Official 2014 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Does anyone see this trend every year, were the people who take the exam in like Feb/march/April get really hard weird biochem/research related forms?

Which then seem to normalize come may/june? Like easier forms/and repeat question, and less wtfs?

Or am I just crazy.
 
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Got my score today. Started with 182 on practice, 7 weeks later, scored a 260!

I go to a US medical school. .

Part 1: 2/21/14 NBME 15 -> 182 (192 needed to pass)

-My score freaked me out because a I heard alot of people were able to pass and I was not 🙁 .

-1 pass through FA from one organ to the next

-1 pass through Pathoma

-4-5 blocks of 20 uworld tutored questions each day mixed every couple hours to change the pace of what I was doing. and ended up finishing all of it by the time the 2nd assessment came around.

-Started with microcards for gram +/- but then dropped it altogether and just to UWorlds/FA organisms

Part 2: 3/22/14 NBME 16 ->240

-This test was super hard but I'm content with my score. I would like to do better.

-2nd pass through FA from one organ to next; Skipped over stuff I knew very well.

-2nd pass through Pathoma

-Spot review drugs from disciplines

-Memorized all the stupid equations that will be on test

-Uworld 5-10 blocks of 10-20 qs tutored each day

Part 3: 3/29/14 UWSA 1 -> 261

-Very impressed with my score but heard UWSA can overestimate

-Continued with 2nd pass through FA/Pathoma

-Looked at some high yield notes from my professors

-Spot review drugs from different displicines

-Uworld 5-10 blocks of 10-20 qs tutored each day

Part 4: 4/04/14 NBME 13 -> 260, 4/05/14 UWSA 2 -> 264

-Consistency is a good thing I hope!

-Finished 2nd pass through First Aid

Part 5: About 1.5 weeks from test

-REDID uworld 2nd run through to be in test taking mode
-No more practice exams
-Spot reviewed random sections in First Aid
-Went through all drugs a couple days before test
-Looked at rapid review (not that helpful)
-Made sure I memorized all equations

Test Day

-Test was completely different than UWSA and NBMEs. Alot harder.
-Also had some GI issues that morning coupled with anxiety made me rush the first 2 sections
-Came out thinking I did like **** and realized I made a bunch of stupid mistakes

Finale: Score on real deal: 260! 🙂
Complete surprise from how I felt on test day.
 
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Can anyone who scored 260+ comment on an estimate of the curve?

On these NBME's you can only miss about 20/322 (about 94%; extrapolated from 200) to get 260+. Estimating from the ones you know you messed up on combined with ones you may have misinterpreted or erroneously thought you knew, does this curve seem roughly the same as the one applied to the real deal? In other words, is it possible you only missed 20 Q's on the real deal, or not?
 
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how was it different from UWSA's and NBMEs? Did you get crazy ethics q's or were they similar to UW (the nbme ones seem easier than UW, at least IMO)>? Congrats!!!
 
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kirbymiester said:
Can anyone who scored 260+ comment on an estimate of the curve?

On these NBME's you can only miss about 20/322 (about 94%; extrapolated from 200) to get 260+. Estimating from the ones you know you messed up on combined with ones you may have misinterpreted or erroneously thought you knew, does this curve seem roughly the same as the one applied to the real deal? In other words, is it possible you only missed 20 Q's on the real deal, or not?
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yeah so...if you missed only 20 q's that's like 3 q's on avg per sections...i'm wondering how UWSA and NBME's actually extrapolate your "estimated score" they give you b/c missing a lot more than 3 q's (more like missing like 8-13 per section) somehow still gives a 250. I guess they must assume you miss no questions if given 4more sections?
 
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1dayatatime said:
yeah so...if you missed only 20 q's that's like 3 q's on avg per sections...i'm wondering how UWSA and NBME's actually extrapolate your "estimated score" they give you b/c missing a lot more than 3 q's (more like missing like 8-13 per section) somehow still gives a 250. I guess they must assume you miss no questions if given 4more sections?
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Well what's weird is 250 is about 90% on NBME's (4-5Q/block). I think you're thinking of the UWSA's where you can get that many wrong. It would be nice if the curve were more like UWSA's.
 
