Step I Official 2015 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[KushWeedNuggetsStankyLeg]

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M2 here. Starting today, I am just going to be reviewing for Step 1 which I am taking next May, and nothing else. Here is my plan:

Oct 23-Dec 31: Memorize FA2014, Watch all of Pathoma
Jan 1-Jan 31: FA2015, Pathoma (pass 2), Kaplan QBank
Feb 1-Feb 28: FA2015 (pass 2), Pathoma (pass 3), USMLERX
March 1- March 31: FA2015 (pass 3), Pathoma (pass 4): UWorld
April 1- Mid May: FA2015 (pass 4), Pathoma (selective topics), UWorld (pass 2), all practice tests

Goal: High number

 

[beachbum87]

Congratulations on the great score. Would you recommend DIT in the beginning of prep or after going through Fa and Uworld once? Thanks.

I think it depends on how much time you have. I only did around 5 weeks of dedicated study and so I did DIT 6-10 hours a day and then a Uworld set of 46 (3-4 hours to take and review). If you can get through Uworld once, do DIT, and then take UWorld again, more power to you, but that would have been unrealistic for me. Like I mentioned before, I didn't even make it all the way through Uworld once. That said, different things work for different people. I guy in my class was cruising through Uworld, finished the entire Qbank in less than 2-3 weeks. He went through it twice on a superficial level, I didn't quite make it through once on a deeper level, and we made within one point of each other. All that to say, there is no magic method, put in the hard work, don't get bogged down for a week on one subject, keep moving and you'll be fine.

One last thing about DIT, the value for me was not necessarily in the videos (though those were fine and at a higher quality than I was expecting), but the value is in doing the warm up quiz and end of session quizzes. I would not have bought it if it didn't come with a workbook. Once I saw the book though, I knew that is how I like to learn. The quizzes keep you engaged every 15-20 minutes. The material is basically the same of first aid, but instead of reading (passive learning), the quizzes give the opportunity for active learning. Of course, you could save the 800 bucks and make your own notecards if you want, so I guess I paid the money to save me the time of making notecards, and to hear a few jokes along the way. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, I have a hard time reading first aid, so I enjoyed the videos.

 

[medhopeful12]

haven't posted on this site in forever, anyways, i took my test may 1st, but today my "print permit" button disappeared. i thought this was something that typically happened on tuesdays, anyone else know if this is normal?
i wasn't really expecting my score next week (was expecting it to be the week after), but figure maybe since they just changed the test they're ready to just give out our scores earlier? (since those taking on/after may 11th wont get scores until july)
thanks!

 

[jshei0625]

haven't posted on this site in forever, anyways, i took my test may 1st, but today my "print permit" button disappeared. i thought this was something that typically happened on tuesdays, anyone else know if this is normal?
i wasn't really expecting my score next week (was expecting it to be the week after), but figure maybe since they just changed the test they're ready to just give out our scores earlier? (since those taking on/after may 11th wont get scores until july)
thanks!

Mine is also gone and I took mine the same day. It would not be unheard of to get it next Wednesday. The rule of thumb is to add 18 days from your test date and whenever the next Wednesday occurs is the earliest you can expect your score. That would make our earliest score release May 20, which is next week. Hope that made sense haha

 

[patchcman]

Has anybody heard anything about the new 44 question format of step? I heard 2nd hand that somebody who took the test today was blown away by the amount of situational questions on the test. They apparently felt like over half the test consisted of situational response questions. Also, said they were very very different than NBME's. don't want to freak anyone out just trying to find out how much is truth/rumor.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Has anybody heard anything about the new 44 question format of step? I heard 2nd hand that somebody who took the test today was blown away by the amount of situational questions on the test. They apparently felt like over half the test consisted of situational response questions. Also, said they were very very different than NBME's. don't want to freak anyone out just trying to find out how much is truth/rumor.

What do you mean by situational response questions? As in ethics questions? Because to my understanding the exam is supposed to be including more of those types of questions and "safety science" questions as well.

 

[stepone2015]

NMBE 5, 12 weeks out: 211
NBME 12, 6.5 weeks out: 243
School NBME:
NBME 13:
UWSA 1:
UWSA 2
NBME 15:
NBME 16:
NBME 17:
Real deal (late June):

My NBME 5 was taken during the school year before classes had finished or finals were done without any true Step studying.

