Official 2016 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Transposony

Transposony

Do or do not, There is no try
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
Which is better, doing a full second pass of UWorld or doing a half second pass plus the old retire NBME tests (1-11)?
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imo second pass but also it doesn't really matter - either way you are seeing questions that are testing your understanding of concepts, and aren't very likely to see word-for-word test questions.
 
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plasmodium said:
Real deal: 260+

Feels incredible. I'm now officially open for questions, AMA! I will be posting a writeup soon. Congratulations to everyone receiving their scores!

Thanks again @tasar1898, @walakin25, @Transposony, @Tri723, @masaraksh, @drimo786, and also @ATypicalLymphocyte, @HereWeGo21, @cabergoline2, @cs24, @Xurros, @danube123 for enduring my countless questions and for offering superb advice!
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Congrats! Can't wait to read the write up 🙂 mine is in 7 weeks.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app
 
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AZ7 said:
@plasmodium
Congrats on the great score!

Im 3 months out from my exam, what do you think is the best NBME for baseline assesment?
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Thanks man! To answer your question, if your school administers the NBME CBSE then you can use that as a baseline. I thought this test was strikingly similar to the real deal in terms of ambiguity, difficulty, and question style. NBME 11 or NBME 12 can also serve as adequate baseline measures of performance.

AZ7 said:
@plasmodium Also how do you deal with the feeling that youve forgotten content youve read a couple of weeks back?
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Starting day one of medical school I worked very hard to build a strong foundation through textbooks and course material. Through systematic repetition over the past 2 years I was able to maintain and fine-tune this foundation. I attribute my success on step 1 almost entirely to the knowledge base that I developed during MS1/MS2, and not to my dedicated step study time. Unfortunately, I can't accurately answer your question because I never felt that way.

As general advice to those students who months or years from now read through this thread and come across this post: if your goal is to hit 260+ on USMLE step 1, I suggest you give yourself the best odds for attaining this goal by working incredibly hard during MS1/MS2. You will never be given a definitive guarantee that you will break 260 on the real deal. There are too many determining factors (e.g. MS1/MS2 performance, test day performance, individual skill and test-taking ability, exam form difficulty, etc.) contributing to this final score for there to be any absolute certainties. All you can do is give yourself the closest odds to a guarantee by always giving your best effort. This does not start the first day of dedicated, this starts the first day of medical school.
 
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I'll say that I go to a top 20 and our curriculum is not usmle-centric at all. The fact that my school is straight P/F is the only way I've stayed sane this year.
 
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As I mentioned, there are no absolute certainties in the game of step 1. Of course, there are some anomalies who are able to skate by during MS1/MS2 and cram during dedicated who still score 250+ on step 1. This does happen. However, these students more than likely had a low pre-exam probability of reaching 250+ before the exam, and would probably tell you that they didn't expect to receive the score they got. In these few circumstances, the truth of the matter is that the stars aligned, they had a particularly solid test day, and they received a high score as a result.

If you are a reasonably serious academic, the safest approach is to work very hard during MS1/MS2 so that your pre-exam probability for reaching your goal score is as high as it can be.
 
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Blue Flame said:
I've been hearing recently of people having 50+ Anatomy questions on their exams. Does the conventional wisdom of sticking to FA/UW for Anatomy still apply do you guys think? @plasmodium @Tri723
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This is a very good example of why you should take everything you hear with a grain of salt. I would imagine that this statement is an exaggeration. I had 15-30 anatomy questions.
 
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^^same as above. Stick to the normal resources for anatomy.
i answered a few based on info from my anatomy class. I hadn't touched that info in a while but somehow it came out of the depths of my head. However, i would not recommend trying to study for those random questions because they are so random. You could study anatomy on and on, and still not come accross those random things they'll ask
 
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GoPelicans said:
Besides the part where 90% of what we learn MS1 is completely irrelevant for step 1, I agree.
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As an M1, I frequently browse the step 1 sub-forum and find that a lot of questions that people are asking, especially physiology, I am able to answer from my lecture notes.

I think people sometimes forget the amount of material that is learned during first year.
 
