from the test except that it was TERRIBLE. Basically wanted to cry for the first 3 blocks. Was marking about 20 questions/block during the first 3 and 10-15 during the last 4 blocks. Honestly thought I was going to fail. It felt like I was just cold guessing/gut-instincting my way through. One thing I'm really glad I did after being whammed by the first 3 blocks was just take a giant 45 minute break. No studying. Just sat in my car and ate lunch and listened to music.

Real deal: 256 (WOHOOOOOOO! Had to double check that it was my score report like 5 times. Try not to be too thrown by how you felt post-exam!)

Thanks again all! Reading through all these posts helped me so much!
 
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NBME 6-240 (3 months out)
NBME 15- 257 (1 month out)
NBME 13- 261 (1 week out)
UWSA1 & 2 265 (btwn 1 & 3 months out)
UWorld 78% first pass timed random
Just a bit of FA, definitely not all of it. That's pretty much it.

Real deal 6/17- 258

Pretty happy really. Best of luck all! I can't believe the wait is over🙂
 
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Throwsheat313 said:
Wow that was quite a trip... Took the beast today. Overall, I'd say it was pretty fair. Not gonna lie, some of the comments on this thread made my stomach turn last night lol, so I was pretty nervous at the start of this thing. After the first block though, I hit a rhythm. I have no idea how I did, but I don't feel as bad as I thought I would. I can't give specifics, but here's a general breakdown for those curious:

Neuro: HUGE on my exam... Brainstems, CN lesions, strokes, anatomy you name it... Got a LOT of neuro. I skimmed through HY neuro before the exam (looked at the slices) and it helped a lot. Still very tricky though, and I'm sure I made some dumb mistakes. Know this cold.

MSK: A few brachial plexus questions, nothing major. Minimal physio, which was surprising. A few major diseases, but the presentations were obvious.

Cardio: Not very prominent... I had like 1 pharm question, and a few murmurs. The media questions weren't bad (I had 2 of them). Loved how cool it was to move the stethoscope around. The sound quality is great (unlike uworld) so don't worry about that.

Pulm: A few pharm, lots of physio, and some path. Overall not terrible. Know how to interpret chest xrays though... Got a bunch of tricky ones.

GI: Straightforward... There was a tough anatomy question, but I think I guessed correctly on it. Not sure. The physio was cake, and I had one or two pathology questions, one of which had a picture directly from an nbme, so definitely review those.

Biochem: Lots of pedigrees, a couple of diseases, 1-2 pathways, overall doable if you know FA. Genetics was pretty big on my exam too, so go over your basic genetics concepts. They like to try to make a simple concept very intimidating by giving you a huge experiment with lots of figures. Just remember, they're testing a basic concept.

Pharm: Lots of pharm... Not just drug mechs, but also basic pharm principles. I was surprised to see so much of it. Know the concepts well because they WILL try to trick you and make a seemingly easy concept difficult. I had to work through some very tough ones for sure.

Micro: Directly from FA. Didn't need more than that. Pretty classic presentations. LOTS of viruses. Luckily I reread that section a few days before the exam... If I hadn't, I would've been in much worse shape.

Behavioral/Biostat: Ethics questions were much more straightforward than the nbmes. I struggled with some of those on the practice exams, but most of the situations were pretty self-explanatory. Looking back, I was way more worried than I should've been. Biostat was easy. Literally, they give you the 4x4 table and say to calculate something. Easy points.

Pathology: Lots of it. Period. Almost every question involved it in some way. One hard histology one where they didn't give much info in the question stem. Not sure if I got it right because I suck at histo lol. Overall though, if you have a good grasp of the various diseases, classic presentations, pathophysiology, etc. you'll be ok.

Renal: Lots of physiology. Minimal pharm and pathology, but definitely know your physio cold. Got some very specific questions here that I had to mark and come back to because they involved a lot of thought/reasoning.


Overall, I agree with most of the posts that say pathology, pathophysiology and physiology are hugely emphasized on this exam. You have to be able to make quick diagnoses and reason through things even if they try to trick you (and trust me, they will).

Some general advice: Pace yourself. It's a LONG exam. I was crashing after the 5th block, but luckily got my second wind in the 6th and 7th blocks (thanks to a thermos of strong coffee I had with me). Also, don't be afraid to mark questions, especially for easy calculations. You don't want to make a dumb mistake!

My prep included the usual:

FA (obviously)
GT (aka Firecracker)... Loved this program... I owe a lot to them.
Uworld x2
Kaplan x1
Rx x1

Here are some of my practice scores (for reference):

NBME 5 (4/20): 210 (online diagnostic before devoted time)

NOTE: NBME 1-3 were offline, so I took these scores with a grain of salt:
NBME 1 (5/10): ~227 (offline)
NBME 2 (5/12): ~232 (offline)
NBME 3 (5/14); ~230 (offline)
<skipped NBME 4 because I couldn't find the offline version without answers in it>

UWSA1 (5/18): 250
UWSA2 (5/20): 244
NBME 6 (5/22): 221 (wtf?!)
NBME 7 (5/24): 231
NBME 13 (5/26): 240
NBME 12 (5/28): 240
NBME 11 (5/30): 247
NBME 15 (6/1): 250
Free 150 (6/3): 90% (260 according to medfriends... Yeah right)


Real Deal (6/5/13): ?????


