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I've always wanted to start one of these...So here we go!
My stats:
M2
Test time: June 2018
Goal score: 270
My stats:
M2
Test time: June 2018
Goal score: 270
Last edited:
Congrats on the score! But I gotta ask, what time did you have to get up to do all that?? Like 3am?
Hola Muchachos!
Does anyone have a say regarding UWSA 1 accuracy ?
Scored 256 today, NBMEs have been mid 230s
Test is on the 16th
Thanks!
Hola Muchachos!
Does anyone have a say regarding UWSA 1 accuracy ?
Scored 256 today, NBMEs have been mid 230s
Test is on the 16th
Thanks!
Taking it 3 weeks from today (I'm week 4 into a 7 week dedicated) and noticed that my last 5-7 UW blocks have dropped 15+ points by average. I tried to chalk it up to a bad section or two, but then when it kept happening the major anxiety set in. Does this mean I'm forgetting things/regressing or that I'm burning out? Is this normal for your scores to decrease like this?
Hola Muchachos!
Does anyone have a say regarding UWSA 1 accuracy ?
Scored 256 today, NBMEs have been mid 230s
Test is on the 16th
Thanks!
Our school advisors tell us to subtract 20 from UWSA 1, but they said that UWSA 2 was pretty accurate. I do hope they are wrong.
Be careful with this, I'm pretty sure there was a UWorld question or a question from one of the big 3 qbanks or Boards and Beyond that said you might not get 5 SIGECAPS, so don't bother counting. If there is anhedonia and it sounds likes depression for more than 2weeks, it's MDD.
@Lannister UWorld is good at hammering the tiny differences between all the psych stuff. I'm crap at it too, so Im going to do some blocks of just pysch the last week of dedicated. The NBMEs havent had too many psych questions and they have been more clear than qbanks questions for me at least
Sahell -- you have an excellent score
When going over practice tests I find countless easy errors
I'm planning on taking at least the day before my test off, maybe even a half-day the day before that.
Did you see easy mistakes due to burnout when taking your tests?
I'm hoping a recharge will ameliorate these easy errors.
Thanks!
The point is that you shouldn't get so hung up on finding all 5 criteria or freaking out if you can't find 5. I've been told that there aren't necessarily always 5 criteria mentioned/or they describe a criteria in such a vague way that you may miss it, so don't get too stuck on that if the presentation clearly seems like MDD. And it's absolutely not true to say that if you don't count, you will lose points. I don't count and have no trouble with depression questions. People have different ways of thinking through things.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't count, it's just a heads up that if you don't count 5 and there is anhedonia and it seems like MDD is the most correct answer, don't get caught up in SIGECAPS (which is the kind of scenario Bananafish was talking about).
Adjustment disorder falls more under an anxiety category and you will have anxiety mixed with depressive symptoms and the NBME would make it obvious that it is following a stressful event. In a patient on a test like the NBME who just had a stressful non-traumatic event, I would personally start with assumption that it is adjustment disorder and look for reasons to rule it out.
Maybe this advice only works for people who have certain methods for answering questions. People can develop their own style while doing qbanks- just wanted to put out a piece of info that helped me
Hey UPro
I haven't seen this in any of this banks
Was this your experience on test day?
This is based off of my experience, that of my 18 other tutors, and that of our students. It’s easy to think you KNOW how the NBME tests things based on your own anecdotal experience, but I wouldn’t stake something this important on an n of 1. I very often see people applying SIGECAPS incorrectly, and this misleads people into thinking MDD can be the answer without 5/9 criteria being met.
I think if the point of the question is for you to discriminate between MDD and something else, then maybe they want you to count SIGECAPS. But to say its NOT depression, unless the stem specifically gives you 5 SIGECAPS...I don't think that's good test taking. Sometimes they want you to go with what is most likely, without giving you every diagnostic criteria. If someone has a malar rash...probably Lupus, even though the criteria for diagnosis requires a lot more than that. I think that's what others posters are getting at.
