Official 2016 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Xurros said:
Just got my score! 263! I've been a lurker on these forums for some time now, and I wanted to share my experience as other people's experiences have been helpful to my prep.

I'm at a school that has a condensed preclinical curriculum, and we do a year of clerkships before we take Step 1. I found that my year of clerkships was helpful for a handful of questions on the exam.

Prep during preclinicals: 1. Firecracker (flagged about 70% by the time clinical year came around and couldn't do it anymore as it is a big time sink). I hated firecracker with a passion, and it felt like a huge time sink (at the time I was doing it at least) especially with the long lists of crap they wanted you to be able to regurgitate. But I'm thankful for it, as it got me a handful of questions on my exam that you can't find in UFAP (and I strangely still remembered random things from firecracker on my exam? That was interesting...).
2. First Aid along with systems and during breaks. Mostly just used this to familiarize myself with the material.
3. Pathoma-also along with systems
4. One of the biggest things I can say is to learn your material well during the preclinical years. I had a good number of questions on my exam that came from my clinical year and my preclinical years but could not be found in UFAP alone. Even if you're at a school like mine, you'll still magically remember random details from stuff you learned over a year ago on your exam.

Prep (5 weeks): I deliberately chose 5 weeks to study because I was tired from clerkships, and all my upperclassmen told me to try to take as little time as possible to study because there are diminishing returns at the first couple weeks. This was definitely true. In actuality, I started getting burnt out by the third week and didn't really want to study anymore. My last two weeks weren't really fruitful for me, and I probably lost a couple points from that because I wasn't studying as hard as I had in the first 3 weeks.

Prep materials: UWorld (1x with incorrects and marked questions done again), Pathoma (2x), First Aid (2x with a rapid review of random things the final week just to jog my memory), Sketchy Micro (2x), NBMEs

Some advice: READ EVERY UWORLD EXPLANATION. Those are gold. I was kind of skeptical in the beginning as I didn't think I was getting much from them but as my prep went on I would randomly remember random details from those explanations and would get me random questions right. Also, Pathoma is gold. Don't skip it. I wish I did a 3rd pass of it because I could literally hear Sattar's voice on some of the questions.

School given CBSE: 232 (4 months out)
NBME 12: 247 (6 weeks out)
UWSA 1: 260 (5 weeks out)
UWSA 2: 260 (4 weeks out)
NBME 15: 264 (3 weeks out)
NBME 16: 260 (2 weeks out)
NBME 17: 271 (1 week out)
Free 132: 93% (3 days before)

Exam Experience: Oh yes, the thing that everyone wants to know. Take this with a grain of salt as everyone has different forms, and you won't get the same form as me (even if it is helpful). The exam was very similar to the NBMEs with a couple UWorld like questions and a handful of WTF questions (about 2-3 per block). The exam I would say was 80-90% UFAP. Don't worry about the random other stuff on the exam. Just go with your gut and move on. Some of the WTF questions could only really be answered with knowledge from my clinical years which I thought was really unfair for people who don't take it after clerkships. My exam was extremely psych, renal, and rheum heavy, and I wanted to bang my head against the wall while taking the exam as these are my 3 WORST areas. The stems were also a little bit longer, and I was definitely had some less time to do my blocks. I normally finished my NBME blocks and UWorld blocks with 25-30 minutes left, but on the real deal, I only had about 10-15 minutes. In terms of systems:

Anatomy: Yes, everyone is scared of this. My form had about 10-15 questions total, and FA was enough for most of them except for 2 questions (both of which only an ortho could answer).

Biochem: Very straightforward. Not many questions. I was kind of mad about this because I spent so much time with biochem, but not much showed up and most of it was biochem diseases.

Micro: Omg, I had SOOOOOOOO much micro. It was just like wtf the whole time. Thank goodness for Sketchy Micro because it saved my butt on a ton of those questions. A lot of it was straightforward with a couple headscratchers. Except my detailed report had micro as my worst subject, so I guess I guessed wrong on a bunch of them haha.

Immuno: Not much at all. Maybe 5-10 total. And most of it was straightforward.

Behavioral/Ethics: Some of this was really, really hard. Very mixed stuff, and you get stuck between 2 answers but you just have to go with your gut and move on. There weren't that many on my exam anyway.

Biostats: Not much. Had one WTF questions here that only someone with a stats degree could answer. Otherwise, FA was enough for my exam.

Pharm: Very straightforward on my exam. FA covered 95% of pharm on my exam. Most questions were more geared toward side effects (which was a strength of mine given I had seen a lot of these during clerkships).

Path: Obviously a big chunk of my exam. Like I said, my exam was very psych, renal, and rheum heavy. (Also pulm heavy). Out of these four, rheum was extremely heavy on my exam (which I was surprised about because rheum is generally low yield). I wanted to break my computer, but thankfully rheum was manageable and relatively straightforward with a couple WTF questions. Psych was the second most heavy next to rheum, and it was also straightforward. Renal and pulm were pretty equal, and these two had the harder questions. There were a bunch of mixed presentations of renal and pulm, and like some people said before, some of the questions would go in one direction and then start going in another direction and then go in a third direction. Clerkships were helpful for this because a lot of Step 2 material forces you to parse out diagnoses and split between hairs. Otherwise, all other systems were low yield (including neuroanatomy which I was surprised about. Neuroanatomy was probably 3 questions on my exam.) There was a handful of basic path questions, some of which was WTF and others were straightforward.

Physio: A ton of physio (endocrine wise). Almost all of it was straightforward which the exception of one WTF question that I just stared at for 5 minutes and gave up because staring at the question wasn't going to do anything.

Other stuff: Not many CT scans/X-rays etc on my exam. One question had an abdominal x-ray but it didn't even show anything and I didn't need it to answer the question. Had 3 EKGs, and it was surprising because people universally say EKGs are very straightforward on their exam, but 1 of mine was WTF and I only knew it because I did a cardio elective. Had two heart sounds, both of which couldn't really be answered with the stem so I had to listen to them. Good quality I have to say. Sounded exactly like a real patient. Had a couple repeats from the NBMEs and from the Free 132 (or were very similar). A couple questions were also very similar to UWorld also. One of my questions was literally sentence for sentence out of FA, and I thought I was reading FA for a couple seconds. Makes you wonder who's writing FA....

Post-Exam Experience: Felt relatively okay coming out. Wasn't as crazy as some people had said on here. But it was bad that night and the following 2 days. I started to look up random questions and found out I had about 4-5 stupid mistakes/overthought some things. In the end, I had a list of 13 wrong with 8 that I was unsure of. I would highly recommend taking a vacation and getting away from social media because it really helped me. I went to South America and did a hiking trip for 2 weeks with very little internet and was able to get away from thinking about step. But this week, I started having flashbacks of questions and would look up random things from my exam again. Definitely not good. In the end, I would say I got anywhere between 30 and 40 wrong on my exam.

Anyways, this is long enough. Hope this is helpful to everyone else taking this exam soon. Let me know if anyone has any other questions!
Click to expand...

271 on 17?? sweet jesus... makes my 262 feel inadequate haha.. great score!
 
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Xurros said:
Just got my score! 263! I've been a lurker on these forums for some time now, and I wanted to share my experience as other people's experiences have been helpful to my prep.

I'm at a school that has a condensed preclinical curriculum, and we do a year of clerkships before we take Step 1. I found that my year of clerkships was helpful for a handful of questions on the exam.