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Tri723 said:
^^same as above. Stick to the normal resources for anatomy.
i answered a few based on info from my anatomy class. I hadn't touched that info in a while but somehow it came out of the depths of my head. However, i would not recommend trying to study for those random questions because they are so random. You could study anatomy on and on, and still not come accross those random things they'll ask
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This.
 
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Tri723 said:
However, i would not recommend trying to study for those random questions because they are so random. You could study anatomy on and on, and still not come accross those random things they'll ask
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Yeah, the small percentage of questions that are random are incredibly random on purpose to intimidate the student. If your well read and you don't know what's going on and have to use strategy to figure it out, what do you think a lesser student is going to think of the question? Anatomy is not that heavy on the NBME (5-8 questions per 100 questions = 10-16 total), so just focus on practice questions; you don't need to go and read a full textbook, unless your studying anatomy anyways during school or something like that.
 
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Hey guys, I am about to enter dedicated in about two and half weeks. My dedicated is roughly 5.5weeks. I was wondering how many NBME and UWSA I should take. Would it be too much to do all of them?
 
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runnin72 said:
Hey guys, I am about to enter dedicated in about two and half weeks. My dedicated is roughly 5.5weeks. I was wondering how many NBME and UWSA I should take. Would it be too much to do all of them?
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If you've got the time, might as well do them all (at least all the online NBMEs). I'm personally doing 2 UWSAs and 4 NBMEs during dedicated along with the free 138 at prometric
 
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Ophthoseidon said:
If you've got the time, might as well do them all (at least all the online NBMEs). I'm personally doing 2 UWSAs and 4 NBMEs during dedicated along with the free 138 at prometric
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How do you do the free 138 at a prometric site? Are you allowed to do that?
 
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runnin72 said:
Do you suggest any particular order in taking the NBME and UWSA.
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Doesn't really matter. I'm doing the UWSAs first because they give explanations to all their questions that I can learn from. The NBMEs can really be done however but I'm doing 15,16,18,17. I'm taking each exam 1 week from each other, with 17 and the prometric exam both being 4 days out
 
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GomerPyle said:
How do you do the free 138 at a prometric site? Are you allowed to do that?
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I'm pretty sure the free 138 is the exam at the prometric site. Except at the prometric site it's not free, it's $75. It just gets you used to the testing center. You have to sign up through the nbme site first just like you did for step 1, then you register at your prometric center when you get the confirmation codes
 
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Any of you took Kaplan simulation test? any correlation with your scores?
I took Sim 2 and scored 69% ...not very happy about it..
 
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Crossposting this from /r/medicalschool: Big day is tomorrow. Feeling nervous but there's not much more to be done at this point, really I'm just hoping that I'm not one of the horror stories about people that score well below their NBMEs on the real deal.

For posterity, I'll update this with my thoughts after tomorrow:

4 weeks dedicated study prep, FC since M1, FlashFacts, Pathoma, Yousmle Anki decks started summer after M1.

USMLERx done alongside classes in untimed tutor, finished before dedicated study.
Kaplan done in random, timed blocks starting M2 winter break, covering subjects we'd reached by that point. I finished half of this before dedicated study, half after. 83% avg.
UWorld, timed, random, started in dedicated study. 89% avg.

Practice tests:
3/16 Kaplan Diagnostic: 79%
3/19 NBME 15 offline: 96%
3/23 ExamMaster Practice Exam (awful, do not recommend): 85%
3/25 Free150, 2015: 94%
3/27 Kaplan 1: 82%
3/30 NBME 13 offline: 96%
4/1 UWSA1 + UWSA2: 91%/92% (265/265)
4/6 Kaplan 2: 85%
4/8 NBME 16 offline: 96%
4/10: NBME 18 + NBME 17 offline: 271(700)/97.5%
4/12 Free150, 2013: 99%

I'm aiming for 260+. As I understand it, the scoring scale gets pretty compressed at the top end (like the MCAT), so the difference between a 260 and a 270 is a few questions. At that point, it comes down to luck of the draw a little bit, whether the particular test you get plays to your strengths or not, whether a few 50/50 guesses go your way.
 