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kirbymiester said:
Well what's weird is 250 is about 90% on NBME's (4-5Q/block). I think you're thinking of the UWSA's where you can get that many wrong. It would be nice if the curve were more like UWSA's.
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My guess based on people's posted experience is that the real exam is more like the uworld scoring. Being 7 blocks in a controlled, stressful environment people are bound to make more stupid mistakes than sitting at your computer taking 4. Obviously it depends on how "easy" your form comes out to be. But I think people overthink it. 95% of the time the NBME scores predict within a pretty accurate range your score. If you're doing well now and you don't freak out, you'll do well on the exam. Sitting around coming up with obscure formulas and trying to determine how many you can get wrong to get a 260 won't change ****.
 
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Update on my Step 1 journey. UW, Kaplan qBank, Pathoma, FA 2012. 5wks dedicated study period but preliminary study throughout last 1/2 of MSII.

NBME 7 - 6wks - 228
NBME 11 - 5wks - 251
NBME 12 - 4wks - 251
UWSA 1 - 4wks - 262
School CBSE - 3wks - 260+
UWSA 2 - 3wks - 264
NBME 15 - 2wks - 266
NBME 16 - 5days - 254
NBME 13 - 3days - 256
Step 1: 261

Hope this helps. Happy to answer any qs. Cheers.
 
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Rirruto said:
Update on my Step 1 journey. UW, Kaplan qBank, Pathoma, FA 2012. 5wks dedicated study period but preliminary study throughout last 1/2 of MSII.

NBME 7 - 6wks - 228
NBME 11 - 5wks - 251
NBME 12 - 4wks - 251
UWSA 1 - 4wks - 262
School CBSE - 3wks - 260+
UWSA 2 - 3wks - 264
NBME 15 - 2wks - 266
NBME 16 - 5days - 254
NBME 13 - 3days - 256
Step 1: 261

Hope this helps. Happy to answer any qs. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Congratulations!!
What'd you use during the second half of MS2?
 
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redblue said:
Congratulations!!
What'd you use during the second half of MS2?
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Pathoma and FA with organ-specific Kaplan qs during the corresponding school blocks. Very average school exam performance - just tried to pass those and then forget anything that was not in Pathoma or FA.
 
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Hey everyone! Need some evaluation here. I have my exam in about a month and I took some offline nbmes 2-5 in the span of a month and have been consistently scoring 200. My goal is 230. Doesn't seem reasonable now. I postponed the test once already. I've been over FA and uworld as well as pathoma again. Still can't seem to make it rise. What am I doing wrong?
 
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Alright guys, I need some reassurance. My exam is in two days. I purchased NBME 16 this morning but I don't have the confidence to take it at the moment. I feel like I need to review my UW notes, old NBME's, and weak areas in FA before I take it. I took NBME 15 a month ago and got 177. I'm afraid even if I take form 16 and get a 20 point increase I still won't be ready. However, my first nbme (form 13) I got 130; and thus far my score has gone up 47pts. I'd hate to delay, I'm miserable. But at the same time I need at least a 220+ to be taken seriously for Emergency Medicine.

Please do let me know what you think is best.

-Cali
 
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Cali 916 said:
Alright guys, I need some reassurance. My exam is in two days. I purchased NBME 16 this morning but I don't have the confidence to take it at the moment. I feel like I need to review my UW notes, old NBME's, and weak areas in FA before I take it. I took NBME 15 a month ago and got 177. I'm afraid even if I take form 16 and get a 20 point increase I still won't be ready. However, my first nbme (form 13) I got 130; and thus far my score has gone up 47pts. I'd hate to delay, I'm miserable. But at the same time I need at least a 220+ to be taken seriously for Emergency Medicine.

Please do let me know what you think is best.

-Cali
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I think you need to take the NBME like RIGHT NOW if your test is in 2 days and you've never gotten a passing score on an NBME before.
 
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twolittlebears said:
I think you need to take the NBME like RIGHT NOW if your test is in 2 days and you've never gotten a passing score on an NBME before.
Click to expand...

Thanks, and if I hit an additional 40pts+ ill be happy, and if I hit less than 200 I'm going to want to give up forever. As of now I'm cramming my HY notes, I'll take it today but just nervous. I'd hate to miss a question just because I didn't take a minute to read over a particular note.
 