So dedicated started for me recently. As I started studying, I got severe anxiety as I started to realize how much I had forgotten. I studied ~15 hours yesterday and had trouble sleeping last night because of it. I was planning on putting off taking an NBME until later, but I figured it would at least calm me down. I was expecting like a 220 and somehow scored over a 240, which has thankfully succeeded in calming me down a bit. I think this is good advice for people who are just starting/starting soon - even if you feel you don't know anything like I did, taking a baseline may reduce your anxiety.

I think reading 'high yield topics' thread as well as some other similar ones helped freak me out by all the details I either never learned or have forgotten.

Anyway, good luck to everyone. I mainly wanted to write this as a template for future posts.

NMBE 5, 12 weeks out: 211
NBME 12, 6.5 weeks out: 243 (http://i.imgur.com/H8jCBXO.jpg)
NBME 13 5.5 weeks out: 258 (http://i.imgur.com/zRpO5yt.jpg)
UWSA 1:
UWSA 2
NBME 15:
NBME 16:
NBME 17:
Real deal (late June):

UW during the year (50% completed, nonrandom, untimed): 63%
UW currently in dedicated (all, random, timed, 30% done): 74%

So if you're wondering what I did in the past week, the answer would be ~5 UW blocks (with ~2 hours of review per block), about 100 pages of FA, and ~500 Picmonic cards. For 4 days, I stopped doing FA/UW, and I did nothing but cram cards for ~13 hours per day. It was horrible. But, although I don't think it made a huge difference in my score jump (definitely got me questions though), I think the biggest advantage is having all those weird drugs, bugs, and diseases mentally organized. Furthermore, I've gotten very comfortable with Picmonic's 'language', so now, I'm adding tons of information to their cards and making many of my own. I have a notebook filled with notes of what I've modified and cards I've created (complete with my terrible artistry).

Regardless, I'm still surprised by that jump. I think it also has to do with the fact that I took my time a lot more with 13. When I got to a hard question, I did my best to reason it out and didn't worry much about timing (ended up with ~20 minutes left per block anyway). I also started 13 at like 7 am after I'd had my giant cup of coffee unlike 12 where I started it at 5:30 am like the insane person that I am.

I've happy with where I stand now. I still realize there's tons of gaps in my knowledge - I still am only now ~300 pages into FA and ~30% into UW.

Good luck to everyone.

 

[patchcman]

What do you mean by situational response questions? As in ethics questions? Because to my understanding the exam is supposed to be including more of those types of questions and "safety science" questions as well.

Honestly I'm not exactly sure what was meant by it either. Like I said I heard it second hand and didn't try to go find that person myself to clarify because they just took it. I know they are probably not in the mood for someone to ask them a bunch of questions about it hahaha. I was hoping that someone on here might be able to expand on that more and explain what the new style of the test is like. Main thing is how much harder should I expect it to be than the NBMEs or Uworld and is there something else i should be studying for the "safety science" stuff?

 

[laricb]

Mine is also gone and I took mine the same day. It would not be unheard of to get it next Wednesday. The rule of thumb is to add 18 days from your test date and whenever the next Wednesday occurs is the earliest you can expect your score. That would make our earliest score release May 20, which is next week. Hope that made sense haha

Indicates your test scores will be posted this coming Wednesday.....

 

[munro-abscess]

how to prepare for safety science ?

 

[pd1112]

RR Safety Science and HY Safety are both pretty good.

 

[dfib slim]

RR Safety Science and HY Safety are both pretty good.

I'd go BRS Safety over HY Safety.

 

[CanyonTree]

I'd go BRS Safety over HY Safety.

Which BRS book is it? sorry if it sounds really dumb. I'm not super familiar with all the BRS/HY books haha

 

[abolt18]

.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Which BRS book is it? sorry if it sounds really dumb. I'm not super familiar with all the BRS/HY books haha

I'm praying to God right now that this is a joke/sarcasm post.

 

[munro-abscess]

I'd go BRS Safety over HY Safety.

Is it the same as BRS- behavioral science ?

 

[nds86]

I'd go BRS Safety over HY Safety.

RR Safety Science and HY Safety are both pretty good.

I LOLed pretty hard..good one 🙂

 

[jshei0625]

how to prepare for safety science ?

There is no review book to prepare for safety science. The questions that I got that I would think fall under this category were related to ways to reduce transmission of certain infections. When in doubt about those kinds of questions, go with your instinct or just assume its hand washing

 

[DrTejIndia]

There is no review book to prepare for safety science. The questions that I got that I would think fall under this category were related to ways to reduce transmission of certain infections. When in doubt about those kinds of questions, go with your instinct or just assume its hand washing

You gave your test in the old pool right ?
Before 11 May ?

