Official 2016 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Transposony

Transposony

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@Transposony

thanks for the kind words man, but those people you speak of had the numbers to back it up. they had the numbers to support the fact that they just couldnt fail. they may score lower than their practice tests(which i havent seen happen to often on here). but i was barely passing man, hence the negativity and loss of faith. So grossly underprepared, didnt do enough questions, didnt do review first aid enough, just didnt have enough time.

Im a fmg(caribbean) so i dont think any program would take kindly to a candidate who failed step. So I dont really see a point of paying for a degree that wont get me anywhere. so just planning on what to do next, and forcing myself to move on.
 
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Ticklopeedean said:
@Transposony

thanks for the kind words man, but those people you speak of had the numbers to back it up. they had the numbers to support the fact that they just couldnt fail. they may score lower than their practice tests(which i havent seen happen to often on here). but i was barely passing man, hence the negativity and loss of faith. So grossly underprepared, didnt do enough questions, didnt do review first aid enough, just didnt have enough time.

Im a fmg(caribbean) so i dont think any program would take kindly to a candidate who failed step. So I dont really see a point of paying for a degree that wont get me anywhere. so just planning on what to do next, and forcing myself to move on.
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This is unfortunate. I would wait until the results come out and then evaluate your options. But if you say you didn't do enough questions or review first aid enough, then this is just a preparation issue - not a fundamental issue. This means it can be remedied 🙂 keep studying now in case so that if it does occur you already have a head start.


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When I was doing Rx for my M2 courses, I was scoring in the 70s%, now I just started studying for step1 doing one block a day before M2 is over and I have been scoring in the 60s% (4 blocks so far). I am really discouraged 🙁. I am not gunning for 260+ like most people in here, but I would like to score 235+. Is there any chance I can close that knowledge gap in 9 weeks and achieve that score mark?
 
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Did anyone start feeling a little burnt out towards the end? I take my exam in 3.5 days and I'm just ready for it to be over with now lol. This just hit me today.


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W19 said:
When I was doing Rx for my M2 courses, I was scoring in the 70s%, now I just started studying for step1 doing one block a day before M2 is over and I have been scoring in the 60s% (4 blocks so far). I am really discouraged 🙁. I am not gunning for 260+ like most people in here, but I would like to score 235+. Is there any chance I can close that knowledge gap in 9 weeks and achieve that score mark?
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You go up a ton in dedicated don't worry. Of course you're going to do better during the courses because it's fresh. You're going to do well. Just keep pressing on.


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tvelocity514 said:
Did anyone start feeling a little burnt out towards the end? I take my exam in 3.5 days and I'm just ready for it to be over with now lol. This just hit me today.


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Yeah that's totally normal. I was burnt out the whole last week. It was so difficult to push through it, but you just have to keep going. It's almost over! You're almost there!
Remember to take a break the day before so that you'll be fresh for exam day.

P.s. Is that a picture of Djokovic? If so, I approve 😉
 
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14Sky said:
Yeah that's totally normal. I was burnt out the whole last week. It was so difficult to push through it, but you just have to keep going. It's almost over! You're almost there!
Remember to take a break the day before so that you'll be fresh for exam day.

P.s. Is that a picture of Djokovic? If so, I approve 😉
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Ahh thanks! Yeah I'm going to probably do the rapid review section the day before and then take off the entire afternoon/night is my game plan. And yes!! He's my favorite haha. Glad someone noticed! 🙂


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tvelocity514 said:
Did anyone start feeling a little burnt out towards the end? I take my exam in 3.5 days and I'm just ready for it to be over with now lol. This just hit me today.


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I'm almost 5 weeks in and I'm getting kinda loony. 5 more weeks of this... 😕
 
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tvelocity514 said:
Dang you get 10 wks??? We got 5 and I'm 4.5 wks in lol.


