Official 2014 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Ionian said:
No. I did each systems block during MS2 multiple times. And the whole bank again completely 2x after.

You're really frustrated at yourself.

Don't act like there aren't a couple of crappy question in each NBME you take, or will be a few bad questions on Step, looking at it that way, Rx is still good practice.

After going through 100% of the bank, I realize only 4-5% of the questions were poorly written or had mistakes.
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Shut up.
 
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wonderbread12 said:
How long does it take you guys to review one block of UWorld?
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It really depends on 1. how well you know the material and 2. what you are using UWorld for. For example, I spent ~1h 45min taking a UWorld block (45mins) and annotations (1h) my first time around. However, on my 2nd pass through my annotations have already been...annotated, so unless I'm guessing/missing a question (I'll usually get ~2-3 wrong/set, and I will thoroughly read the explanations and add annotations if necessary) there is relatively little for me to do.
 
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wonderbread12 said:
How long does it take you guys to review one block of UWorld?
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I probably took ~3h per block when I went through initially because I would read the entire explanation and either annotate it into First Aid or a separate notes sheet. Now that I'm going over my wrong/marked questions, it takes a lot less time because I know most of them off the bat and don't even bother reading the full explanation unless I am unsure of something.

Every person is going to do it a little differently. Some people prefer tutor mode while others do only timed. I liked doing random blocks of questions, but a friend did all of the blocks by subject. As long as you learn the material it probably doesn't matter too much in the long run.
 
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Matteo said:
It really depends on 1. how well you know the material and 2. what you are using UWorld for. For example, I spent ~1h 45min taking a UWorld block (45mins) and annotations (1h) my first time around. However, on my 2nd pass through my annotations have already been...annotated, so unless I'm guessing/missing a question (I'll usually get ~2-3 wrong/set, and I will thoroughly read the explanations and add annotations if necessary) there is relatively little for me to do.
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penguinism said:
I probably took ~3h per block when I went through initially because I would read the entire explanation and either annotate it into First Aid or a separate notes sheet. Now that I'm going over my wrong/marked questions, it takes a lot less time because I know most of them off the bat and don't even bother reading the full explanation unless I am unsure of something.

Every person is going to do it a little differently. Some people prefer tutor mode while others do only timed. I liked doing random blocks of questions, but a friend did all of the blocks by subject. As long as you learn the material it probably doesn't matter too much in the long run.
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Thank you both, I appreciate the responses!
 
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Dharma said:
Nope. It's been a great way to get through FA before the UWorld run.
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I agree with this too. Rx was very specific and the explanations are nowhere near as thorough as UWorld, but it helped me get acclimated to the material and understand what kinds of questions could be asked. When I started UWorld, I didn't find it to be as challenging as some of my friends who jumped right into it.

On the downside, I am now in a time crunch to finish going over my marked questions. If I could do the last few months over, I probably would have started going through Rx earlier and paid less attention to my last couple blocks of classes. Oh well, though!
 
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penguinism said:
I agree with this too. Rx was very specific and the explanations are nowhere near as thorough as UWorld, but it helped me get acclimated to the material and understand what kinds of questions could be asked. When I started UWorld, I didn't find it to be as challenging as some of my friends who jumped right into it.

On the downside, I am now in a time crunch to finish going over my marked questions. If I could do the last few months over, I probably would have started going through Rx earlier and paid less attention to my last couple blocks of classes. Oh well, though!
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How much more time do you have? Are you only going over marked/wrong questions at this point? (I ask because I notice myself taking way too long review answer/explanations).
 
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Rx and Kaplan are completely ancillary imo. Don't feel bad for ditching them, I did and it was probably the best decision I made in my prep. You can reach ~250-260 with just UW x1-2, pounding FA, Pathoma and NBMEs. Everything else is just fluff.
 
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Let's play predict my score!

school NBME: 190 late january
NBME 7 - 226 on 3/16
NBME 13 - 239 on 3/23
NBME 15 - 232 on 3/30
NBME 11 - 245 on 4/2
UW 1 - 259 on 4/6
NBME 12 - 251 on 4/10
NBME 16 - 251 on 4/15
UW 2 - 252 on 4/17

that's a plateau if I ever saw one...
 
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Dharma said:
How much more time do you have? Are you only going over marked/wrong questions at this point? (I ask because I notice myself taking way too long review answer/explanations).
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Umm…2 days lol. So yep mostly review at this point. If I don't know it by now, it's probably not gonna happen (save the last minute cramming of some formulas/random crap I forgot).

I'm aiming 240+ on the real thing.
It'd be around a 20 pt drop from UWSA2, so hopefully it didn't overestimate more than that!
 