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Cali 916 said:
Thanks, and if I hit an additional 40pts+ ill be happy, and if I hit less than 200 I'm going to want to give up forever. As of now I'm cramming my HY notes, I'll take it today but just nervous. I'd hate to miss a question just because I didn't take a minute to read over a particular note.
Click to expand...

If you fail your exam in 2 days when you could have prevented it through test simulation --> rescheduling, you'll want to give up forever. Take that NBME, rock that 40+ point increase.
 
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Rirruto said:
Update on my Step 1 journey. UW, Kaplan qBank, Pathoma, FA 2012. 5wks dedicated study period but preliminary study throughout last 1/2 of MSII.

NBME 7 - 6wks - 228
NBME 11 - 5wks - 251
NBME 12 - 4wks - 251
UWSA 1 - 4wks - 262
School CBSE - 3wks - 260+
UWSA 2 - 3wks - 264
NBME 15 - 2wks - 266
NBME 16 - 5days - 254
NBME 13 - 3days - 256
Step 1: 261

Hope this helps. Happy to answer any qs. Cheers.
Click to expand...


Nice score. Do you think there was any benefit to doing that many NBME's? I've heard they're mostly for assessing and not learning, so doing them just a few days apart seems out of what I was told would be a good idea (I mean clearly you could say it worked out well for you, but my question is, do you think you would have had the same score doing half the practice exams?).

Granted, I've only taken form eleven so far (school gave it to us) so I have limited experience with them. My study schedule my path professor put together for me doesn't have me doing another one until May 21, then just two more until I take the real thing on June 10th.
 
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Prince090 said:
Best of luck.
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Thank u so much.
sadaca said:
Hey guys, FINALLY its my turn to post my score. I got my score today and nbme 16 was the closest (217) . I got a 224 on STEP 1. I am grateful . It was a long and tough road. Gluck to all! And thank you to this group and the people for always answering my doubts and encouraging.
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Congratulations!
Rirruto said:
Update on my Step 1 journey. UW, Kaplan qBank, Pathoma, FA 2012. 5wks dedicated study period but preliminary study throughout last 1/2 of MSII.

NBME 7 - 6wks - 228
NBME 11 - 5wks - 251
NBME 12 - 4wks - 251
UWSA 1 - 4wks - 262
School CBSE - 3wks - 260+
UWSA 2 - 3wks - 264
NBME 15 - 2wks - 266
NBME 16 - 5days - 254
NBME 13 - 3days - 256
Step 1: 261

Hope this helps. Happy to answer any qs. Cheers.
Click to expand...

Freaking awesome! Congrats.
 
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I haven't been too active on SDN since pre-med but I took step today and thought I'd share my experience.

CBSE (school-administered; 6 weeks before test): 210
UWSA-1 (two weeks before): 254
UWSA-2 (9 days before): 248
NBME-15 (8 days before): 234
NBME-13 (6 days before): 245
NBME-16 (4 days before): 248

Today: Freaking. Hard. Test. SO different from Uworld or the NBMEs. Some questions were quite similar, but a ton were way out of left field and aren't anywhere in FA/Pathoma. Fatigue definitely contributed to some stupid errors in the later blocks. If the percent-correct "curve" is anything like the NBMEs then I'm afraid I'll be 15 points lower than my practice test average.

Overall I walked out not feeling too great, but that's normal I suppose.

Definitely do the free 150... rumors are true.
 
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Agree on today's test completely - definitely harder than all qbank / nbme q's 🙁 And I felt they were asking a lot of the same stuff over and over again
 
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lionesss said:
And I felt they were asking a lot of the same stuff over and over again
Click to expand...

Yeah I noticed that too! Felt kind of... unbalanced. Like why did I bother with all those hours studying biochem when they only ask one or two easy questions on it... should have spent half that time learning how to look at freaking angiograms cause they seemed to love those, at least today.
 
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Morzh said:
I haven't been too active on SDN since pre-med but I took step today and thought I'd share my experience.

CBSE (school-administered; 6 weeks before test): 210
UWSA-1 (two weeks before): 254
UWSA-2 (9 days before): 248
NBME-15 (8 days before): 234
NBME-13 (6 days before): 245
NBME-16 (4 days before): 248

Today: Freaking. Hard. Test. SO different from Uworld or the NBMEs. Some questions were quite similar, but a ton were way out of left field and aren't anywhere in FA/Pathoma. Fatigue definitely contributed to some stupid errors in the later blocks. If the percent-correct "curve" is anything like the NBMEs then I'm afraid I'll be 15 points lower than my practice test average.