I'll check back in a few weeks when I get my score... Hopefully positive results! Good luck to everyone taking it soon... You'll be fine. Just be confident in what you know, and you'll be able to tackle this monster.
Click to expand...


Final Score: 244

NBME 15 got my hopes up a bit, but overall I'm extremely happy! Not high by sdn standards, but given how many dumb mistakes I thought I made as time went on, I certainly can't complain!

Good luck to everyone else getting their scores today :luck:
 
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PlayUltimate15 said:
Just ending an IM night float shift. Hoping to sleep after morning report until 11ish and then wake up to my score. Took my exam June 17.

NBME 12 (5 weeks out) - 210
NBME 15 (3 days out) - 245

UWorld x2, Kaplan Qbank x1, Pathoma more times than I can remember, BRS Phys, Goljan etc.

Hoping for < 220, but I know the world will go on spinning even if I blew it. Best wishes to everyone getting scores tomorrow!
Click to expand...

Real Deal - 252

It doesn't feel real. I'm in shock because I felt terrible leaving the testing center and because my practice score a month out was a 210. Plus, I was a below average medical school candidate to begin with (3.3/28) and knew that I would need to change my study habits if I wanted to perform well on Step 1. I'll post a longer write-up later about how I prepared for the exam.

Congrats to everyone.
 
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I read this thread a lot and have not really ever contributed, but I wanted to just post my stats and my score

UWorld (first pass/timed/random) - 73%
NBME11 (2 weeks before) - 238
UWSE1 (2 weeks before) - 236
NBME15 (1 week before) - 258
UWSE2 (4 days before) - 262

I basically used First Aid, Goljan Audio (I took detailed notes while listening even though he says not to), Pathoma lectures, BRS Physio, and UWorld (detailed notes on every question, even if I got them right)

Actual Exam (6/15/2013) - 250

My exam was very anatomy heavy and I was really afraid that that ruined my score, but in most cases you will do very close to how you did on your practice NBMEs (My score is half-way in between the two NBMEs I did). When I came out of the exam I remembered at least 20 questions I was unsure of and got at least 10 of those wrong so I was freaking out that I got a lot more wrong than on any of my practices.

Overall I am extremely happy and even more so relieved that this whole process is done...for now.

Good luck to all those waiting and taking the exam soon!
 
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UWSA1 - 1 week out - 235
UWSA2 - 1 week out - 232
NBME 13 - 4 days out - 225
NBME 15 - 3 days out - 224

Actual - 208

I'm at an utter loss of words... I can't believe of all times to choke I did it on the big one... I'm disgusted and embarrassed and depressed. This all has to be a terrible dream..
 
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Jmoosec2 said:
UWSA1 - 1 week out - 235
UWSA2 - 1 week out - 232
NBME 13 - 4 days out - 225
NBME 15 - 3 days out - 224

Actual - 208

I'm at an utter loss of words... I can't believe of all times to choke I did it on the big one... I'm disgusted and embarrassed and depressed. This all has to be a terrible dream..
Click to expand...
Keep your head up! You passed by a wide margin. You have Step 2 still. You will be 100% fine. A girl from my school matched into a very good university anesthesia program with a 205! I know it sucks, but in the long run you won't even remember your score!
 
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sleepisoptional said:
Hey all, took the test today and figured I should type up my study plan before I forget it along with all the Step factoids in the next couple of hours. I agree with Ursa that the test distribution was nothing like what people earlier this week had. I felt it was very comprehensive with 2 really tough blocks (and by tough I mean content that I could not have prepared for no matter how much more I studied). Based on feeling alone I hope that I made around 240, but would not be surprised if it was lower depending on the curve.

UWSA1: 228
NBME 13: 230
UWSA2: 238
NBME 15: 247 (2 wks before test)

I used started Kaplan Qbank during the M2 year and finished it in January. Moved onto USMLE Rx and finished in May. Got a 2 month UWorld subscription and finished that this past Monday. I did a little bit of Pathoma and DIT but I do not feel that they helped prepare me for the test. They were a nice way to take a break from doing Qs or trying to read FA. Basically I made 3 passes through FA. 1st pass: last week of April (5 days total) of casually reading through to see what was in it. 2nd pass: 3 weeks (went through did USMLE Rx Subject based Tutor mode till exhausted then switched to UWorld Random tutor) After taking the test timing was never really an issue b/c I usually finished with about 15-20 min to pull my hair out about the questions I had no idea or could not choose between 2. 3rd pass: last week of May (read 100 pgs of FA every day writing down all the stuff I did not know cold in a separate notebook that never really got completely review...) Last week of studying: reviewed Pharm, Micro, Immuno, Biochem and tried to get through the incorrect in UWorld (~600 Qs never got to all of them).

All in all I'm pretty happy about being able to study for this long w/o losing focus. I would say do less Pathoma, but I know that I probably would not have followed that advice. Please let me know if you have any questions. I'll probably check this for a couple days before coming back during Step 2 studying.

Good luck!!
Click to expand...

248. NBME 15 hit it pretty close. Happy that the wait is over. In retrospect could have spent the last 2 weeks of study more wisely, because I felt like I lost steam towards the end. I was weak in TMSK on 15 and did not address that. Step 1 report agreed with that...

Best of luck to those who still have yet to take it!
 
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