Prep during preclinicals: 1. Firecracker (flagged about 70% by the time clinical year came around and couldn't do it anymore as it is a big time sink). I hated firecracker with a passion, and it felt like a huge time sink (at the time I was doing it at least) especially with the long lists of crap they wanted you to be able to regurgitate. But I'm thankful for it, as it got me a handful of questions on my exam that you can't find in UFAP (and I strangely still remembered random things from firecracker on my exam? That was interesting...).
2. First Aid along with systems and during breaks. Mostly just used this to familiarize myself with the material.
3. Pathoma-also along with systems
4. One of the biggest things I can say is to learn your material well during the preclinical years. I had a good number of questions on my exam that came from my clinical year and my preclinical years but could not be found in UFAP alone. Even if you're at a school like mine, you'll still magically remember random details from stuff you learned over a year ago on your exam.

Prep (5 weeks): I deliberately chose 5 weeks to study because I was tired from clerkships, and all my upperclassmen told me to try to take as little time as possible to study because there are diminishing returns at the first couple weeks. This was definitely true. In actuality, I started getting burnt out by the third week and didn't really want to study anymore. My last two weeks weren't really fruitful for me, and I probably lost a couple points from that because I wasn't studying as hard as I had in the first 3 weeks.

Prep materials: UWorld (1x with incorrects and marked questions done again), Pathoma (2x), First Aid (2x with a rapid review of random things the final week just to jog my memory), Sketchy Micro (2x), NBMEs

Some advice: READ EVERY UWORLD EXPLANATION. Those are gold. I was kind of skeptical in the beginning as I didn't think I was getting much from them but as my prep went on I would randomly remember random details from those explanations and would get me random questions right. Also, Pathoma is gold. Don't skip it. I wish I did a 3rd pass of it because I could literally hear Sattar's voice on some of the questions.

School given CBSE: 232 (4 months out)
NBME 12: 247 (6 weeks out)
UWSA 1: 260 (5 weeks out)
UWSA 2: 260 (4 weeks out)
NBME 15: 264 (3 weeks out)
NBME 16: 260 (2 weeks out)
NBME 17: 271 (1 week out)
Free 132: 93% (3 days before)

Exam Experience: Oh yes, the thing that everyone wants to know. Take this with a grain of salt as everyone has different forms, and you won't get the same form as me (even if it is helpful). The exam was very similar to the NBMEs with a couple UWorld like questions and a handful of WTF questions (about 2-3 per block). The exam I would say was 80-90% UFAP. Don't worry about the random other stuff on the exam. Just go with your gut and move on. Some of the WTF questions could only really be answered with knowledge from my clinical years which I thought was really unfair for people who don't take it after clerkships. My exam was extremely psych, renal, and rheum heavy, and I wanted to bang my head against the wall while taking the exam as these are my 3 WORST areas. The stems were also a little bit longer, and I was definitely had some less time to do my blocks. I normally finished my NBME blocks and UWorld blocks with 25-30 minutes left, but on the real deal, I only had about 10-15 minutes. In terms of systems:

Anatomy: Yes, everyone is scared of this. My form had about 10-15 questions total, and FA was enough for most of them except for 2 questions (both of which only an ortho could answer).

Biochem: Very straightforward. Not many questions. I was kind of mad about this because I spent so much time with biochem, but not much showed up and most of it was biochem diseases.

Micro: Omg, I had SOOOOOOOO much micro. It was just like wtf the whole time. Thank goodness for Sketchy Micro because it saved my butt on a ton of those questions. A lot of it was straightforward with a couple headscratchers. Except my detailed report had micro as my worst subject, so I guess I guessed wrong on a bunch of them haha.

Immuno: Not much at all. Maybe 5-10 total. And most of it was straightforward.

Behavioral/Ethics: Some of this was really, really hard. Very mixed stuff, and you get stuck between 2 answers but you just have to go with your gut and move on. There weren't that many on my exam anyway.

Biostats: Not much. Had one WTF questions here that only someone with a stats degree could answer. Otherwise, FA was enough for my exam.

Pharm: Very straightforward on my exam. FA covered 95% of pharm on my exam. Most questions were more geared toward side effects (which was a strength of mine given I had seen a lot of these during clerkships).

Path: Obviously a big chunk of my exam. Like I said, my exam was very psych, renal, and rheum heavy. (Also pulm heavy). Out of these four, rheum was extremely heavy on my exam (which I was surprised about because rheum is generally low yield). I wanted to break my computer, but thankfully rheum was manageable and relatively straightforward with a couple WTF questions. Psych was the second most heavy next to rheum, and it was also straightforward. Renal and pulm were pretty equal, and these two had the harder questions. There were a bunch of mixed presentations of renal and pulm, and like some people said before, some of the questions would go in one direction and then start going in another direction and then go in a third direction. Clerkships were helpful for this because a lot of Step 2 material forces you to parse out diagnoses and split between hairs. Otherwise, all other systems were low yield (including neuroanatomy which I was surprised about. Neuroanatomy was probably 3 questions on my exam.) There was a handful of basic path questions, some of which was WTF and others were straightforward.

Physio: A ton of physio (endocrine wise). Almost all of it was straightforward which the exception of one WTF question that I just stared at for 5 minutes and gave up because staring at the question wasn't going to do anything.

Other stuff: Not many CT scans/X-rays etc on my exam. One question had an abdominal x-ray but it didn't even show anything and I didn't need it to answer the question. Had 3 EKGs, and it was surprising because people universally say EKGs are very straightforward on their exam, but 1 of mine was WTF and I only knew it because I did a cardio elective. Had two heart sounds, both of which couldn't really be answered with the stem so I had to listen to them. Good quality I have to say. Sounded exactly like a real patient. Had a couple repeats from the NBMEs and from the Free 132 (or were very similar). A couple questions were also very similar to UWorld also. One of my questions was literally sentence for sentence out of FA, and I thought I was reading FA for a couple seconds. Makes you wonder who's writing FA....

Post-Exam Experience: Felt relatively okay coming out. Wasn't as crazy as some people had said on here. But it was bad that night and the following 2 days. I started to look up random questions and found out I had about 4-5 stupid mistakes/overthought some things. In the end, I had a list of 13 wrong with 8 that I was unsure of. I would highly recommend taking a vacation and getting away from social media because it really helped me. I went to South America and did a hiking trip for 2 weeks with very little internet and was able to get away from thinking about step. But this week, I started having flashbacks of questions and would look up random things from my exam again. Definitely not good. In the end, I would say I got anywhere between 30 and 40 wrong on my exam.

Anyways, this is long enough. Hope this is helpful to everyone else taking this exam soon. Let me know if anyone has any other questions!
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for a wonderful write-up and congratulations on a great score!

What was your UWorld percentage if you don't mind my asking?
 
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plasmodium said:
Thank you very much for a wonderful write-up and congratulations on a great score!

What was your UWorld percentage if you don't mind my asking?
Click to expand...

Oh forgot to include that. I knew I was forgetting something. I finished it at an 81%. Did 44 question blocks random and timed. Finished about 2.5 weeks before my test and redid my incorrects and marked questions.
 
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Xurros said:
Oh forgot to include that. I knew I was forgetting something. I finished it at an 81%. Did 44 question blocks random and timed. Finished about 2.5 weeks before my test and redid my incorrects and marked questions.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this, seriously! Great writeup.
 
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Xurros said:
Oh forgot to include that. I knew I was forgetting something. I finished it at an 81%. Did 44 question blocks random and timed. Finished about 2.5 weeks before my test and redid my incorrects and marked questions.
Click to expand...
I appreciate you also mentioning what practice questions you felt were most reminiscent of the exam questions! As you were going through UWorld, did you feel that some of the time you were "educated guessing," using reasoning to derive the best answer but were still not 100% sure you had it right between close answer choices? If so, did you feel the same about the real exam?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Xurros said:
Just got my score! 263! I've been a lurker on these forums for some time now, and I wanted to share my experience as other people's experiences have been helpful to my prep.