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We get like 4 months lol. We finish the curriculum in Feb so it's pretty flexible. I'm a slow studier so 10 weeks isn't really a luxury, it's kind of a requirement for me.
 
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tvelocity514 said:
Dang you get 10 wks??? We got 5 and I'm 4.5 wks in lol.


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How many hours per day were you studying? I'm 38 days away from test day (about 7 days into dedicated)...it's already feeling rough haha.

Also - how are you taking breaks?
 
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I don't know where to post this but I think it counts as a Step 1 "experience". I took the exam yesterday. I expected to feel relief and happiness but I feel a bit demoralized. Maybe it is just that I'm remembering only the hard questions, but I felt like I had a pretty hard form. I averaged 255 on my NBMEs with a 266 the week before my exam. I could always make an educated guess on hard questions when I did NBME, but I got numerous questions on the real thing where I felt in over my head with the difficulty level or had never even seen a drug or topic that the question was about. I also felt like the "high yield" topics weren't as represented as I thought they'd be. I also wish someone would have told me that pharm isn't nearly as important as I thought it would be. Usually, I would finish UW blocks or NBME blocks with about 20 minutes to spare, but I took every second on the real thing. In summary, I didn't expect the real thing to be that much harder than UW/NBME but the average question difficulty seemed to be on another level.

Anyway... I doubt my feelings are uncommon and I have to trust that I probably am not going to see a 20 point drop from my practice average or anything like that. Is there any precedent for that? Does it happen barring illness or anxiety attack?

Some specific questions that I do have: How much can different forms vary in their difficulty? Anybody else who felt super prepared going into the exam come out feeling destroyed and how did it turn out for you? Is this just how Im supposed to feel?
 
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eliteeli said:
Just got my score today!
Prestudying nbme 17 - 245
Uworld average -87% (only did around 80% of uworld)
Nbme 18, 10 days out - 260
Actual exam - 262!!!

Impression: I felt like my exam was very, very difficult and not much like uworld. Nbme 18 was probably the most similar, but even that was not a great representation. I just want to give you all hope: after the exam I thought I did awful.
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StepDone42 said:
I just took STEP 1 two days ago, and I feel the same way as you post-test. I felt like it was pretty difficult. I would say there are 10-12 questions off of the top of my head that I know I missed. I had similar numbers on the NBMEs/UW as you going into the exam. Just wondering about you saying that you felt like you did awful... what was making you think that way? Cause I feel the same way and its because I feel like I made some dumb mistakes on about 10 questions. How many questions do you think you missed? And how did you deal with the waiting time until you got your score. Its killing me....
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Its good to hear Im not alone. It seems the forms can vary quite a bit in difficulty.
 
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For those that have recently taken Step 1, apparently OB has become a bigger component on the exam. Did you notice if it was more OB pathology? Was it covered by first aid? Jw what kind of OB is everyone talking about.
 
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tvelocity514 said:
For those that have recently taken Step 1, apparently OB has become a bigger component on the exam. Did you notice if it was more OB pathology? Was it covered by first aid? Jw what kind of OB is everyone talking about.
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I urge you to avoid basing the focus of your studies on what others have deemed high-yield based on their unique experience with their particular exam. Every exam form is different.
 
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5 weeks ago, before starting UWorld, I took NBME 15 and got 217. Today, after doing 55% of the Qbank, I did UWSA-1 and got 228. Not sure what to make of my score. Should I see this as a sign of improvement?
 
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plasmodium said:
I urge you to avoid basing the focus of your studies on what others have deemed high-yield based on their unique experience with their particular exam. Every exam form is different.
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Good advice here but couldn't hurt to fill in gaps from FA even if it's just with a short youtube video or something
 
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
5 weeks ago, before starting UWorld, I took NBME 15 and got 217. Today, after doing 55% of the Qbank, I did UWSA-1 and got 228. Not sure what to make of my score. Should I see this as a sign of improvement?
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Good job! That's obviously an improvement...Do you want a pat in the back?😛 Continue doing what you are doing son you can hit that 245+
 
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W19 said:
@Ibn Alnafis MD How many wks of dedicated time you have left?
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Today was my first day. I take my test second week of June, so I guess I have about 40 days left. I'll be taking every Sunday off and there are couple of days in May that I have school activities on. This leaves me with about 30 days of boards studying.
 