Overall I walked out not feeling too great, but that's normal I suppose.

Definitely do the free 150... rumors are true.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing this! And thank you to everyone else that comes on here and answers questions and gives advice.

I have a question for you (or anyone else who wouldn't mind answering) and I'm not sure how much sense it will make but I'll give it a go:
These 'left field' questions, what exactly makes them seem like that? Are they presentations that we probably haven't seen before? Disease processes that we likely haven't encountered? Or obscure aspects of possibly familiar topics?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
 
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All of the above. Sure some are "obscure aspects" that are just meant to be plain hard. Others are so bizarre that I'm pretty sure they expect you to get it right only by ruling out all the options you know don't make sense and picking the one you've never heard of. Others are just random "general health principles" questions that you either know or you don't.

Also realize that, having just wrestled the beast mere hours ago, I'm experiencing selective memory of all the questions that stumped me... and not remembering all the ones I blew through thanks to weeks of diligent study. I guess you just gotta be confident in your ability and not be thrown off in-test by a higher ratio of the really hard questions.
 
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Morzh said:
should have spent half that time learning how to look at freaking angiograms cause they seemed to love those, at least today.
Click to expand...

YESSSSS. It was definitely unbalanced. There were a LOT of obscure CT scans / xrays as well - def should have studied nothing but xrays/cts/angiograms haha
 
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Morzh said:
Yeah I noticed that too! Felt kind of... unbalanced. Like why did I bother with all those hours studying biochem when they only ask one or two easy questions on it... should have spent half that time learning how to look at freaking angiograms cause they seemed to love those, at least today.
Click to expand...

lionesss said:
YESSSSS. It was definitely unbalanced. There were a LOT of obscure CT scans / xrays as well - def should have studied nothing but xrays/cts/angiograms haha
Click to expand...

Man, sorry guys. Did either of you review any radiography websites before your test? If so, did it help? I've considered doing so, since I get a little bout of tachycardia every time a radiological image pops up in a question.
 
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AlmostAnMD said:
Nice score. Do you think there was any benefit to doing that many NBME's? I've heard they're mostly for assessing and not learning, so doing them just a few days apart seems out of what I was told would be a good idea (I mean clearly you could say it worked out well for you, but my question is, do you think you would have had the same score doing half the practice exams?).

Granted, I've only taken form eleven so far (school gave it to us) so I have limited experience with them. My study schedule my path professor put together for me doesn't have me doing another one until May 21, then just two more until I take the real thing on June 10th.
Click to expand...

There probably was no benefit to the extra NBMEs above and beyond a source of more qs and psychological reassurance. My philosophy was to get as much test experience as possible and not worry about saving a buck. Granted, my impression of the real test was longer qs that were more difficult than NBMEs, with more WTF qs. I did not recall during the real test saying, thank goodness I did NBME X. In fact, my impression coming out of the real test was, why did I bother studying at all, when so much of it could not be prepared for. Nonetheless, you have an n=1 of lots of NBMEs and good score. Correlation does not imply causation.
 
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kirbymiester said:
Man, sorry guys. Did either of you review any radiography websites before your test? If so, did it help? I've considered doing so, since I get a little bout of tachycardia every time a radiological image pops up in a question.
Click to expand...

I thought I had a good grasp on them from going through the kaplan q bank and I went through this: http://w-radiology.com/chest_ct.php

The ones today though weren't focused on id'ing structures but more so on id'ing random pathologies. Idk - some of them were just straight up hard to tell what was going on in them.
 
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kirbymiester said:
Man, sorry guys. Did either of you review any radiography websites before your test? If so, did it help? I've considered doing so, since I get a little bout of tachycardia every time a radiological image pops up in a question.
Click to expand...

I didn't review anything special aside from what's in FA/Pathoma/Uworld. But today's radiology questions may be tomorrow's EKG questions or the next day's biochem questions, so good luck guessing what the daily flavor will be on your exam!
 