I'm at a school that has a condensed preclinical curriculum, and we do a year of clerkships before we take Step 1. I found that my year of clerkships was helpful for a handful of questions on the exam.

Prep during preclinicals: 1. Firecracker (flagged about 70% by the time clinical year came around and couldn't do it anymore as it is a big time sink). I hated firecracker with a passion, and it felt like a huge time sink (at the time I was doing it at least) especially with the long lists of crap they wanted you to be able to regurgitate. But I'm thankful for it, as it got me a handful of questions on my exam that you can't find in UFAP (and I strangely still remembered random things from firecracker on my exam? That was interesting...).
2. First Aid along with systems and during breaks. Mostly just used this to familiarize myself with the material.
3. Pathoma-also along with systems
4. Goljan audio. This guy is amazing. Only got through to like the 30th lecture? But he does an amazing job of integrating random points for you. Wish I did it during dedicated, but I got lazy and didn't feel like studying much haha.
5. One of the biggest things I can say is to learn your material well during the preclinical years. I had a good number of questions on my exam that came from my clinical year and my preclinical years but could not be found in UFAP alone. Even if you're at a school like mine, you'll still magically remember random details from stuff you learned over a year ago on your exam.

Prep (5 weeks): I deliberately chose 5 weeks to study because I was tired from clerkships, and all my upperclassmen told me to try to take as little time as possible to study because there are diminishing returns at the first couple weeks. This was definitely true. In actuality, I started getting burnt out by the third week and didn't really want to study anymore. My last two weeks weren't really fruitful for me, and I probably lost a couple points from that because I wasn't studying as hard as I had in the first 3 weeks.

Prep materials: UWorld (1x with incorrects and marked questions done again), Pathoma (1x with the audio and 1x with the book because I got lazy and didn't feel like watching the videos anymore which was a big mistake. Watch the videos people!), First Aid (2x with a rapid review of random things the final week just to jog my memory), Sketchy Micro (2x), NBMEs

Some advice: READ EVERY UWORLD EXPLANATION. Those are gold. I was kind of skeptical in the beginning as I didn't think I was getting much from them but as my prep went on I would randomly remember random details from those explanations and would get me random questions right. Also, Pathoma is gold. Don't skip it. I wish I did a 3rd pass of it because I could literally hear Sattar's voice guiding me to the answer on some of the questions.

School given CBSE: 232 (4 months out)
NBME 12: 247 (6 weeks out)
UWSA 1: 260 (5 weeks out)
UWSA 2: 260 (4 weeks out)
NBME 15: 264 (3 weeks out)
NBME 16: 260 (2 weeks out)
NBME 17: 271 (1 week out)
Free 132: 93% (3 days before)
Finished UWorld 2.5 weeks before test date at an 81%, did timed, random blocks of 44

Exam Experience: Oh yes, the thing that everyone wants to know. Take this with a grain of salt as everyone has different forms, and you won't get the same form as me (even if it is helpful). The exam was very similar to the NBMEs with a couple UWorld like questions and a handful of WTF questions (about 2-3 per block). The exam I would say was 80-90% UFAP. Don't worry about the random other stuff on the exam. Just go with your gut and move on. Some of the WTF questions could only really be answered with knowledge from my clinical years which I thought was really unfair for people who don't take it after clerkships. My exam was extremely psych, renal, and rheum heavy, and I wanted to bang my head against the wall while taking the exam as these are my 3 WORST areas. The stems were also a little bit longer, and I was definitely had some less time to do my blocks. I normally finished my NBME blocks and UWorld blocks with 25-30 minutes left, but on the real deal, I only had about 10-15 minutes. In terms of systems:

Anatomy: Yes, everyone is scared of this. My form had about 10-15 questions total, and FA was enough for most of them except for 2 questions (both of which only an ortho could answer).

Biochem: Very straightforward. Not many questions. I was kind of mad about this because I spent so much time with biochem, but not much showed up and most of it was biochem diseases.

Micro: Omg, I had SOOOOOOOO much micro. It was just like wtf the whole time. Thank goodness for Sketchy Micro because it saved my butt on a ton of those questions. A lot of it was straightforward with a couple headscratchers.

Immuno: Not much at all. Maybe 5-10 total. And most of it was straightforward.

Behavioral/Ethics: Some of this was really, really hard. Very mixed stuff, and you get stuck between 2 answers but you just have to go with your gut and move on. There weren't that many on my exam anyway.

Biostats: Not much. Had one WTF questions here that only someone with a stats degree could answer. Otherwise, FA was enough for my exam.

Pharm: Very straightforward on my exam. FA covered 95% of pharm on my exam. Most questions were more geared toward side effects (which was a strength of mine given I had seen a lot of these during clerkships).

Path: Obviously a big chunk of my exam. Like I said, my exam was very psych, renal, and rheum heavy. (Also pulm heavy). Out of these four, rheum was extremely heavy on my exam (which I was surprised about because rheum is generally low yield). I wanted to break my computer, but thankfully rheum was manageable and relatively straightforward with a couple WTF questions. Psych was the second most heavy next to rheum, and it was also straightforward. Renal and pulm were pretty equal, and these two had the harder questions. There were a bunch of mixed presentations of renal and pulm, and like some people said before, some of the questions would go in one direction and then start going in another direction and then go in a third direction. Clerkships were helpful for this because a lot of Step 2 material forces you to parse out diagnoses and split between hairs. Otherwise, all other systems were low yield (including neuroanatomy which I was surprised about. Neuroanatomy was probably 3 questions on my exam.) There was a handful of basic path questions, some of which was WTF and others were straightforward.

Physio: A ton of physio (endocrine wise). Almost all of it was straightforward which the exception of one WTF question that I just stared at for 5 minutes and gave up because staring at the question wasn't going to do anything.

Other stuff: Not many CT scans/X-rays etc on my exam. One question had an abdominal x-ray but it didn't even show anything and I didn't need it to answer the question. Had 3 EKGs, and it was surprising because people universally say EKGs are very straightforward on their exam, but 1 of mine was WTF and I only knew it because I did a cardio elective. Had two heart sounds, both of which couldn't really be answered with the stem so I had to listen to them. Good quality I have to say. Sounded exactly like a real patient. Had a couple repeats from the NBMEs and from the Free 132 (or were very similar). A couple questions were also very similar to UWorld also. One of my questions was literally sentence for sentence out of FA, and I thought I was reading FA for a couple seconds. Makes you wonder who's writing FA.... UWorld also got me a question wrong haha. But whatever.

Post-Exam Experience: Felt relatively okay coming out. Wasn't as crazy as some people had said on here. But it was bad that night and the following 2 days. I started to look up random questions and found out I had about 4-5 stupid mistakes/overthought some things. In the end, I had a list of 13 wrong with 8 that I was unsure of. I would highly recommend taking a vacation and getting away from social media because it really helped me. I went to South America and did a hiking trip for 2 weeks with very little internet and was able to get away from thinking about step. But this week, I started having flashbacks of questions and would look up random things from my exam again. Definitely not good. In the end, I would say I got anywhere between 30 and 40 wrong on my exam.

Anyways, this is long enough. Hope this is helpful to everyone else taking this exam soon. Let me know if anyone has any other questions!
Click to expand...
Congrats on the wonderful score. What kind of (wtf) EKG questions did you encounter on your exam?
 