 

[aspiringmd1015]

lmao at brs safety, vaccines and handwashing for fecal oral bugs!

 

[takeuponeidea]

I'd go BRS Safety over HY Safety.

You mean BRS Beh.Science?

 

[takeuponeidea]

how to prepare for safety science ?

You may check few websites like CDC for patient safety topics

 

[FlashTime_91]

check out sketchysafety! It's amazing!

 

[sloop]

Haven't taken the exam yet, but I really found this to be a helpful resource on safety:

 

[britesky89]

Mine is also gone and I took mine the same day. It would not be unheard of to get it next Wednesday. The rule of thumb is to add 18 days from your test date and whenever the next Wednesday occurs is the earliest you can expect your score. That would make our earliest score release May 20, which is next week. Hope that made sense haha

Indicates your test scores will be posted this coming Wednesday.....

I won't be getting my score for a while but I just wanted to know what the permit has to do with the score report? Do you need your permit to access your score report?

When you say permit, are you referring to the same permit that we had to take with us on test day? I took my test on May 9 and my permit is no longer on the website. It says that the permit may not be showing up because the candidate already appeared in the exam.

 

[munro-abscess]

so did

I won't be getting my score for a while but I just wanted to know what the permit has to do with the score report? Do you need your permit to access your score report?

When you say permit, are you referring to the same permit that we had to take with us on test day? I took my test on May 9 and my permit is no longer on the website. It says that the permit may not be showing up because the candidate already appeared in the exam.

so did u take the 44 Q format ???

 

[mcloaf]

Score came back Wednesday: mid 260's. Pretty happy with this, keeps all my options open.

Rough time line of my studying:
Beginning of M1: start Firecracker, did it religiously up to test day. I also annotated in things from Pathoma and QBanks during M2 so that I could see them again.
M1 along with classes: BRS physio, SketchyMicro, Picmonic
M2 summer: some review of M1 stuff in Kaplan (anatomy, physiology, neuroanatomy, immunology [not sure that any of this was that helpful outside maybe immuno since I didn't have a great handle on that]), try to flag stuff in FC that we had mentioned in M1 but was more M2 material (75% flagged by the start of M2).
M2 first semester: USMLERx by system along with classes, Kaplan pharm, Pathoma and RR Path along with classes, would also read FA chapters along with class but not annotating anything yet or spending much time there.
M2 winter break: preread coming semester systems in Pathoma and finish flagging FC
M2 2nd semester: essentially the same as first semester M2 except I also completed Kaplan QBank on timed random and made a first pass from beginning to end of first aid (tried to read around 25 pages before bed each night, would annotate some things from this into Firecracker). This got to be a bit of a grind towards the end because I miscalculated and got a little behind on Kaplan, so some days I had to do up to 3 blocks. My grades really took a hit here (though we're true P/F so it's not super concerning, just not ideal).
Dedicated 5 weeks: UWorld timed random (88% first pass average), 2 passes of first aid, pathoma (read the book because I didn't feel like I had time to watch the vids, which was not ideal since I think that's the best part of pathoma), BRS physio, Kaplan Ethics, HY neuroanatomy, blue boxes in Moore's. All additional things from UWorld/Pathoma were annotated by hand into first aid (which I'd highly recommend getting hole punched at put into a binder).

Practice tests:
UWSA1 5wks out/beginning of dedicated: 265
NBME11 3 wks out: 269
UWSA2 2 wks out: 265
I did the last 5 NBME's over 4 days leading into the last week of my prep. I wouldn't recommend this, but it's just kind of what happened and I wanted to make sure I got through them all in case there were any repeats on the real thing.
NBME12: 273
NBME13: 273
NBME15: 262
NBME16: 266
NBME17: 271
Free 150: ~96-7%

Real thing ~265
I already posted about my feelings on test day earlier, but in brief: it sort of sucked. Didn't feel great about it at all, but didn't feel terrible.

Overall I think things turned out great. 2nd semester of M2 really sucked at parts, but I think front loading my work made it a little more low key during my dedicated prep time which was nice. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to break 270 based on practice test scores (and for bragging rights 😉 ), but my final score is pretty in line with my later NBME's and should be more than enough for whatever I end up deciding to do so I am psyched. As an aside, I think it's funny that I was always railing against UWSAs as a predictive tool and ended up scoring very close to them, but I still don't think they're great predictors and their cutoff at 265 made their prediction in my case somewhat coincidental.