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freshbagels said:
Crossposting this from /r/medicalschool: Big day is tomorrow. Feeling nervous but there's not much more to be done at this point, really I'm just hoping that I'm not one of the horror stories about people that score well below their NBMEs on the real deal.

For posterity, I'll update this with my thoughts after tomorrow:

4 weeks dedicated study prep, FC since M1, FlashFacts, Pathoma, Yousmle Anki decks started summer after M1.

USMLERx done alongside classes in untimed tutor, finished before dedicated study.
Kaplan done in random, timed blocks starting M2 winter break, covering subjects we'd reached by that point. I finished half of this before dedicated study, half after. 83% avg.
UWorld, timed, random, started in dedicated study. 89% avg.

Practice tests:
3/16 Kaplan Diagnostic: 79%
3/19 NBME 15 offline: 96%
3/23 ExamMaster Practice Exam (awful, do not recommend): 85%
3/25 Free150, 2015: 94%
3/27 Kaplan 1: 82%
3/30 NBME 13 offline: 96%
4/1 UWSA1 + UWSA2: 91%/92% (265/265)
4/6 Kaplan 2: 85%
4/8 NBME 16 offline: 96%
4/10: NBME 18 + NBME 17 offline: 271(700)/97.5%
4/12 Free150, 2013: 99%

I'm aiming for 260+. As I understand it, the scoring scale gets pretty compressed at the top end (like the MCAT), so the difference between a 260 and a 270 is a few questions. At that point, it comes down to luck of the draw a little bit, whether the particular test you get plays to your strengths or not, whether a few 50/50 guesses go your way.
Click to expand...

Way past step 1 but had to say, ridiculous stats. Sleep well and hold your nerves, get that 270, gluck.
 
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freshbagels said:
Crossposting this from /r/medicalschool: Big day is tomorrow. Feeling nervous but there's not much more to be done at this point, really I'm just hoping that I'm not one of the horror stories about people that score well below their NBMEs on the real deal.

For posterity, I'll update this with my thoughts after tomorrow:

4 weeks dedicated study prep, FC since M1, FlashFacts, Pathoma, Yousmle Anki decks started summer after M1.

USMLERx done alongside classes in untimed tutor, finished before dedicated study.
Kaplan done in random, timed blocks starting M2 winter break, covering subjects we'd reached by that point. I finished half of this before dedicated study, half after. 83% avg.
UWorld, timed, random, started in dedicated study. 89% avg.

Practice tests:
3/16 Kaplan Diagnostic: 79%
3/19 NBME 15 offline: 96%
3/23 ExamMaster Practice Exam (awful, do not recommend): 85%
3/25 Free150, 2015: 94%
3/27 Kaplan 1: 82%
3/30 NBME 13 offline: 96%
4/1 UWSA1 + UWSA2: 91%/92% (265/265)
4/6 Kaplan 2: 85%
4/8 NBME 16 offline: 96%
4/10: NBME 18 + NBME 17 offline: 271(700)/97.5%
4/12 Free150, 2013: 99%

I'm aiming for 260+. As I understand it, the scoring scale gets pretty compressed at the top end (like the MCAT), so the difference between a 260 and a 270 is a few questions. At that point, it comes down to luck of the draw a little bit, whether the particular test you get plays to your strengths or not, whether a few 50/50 guesses go your way.
Click to expand...

Holy crap man, did you sell your soul to the devil at some point?
 
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freshbagels said:
Crossposting this from /r/medicalschool: Big day is tomorrow. Feeling nervous but there's not much more to be done at this point, really I'm just hoping that I'm not one of the horror stories about people that score well below their NBMEs on the real deal.

For posterity, I'll update this with my thoughts after tomorrow:

4 weeks dedicated study prep, FC since M1, FlashFacts, Pathoma, Yousmle Anki decks started summer after M1.

USMLERx done alongside classes in untimed tutor, finished before dedicated study.
Kaplan done in random, timed blocks starting M2 winter break, covering subjects we'd reached by that point. I finished half of this before dedicated study, half after. 83% avg.
UWorld, timed, random, started in dedicated study. 89% avg.