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plasmodium said:
I appreciate you also mentioning what practice questions you felt were most reminiscent of the exam questions! As you were going through UWorld, did you feel that some of the time you were "educated guessing," using reasoning to derive the best answer but were still not 100% sure you had it right between close answer choices? If so, did you feel the same about the real exam?
Click to expand...

Yes, this is normal. Some questions in UWorld are pretty straightforward while some others are wtf. You'd be very surprised at your reasoning skills/your gut on these things. I would sometimes go back through my correct questions and be really surprised that I reasoned through it correctly haha. And yes, the exam is similar in this way. In fact, on some questions, I would pick one answer and pick another answer and then pick a third answer and repeat that whole thing for 5 minutes until I slapped my brain and picked my first answer again. Not good, but it turned out fine for me.

Carbocation1 said:
Congrats on the wonderful score. What kind of (wtf) EKG questions did you encounter on your exam?
Click to expand...

I'm not certain I'm allowed to say because it might be against the rules, but if you do get it, it might have been taught in your cardio block as it did require higher level knowledge than what was in FA. It's fine though as it's only 1 question from over 300.
 
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SUPER EXCITED!!!! "250" on the real deal!!!! Just wanted to give a positive impression to all who have experienced frustrating scores on NBMEs. as a fresh IMG, my first NBME was "207" !!!! just believe in yourself and don't stop hard working if you have a dream... it will pay off! I will write a detailed post when I come back! It's time to PARTY now!!!! 😀
 
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dorjosam said:
SUPER EXCITED!!!! "250" on the real deal!!!! Just wanted to give a positive impression to all who have experienced frustrating scores on NBMEs. as a fresh IMG, my first NBME was "207" !!!! just believe in yourself and don't stop hard working if you have a dream... it will pay off! I will write a detailed post when I come back! It's time to PARTY now!!!! 😀
Click to expand...

congrats on the score buddy! btw what exactly do you mean when you say "a fresh IMG"? 😉
 
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Xurros said:
Just got my score! 263! I've been a lurker on these forums for some time now, and I wanted to share my experience as other people's experiences have been helpful to my prep.

I'm at a school that has a condensed preclinical curriculum, and we do a year of clerkships before we take Step 1. I found that my year of clerkships was helpful for a handful of questions on the exam.

Prep during preclinicals: 1. Firecracker (flagged about 70% by the time clinical year came around and couldn't do it anymore as it is a big time sink). I hated firecracker with a passion, and it felt like a huge time sink (at the time I was doing it at least) especially with the long lists of crap they wanted you to be able to regurgitate. But I'm thankful for it, as it got me a handful of questions on my exam that you can't find in UFAP (and I strangely still remembered random things from firecracker on my exam? That was interesting...).
2. First Aid along with systems and during breaks. Mostly just used this to familiarize myself with the material.
3. Pathoma-also along with systems
4. Goljan audio. This guy is amazing. Only got through to like the 30th lecture? But he does an amazing job of integrating random points for you. Wish I did it during dedicated, but I got lazy and didn't feel like studying much haha.
5. One of the biggest things I can say is to learn your material well during the preclinical years. I had a good number of questions on my exam that came from my clinical year and my preclinical years but could not be found in UFAP alone. Even if you're at a school like mine, you'll still magically remember random details from stuff you learned over a year ago on your exam. There were a large number of questions I only got right because of something that was taught in lecture or something one of my attendings told me. It was always a big pet peeve of mine when my classmates would complain that the material they were teaching us was useless and a big waste of time and would go do their own thing... And then they got reamed during Step 1 prep when they realized how much of that "useless" and "a big waste of time" stuff was in UFAP and on their exam.

Prep (5 weeks): I deliberately chose 5 weeks to study because I was tired from clerkships, and all my upperclassmen told me to try to take as little time as possible to study because there are diminishing returns at the first couple weeks. This was definitely true. In actuality, I started getting burnt out by the third week and didn't really want to study anymore. My last two weeks weren't really fruitful for me, and I probably lost a couple points from that because I wasn't studying as hard as I had in the first 3 weeks.

Prep materials: UWorld (1x with incorrects and marked questions done again), Pathoma (1x with the audio and 1x with the book because I got lazy and didn't feel like watching the videos anymore which was a big mistake. Watch the videos people!), First Aid (2x with a rapid review of random things the final week just to jog my memory), Sketchy Micro (2x), NBMEs

Some advice: READ EVERY UWORLD EXPLANATION. Those are gold. I was kind of skeptical in the beginning as I didn't think I was getting much from them but as my prep went on I would randomly remember random details from those explanations and would get me random questions right. Also, Pathoma is gold. Don't skip it. I wish I did a 3rd pass of it because I could literally hear Sattar's voice guiding me to the answer on some of the questions. Also, last thing... I always read on here about people saying they knew "80-90% of FA" by the end of their study period. That's BS. That's not possible. There's a reason why even the people who score 270s say they go through FA after their exam and magically find random factoids from their exam that they didn't think was there. The book, while very bare bones, is also very dense. You read one thing, and the previous thing you just read goes out of your brain. I had a panic attack in the middle of my prep because I didn't feel like I even knew half of FA.

School given CBSE: 232 (4 months out)
NBME 12: 247 (6 weeks out)
UWSA 1: 260 (5 weeks out)
UWSA 2: 260 (4 weeks out)
NBME 15: 264 (3 weeks out)
NBME 16: 260 (2 weeks out)
NBME 17: 271 (1 week out)
Free 132: 93% (3 days before)
Finished UWorld 2.5 weeks before test date at an 81%, did timed, random blocks of 44

Exam Experience: Oh yes, the thing that everyone wants to know. Take this with a grain of salt as everyone has different forms, and you won't get the same form as me (even if it is helpful). The exam was very similar to the NBMEs with a couple UWorld like questions and a handful of WTF questions (about 2-3 per block). The exam I would say was 80-90% UFAP. Don't worry about the random other stuff on the exam. Just go with your gut and move on. Some of the WTF questions could only really be answered with knowledge from my clinical years which I thought was really unfair for people who don't take it after clerkships. My exam was extremely psych, renal, and rheum heavy, and I wanted to bang my head against the wall while taking the exam as these are my 3 WORST areas. The stems were also a little bit longer, and I was definitely had some less time to do my blocks. I normally finished my NBME blocks and UWorld blocks with 25-30 minutes left, but on the real deal, I only had about 10-15 minutes. In terms of systems:

Anatomy: Yes, everyone is scared of this. My form had about 10-15 questions total, and FA was enough for most of them except for 2 questions (both of which only an ortho could answer).

Biochem: Very straightforward. Not many questions. I was kind of mad about this because I spent so much time with biochem, but not much showed up and most of it was biochem diseases.

Micro: Omg, I had SOOOOOOOO much micro. It was just like wtf the whole time. Thank goodness for Sketchy Micro because it saved my butt on a ton of those questions. A lot of it was straightforward with a couple headscratchers.

Immuno: Not much at all. Maybe 5-10 total. And most of it was straightforward.

Embryo: Not too many questions. Maybe 5 total, but the ones that were on there were actually some of the hardest questions on the exam and were more second to third order and not a regurgitation of branchial pouches etc.

Behavioral/Ethics: Some of this was really, really hard. Very mixed stuff, and you get stuck between 2 answers but you just have to go with your gut and move on. There weren't that many on my exam anyway.

Biostats: Not much. Had one WTF questions here that only someone with a stats degree could answer. Otherwise, FA was enough for my exam.

Pharm: Very straightforward on my exam. FA covered 95% of pharm on my exam. Most questions were more geared toward side effects (which was a strength of mine given I had seen a lot of these during clerkships).

