I gave mine a few days back. I am an IMG. In the last month, I had started to average 235 in the NBMEs. I gave 17 a week before the exam and scored 245. I was too saturated with my preparation and decided to go for it. My target was a 250+ but for some reasons, I was not being able to hit that mark in the NBMEs. I was prepared for the fact that the exam would be very challenging compared to the NBMEs. Mine was comparable to uworld regarding the style of the questions and the way to think about things. I don't know if it was the anxiety or time pressure, I was barely getting by the blocks. I was marking around 15-20 every block and that doesn't even mean the unmarked ones were 100% correct. It was such a tough exam. I was sweating throughout the whole exam experience. I always had the knack of messing up a good 1-2 questions every block in the NBMEs due to overthinking and such, so this was no different no matter how much I tried to avoid it. After leaving the center, I felt so defeated. I was not expecting to be marking 15-20 per block and that really took the wind out of my sail.
Nothing is going to change the result, but as days go by, those questions pop on from memory and the number of incorrects keep on rising up. I have counted 25 already. Half of them were miserable mistakes. Alien reasoning from my side which I wouldn't have done back home. So, I feel gutted to miss out on those gimmes.
Pharm: FA didn't cover many pharm questions, only a few of them. I was counting on FA on this one. Had studied Kaplan before, so maybe I couldn't extract stuff from memory.
Micro, Immuno: Couldn't make out 2-3 images, so randomly guessed it. FA takes care of others. Immuno was easy. Basic knowledge was enough.
Patho: Doable. Very confusing, nonetheless. The pressure of everything made it a little harder. Concepts known to me plain cold were giving me second thoughts during the exam. I had done Goljan + Pathoma videos and that helped me to face the questions and make assumptions (hopefully not wrong ones!)
Phsyio: BRS helped me here along with uworld. Had some queer looking graphs but I believe I guessed right on them by eliminating other options.
Anatomy: It was average. FA didn't cover many questions but I could guess them from previous knowledge. I was heavily prepared for neuroanatomy but only a few showed up. Arggh.
Biostats, behavioral science, ethics: Them 'appropriate response' nightmares. Had about 6-7 of them. But, I think I was right on most. So, hopefully I guessed right.
Some stat questions were so long like they filled up the entire page as if it were an essay or something. I just marked them and moved on to other questions and came back to them before the block finished. Had to guess here because little time was remaining to tackle the issue at hand.
Overall: Challenging experience. I felt like I was guessing half of the exam. NBMEs need to be assessed using a pinch of salt because the real exam was totally different to what I was preparing for. I thought my plane got re-routed somewhere else when I sat in front of the computer. Uworld is ESSENTIAL to learn to tackle the questions, to think about what to look for and make educated guesses.
Being an IMG, this was my one shot at one of the most difficult exams I've ever done because I don't have extra things on my CV to help me match. I will try to fetch some observerships later if possible but that doesn't count too much so I absolutely need a good score. My ship could do a titanic here because coming out of the exam, I felt like I have messed up big time. Waiting for the score will be such a pain in the a**.
Good luck to everyone else! As much as its about learning things, its also about tackling questions under pressure. Keep practicing questions until you are tired of it. And when you feel tired, splash your face with water and do them again. And I would like to thank the forum members from whom I have learnt a lot. Pray for me guys.
. Ready for Step 2 CK soon and from now will be an active member in Step 2 CK forums 