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so how about behavioral sciences? were they like uworld or the nbmes at all?

has anyone ever had an ekg q where they had to id leads (+ or -) and whtnot? I took a nbme shelf and there was an ekg but it was one lead only and it was like "ID a. flutter". i asked this in its own post but no one answered me 🙁
 
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1dayatatime said:
has anyone ever had an ekg q where they had to id leads (+ or -) and whtnot? I took a nbme shelf and there was an ekg but it was one lead only and it was like "ID a. flutter". i asked this in its own post but no one answered me 🙁
Click to expand...

??? I've had Q's like this (had to ID freakin LBBB) but I'm not sure what you mean by "(+ or -)".
 
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Morzh said:
All of the above. Sure some are "obscure aspects" that are just meant to be plain hard. Others are so bizarre that I'm pretty sure they expect you to get it right only by ruling out all the options you know don't make sense and picking the one you've never heard of. Others are just random "general health principles" questions that you either know or you don't.

Also realize that, having just wrestled the beast mere hours ago, I'm experiencing selective memory of all the questions that stumped me... and not remembering all the ones I blew through thanks to weeks of diligent study. I guess you just gotta be confident in your ability and not be thrown off in-test by a higher ratio of the really hard questions.
Click to expand...

Thanks again, great advice!


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
 
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like "what is the positve lead" "right arm, left leg, etc."

WOW LBBB? that's not in FA. i would've thought ID'ing BBB (Mobitz) would've been enough 🙁 guess i'll have to teach myself einthoven's triangle after all...

also when people say things like "i don't know why i studied at all" i really don't know what to do with this...imean, we can't just stop studying.
 
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I just took the test today and if I could describe it in one word it would be "meh". My NBME scores were in the 240s and 250s. Uworld timed/random was 75%. But considering how I feel right now if I get 230+ I'll be happy. 240+ would make me ecstatic. Without making the NBME mad and invalidating my score/getting kicked out of med school by giving away specifics, here are some general trends I noticed for future test-takers (disclaimer: n = 1, your test day experience may vary, etc. etc.):

- several clinical questions eg "what is the next best step of management?" or "what is the first test that should be ordered?". fortunately these were very easy for me since I have a year of clinicals under my belt but I would not have been able to answer them confidently prior to starting M3. Hopefully for me these weren't experimental because if they were my score is likely 10-15 pts lower.

- but also several basic science questions. like so basic i had to rely on undergrad knowledge to answer them because med school/board prep resources did not cover those topics in that kind of detail/depth. hopefully i got most of these right and/or they were experimental.

- several interesting questions where i almost wish they just told me the answer regardless of whether i got it right or wrong just because they were facts/concepts that I genuinely found interesting. Hard to explain but even in the middle of one of the most important tests of my life I was like "wow that's a really good question." And no I'm not one of those med school dorks that usually finds things extremely interesting but with these handful of questions I actually did, even in the middle of the exam.

- Lots of really easy questions. Like so easy that you wonder if you're even taking Step 1.

- The hard questions fell into 2 categories - 1 was the good ol "WTF question" where it's some random detail/factoid that you simply don't know. A lot of these questions happened to be anatomy. The other hard questions were only hard because the answer choices were very similar or only subtly different so you really had to know your stuff. This mostly fell in the path/physio/pathophysio category. I went back and forth on these questions several times trying to prove why one choice was better. The concepts/diseases tested were actually pretty easy but they make it convoluted by the presentation and the answer choices.

- majority of the test (60%?) is still from first aid. if you know that book cold there's no reason you can't hit at least 230.

- Uworld is king. I did Step 2 Uworld along with rotations and Step 1 UWorld timed random during dedicated. I really wish I reset it and did it again. Had at least 2 word for word Uworld repeats and dozens more that tested core Uworld concepts.

- Pathoma is OK for the first exposure but I did not use it during dedicated time and don't regret the decision. There was never a question where I thought "damn I should have watched Pathoma again." It was more like "damn I wish I read Robbins or the full wikipedia article on this topic."

- Had at least 3 NBME repeats and at least 1 free 150 repeat (I say at least because there might have been others that I didn't remember were from those sources).