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How important is it to know specific chemotherapeutic drug indications for specific cancers? It's covered pretty extensively in FA, but most of the questions in Qbanks about chemotherapeutics I've seen have to do with their mechanism of action (or what phase of the cell cycle they act in) and their side effects, so I'm wondering if it's really worth memorizing this (since there isn't much learning involved).
 
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Blue Flame said:
How important is it to know specific chemotherapeutic drug indications for specific cancers? It's covered pretty extensively in FA, but most of the questions in Qbanks about chemotherapeutics I've seen have to do with their mechanism of action (or what phase of the cell cycle they act in) and their side effects, so I'm wondering if it's really worth memorizing this (since there isn't much learning involved).
Click to expand...
From First Aid "Study tip: When reviewing oncologic drugs, focus on mechanisms and side effects rather than details of clinical uses, which may be lower yield"
 
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gleevec1945 said:
Took NBME 17 last week at beginning of dedicated time and scored a 237. Took UWSA 1 yesterday and got 256. I've heard rumors about how they changed the scoring scale but is it really possible that I went up ~20 points in one week? For reference, I'm currently scoring in the high 70-low 80 range in UW blocks. Would like to hear what other people's experience is with these practice tests!
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You may have increased but keep in mind that UWSA is just easier than NBME. I don't know if the questions are easier or the scale is more favorable but I wouldn't directly compare an NBME to a UWSA.
 
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Officially done with Step 1!! Thanks to everyone who has helped me with the MANY questions I have had. I'll update more once I get my score back. My test was VERY anatomy heavy. My tough subjects were anatomy, ethics, and biostats. Biostats are my strong suit so I hope I still got all of them right. Ethics I was able to narrow down to 2 answers on 3 of them so I hope I guessed right. Anatomy was ridiculous lol. I am so glad that I studied some of the pelvic anatomy. I had my MSK anatomy down pat and was ready to dominate. I literally didn't have 1 MSK anatomy question lol. All of mine were vascular, pelvic, and head and neck. Cardio was tough but it is my favorite subject, so I think it went well besides one murmur question where it sounded like the patient had a murmur at one place, a rub at another, and a gallop at another lol. Overall, it really comes down to if they hit your good or bad points. Luckily I did really well in anatomy in year 1 and 2 of the questions I got right from remembering some random thing said in class. I'm really glad I looked over the step 2 CK OB section 2 days before because I had 3 step 2 type OB questions. I wouldn't advise it for most people but I had the extra time so I did it. I had one question that only an ophthalmologist could have answered. I narrowed it down to 4/5 answers hahaha.

Ultimately, it wasn't as bad as I thought. We will see if the same will be said when I get my score back 😉. So happy to be done with the beast and starting M3 year tomorrow!!
 
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tvelocity514 said:
Officially done with Step 1!! Thanks to everyone who has helped me with the MANY questions I have had. I'll update more once I get my score back. My test was VERY anatomy heavy. My tough subjects were anatomy, ethics, and biostats. Biostats are my strong suit so I hope I still got all of them right. Ethics I was able to narrow down to 2 answers on 3 of them so I hope I guessed right. Anatomy was ridiculous lol. I am so glad that I studied some of the pelvic anatomy. I had my MSK anatomy down pat and was ready to dominate. I literally didn't have 1 MSK anatomy question lol. All of mine were vascular, pelvic, and head and neck. Cardio was tough but it is my favorite subject, so I think it went well besides one murmur question where it sounded like the patient had a murmur at one place, a rub at another, and a gallop at another lol. Overall, it really comes down to if they hit your good or bad points. Luckily I did really well in anatomy in year 1 and 2 of the questions I got right from remembering some random thing said in class. I'm really glad I looked over the step 2 CK OB section 2 days before because I had 3 step 2 type OB questions. I wouldn't advise it for most people but I had the extra time so I did it. I had one question that only an ophthalmologist could have answered. I narrowed it down to 4/5 answers hahaha.