I think if the point of the question is for you to discriminate between MDD and something else, then maybe they want you to count SIGECAPS. But to say its NOT depression, unless the stem specifically gives you 5 SIGECAPS...I don't think that's good test taking. Sometimes they want you to go with what is most likely, without giving you every diagnostic criteria. If someone has a malar rash...probably Lupus, even though the criteria for diagnosis requires a lot more than that. I think that's what others posters are getting at.
Sorry to ask this because I know the info is out there but I just did some digging and couldn’t find it-
Could someone comment on how the score release works? I know it’s always on a Wednesday but I feel like I heard that the Monday before it comes out you can see that your permit is down on the NBME site or something. Is that true?
I think my score is either getting released this Wednesday or next and would be great if there’s actually a way to know tomorrow if it’s time to brace myself or not, haha.
Based on my understanding, a 2/26 test date should be next Wednesday (3/21), and I’ll be the one after that. We took early in the week tests which sucks cause our wait is longer haha. Hang in there and good luck!
*Edited to clarify (someone please correct me if I’m wrong): scores are released on the 3rd Wednesday from your test date. If you take the test on a Saturday-Tuesday, your “first” Wednesday will be the Wednesday of the following week, not the Wednesday of the week you took it. If you take it on a Thursday/ Friday your “first” Wednesday is the following week as you’d expect. This is why some people wait “longer”. Also, supposedly your test permit will disappear on the Monday of the week your scores are to be released
Hope this helps people waiting or planning.
Man I would absolutely love to have mine the 21st. I’ll be with my family, so I would love a chance for that to be true haha. I’m no expert on this so hopefully someone else can chime in. The wait is absolutely the worst thing ever, but you're a week ahead of me and not alone!Thanks man you too! This wait sucks haha
I’m pretty much expecting it to be 3/21, though I’ve heard that sometimes it’s quicker in the beginning of the year (as there’s less test takers generally). N=2 but a couple of my classmates took it 2/17 (a Saturday) and got there’s this past Wednesday (the 3rd wed) which had me questioning things a little.
What have been student's experiences in terms of NBME score increases week to week? I know it varies from student to student, but is it reasonable to be able to go up 5-6 points in one week if you're currently scoring a 235-245 on NBMEs?
Curious if anyone has any predictions for actual score given the following:
UWSA1: 258
Form 19: 240
Form 17: 261
If you have experiences with these practice exams and ideas on typical biases for them, please let me know. Thanks!
Update: out of curiosity, I went and checked and my permit is no longer available (link is still there, but when I click it it says it’s not available anymore); that may no longer be a reliable predictor of score reporting. That being said, the fact your two classmates got their scores back early still has me really intrigued. Not sure what to make of it. The people who run this test really know how to mess with people’s heads hahaYea I totally feel you, the 14th I’ll be with my wife.. the 21st I’ll be doing a CPR class with my classmates- you can guess where I’d rather get my score haha.
Here’s hoping!
Update: out of curiosity, I went and checked and my permit is no longer available (link is still there, but when I click it it says it’s not available anymore); that may no longer be a reliable predictor of score reporting. That being said, the fact your two classmates got their scores back early still has me really intrigued. Not sure what to make of it. The people who run this test really know how to mess with people’s heads haha
Keep me updated this Wednesday
How well are we required to know coronary angiography, considering the multitude of views?
The issue here is that you're applying how a diagnosis is made for other diseases to major depression. In psychiatry, you make diagnoses based on meeting DSM criteria. I haven't come across an NBME question where the answer was MDD and 5 criteria weren't met (the only exception being if the all other diagnoses were very far out, such that it was obvious the answer was MDD).
The problem is it can be hard for some people to properly recognize the criteria. For those people, yes, you may need to just go with your gut essentially, but it isn't wise to tell people to not be stringent about counting for 5 SIGECAPS if they haven't had issues recognizing them.