Big thanks to all those who've made this forum as helpful as it is. Congrats to those of you who've already taken it, and best of luck to those still preparing. Happy to answer any questions via PM, I'd hoped to do a more thorough write up but M3 has already gotten the better of me and I should get back to studying (it never ends...).

 

[medhopeful12]

I won't be getting my score for a while but I just wanted to know what the permit has to do with the score report? Do you need your permit to access your score report?

When you say permit, are you referring to the same permit that we had to take with us on test day? I took my test on May 9 and my permit is no longer on the website. It says that the permit may not be showing up because the candidate already appeared in the exam.

you don't need you permit to access the score report. so basically i had the same thing as you for a while, there was a link to "print permit" but when i clicked it told me i had already taken the test, but now the link to "print permit" has completely disappeared. historically this means your score is coming out the next wednesday, however i thought that the links typically disappeared on tuesdays right before your score came out, but i guess that's not the case. i believe that when the scores are ready there will be a link to print score report under the "score report date" column

 

[jshei0625]

You gave your test in the old pool right ?
Before 11 May ?

Yes it was before the change to 44q per block, so maybe they have a completely different set of questions regarding safety science for students taking the exam after May 11. Trying to figure out what the NBME will put on their exam will always be a lost cause and they know it haha.

 

[MD22412]

Mine is also gone and I took mine the same day. It would not be unheard of to get it next Wednesday. The rule of thumb is to add 18 days from your test date and whenever the next Wednesday occurs is the earliest you can expect your score. That would make our earliest score release May 20, which is next week. Hope that made sense haha

Where do you normally have the "print permit" button? IS that on the NBME website where you look for exam status? Am confused 😛

 

[jshei0625]

Where do you normally have the "print permit" button? IS that on the NBME website where you look for exam status? Am confused 😛

Yes. From what I remembered it was near the top right corner of that page

 

[britesky89]

so did

so did u take the 44 Q format ???

no it was still 46 question when I took it.

 

[jshei0625]

you don't need you permit to access the score report. so basically i had the same thing as you for a while, there was a link to "print permit" but when i clicked it told me i had already taken the test, but now the link to "print permit" has completely disappeared. historically this means your score is coming out the next wednesday, however i thought that the links typically disappeared on tuesdays right before your score came out, but i guess that's not the case. i believe that when the scores are ready there will be a link to print score report under the "score report date" column

This is the only confusing part. Historically, it does not disappear until Sunday at the earliest. I wonder if NBME reads over these threads and loves seeing our neurotic discussion of permit disappearance timelines lol

 

[MD22412]

This is the only confusing part. Historically, it does not disappear until Sunday at the earliest. I wonder if NBME reads over these threads and loves seeing our neurotic discussion of permit disappearance timelines lol

uh oh looks like mine is then gone?!?!

 

[MD22412]

this is what I see

Yes. From what I remembered it was near the top right corner of that page

This is the only confusing part. Historically, it does not disappear until Sunday at the earliest. I wonder if NBME reads over these threads and loves seeing our neurotic discussion of permit disappearance timelines lol

 

[anon3338]

Surprised that we still have no reports from 44q test takers. Hopefully, that means there is nothing new or interesting to report.

 

[AnalisCanalis]

Score came back Wednesday: mid 260's. Pretty happy with this, keeps all my options open.

Understatement of the year.

May I ask how many questions a day you averaged on FC?

 

[mcloaf]

Understatement of the year.

May I ask how many questions a day you averaged on FC?

If I recall correctly it ended up being around the low 200's. There were stretches where it was 300+ for several weeks at a time which was pretty unpleasant. However it was nice that because I preflagged everything over winter break of M2 I was usually in the low/mid 100's towards the end of M2 and during dedicated.

 

[MD22412]

Score came back Wednesday: mid 260's. Pretty happy with this, keeps all my options open.