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swoopyswoop said:
Let's play predict my score!

school NBME: 190 late january
NBME 7 - 226 on 3/16
NBME 13 - 239 on 3/23
NBME 15 - 232 on 3/30
NBME 11 - 245 on 4/2
UW 1 - 259 on 4/6
NBME 12 - 251 on 4/10
NBME 16 - 251 on 4/15
UW 2 - 252 on 4/17

that's a plateau if I ever saw one...
Click to expand...

250-255
 
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penguinism said:
Umm…2 days lol. So yep mostly review at this point. If I don't know it by now, it's probably not gonna happen (save the last minute cramming of some formulas/random crap I forgot).

I'm aiming 240+ on the real thing.
It'd be around a 20 pt drop from UWSA2, so hopefully it didn't overestimate more than that!
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Right on! Good luck!!! Be confident!
 
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swoopyswoop said:
Let's play predict my score!

school NBME: 190 late january
NBME 7 - 226 on 3/16
NBME 13 - 239 on 3/23
NBME 15 - 232 on 3/30
NBME 11 - 245 on 4/2
UW 1 - 259 on 4/6
NBME 12 - 251 on 4/10
NBME 16 - 251 on 4/15
UW 2 - 252 on 4/17

that's a plateau if I ever saw one...
Click to expand...

great scores! you'll do amazingly!

penguinism said:
Umm…2 days lol. So yep mostly review at this point. If I don't know it by now, it's probably not gonna happen (save the last minute cramming of some formulas/random crap I forgot).

I'm aiming 240+ on the real thing.
It'd be around a 20 pt drop from UWSA2, so hopefully it didn't overestimate more than that!
Click to expand...

Good Luck to both of ya guys! T-minus 2 weeks for me!
 
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Just annotate Uworld directly into Cerego, Anki, Quizlet etc. Once I started doing this and stopped writing out the notes by hand into a separate notebook I saved a ton of time. Plus it makes for more efficient review since those algorithms know which facts you need to review and which ones you can skip.
 
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ArmyTiger said:
Stopped doing them after I was about 20% through Uworld. Questions were poorly written, and on every block, there were 3-5 that had really low yield answers.
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Rx is just like FA, anything in there is high yield. I've seen at least 2-3 questions from the Qbank that came up word for word on an NBME and probably the same number on several shelf exams.

Sure, it may not look high yield when you get the question wrong, but when you see it again on an NBME or shelf or CBSE, then you'll change your tune.

The best thing about Rx is that it forces you to read a different style of questions than Uworld. Once you know how Uworld asks you questions, you can get several more questions right that you had no business getting right. When that same concept pops up in Rx, you can't fall back on that crutch.
 
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There is no doubt that Rx is filled with high yield facts, I don't think anyone disputes that. I also don't dispute that it's a worthwhile learning tool. However, I do believe that many of the questions are poorly crafted and written in a misleading manner. They're not good questions, but they have value.
 
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WilliamsEph said:
Just annotate Uworld directly into Cerego, Anki, Quizlet etc. Once I started doing this and stopped writing out the notes by hand into a separate notebook I saved a ton of time. Plus it makes for more efficient review since those algorithms know which facts you need to review and which ones you can skip.
Click to expand...

In a similar fashion, I kept a running document of concepts organized by subject so that I could tie info from similar questions together in my brain. Since I did my questions mostly in random blocks, I thought this was beneficial for me. If two questions talked about EBV, for example, I just added a line underneath my previous note about EBV.
 
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I'm taking my exam in less than a week, yet I feel like I don't know anything / my brain is fried... I know this is normal, but its just so annoying and makes me feel so insecure blah
 
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Yep, although everyone says to trust NBME predictions, I always felt like I was one bad streak of questions away from dropping 10 points.
 
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RandomHero117 said:
There is no doubt that Rx is filled with high yield facts, I don't think anyone disputes that. I also don't dispute that it's a worthwhile learning tool. However, I do believe that many of the questions are poorly crafted and written in a misleading manner. They're not good questions, but they have value.
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I agree with you 100%. They go over the concepts well but there are far too many poorly worded questions
 
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Coffee Machine said:
So I'm about 8.5 weeks out. Up to this point I've spent the majority of my time reviewing and not doing questions, and even that fell off in the last two weeks or so because of some research stuff I had to attend to.

I'm around 35% complete with Rx and am consistently scoring 63%. I plan on completing Rx over the next two weeks or so. Finals start at the end of next week and will go for two weeks. I'll have a month of dedicated study time.

My question is, should I try and cram Kaplan into this? Hoping to blaze through it in a couple of weeks and start on UWorld beginning day 1 of dedicated time. Or should I just skip Kaplan and use the rest of my time to go over UWorld, re-read FA, etc. I'm shooting for >240.
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Wrap up Rx if u can but once that dedicated time comes ditch it and go UWorld either way. Some may say do that ASAP, i.e. now. I don't think Kaplan needs to fit into this mix but that's just my 2c. Time is tight!!!
 