Ultimately, it wasn't as bad as I thought. We will see if the same will be said when I get my score back 😉. So happy to be done with the beast and starting M3 year tomorrow!!
Click to expand...

Are those formulas in FA/UW enough for your heavy biostats test version?
 
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Hey guys, I've been studying for about 5 weeks and I just finished my first pass of FA yesterday and I haven't done any UW yet, with about 4.5 weeks of study time left. I took NBME 15 today and got 220, up from 193 from our school's CBSE. Is it realistically possible to improve from here now that I'm starting UW? I'm looking to get 235-240.
 
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pnlitt said:
Are those formulas in FA/UW enough for your heavy biostats test version?
Click to expand...

Yeah definitely. It was more of the reasoning type of biostats that was harder (interpretation). But I love math and it wasn't that bad but it was definitely harder than any NBME. I still doubt I missed any though but I could definitely see people missing them if they didn't fully understand how to interpret all of the equations and just memorized them instead.
 
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AZ7 said:
@tvelocity514 Im 3 months out from my test, in your opinion what would you do again or do differently from this situation?
Click to expand...

I would have done all of first aid at the beginning of my dedicated instead of realizing I needed to do it with 2 wks left. I started w uworld for 2 wks then switched and came back to uworld the last wk. would have done first aid the first 1.5 wks and uworld the last 3.5 had I done it over. Worked out though.

Edit: I'm very glad I did all of the nbmes (11-18). I did 2 a week and more learned from them than used them as a score estimator (until the last two).

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TheShaker said:
Hey guys, I've been studying for about 5 weeks and I just finished my first pass of FA yesterday and I haven't done any UW yet, with about 4.5 weeks of study time left. I took NBME 15 today and got 220, up from 193 from our school's CBSE. Is it realistically possible to improve from here now that I'm starting UW? I'm looking to get 235-240.
Click to expand...

This is a very solid baseline score, I think. I took this test a month ago and scored 217, but that was after doing ~1500 USMLE Rx qs.

I think you can easily add 20+ points in 4.5 wks. I hope I can too :luck:
 
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Ibn Alnafis MD said:
This is a very solid baseline score, I think. I took this test a month ago and scored 217, but that was after doing ~1500 USMLE Rx qs.

I think you can easily add 20+ points in 4.5 wks. I hope I can too :luck:
Click to expand...

I mean, it wasn't a baseline. I've been in dedicated for 5 weeks now lol. I just hope UW has a lot of new information to grow from.
 
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tvelocity514 said:
Officially done with Step 1!! Thanks to everyone who has helped me with the MANY questions I have had. I'll update more once I get my score back. My test was VERY anatomy heavy. My tough subjects were anatomy, ethics, and biostats. Biostats are my strong suit so I hope I still got all of them right. Ethics I was able to narrow down to 2 answers on 3 of them so I hope I guessed right. Anatomy was ridiculous lol. I am so glad that I studied some of the pelvic anatomy. I had my MSK anatomy down pat and was ready to dominate. I literally didn't have 1 MSK anatomy question lol. All of mine were vascular, pelvic, and head and neck. Cardio was tough but it is my favorite subject, so I think it went well besides one murmur question where it sounded like the patient had a murmur at one place, a rub at another, and a gallop at another lol. Overall, it really comes down to if they hit your good or bad points. Luckily I did really well in anatomy in year 1 and 2 of the questions I got right from remembering some random thing said in class. I'm really glad I looked over the step 2 CK OB section 2 days before because I had 3 step 2 type OB questions. I wouldn't advise it for most people but I had the extra time so I did it. I had one question that only an ophthalmologist could have answered. I narrowed it down to 4/5 answers hahaha.

