Hey guys, I wrote the Step I at the end of December, but figured I would post my experience in this thread since I didn't get my results until well into 2016 and figure the 2015 thread will probably die soon. My original goal was to score in the 230s. I had 6 weeks dedicated study time, and had already fully annotated first aid throughout the year with pathoma and some high yield stuff from other sources as well.
Resources:
Pathoma
First Aid
UWorld
USMLERx
Sketchy Micro
Kaplan physiology
Kaplan anatomy (neuroanatomy chapter only)
Study schedule:
First year: cover-to-cover Kaplan physiology
Second year: Pathoma and First Aid (first pass) throughout the year, fully annotated pathoma into FA. Kaplan neuroanatomy to coincide with my neurology unit for MS2. Sketchy micro and USMLERx questions throughout the year as well.
3 months out: Began second pass FA
6 weeks out: Third pass of first aid
4 weeks out: NBME 15 (222). This freaked me out a little bit, but I hadn't even touched UWorld yet, so I knew I could bring the score up a lot.
4 weeks out: Started UWorld and really buckled down hard with the studying after getting a 222 on the NBME. 3 blocks of UWorld per day plus full review of questions (took about 18 days of 10-12 hours of study time per day, 7 days per week, to finish first pass). Total UWorld score 73% cumulative random timed. First 15 blocks = 68%, Last 15 blocks = 77%. At this point I knew I should at least get 230s which was a bit of a relief, started setting my sights on potential 240s.
11 days out: Few days reviewing weak subjects from UWorld
7 days out: UWSA1 = 248
Final week: More review of weak subjects, spent at least 3 full days in this week just memorizing biochem pathways and enzymes, also did a second pass of all UWorld epi/biostats questions only
3 days out: UWSA2 = 252
2 days out: Free 132 = 92% (At this point I thought I might even have a shot at 250s)
Final day: light review of first aid minutia tables
Exam experience:
Found myself a bit nervous on test day. I am a slow test taker so nearly every block came down to the wire for time. Usually finished with less than 2 minutes to spare, so little time for review. Ended up marking ~15 questions per block which was freaking me out too. My strongest subjects in UWorld were immunology, micro, and behavioral science/ethics so I was hoping for a lot of these questions on the real deal. Literally had every single piece of minutiae on every bug in first aid memorized. Of course there were barely any questions from these areas at all. Less than 10 micro questions total and they were all super straight forward, maybe 5 behavioral science questions total. The immuno questions on the real deal completely wrecked me for some reason though, and this actually ended up being my WEAKEST subject area on the real deal once I saw my score report, despite it being my strongest on UWorld (93rd percentile for UWorld in immuno, yet actually dipped below the pass line in immuno on the real deal, heh). My exam was really heavy on obs/gyn questions (Easily 20+ questions) which is one of my weakest areas relatively speaking so I was pretty upset about this. Also a lot of endocrine which was ok since I love arrow questions. I felt the last few days I had spent cramming biochem pathway minutiae was largely for nothing, there were a total of 3 biochem pathway questions on the entire exam. Overall I was a little disappointed with the question distribution since most of my strong areas were grazed over or they seemingly asked wild unconventional questions despite it being a strong category for me (immuno), and my weakest subject was one of the heavily focused on areas. What can you do though, luck of the draw I guess. Coming out of the exam I had no clue how I did. I marked so many questions, had little time to review the marked questions, subject distribution was unfavorable for me, I thought I could have gotten as low as 220 on the real thing. I am aware that most people are a bit unsure and paranoid after test day too, so I didn't freak out too much and just tried to enjoy some break time while waiting for my score report.
Finally got the score report back last week and scored a 242. I am generally content with this score. After scoring 250 on the UWSAs and 92% on free 132 (I noticed most others with a score this high on the free 132 were scoring at least 250+ on real deal), I was secretly hoping to somehow get a 250+ on the real deal as well, but I knew that a lot of people had said UWSA tends to overpredict, and the luck factor just was not on my side on test day either. I felt that the questions in the free 132 were actually FAR more straight forward than the real deal and not a good reflection of the exam at all. Going in, I was under the impression that these questions were actually supposed to be the most reflective of the real exam so I really started getting my hopes up after crushing the 132. The level of uncertainty/ambiguity I felt in the real deal questions was more in line with UWSA exams imho, I can't comment on NBMEs because I only wrote one and was relatively early on in my prep. Bottom line is that considering my original goal was 230s I am content with my score despite knowing I certainly was capable of scoring a bit higher on test day. Good luck to everyone writing in 2016!