Rough time line of my studying:
Beginning of M1: start Firecracker, did it religiously up to test day. I also annotated in things from Pathoma and QBanks during M2 so that I could see them again.
M1 along with classes: BRS physio, SketchyMicro, Picmonic
M2 summer: some review of M1 stuff in Kaplan (anatomy, physiology, neuroanatomy, immunology [not sure that any of this was that helpful outside maybe immuno since I didn't have a great handle on that]), try to flag stuff in FC that we had mentioned in M1 but was more M2 material (75% flagged by the start of M2).
M2 first semester: USMLERx by system along with classes, Kaplan pharm, Pathoma and RR Path along with classes, would also read FA chapters along with class but not annotating anything yet or spending much time there.
M2 winter break: preread coming semester systems in Pathoma and finish flagging FC
M2 2nd semester: essentially the same as first semester M2 except I also completed Kaplan QBank on timed random and made a first pass from beginning to end of first aid (tried to read around 25 pages before bed each night, would annotate some things from this into Firecracker). This got to be a bit of a grind towards the end because I miscalculated and got a little behind on Kaplan, so some days I had to do up to 3 blocks. My grades really took a hit here (though we're true P/F so it's not super concerning, just not ideal).
Dedicated 5 weeks: UWorld timed random (88% first pass average), 2 passes of first aid, pathoma (read the book because I didn't feel like I had time to watch the vids, which was not ideal since I think that's the best part of pathoma), BRS physio, Kaplan Ethics, HY neuroanatomy, blue boxes in Moore's. All additional things from UWorld/Pathoma were annotated by hand into first aid (which I'd highly recommend getting hole punched at put into a binder).

Practice tests:
UWSA1 5wks out/beginning of dedicated: 265
NBME11 3 wks out: 269
UWSA2 2 wks out: 265
I did the last 5 NBME's over 4 days leading into the last week of my prep. I wouldn't recommend this, but it's just kind of what happened and I wanted to make sure I got through them all in case there were any repeats on the real thing.
NBME12: 273
NBME13: 273
NBME15: 262
NBME16: 266
NBME17: 271
Free 150: ~96-7%

Real thing ~265
I already posted about my feelings on test day earlier, but in brief: it sort of sucked. Didn't feel great about it at all, but didn't feel terrible.

Overall I think things turned out great. 2nd semester of M2 really sucked at parts, but I think front loading my work made it a little more low key during my dedicated prep time which was nice. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to break 270 based on practice test scores (and for bragging rights 😉 ), but my final score is pretty in line with my later NBME's and should be more than enough for whatever I end up deciding to do so I am psyched. As an aside, I think it's funny that I was always railing against UWSAs as a predictive tool and ended up scoring very close to them, but I still don't think they're great predictors and their cutoff at 265 made their prediction in my case somewhat coincidental.

Big thanks to all those who've made this forum as helpful as it is. Congrats to those of you who've already taken it, and best of luck to those still preparing. Happy to answer any questions via PM, I'd hoped to do a more thorough write up but M3 has already gotten the better of me and I should get back to studying (it never ends...).

Just curious from a guy whos never quite reached that high of a score range (260+) that consistently, what does it feel like after taking the NBMEs and getting 273 as far as number of qs you think you got right? when you're that high do you attribute it mostly to depth of knowledge + luck or do you feel mostly really good educated guessing?

Also, how was your exam experience, do you remember ~ how many you missed? Were the qs you missed more likely experimental or the harder impossible ones? How was your timing overall?

Thanks,

 

[deleted564496]

Surprised that we still have no reports from 44q test takers. Hopefully, that means there is nothing new or interesting to report.

Maybe they don't want us to know... 🤔 I'm mostly curious if the NBMEs will still be an accurate predictor, but it seems like we won't know that since nobody will have their scores back. Even if I took the test May 11th on the new format, I still wouldn't get my score back till July right?

 

[mcloaf]

Just curious from a guy whos never quite reached that high of a score range (260+) that consistently, what does it feel like after taking the NBMEs and getting 273 as far as number of qs you think you got right? when you're that high do you attribute it mostly to depth of knowledge + luck or do you feel mostly really good educated guessing?

Also, how was your exam experience, do you remember ~ how many you missed? Were the qs you missed more likely experimental or the harder impossible ones? How was your timing overall?