Path: Obviously a big chunk of my exam. Like I said, my exam was very psych, renal, and rheum heavy. (Also pulm heavy). Out of these four, rheum was extremely heavy on my exam (which I was surprised about because rheum is generally low yield). I wanted to break my computer, but thankfully rheum was manageable and relatively straightforward with a couple WTF questions. Psych was the second most heavy next to rheum, and it was also straightforward. Renal and pulm were pretty equal, and these two had the harder questions. There were a bunch of mixed presentations of renal and pulm, and like some people said before, some of the questions would go in one direction and then start going in another direction and then go in a third direction. Clerkships were helpful for this because a lot of Step 2 material forces you to parse out diagnoses and split between hairs. Otherwise, all other systems were low yield (including neuroanatomy which I was surprised about. Neuroanatomy was probably 3 questions on my exam.) There was a handful of basic path questions, some of which was WTF and others were straightforward.

Physio: A ton of physio (endocrine wise). Almost all of it was straightforward with the exception of one WTF question that I just stared at for 5 minutes and gave up because staring at the question wasn't going to do anything.

Other stuff: Not many CT scans/X-rays etc on my exam. One question had an abdominal x-ray but it didn't even show anything and I didn't need it to answer the question (I hope haha). Had 3 EKGs, and it was surprising because people universally say EKGs are very straightforward on their exam, but 1 of mine was WTF and I only knew it because I did a cardio elective. Had two heart sounds, both of which couldn't really be answered with the stem so I had to listen to them. Good quality I have to say. Sounded exactly like a real patient. Had a couple repeats from the NBMEs and from the Free 132 (or were very similar). A couple questions were also very similar to UWorld also. One of my questions was literally sentence for sentence out of FA, and I thought I was reading FA for a couple seconds. Makes you wonder who's writing FA.... UWorld also got me a question wrong haha. But whatever.

Post-Exam Experience: Felt relatively okay coming out. Wasn't as crazy as some people had said on here. But it was bad that night and the following 2 days. I started to look up random questions and found out I had about 4-5 stupid mistakes/overthought some things. In the end, I had a list of 13 wrong with 8 that I was unsure of. I would highly recommend taking a vacation and getting away from social media because it really helped me. I went to South America and did a hiking trip for 2 weeks with very little internet and was able to get away from thinking about step. But this week, I started having flashbacks of questions and would look up random things from my exam again (and I also thought I misread a bunch of questions). Definitely not good. In the end, I would say I got anywhere between 30 and 40 wrong on my exam.

Anyways, this is long enough. Hope this is helpful to everyone else taking this exam soon. Let me know if anyone has any other questions!
Click to expand...
 
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Xurros said:
Oh forgot to include that. I knew I was forgetting something. I finished it at an 81%. Did 44 question blocks random and timed. Finished about 2.5 weeks before my test and redid my incorrects and marked questions.
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great great GREEEAAATT score Dr CONGRATULATIONS!, I am waiting for my score this week and seriously I am suffering from post step 1 stress disorder, after the exam i felt very confident but now i can not even sleep... and I have a question for you if you dont mind my asking...

how many questions did you think you failed after the test?
 
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lainos said:
hello everyone I am kinda new here, i am waiting for my results this week, i have seen some people asking about EKG questions, I had 2 on my exam, and I have to say they were very straight forward, I know it is not legal to publish the questions, but ...I will say only that the first one was about a disorder of a very important intracellular electrolite, and the second one was about a patient with dead tissue in a very important pump in the mediastinum lol, I hope USMLE NBME people dont get mad at me for this...
Click to expand...
 
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lainos said:
great great GREEEAAATT score Dr CONGRATULATIONS!, I am waiting for my score this week and seriously I am suffering from post step 1 stress disorder, after the exam i felt very confident but now i can not even sleep... and I have a question for you if you dont mind my asking...

how many questions did you think you failed after the test?
Click to expand...

I also had some craziness post exam. I'm just happy I'm done with this process and can move on with my life. Total, I would say I got around 30-40 wrong on my test. I had 13 confirmed questions wrong with around 8-9 that I wasn't sure of.
 
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Actual score: 260

Study plan consisted of...

Resources: First Aid, UWorld Q-Bank, USMLE Rx Q-Bank, Goljan Pathology, High Yield Anatomy, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple; Deja Review Pharmacology; Lippincott's Microcards

Plan:
(1) Read through relevant chapter of First Aid x 1 after finishing the module in medical school
(2) Did USMLE Rx x 1 [started lightly ~ 2.5 months before exam day and more intensively ~ 1.5 months before exam day]
(3) Did UWorld Q-Bank x 1 [as with USMLE Rx, the first time through, I annotated First Aid when I got something wrong or blatantly misunderstood something]
(4) Started doing practice exams within one month of Test Day (UWorld x 2 & NBME x 6)
(5) In remaining time --> I went over "wrong" and "marked" in both USMLE Rx and UWorld again.

Practice Results:
USMLE Rx (first pass): ~82%
UWorld Q Bank (first-pass): 82.4%
UWorld 1: 259 (83.52%); 730 (program score)
UWorld 2: 265 (89.77%); 800 (program score)
NBME 11: 260 (93.50%); 650 (program score)
NBME 12: 264 (95.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 13: 264 (94.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 15: 262 (93.50%); 660 (program score)
NBME 16: 277 (98.00%); 730 (program score)
NBME 17: 266 (95.50%); 680 (program score)

Predicted score (using Clinical Review Calculator): 264 +/- 9 (not sure how legit this website is, but it claims a fairly large sample size)

Exam Experience: About what I expected from my study period (ie, UWorld + NBMEs), but I believed the exam was a little bit more difficult than the NBMEs.

Actual score: 260

Concluding statement: I'm just slightly disappointed (260 was in the lower range of my practice scores). I felt I was trending up at the end of my study period and had a good shot at doing at least 5 points better. On the other hand, I don't know what I would have done differently, per se, and I think I'll have a pretty competitive application with a 260.

Recommendations: UWorld is great. USMLE Rx is not as bad as people seem to think it is, in my view. USMLE Rx is a very reasonable resource, especially if you get through questions quickly (as I did -- I did more than 100 questions per day regularly with extensive review of the blocks). I ended up not really reading through Goljan, instead using it solely as a resource (who has time to read through Goljan's? -- some people claim to!) I recommend Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple but not Lippincott's Microcards. Deja Review Pharm came in handy but is not super high yield, but it suited me (ie, lots of content review without too much detail a la Lippincott's Microcards).
 
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MemphisBlues said:
Actual score: 260

Study plan consisted of...

Resources: First Aid, UWorld Q-Bank, USMLE Rx Q-Bank, Goljan Pathology, High Yield Anatomy, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple; Deja Review Pharmacology; Lippincott's Microcards

Plan:
(1) Read through relevant chapter of First Aid x 1 after finishing the module in medical school
(2) Did USMLE Rx x 1 [started lightly ~ 2.5 months before exam day and more intensively ~ 1.5 months before exam day]
(3) Did UWorld Q-Bank x 1 [as with USMLE Rx, the first time through, I annotated First Aid when I got something wrong or blatantly misunderstood something]
(4) Started doing practice exams within one month of Test Day (UWorld x 2 & NBME x 6)
(5) In remaining time --> I went over "wrong" and "marked" in both USMLE Rx and UWorld again.