Ultimately, it wasn't as bad as I thought. We will see if the same will be said when I get my score back 😉. So happy to be done with the beast and starting M3 year tomorrow!!
Click to expand...

Congrats on writing step 1 🙂 where did u look over step 2 ck ob/gyn from? was it a book? or qbank? tia
 
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tvelocity514 said:
I would have done all of first aid at the beginning of my dedicated instead of realizing I needed to do it with 2 wks left. I started w uworld for 2 wks then switched and came back to uworld the last wk. would have done first aid the first 1.5 wks and uworld the last 3.5 had I done it over. Worked out though.

Edit: I'm very glad I did all of the nbmes (11-18). I did 2 a week and more learned from them than used them as a score estimator (until the last two).

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Ill finish a pass through FA before i start UWorld then. Did you buy all the NBMEs or do a couple of them offline? And wasn't in time consuming searching for answers and explanations?
 
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Just started my dedicated today, looking for a 8-10 wk dedicated prep time.

Took ~2 weeks off after class.

NBME 11- 238
NBME 12- 248
CBSE - 258

I feel like I have forgotten a TON in the last 2 weeks, so back at it today, 80-100 questions a day and first aid reading for now.
 
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AZ7 said:
Ill finish a pass through FA before i start UWorld then. Did you buy all the NBMEs or do a couple of them offline? And wasn't in time consuming searching for answers and explanations?
Click to expand...

I bought them all and it was really helpful because it shows you what you are weak on. My 2 best friends and I took Step 1 on the same day, and we took the NBME's on the same day from 8-12 am and then went over our wrong answers together and had lunch from 12-5/530 that day. It actually was super helpful because sometimes you would get an answer right but not realize you got it right for the wrong reason until you tried explaining it to someone. I would say only do this if you have someone that is a high scoring individual because 2 of us were looking for 240+ and the other was looking for 265+ so there weren't many questions that we had to look up online.
 
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how long does it take you guys to do and review a Uworld block. Its taking me roughly three hours to do a block on random tutor untimed. I was wondering if this is way too slow during dedicated.
 
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runnin72 said:
how long does it take you guys to do and review a Uworld block. Its taking me roughly three hours to do a block on random tutor untimed. I was wondering if this is way too slow during dedicated.
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took me about 3-3.5 to take and review a UWorld block. i did all of UWorld during dedicated (~4.5 weeks) and had no problems so i would say you're not going too slow
 
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pacman2018 said:
took me about 3-3.5 to take and review a UWorld block. i did all of UWorld during dedicated (~4.5 weeks) and had no problems so i would say you're not going too slow
Click to expand...

How long did it take you to read first aid. Ideally, I wanted to schedule reading 50pg of first aid and 2-2.5blocks per day with additional pathoma reading. I feel like just reading first aid and doing two blocks takes me all day. This is my first pass through the general principles party of first aid. I only read all the organ systems during the year.
 
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runnin72 said:
How long did it take you to read first aid. Ideally, I wanted to schedule reading 50pg of first aid and 2-2.5blocks per day with additional pathoma reading. I feel like just reading first aid and doing two blocks takes me all day. This is my first pass through the general principles party of first aid. I only read all the organ systems during the year.
Click to expand...

I went through FA in 2 days after I finished UW. I wish I would have done it more spaced out through dedicated
 
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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...

freshbagels said:
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.
Click to expand...
Just got my score - 269! Within 5 points of my NBME average, despite how terrible I felt afterwards.
 
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Brother got a 260 from 4/15 test date. Was averaging 250 to 255. Was hoping for 250, is in utter disbelief. Has me double checking that he didn't read it wrong, but is just says PASS and 260 on his letter, with his name and test date. I hope this kind of performance is genetic.
 
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