Thanks,

TBH I always thought it was pretty hard to tell what my score was going to be. I felt worse taking NBME13 than I did 15, but I scored 11 pts higher. There were always enough reach/guess questions on NBMEs that I never felt like I killed it when I hit submit. Before I took all those I was kind of assuming I'd feel like a boss at the times when I scored 270+ but I felt pretty much just as unsure as when I scored low 260's. I also think it requires all three of the things you mention: knowledge, luck, and educated guessing. Every exam form will have questions about stuff you don't know/haven't seen before, the key is just staying calm, trying to reason from what you know, and not letting that sense of unease and confusion bleed into the rest of the block. It's important to keep moving and have a short memory for those types of things. One other thing that I think gets overlooked is correct execution. All the knowledge in the world won't help you if you skim the question and miss a key word or misread the label on a graph. I'm pretty impatient and this was something I struggled with early on in UWorld and I really had to work on slowing down and reading purposefully.

As for the real thing, I have no idea how many questions I missed. Sorry I can't be more helpful there. The whole thing was a blur and I don't think I remember more than maybe 5 questions from the entire exam. There were definitely a few in each block that I just guessed and moved on from, which is pretty consistent with my NBME experiences. As for timing, I finished most blocks with ~15 minutes left so that wasn't an issue, which is also reflective of my uworld/nbme experience. There was one block where I used all my time, but the final ten minutes was mostly just zoned out staring at one question that I knew was going to be a total guess anyway.

 

[pd1112]

TBH I always thought it was pretty hard to tell what my score was going to be. I felt worse taking NBME13 than I did 15, but I scored 11 pts higher. There were always enough reach/guess questions on NBMEs that I never felt like I killed it when I hit submit. Before I took all those I was kind of assuming I'd feel like a boss at the times when I scored 270+ but I felt pretty much just as unsure as when I scored low 260's. I also think it requires all three of the things you mention: knowledge, luck, and educated guessing. Every exam form will have questions about stuff you don't know/haven't seen before, the key is just staying calm, trying to reason from what you know, and not letting that sense of unease and confusion bleed into the rest of the block. It's important to keep moving and have a short memory for those types of things. One other thing that I think gets overlooked is correct execution. All the knowledge in the world won't help you if you skim the question and miss a key word or misread the label on a graph. I'm pretty impatient and this was something I struggled with early on in UWorld and I really had to work on slowing down and reading purposefully.

As for the real thing, I have no idea how many questions I missed. Sorry I can't be more helpful there. The whole thing was a blur and I don't think I remember more than maybe 5 questions from the entire exam. There were definitely a few in each block that I just guessed and moved on from, which is pretty consistent with my NBME experiences. As for timing, I finished most blocks with ~15 minutes left so that wasn't an issue, which is also reflective of my uworld/nbme experience. There was one block where I used all my time, but the final ten minutes was mostly just zoned out staring at one question that I knew was going to be a total guess anyway.

This should be a sticky and required read for everyone thinking about posting one of the 4-5 questions per week that are some variant of "I counted at least 7 that I missed for sure, so what's my score going to be?"

 

[Ophthoseidon]

This should be a sticky and required read for everyone thinking about posting one of the 4-5 questions per week that are some variant of "I counted at least 7 that I missed for sure, so what's my score going to be?"

This would be a good idea, but even if it was required to read there would still be people who think someone has the magical answer

 

[mcloaf]

This should be a sticky and required read for everyone thinking about posting one of the 4-5 questions per week that are some variant of "I counted at least 7 that I missed for sure, so what's my score going to be?"

🙂

A lot of my motivation to suppress thoughts about the exam and just get on with my life was based on the posts of people driving themselves crazy after they finished. I'm a big advocate of not stressing out about things that are outside of your control--plus I'll be damned if I'm not going to enjoy a post-step 1 vacation.

 

[faisal 2000]

anyone using boardvitals ?

 

[HelpingHandz]

Longtime lurker. I appreciated those who posted about their experience so here's mine.

Studied for 4 weeks using FA, UWorld, Pathoma and Goljan audio- 14 hrs/ day with no days off.

NBME 13: 211 (4 weeks out)
NBME 15: 228 (2 weeks out)
UWorld: 75% (only finished 2/3 of the qbank)
Kaplan: 69% (~800 questions)

Glory to God...

Real deal: 246

The actual test seemed comparable to UWorld in difficulty, except longer stems. Some questions tested rote memorization (which of the following drugs has this MOA, etc), others asked about classic diagnoses, while others were head-scratchers. I was unfamiliar with a good chunk of the questions, but by knowing basic science, pathologic and physiologic principles could rule out answer choices. I personally felt horrible after the test since I marked 15-20 questions per block. I made 5 dumb mistakes, which I realized walking out, adding to the uncertainty of my performance. After sifting through this forum, it's evident this is the nature of the beast and surely nothing to be alarmed about- just hang in there for those awaiting their score.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

 

[Lord_Vader]

So I got a 239 on my NBME 17 which is 1 point away from my target score. I take my test on Thursday. I have about 400 questions left in Uworld and halfway done with my second run through of FA/Pathoma. Should I finish FA/Pathoma or continue doing Uworld questions?