Practice Results:
USMLE Rx (first pass): ~82%
UWorld Q Bank (first-pass): 82.4%
UWorld 1: 259 (83.52%); 730 (program score)
UWorld 2: 265 (89.77%); 800 (program score)
NBME 11: 260 (93.50%); 650 (program score)
NBME 12: 264 (95.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 13: 264 (94.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 15: 262 (93.50%); 660 (program score)
NBME 16: 277 (98.00%); 730 (program score)
NBME 17: 266 (95.50%); 680 (program score)

Predicted score (using Clinical Review Calculator): 264 +/- 9 (not sure how legit this website is, but it claims a fairly large sample size)

Exam Experience: About what I expected from my study period (ie, UWorld + NBMEs), but I believed the exam was a little bit more difficult than the NBMEs.

Actual score: 260

Concluding statement: I'm just slightly disappointed (260 was in the lower range of my practice scores). I felt I was trending up at the end of my study period and had a good shot at doing at least 5 points better. On the other hand, I don't know what I would have done differently, per se, and I think I'll have a pretty competitive application with a 260.

Recommendations: UWorld is great. USMLE Rx is not as bad as people seem to think it is, in my view. USMLE Rx is a very reasonable resource, especially if you get through questions quickly (as I did -- I did more than 100 questions per day regularly with extensive review of the blocks). I ended up not really reading through Goljan, instead using it solely as a resource (who has time to read through Goljan's? -- some people claim to!) I recommend Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple but not Lippincott's Microcards. Deja Review Pharm came in handy but is not super high yield, but it suited me (ie, lots of content review without too much detail a la Lippincott's Microcards).
Click to expand...
Shoot for the stars, land on the moon. Nice job
 
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MemphisBlues said:
Practice Results:
USMLE Rx (first pass): ~82%
UWorld Q Bank (first-pass): 82.4%
UWorld 1: 259 (83.52%); 730 (program score)
UWorld 2: 265 (89.77%); 800 (program score)
NBME 11: 260 (93.50%); 650 (program score)
NBME 12: 264 (95.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 13: 264 (94.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 15: 262 (93.50%); 660 (program score)
NBME 16: 277 (98.00%); 730 (program score)
NBME 17: 266 (95.50%); 680 (program score)
Click to expand...
Thank you for the great writeup and congratulations on a great score!

What do you think allowed you to jump from your trends on NBME 11-15 to your trends on NBME 16-17? I am literally in the same boat, averaging the same exact scores as you were on NBME 11-15, and I have another few weeks to study. Any advice?

Also, I asked this to another poster earlier but I'd like to hear your opinion:

As you were going through UWorld, did you feel that some of the time you were "educated guessing," using reasoning to derive the best answer but were still not 100% sure you had it right between close answer choices? If so, did you feel the same about the real exam?

Also, out of curiosity, you say that you went through FA once per section with each module in medical school. Did you not use it at all during dedicated?
 
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plasmodium said:
Thank you for the great writeup and congratulations on a great score!
Click to expand...

Thanks very much!


plasmodium said:
What do you think allowed you to jump from your trends on NBME 11-15 to your trends on NBME 16-17? I am literally in the same boat, averaging the same exact scores as you were on NBME 11-15, and I have another few weeks to study. Any advice?
Click to expand...

Hard to say. To be honest, I certainly didn't feel much of a difference between my NBME 12 (264; 94%; missed ~ 9 questions) and my NBME 16 (277; 98%; missed 4 questions), so at some level there is a bit a 'crap shoot' at play here. I do think that one thing I did well in the study period was not to get too stressed out, especially near the end (a lesson learned from my history of MCAT studying, during which I nosedived near the end) -- so that's my recommendation. Spend time with family in the week or so before the exam and don't get too stressed.

plasmodium said:
Also, I asked this to another poster earlier but I'd like to hear your opinion:

As you were going through UWorld, did you feel that some of the time you were "educated guessing," using reasoning to derive the best answer but were still not 100% sure you had it right between close answer choices? If so, did you feel the same about the real exam?
Click to expand...

Definitely often felt as though I was reasoning through questions I didn't completely understand in UWorld and in the NBMEs/real exam. You know how people say, "Well you're just good at guessing on multiple choice exams..." -- I actually think this meme is on to something, namely that one's ability to reason through things (my way of phrasing the "guessing" of which we're accused) is operative in standardized assessments. However, I've spent very little time thinking about that, and it's just an idea really.

Best 0f luck with your exam.
 
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MemphisBlues said:
Thanks very much!




Hard to say. To be honest, I certainly didn't feel much of a difference between my NBME 12 (264; 94%; missed ~ 9 questions) and my NBME 16 (277; 98%; missed 4 questions), so at some level there is a bit a 'crap shoot' at play here. I do think that one thing I did well in the study period was not to get too stressed out, especially near the end (a lesson learned from my history of MCAT studying, during which I nosedived near the end) -- so that's my recommendation. Spend time with family in the week or so before the exam and don't get too stressed.



Definitely often felt as though I was reasoning through questions I didn't completely understand in UWorld and in the NBMEs/real exam. You know how people say, "Well you're just good at guessing on multiple choice exams..." -- I actually think this meme is on to something, namely that one's ability to reason through things (my way of phrasing the "guessing" of which we're accused) is operative in standardized assessments. However, I've spent very little time thinking about that, and it's just an idea really.

Best 0f luck with your exam.
Click to expand...
Great response, thank you!

I edited my post as you were responding and added:

Also, out of curiosity, you say that you went through FA once per section with each module in medical school. Did you not use it at all during dedicated?

Would you mind answering this as well, if it's not too much trouble?

Thank you again!
 
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plasmodium said:
Also, out of curiosity, you say that you went through FA once per section with each module in medical school. Did you not use it at all during dedicated?

Would you mind answering this as well, if it's not too much trouble?
Click to expand...

That is to say, I read through FA x 1 after each corresponding module in medical school starting in the summer after first year (and finishing just before the dedicated study period -- we're on a 1.5 year preclinical curriculum at my institution). I didn't read FA in the dedicated study period... but I did refer to it to annotate as I went along and learned from UWorld (and to a lesser extent USMLE Rx).
 
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MemphisBlues said:
That is to say, I read through FA x 1 after each corresponding module in medical school. I didn't read FA in the dedicated study period... but I did refer to it to annotate as I went along and learned from UWorld (and to a lesser extent USMLE Rx).
Click to expand...
Thank you. So you just did questions during dedicated, and referenced material via FA/RR when necessary?
 
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plasmodium said:
Thank you. So you just did questions during dedicated, and referenced material via FA/RR when necessary?
Click to expand...

Yup, exactly. Just did Q-banks during dedicated. I also wrote down some facts from FA that I had a hard time memorizing (eg, lysosomal storage diseases, immunologic deficiencies & mutations, etc.)
 
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MemphisBlues said:
Yup, exactly. Just did Q-banks during dedicated. I also wrote down some facts from FA that I had a hard time memorizing (eg, lysosomal storage diseases, immunologic deficiencies & mutations, etc.)
Click to expand...
You're awesome, thank you for your quick replies. I wish you the best with your future! Any ideas about what you are interested in going into?
 
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MemphisBlues said:
Actual score: 260

Study plan consisted of...

Resources: First Aid, UWorld Q-Bank, USMLE Rx Q-Bank, Goljan Pathology, High Yield Anatomy, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple; Deja Review Pharmacology; Lippincott's Microcards

Plan:
(1) Read through relevant chapter of First Aid x 1 after finishing the module in medical school
(2) Did USMLE Rx x 1 [started lightly ~ 2.5 months before exam day and more intensively ~ 1.5 months before exam day]
(3) Did UWorld Q-Bank x 1 [as with USMLE Rx, the first time through, I annotated First Aid when I got something wrong or blatantly misunderstood something]
(4) Started doing practice exams within one month of Test Day (UWorld x 2 & NBME x 6)
(5) In remaining time --> I went over "wrong" and "marked" in both USMLE Rx and UWorld again.