- Time was an issue. On Uworld and NBME's I usually finish my first run through of questions with 20-25 minutes to go (still leaving some black). and then finish all questions with ~10 min to go and then quickly go through each question again in those 10 minutes. On the real test I felt more rushed and sometimes finished with only 3-5 minutes to go although I was able to answer all the questions. I was able to catch one really stupid mistake and change it just in time but I'm almost positive there were others that I could not catch because I didn't have my usual 10 minutes to go through it one last time.

That's all I remember for now. I'll update when I get my scores.
 
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Actual score = 252 (April 14)

Goal score was 250, but I would have been happy with 240+

Jan NBME 6: 206
March 2 NBME 12: 219
-Dedicated study period begins mid March-
March 24 NBME 7: 228 (starting to feel really nervous)
April 2 NBME 15: 232 (freaking the f&*^ out--sooo little progress!)
Finish UWorld 69-70%, start incorrect second time (didn't finish)
April 10 NBME 16: 247 (sigh of relief and hoping I can keep this up til test day)
April 14 real thing

I had already gone through all of Pathoma before study period and FA ~2 or 3 times. I started RR Goljan path right before NBME 15 and finished before I took 16 -- I honestly thought it really helped and complemented Pathoma. It was a beast to finish in so short of time. I did 2-3 UWorld blocks with review of wrong questions every day basically of study period and when I finished did maybe 400 of my missed again. The test was the worst 8 hours in living memory, I literally left the exam in tears (not sobbing, just silent tears of exhaustion). I didn't feel good at all and even today after getting my score it doesn't feel real.

If you haven't taken it yet, good luck and don't give up. This is a critical thinking test and it is likely you will feel like complete ****. Do what you have to do to keep yourself going. I had to give myself a pep talk in the bathroom during a break. After this, you'll never have to put up with such a test -- everything else from here on is actually related to what we've seen. Keep your heads up! Work hard! Think of third year! 🙂
 
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Rirruto said:
Update on my Step 1 journey. UW, Kaplan qBank, Pathoma, FA 2012. 5wks dedicated study period but preliminary study throughout last 1/2 of MSII.

NBME 7 - 6wks - 228
NBME 11 - 5wks - 251
NBME 12 - 4wks - 251
UWSA 1 - 4wks - 262
School CBSE - 3wks - 260+
UWSA 2 - 3wks - 264
NBME 15 - 2wks - 266
NBME 16 - 5days - 254
NBME 13 - 3days - 256
Step 1: 261

Hope this helps. Happy to answer any qs. Cheers.
Click to expand...

Would you mind sharing your study plan during your 5 week dedicated period?

Are the CBSSAs retired USMLE exams in their entirety, or are they just a bunch of practice questions that the NBME threw together?
 
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BrooBroo said:
Actual score = 252 (April 14)

Goal score was 250, but I would have been happy with 240+

Jan NBME 6: 206
March 2 NBME 12: 219
-Dedicated study period begins mid March-
March 24 NBME 7: 228 (starting to feel really nervous)
April 2 NBME 15: 232 (freaking the f&*^ out--sooo little progress!)
Finish UWorld 69-70%, start incorrect second time (didn't finish)
April 10 NBME 16: 247 (sigh of relief and hoping I can keep this up til test day)
April 14 real thing

I had already gone through all of Pathoma before study period and FA ~2 or 3 times. I started RR Goljan path right before NBME 15 and finished before I took 16 -- I honestly thought it really helped and complemented Pathoma. It was a beast to finish in so short of time. I did 2-3 UWorld blocks with review of wrong questions every day basically of study period and when I finished did maybe 400 of my missed again. The test was the worst 8 hours in living memory, I literally left the exam in tears (not sobbing, just silent tears of exhaustion). I didn't feel good at all and even today after getting my score it doesn't feel real.

If you haven't taken it yet, good luck and don't give up. This is a critical thinking test and it is likely you will feel like complete ****. Do what you have to do to keep yourself going. I had to give myself a pep talk in the bathroom during a break. After this, you'll never have to put up with such a test -- everything else from here on is actually related to what we've seen. Keep your heads up! Work hard! Think of third year! 🙂
Click to expand...

I felt exactly the same about time. NBME 16 seemed to be the closest in length, but even then the actual test questions were super long with auscultation media in the last 2 questions in at least 2 blocks. I would mark at least 12 questions each block and only have 2-3 minutes to review.
 
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