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At the risk of asking the most basic of elementary questions for you stomp stepping rock star gangsters of nerdom out there (and that's a legitimate compliment btw), when you mention "a pass through FA" how are you tackling this pass? ("Pass" sounds much less aggressive than I'd imagine the average SDNer traverses the territory). Are you setting aside time outside of Qbanks (including explanations/annotations) to sit down and knock out some good ole read and memorize time? If so, about how much time do you dedicate to this raw read (per day, week, whatever your choice of time increment may be)? I lean more towards questions and jumping into memorizing when presented the opportunity during explanations (of all answer choices) but the gut feeling says there is no tip-toeing around the mundane dance of monotonous memorization. What's ur method, man?
 
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swoopyswoop said:
Let's play predict my score!

school NBME: 190 late january
NBME 7 - 226 on 3/16
NBME 13 - 239 on 3/23
NBME 15 - 232 on 3/30
NBME 11 - 245 on 4/2
UW 1 - 259 on 4/6
NBME 12 - 251 on 4/10
NBME 16 - 251 on 4/15
UW 2 - 252 on 4/17

that's a plateau if I ever saw one...
Click to expand...
245 and above
 
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Dharma said:
At the risk of asking the most basic of elementary questions for you stomp stepping rock star gangsters of nerdom out there (and that's a legitimate compliment btw), when you mention "a pass through FA" how are you tackling this pass? ("Pass" sounds much less aggressive than I'd imagine the average SDNer traverses the territory). Are you setting aside time outside of Qbanks (including explanations/annotations) to sit down and knock out some good ole read and memorize time? If so, about how much time do you dedicate to this raw read (per day, week, whatever your choice of time increment may be)? I lean more towards questions and jumping into memorizing when presented the opportunity during explanations (of all answer choices) but the gut feeling says there is no tip-toeing around the mundane dance of monotonous memorization. What's ur method, man?
Click to expand...
I like the idea of doing a first pass that is more down and dirty--i.e. quick with not a lot of time trying to drill in every topic. Just familiarize yourself with it the scope of the subject matter and remind yourself of all the stuff you've forgotten. The 2nd pass (and onward) should be more about drilling in the topics and facts you know you're weak on. I'm a fan of anki, so that's my method of learning most things that heavy on memorization.

However you decide to go through it, I think you have the right idea that questions take priority. I would recommend trying to spend like 6-8 hours day doing/reviewing questions and 2-4 hours getting through FA. I don't like the idea of taking a week or two off of questions to just learn FA.
 
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Donald Juan said:
I like the idea of doing a first pass that is more down and dirty--i.e. quick with not a lot of time trying to drill in every topic. Just familiarize yourself with it the scope of the subject matter and remind yourself of all the stuff you've forgotten. The 2nd pass (and onward) should be more about drilling in the topics and facts you know you're weak on. I'm a fan of anki, so that's my method of learning most things that heavy on memorization.

However you decide to go through it, I think you have the right idea that questions take priority. I would recommend trying to spend like 6-8 hours day doing/reviewing questions and 2-4 hours getting through FA. I don't like the idea of taking a week or two off of questions to just learn FA.
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Pimping name! And thanks for the advice smooth operator! I've been guilty of wishful thinking, neglecting the inevitable drill time. I can stomach the small yet frequent dosing you prescribe though. Cheers!
 
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Just took the free 150 NBME q's and ended up with a 87%.

How does it compare to the NBME numbered exams? I'm considering taking my first one this weekend. I'll only have a few weeks of dedicated study so I was thinking of starting with 13.
 
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001100010010011 said:
Just took the free 150 NBME q's and ended up with a 87%.

How does it compare to the NBME numbered exams? I'm considering taking my first one this weekend. I'll only have a few weeks of dedicated study so I was thinking of starting with 13.
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the free 150 is considerably easer. however, 87% is a pretty solid score to get on it.
 
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So for me, the NBMEs weren't totally predictive...I started doing one a week before my exam and scored: 221, 226, 234, 226, 237. UWSA#1 = 228, UWSA#2 = 244. Uworld avg was 62%. Free 100 = 86% 2 days before. The real exam felt easier than NBME's and Uworld. I had about 10 minutes to review each section. Ended up with a 225.
Feel slightly disappointed because was scoring higher on NBMEs. Not sure if maybe I had an "easier" exam and had to get more questions right. Hoping that a 225 is good enough for primary care (ie. FM, IM, peds) with a higher Step 2 score. Any insights welcome.
 
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i have looked up so many wrong Qs! including one i changed from correct to incorrect 🙁
also had a drug Q I've legit never heard of.
 
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I am two weeks away from my step one and my NBME scores suck; they are around 198. What I don't understand is that I am getting around 70 percent on my second pass of UWorld (which according to online sources should be 230+ on my real test). What is wrong? Why is it not translating over? Need some advice...

Mike.
 
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