Practice Results:
USMLE Rx (first pass): ~82%
UWorld Q Bank (first-pass): 82.4%
UWorld 1: 259 (83.52%); 730 (program score)
UWorld 2: 265 (89.77%); 800 (program score)
NBME 11: 260 (93.50%); 650 (program score)
NBME 12: 264 (95.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 13: 264 (94.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 15: 262 (93.50%); 660 (program score)
NBME 16: 277 (98.00%); 730 (program score)
NBME 17: 266 (95.50%); 680 (program score)

Predicted score (using Clinical Review Calculator): 264 +/- 9 (not sure how legit this website is, but it claims a fairly large sample size)

Exam Experience: About what I expected from my study period (ie, UWorld + NBMEs), but I believed the exam was a little bit more difficult than the NBMEs.

Actual score: 260

Concluding statement: I'm just slightly disappointed (260 was in the lower range of my practice scores). I felt I was trending up at the end of my study period and had a good shot at doing at least 5 points better. On the other hand, I don't know what I would have done differently, per se, and I think I'll have a pretty competitive application with a 260.

Recommendations: UWorld is great. USMLE Rx is not as bad as people seem to think it is, in my view. USMLE Rx is a very reasonable resource, especially if you get through questions quickly (as I did -- I did more than 100 questions per day regularly with extensive review of the blocks). I ended up not really reading through Goljan, instead using it solely as a resource (who has time to read through Goljan's? -- some people claim to!) I recommend Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple but not Lippincott's Microcards. Deja Review Pharm came in handy but is not super high yield, but it suited me (ie, lots of content review without too much detail a la Lippincott's Microcards).
Click to expand...


Did u do Goljan audio? Do u not recommend Lange flash card for pharm if not what do u suggest?
 
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MemphisBlues said:
Actual score: 260

Study plan consisted of...

Resources: First Aid, UWorld Q-Bank, USMLE Rx Q-Bank, Goljan Pathology, High Yield Anatomy, Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple; Deja Review Pharmacology; Lippincott's Microcards

Plan:
(1) Read through relevant chapter of First Aid x 1 after finishing the module in medical school
(2) Did USMLE Rx x 1 [started lightly ~ 2.5 months before exam day and more intensively ~ 1.5 months before exam day]
(3) Did UWorld Q-Bank x 1 [as with USMLE Rx, the first time through, I annotated First Aid when I got something wrong or blatantly misunderstood something]
(4) Started doing practice exams within one month of Test Day (UWorld x 2 & NBME x 6)
(5) In remaining time --> I went over "wrong" and "marked" in both USMLE Rx and UWorld again.

Practice Results:
USMLE Rx (first pass): ~82%
UWorld Q Bank (first-pass): 82.4%
UWorld 1: 259 (83.52%); 730 (program score)
UWorld 2: 265 (89.77%); 800 (program score)
NBME 11: 260 (93.50%); 650 (program score)
NBME 12: 264 (95.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 13: 264 (94.50%); 670 (program score)
NBME 15: 262 (93.50%); 660 (program score)
NBME 16: 277 (98.00%); 730 (program score)
NBME 17: 266 (95.50%); 680 (program score)

Predicted score (using Clinical Review Calculator): 264 +/- 9 (not sure how legit this website is, but it claims a fairly large sample size)

Exam Experience: About what I expected from my study period (ie, UWorld + NBMEs), but I believed the exam was a little bit more difficult than the NBMEs.

Actual score: 260

Concluding statement: I'm just slightly disappointed (260 was in the lower range of my practice scores). I felt I was trending up at the end of my study period and had a good shot at doing at least 5 points better. On the other hand, I don't know what I would have done differently, per se, and I think I'll have a pretty competitive application with a 260.

Recommendations: UWorld is great. USMLE Rx is not as bad as people seem to think it is, in my view. USMLE Rx is a very reasonable resource, especially if you get through questions quickly (as I did -- I did more than 100 questions per day regularly with extensive review of the blocks). I ended up not really reading through Goljan, instead using it solely as a resource (who has time to read through Goljan's? -- some people claim to!) I recommend Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple but not Lippincott's Microcards. Deja Review Pharm came in handy but is not super high yield, but it suited me (ie, lots of content review without too much detail a la Lippincott's Microcards).
Click to expand...
how many questions do you think you failed after finishing your exam?
 
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Pushtothestars said:
Did u do Goljan audio? Do u not recommend Lange flash card for pharm if not what do u suggest?
Click to expand...

No I didn't use Goljan Audio. I hate lectures (audio or video). Didn't use Lange Pharm, sorry. I used Deja Review Pharm (a small book) -- but I feel lukewarm about it. I don't like flashcards very much in general, but I sometimes use them.
 
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lainos said:
how many questions do you think you failed after finishing your exam?
Click to expand...

I have no idea in trying to recall. Gun to my head, I'd estimate by correlating the percentage of questions I missed on NBMEs for which my three-digit score matched ... so a 260 should be something like 93% correct I think. 93% * (44*7) --> 286 --> (308-286) --> 22

Subjectively, I believe that the actual exam was harder than the NBMEs so I'll give a bit of wiggle room and estimate that I missed ~ 1 more question per section than I would have otherwise, so I'll guess I missed 30 questions of the 308 on the real exam.

This estimate (ie, missing 30 of 208 questions) is likely to be conservative.
 
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Wrote Step 1 on January 28 and got my score back yesterday:

Actual Score - 257

NBME/UWSA:
NBME are very accurate as predictors. UWSAs tend to over-predict.

NBME 15 - 249 (1 Month Out)
NBME 13 - 254 (3 Weeks Out)
UWSA1 - 265+ (2 Weeks Out)
UWSA2 - 265+ (2 Weeks Out)
NBME 17 - 256 (1 Week Out)

PREP:
My preparation was a bit unorthodox. Before my dedicated study period I watched all of the Kaplan videos for Micro, Immuno, Biochem, and Anatomy. During my dedicated study period I centred my prep mainly around questions along with Pathoma for pathology. I made some annotations in FA but I hadn't covered FA completely by the time I wrote my exam. I know that it is generally frowned upon and people suggest reading FA 2-3 times, but I study better with questions & explanations than reading FA cover to cover. Over the span of 6 months I completed over 10,000 questions from the question banks listed below and the various NBMEs.

UWORLD - 86%
Kaplan - 79%
USMLERx - 85%
USMLE Consult

EXAM DAY:
Because I had done so many practice questions, I found that timing wasn't an issue for me. I completed every block with at least 20 min to spare. I found that the questions were easier than UWorld and harder than NBMEs. There were several questions that came down to a 50-50 choice. Question lengths weren't too bad - mostly similar to UWorld. I found the ethics questions to be much harder than the ones I've seen on practice exams.

ADVICE:
I understand that my study plan isn't suitable for everyone and wouldn't recommend it over the more comprehensive study plans found in the forum (i.e. UFAP +/- Kaplan, Goljan). What I do recommend is:

1. DO AS MANY PRACTICE QUESTIONS AS POSSIBLE!!!

2. Don't second guess yourself on the exam. Your first choice is more likely to be correct. There were at least 10 questions that I changed from right to wrong when I went over and reviewed questions at the end of each block.

3. Use NBMEs to gauge your progress. They have been proven to be very predictive of your actual USMLE score.

4. Lastly, don't be intimidated by the exam. I guarantee you that it's not as bad as it's portrayed to be. You will do fine.
 