Practice tests:
3/16 Kaplan Diagnostic: 79%
3/19 NBME 15 offline: 96%
3/23 ExamMaster Practice Exam (awful, do not recommend): 85%
3/25 Free150, 2015: 94%
3/27 Kaplan 1: 82%
3/30 NBME 13 offline: 96%
4/1 UWSA1 + UWSA2: 91%/92% (265/265)
4/6 Kaplan 2: 85%
4/8 NBME 16 offline: 96%
4/10: NBME 18 + NBME 17 offline: 271(700)/97.5%
4/12 Free150, 2013: 99%

I'm aiming for 260+. As I understand it, the scoring scale gets pretty compressed at the top end (like the MCAT), so the difference between a 260 and a 270 is a few questions. At that point, it comes down to luck of the draw a little bit, whether the particular test you get plays to your strengths or not, whether a few 50/50 guesses go your way.
Click to expand...

After going through everything do you recommend FC from day 1 of M1? If you could go back would you use it again or go a different route for retaining info for boards? ... Godly stats btw.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app
 
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freshbagels said:
Crossposting this from /r/medicalschool: Big day is tomorrow. Feeling nervous but there's not much more to be done at this point, really I'm just hoping that I'm not one of the horror stories about people that score well below their NBMEs on the real deal.

For posterity, I'll update this with my thoughts after tomorrow:

4 weeks dedicated study prep, FC since M1, FlashFacts, Pathoma, Yousmle Anki decks started summer after M1.

USMLERx done alongside classes in untimed tutor, finished before dedicated study.
Kaplan done in random, timed blocks starting M2 winter break, covering subjects we'd reached by that point. I finished half of this before dedicated study, half after. 83% avg.
UWorld, timed, random, started in dedicated study. 89% avg.

Practice tests:
3/16 Kaplan Diagnostic: 79%
3/19 NBME 15 offline: 96%
3/23 ExamMaster Practice Exam (awful, do not recommend): 85%
3/25 Free150, 2015: 94%
3/27 Kaplan 1: 82%
3/30 NBME 13 offline: 96%
4/1 UWSA1 + UWSA2: 91%/92% (265/265)
4/6 Kaplan 2: 85%
4/8 NBME 16 offline: 96%
4/10: NBME 18 + NBME 17 offline: 271(700)/97.5%
4/12 Free150, 2013: 99%

I'm aiming for 260+. As I understand it, the scoring scale gets pretty compressed at the top end (like the MCAT), so the difference between a 260 and a 270 is a few questions. At that point, it comes down to luck of the draw a little bit, whether the particular test you get plays to your strengths or not, whether a few 50/50 guesses go your way.
Click to expand...

Do you feel like Rx and kaplan were essential components of your study? Do you think UW may have been enough?
 
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Wow, that was difficult. Didn't really approximate any of the NBMEs, although I suppose 16 and 18 came closet. Some weirdly low yield pharmacology, a decent amount of anatomy (lots of gross neuroanatomy!), and it seemed like every female in even question stem was pregnant. Quite a few tricky questions, too, where it seemed they were deliberately trying to trip you up. From my perspective now, I'm not sure what else I could have done to have done better, what resources I should have used, but we'll see when I get some perspective on all this.

At this point, I'd be happy just to hit 260.
 
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It's funny to read @freshbagels post on reddit and on here haha.

Btw I had very similar stats as you and felt the exact same way after my exam. Ended up with 260+ and happy with my score. I'm sure you reached your goal.
 
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Hi there everyone! Thanks for all the valuable advice on this thread. It's definitely helpful to see all your perspectives. As I'm about a month from my dedicated period, I wanted to get some advice on the best order to take the assessments. I have about 5 weeks of dedicated. And I plan on taking 13,15,16,17,18, UWSA 1 & 2.

My plan was to use 13 as a baseline this weekend. And then do NBME 15 after this first week of dedicated. Then 16, the second week. Then UWSA 1 the third week. Then 18, the fourth week. Then NBME 17 and UWSA 2 in that last week.

Is this a good order to take the exams in? I'd appreciate your input. Thanks!
 
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How many pages of FA and Uworld questions you do a day? And when did you guys start? I bet like Jan or something 10 pages a day, but that's just my guess.
 
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