The point of me giving advice is to help you score higher, of course you are free to take it or leave it
Disclaimer: still haven’t gotten my score back.UPDATE: Just took the USWA 2 and got a 220. Unfortunately Im an IMG and Im interested in the surgical specialties, so I delayed the exam by 25 days. I figure getting a better step 1 score outweighs being a few weeks late into clinicals (I checked and made sure that I would still graduate on time). My goal is to go over FA once, uworld once, Kap qbank once and Rx once. I'll retake the UWSA 2 in a few weeks to see if my marks change (obviously that means I wont be reviewing the answers for UWSA 2 . Anyone wishes to comment? I could use all the help I can get.
P.S. I will not be doing a single NBME as that would just cause me unnecessary anxiety. I already complete blocks with 15 minutes left to spare, and the fact that I'll be revising 3 qbanks (7500 questions) makes the NBME an unnecessary, and expensive burden.
Does anyone have a problem with reviewing Rx questions where it will show that the number of people who answered each answer choice for a question is 0%? This has happened on 3-4 questions on my last set of 40 questions that I did. Is this just some glitch with the Rx program?
Is there a difference in study strategy based on how well you are scoring on NBMEs with all of dedicated ahead of you? I am starting my 5 weeks of dedicated and I've hit 240/250s on CBSE and NBME15. I've completed UWorld and I don't know how to target my focus for 5 weeks. My plan was to do basic UFAP with multiple passes of FA and anki the fine details.
Update: out of curiosity, I went and checked and my permit is no longer available (link is still there, but when I click it it says it’s not available anymore); that may no longer be a reliable predictor of score reporting. That being said, the fact your two classmates got their scores back early still has me really intrigued. Not sure what to make of it. The people who run this test really know how to mess with people’s heads haha
Keep me updated this Wednesday
Don't count on it. I got a bunch - around 5 vague image questions with no other hints and very brief clinical stems overall.At step 1 level, there will probably be more clues than just the image. They would probably give the leads with ST elevations, you could use bradycardia vs tachycardia during the MI to guess at which artery is occluded, they could say the "the distal anterior LV shows ischemia," etc.
I would see 114% choosing an answer choice.Does anyone have a problem with reviewing Rx questions where it will show that the number of people who answered each answer choice for a question is 0%? This has happened on 3-4 questions on my last set of 40 questions that I did. Is this just some glitch with the Rx program?
Keep me updated this Wednesday
Bummer, but I guess it’s what we expected. Thanks for the updateUnfortunately no news today so holding out until next week
Since I wanted this thread to be about scores I'll post mine!
Official step 1: 255!
Uworld first pass 76%
Nbme 18 (5 days out): 263
Nbme 17: 260
Uwsa1: 260
I took some others but I did 44 days or so of dedicated study time.
Finally got scores back, thought I would share since this thread was helpful during studying
Uworld: 83%, Kaplan: 86%, Rx: 88%
Uworld SA 1 (~6 weeks out): 273, SA 2 (4 weeks out): 266
Nbme 13: 259
Nbme 15: 275
Nbme 16: 261
Nbme 17: 267
Nbme 18: 269
Nbme 19: 250 (Idk what happened here)
Step 1: 266
Scored exactly the same as SA2, single best predictor. Also wound up close to my average on the nbmes excluding 19. Don't stress like me if you score lower on 19, sounds like many ppl do much better on the real deal.
Since I wanted this thread to be about scores I'll post mine!
Official step 1: 255!
Uworld first pass 76%
Nbme 18 (5 days out): 263
Nbme 17: 260
Uwsa1: 260
I took some others but I did 44 days or so of dedicated study time.
Finally got scores back, thought I would share since this thread was helpful during studying
Uworld: 83%, Kaplan: 86%, Rx: 88%
Uworld SA 1 (~6 weeks out): 273, SA 2 (4 weeks out): 266
Nbme 13: 259
Nbme 15: 275
Nbme 16: 261
Nbme 17: 267
Nbme 18: 269
Nbme 19: 250 (Idk what happened here)
Step 1: 266
Scored exactly the same as SA2, single best predictor. Also wound up close to my average on the nbmes excluding 19. Don't stress like me if you score lower on 19, sounds like many ppl do much better on the real deal.