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Congratulations for an amazing score! and thank you for advice regarding the exam, I wish what you said about the Nbme prediction is true, I got 256 in nbme 17, 260 in nbme 16. I'd love to have a score around this..exam in 5 days
 
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MacNeuro said:
Wrote Step 1 on January 28 and got my score back yesterday:

Actual Score - 257

NBME/UWSA:
NBME are very accurate as predictors. UWSAs tend to over-predict.

NBME 15 - 249 (1 Month Out)
NBME 13 - 254 (3 Weeks Out)
UWSA1 - 265+ (2 Weeks Out)
UWSA2 - 265+ (2 Weeks Out)
NBME 17 - 256 (1 Week Out)

PREP:
My preparation was a bit unorthodox. Before my dedicated study period I watched all of the Kaplan videos for Micro, Immuno, Biochem, and Anatomy. During my dedicated study period I centred my prep mainly around questions along with Pathoma for pathology. I made some annotations in FA but I hadn't covered FA completely by the time I wrote my exam. I know that it is generally frowned upon and people suggest reading FA 2-3 times, but I study better with questions & explanations than reading FA cover to cover. Over the span of 6 months I completed over 10,000 questions from the question banks listed below and the various NBMEs.

UWORLD - 86%
Kaplan - 79%
USMLERx - 85%
USMLE Consult

EXAM DAY:
Because I had done so many practice questions, I found that timing wasn't an issue for me. I completed every block with at least 20 min to spare. I found that the questions were easier than UWorld and harder than NBMEs. There were several questions that came down to a 50-50 choice. Question lengths weren't too bad - mostly similar to UWorld. I found the ethics questions to be much harder than the ones I've seen on practice exams.

ADVICE:
I understand that my study plan isn't suitable for everyone and wouldn't recommend it over the more comprehensive study plans found in the forum (i.e. UFAP +/- Kaplan, Goljan). What I do recommend is:

1. DO AS MANY PRACTICE QUESTIONS AS POSSIBLE!!!

2. Don't second guess yourself on the exam. Your first choice is more likely to be correct. There were at least 10 questions that I changed from right to wrong when I went over and reviewed questions at the end of each block.

3. Use NBMEs to gauge your progress. They have been proven to be very predictive of your actual USMLE score.

4. Lastly, don't be intimidated by the exam. I guarantee you that it's not as bad as it's portrayed to be. You will do fine.
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firstable, congratulations for your great score Dr.!

how many questions do you think you failed after finishing the exam?
 
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MacNeuro said:
Wrote Step 1 on January 28 and got my score back yesterday:

Actual Score - 257

NBME/UWSA:
NBME are very accurate as predictors. UWSAs tend to over-predict.

NBME 15 - 249 (1 Month Out)
NBME 13 - 254 (3 Weeks Out)
UWSA1 - 265+ (2 Weeks Out)
UWSA2 - 265+ (2 Weeks Out)
NBME 17 - 256 (1 Week Out)

PREP:
My preparation was a bit unorthodox. Before my dedicated study period I watched all of the Kaplan videos for Micro, Immuno, Biochem, and Anatomy. During my dedicated study period I centred my prep mainly around questions along with Pathoma for pathology. I made some annotations in FA but I hadn't covered FA completely by the time I wrote my exam. I know that it is generally frowned upon and people suggest reading FA 2-3 times, but I study better with questions & explanations than reading FA cover to cover. Over the span of 6 months I completed over 10,000 questions from the question banks listed below and the various NBMEs.

UWORLD - 86%
Kaplan - 79%
USMLERx - 85%
USMLE Consult

EXAM DAY:
Because I had done so many practice questions, I found that timing wasn't an issue for me. I completed every block with at least 20 min to spare. I found that the questions were easier than UWorld and harder than NBMEs. There were several questions that came down to a 50-50 choice. Question lengths weren't too bad - mostly similar to UWorld. I found the ethics questions to be much harder than the ones I've seen on practice exams.

ADVICE:
I understand that my study plan isn't suitable for everyone and wouldn't recommend it over the more comprehensive study plans found in the forum (i.e. UFAP +/- Kaplan, Goljan). What I do recommend is:

1. DO AS MANY PRACTICE QUESTIONS AS POSSIBLE!!!

2. Don't second guess yourself on the exam. Your first choice is more likely to be correct. There were at least 10 questions that I changed from right to wrong when I went over and reviewed questions at the end of each block.

3. Use NBMEs to gauge your progress. They have been proven to be very predictive of your actual USMLE score.

4. Lastly, don't be intimidated by the exam. I guarantee you that it's not as bad as it's portrayed to be. You will do fine.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the writeup!
 
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dorjosam said:
SUPER EXCITED!!!! "250" on the real deal!!!! Just wanted to give a positive impression to all who have experienced frustrating scores on NBMEs. as a fresh IMG, my first NBME was "207" !!!! just believe in yourself and don't stop hard working if you have a dream... it will pay off! I will write a detailed post when I come back! It's time to PARTY now!!!! 😀
Click to expand...

congrats on the awesome score, awaiting your write up 🙂
 
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Tri723 said:
finally, Finally, FINALLY
hit 260 on NBME 16 today.
exam is in <2 weeks.
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Congratulations! Just took NBME 16 today as well and finally boosted following a 3-NBME same-score plateau. Feels amazing with only 3 weeks until the exam.

I found it hard, though. Very ambiguous. They definitely become successively harder as you go.
 
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dorjosam said:
SUPER EXCITED!!!! "250" on the real deal!!!! Just wanted to give a positive impression to all who have experienced frustrating scores on NBMEs. as a fresh IMG, my first NBME was "207" !!!! just believe in yourself and don't stop hard working if you have a dream... it will pay off! I will write a detailed post when I come back! It's time to PARTY now!!!! 😀
Click to expand...

Congrats!! pls do share your experience,...
 
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Would it not be smart to start Uworld Qbank between year 1 and year 2? I want to start getting exposed to the questions and material and build a foundation heading into year 2 but don't want it to be worthless. I keep hearing that 2-3x through the Qbank is good to do.
 
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str8cashhomie said:
Would it not be smart to start Uworld Qbank between year 1 and year 2? I want to start getting exposed to the questions and material and build a foundation heading into year 2 but don't want it to be worthless. I keep hearing that 2-3x through the Qbank is good to do.
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Some people say to start UWorld early and to complete it numerous times. Some people suggest saving it until later and to only do it once. There are more than enough subjective reports on student experiences both on SDN and reddit that you can easily find doing a google search to see what has worked for others. No one can tell you what the best approach would be for you, but you can probably figure it out by reading enough student reports. It would be best to implement some trial and error and figure out what would personally work best for you.

Personally, I didn't touch any step resources until halfway into MS2 and I didn't touch UWorld until dedicated. Good luck.
 
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For those of you who have taken your exam and received your results, some have said that the "average" given is 230 with a standard deviation of 20. This would mean that >270 is now >97.5th percentile, rather than a score of >267 being >99th percentile. Is this correct?
 
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@plasmodium I don't think anybody cares if you are 98th or 99th percentile.. Nobody is gonna cross you off a residency spot because you got 266 and the other guy got 272 , they always look at the whole picture .. But yeah , it seems like 270 is now 97.5th percentile , but we wont know for sure until they release the 2015 score analysis or w/e its called..
 
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tasar1898 said:
@plasmodium I don't think anybody cares if you are 98th or 99th percentile.. Nobody is gonna cross you off a residency spot because you got 266 and the other guy got 272 , they always look at the whole picture .. But yeah , it seems like 270 is now 97.5th percentile , but we wont know for sure until they release the 2015 score analysis or w/e its called..
Click to expand...
I know, was just curious 🙂
 
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