 

[seminoma]

Score came back Wednesday: mid 260's. Pretty happy with this, keeps all my options open.

Rough time line of my studying:
Beginning of M1: start Firecracker, did it religiously up to test day. I also annotated in things from Pathoma and QBanks during M2 so that I could see them again.
M1 along with classes: BRS physio, SketchyMicro, Picmonic
M2 summer: some review of M1 stuff in Kaplan (anatomy, physiology, neuroanatomy, immunology [not sure that any of this was that helpful outside maybe immuno since I didn't have a great handle on that]), try to flag stuff in FC that we had mentioned in M1 but was more M2 material (75% flagged by the start of M2).
M2 first semester: USMLERx by system along with classes, Kaplan pharm, Pathoma and RR Path along with classes, would also read FA chapters along with class but not annotating anything yet or spending much time there.
M2 winter break: preread coming semester systems in Pathoma and finish flagging FC
M2 2nd semester: essentially the same as first semester M2 except I also completed Kaplan QBank on timed random and made a first pass from beginning to end of first aid (tried to read around 25 pages before bed each night, would annotate some things from this into Firecracker). This got to be a bit of a grind towards the end because I miscalculated and got a little behind on Kaplan, so some days I had to do up to 3 blocks. My grades really took a hit here (though we're true P/F so it's not super concerning, just not ideal).
Dedicated 5 weeks: UWorld timed random (88% first pass average), 2 passes of first aid, pathoma (read the book because I didn't feel like I had time to watch the vids, which was not ideal since I think that's the best part of pathoma), BRS physio, Kaplan Ethics, HY neuroanatomy, blue boxes in Moore's. All additional things from UWorld/Pathoma were annotated by hand into first aid (which I'd highly recommend getting hole punched at put into a binder).

Practice tests:
UWSA1 5wks out/beginning of dedicated: 265
NBME11 3 wks out: 269
UWSA2 2 wks out: 265
I did the last 5 NBME's over 4 days leading into the last week of my prep. I wouldn't recommend this, but it's just kind of what happened and I wanted to make sure I got through them all in case there were any repeats on the real thing.
NBME12: 273
NBME13: 273
NBME15: 262
NBME16: 266
NBME17: 271
Free 150: ~96-7%

Real thing ~265
I already posted about my feelings on test day earlier, but in brief: it sort of sucked. Didn't feel great about it at all, but didn't feel terrible.

Overall I think things turned out great. 2nd semester of M2 really sucked at parts, but I think front loading my work made it a little more low key during my dedicated prep time which was nice. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to break 270 based on practice test scores (and for bragging rights 😉 ), but my final score is pretty in line with my later NBME's and should be more than enough for whatever I end up deciding to do so I am psyched. As an aside, I think it's funny that I was always railing against UWSAs as a predictive tool and ended up scoring very close to them, but I still don't think they're great predictors and their cutoff at 265 made their prediction in my case somewhat coincidental.

Big thanks to all those who've made this forum as helpful as it is. Congrats to those of you who've already taken it, and best of luck to those still preparing. Happy to answer any questions via PM, I'd hoped to do a more thorough write up but M3 has already gotten the better of me and I should get back to studying (it never ends...).

Awesome work dude. Glad to see all your hard work paid off.

 

[pd1112]

The official content outline on the USMLE website gives an idea of topics tested for safety science. Don't shoot the messenger if more hysteria ensues.

 

[anon3338]

The official content outline on the USMLE website gives an idea of topics tested for safety science. Don't shoot the messenger if more hysteria ensues.

Wow, that is a gold mine! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Colombiano123]

You read the entirety of first aid and goljan in three days? That's like 400 pages a day 😱 Congrats on the great score tho

Well, like I said, when you've been through the resources already, it's very easy to go over things fast. In essence, I was skipping concepts I already had down solid and just tried to go over the things that mattered the most. I would do it by system, and would do 1 system every 1.5 hours combined. For RR I wouldnt read the whole book, just the blue notes which are very condensed. If I didn't understand those, then I'd read a bit of the regular text. It sounds like a lot of work, but it flows pretty fast.