USMLE Official 2018 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[Foot Fetish]

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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

 

[onceanerdalwaysanerd]

are u f**king kidding me? stop being a snowflake and enjoy your grade. you will do ortho too. geez

I mean average ortho step 1 for 2016 was a 247 so...

 

[bom602]

Appreciate all the posts so thought I'd share mine:

USMLErx - first pass 70%, second pass 85%
Uworld - one pass, 72%
CBSE (9 weeks out) 215
CBSE (5.5 weeks out) 210 - wtf?
NBME 16 (4 weeks out) 236

Actual score: 226

I didn't have any desire to take any more practice exams than the limited amount that I took. I know most people on here take a ton, and maybe it would've helped, but I didn't have any desire to do that. My goal score was 230+, so I didn't hit that but I can still do the specialty of my choice without any issues so I'm more than happy with my score. Congrats to everyone else who received their scores today!

 

[khrisskhoras]

Appreciate all the posts so thought I'd share mine:

USMLErx - first pass 70%, second pass 85%
Uworld - one pass, 72%
CBSE (9 weeks out) 215
CBSE (5.5 weeks out) 210 - wtf?
NBME 16 (4 weeks out) 236

Actual score: 226

I didn't have any desire to take any more practice exams than the limited amount that I took. I know most people on here take a ton, and maybe it would've helped, but I didn't have any desire to do that. My goal score was 230+, so I didn't hit that but I can still do the specialty of my choice without any issues so I'm more than happy with my score. Congrats to everyone else who received their scores today!

was your Uworld random untimed or subject-by-subject blocks?

 

[bom602]

was your Uworld random untimed or subject-by-subject blocks?

Half-and-half - the first 500-600 questions were by subject block, but then I just started doing random after that

 

[bom602]

25th percentile for ortho is a 239. 50th is a 247.

you received a score that will let you match somewhere into ortho - congrats!
if you want to have your choice of program, then you'll have to boost your resume elsewhere.

but simply matching somewhere into ortho? you're golden! congrats on your score

@onceanerdalwaysanerd

 

[bom602]

 

[Maria02]

Ahhhhh. Difficult to be disappointed. Way underperformed relative to practice exams, but if I say I'm not happy with it, I'd sound like a prick. Kinda felt like I underperformed because of now difficult it felt compared to my NBMEs.

Uworld: 84%
NBMEs (13 (5wks out),15,16,17,18 (all within 1-2 weeks out)): 232, 255, 255, 255, 255
official: 250

No matter what the outcomes, God is good. I'm content🙂

Congrats!!! Amazing score!! How Many questions do you think you got wrong?

 

[Mortiest Morty]

6 weeks dedicated, started practice exams 5 weeks out (~1 a week)

NBME 17 - 209
NBME 13 - 230
NBME 19 - 230
USWA1 and NBME 16 (same day) - 252 and 240, respectively
USWA2 and NBME 18 (same day) - 248 and 242, respectively
Free 120 - 82%
UWorld - 73% first pass

Real deal: 252

Zanki completed prior to dedicated and kept up with reviews throughout. Pepper subdecks, sketchy micro, sketchy pharm, a little sketchy path, UW x2 and Pathoma x1 during dedicated. Barely touched FA.

Also this has been said time and time again but your feelings after test day are not indicative of how you will perform. I honestly felt like I scored around my NBME 17 on test day and was preparing myself to see that result. Needless to say I'm completely ecstatic! I thank God and, as a long time lurker, all of you for helping me trudge through the 9 most uncertain weeks of my life.

Congrats to those who took the beast and good luck to those yet to conquer it!

 

[pbrocks15]

6 weeks dedicated, started practice exams 5 weeks out (~1 a week)

NBME 17 - 209
NBME 13 - 230
NBME 19 - 230
USWA1 and NBME 16 (same day) - 252 and 240, respectively
USWA2 and NBME 18 (same day) - 248 and 242, respectively
Free 120 - 82%
UWorld - 73% first pass

Real deal: 252

Zanki completed prior to dedicated and kept up with reviews throughout. Pepper subdecks, sketchy micro, sketchy pharm, a little sketchy path, UW x2 and Pathoma x1 during dedicated. Barely touched FA.

Also this has been said time and time again but your feelings after test day are not indicative of how you will perform. I honestly felt like I scored around my NBME 17 on test day and was preparing myself to see that result. Needless to say I'm completely ecstatic! I thank God and, as a long time lurker, all of you for helping me trudge through the 9 most uncertain weeks of my life.

Congrats to those who took the beast and good luck to those yet to conquer it!

Congrats on the score! What was the breakdown of your day during dedicated? What did you feel was most helpful looking back?

Ahhhhh. Difficult to be disappointed. Way underperformed relative to practice exams, but if I say I'm not happy with it, I'd sound like a prick. Kinda felt like I underperformed because of now difficult it felt compared to my NBMEs.

Uworld: 84%
NBMEs (13 (5wks out),15,16,17,18 (all within 1-2 weeks out)): 232, 255, 255, 255, 255
official: 250

No matter what the outcomes, God is good. I'm content🙂

Congrats!!! That's a fantastic score!

 

[Estranged]

OMG!!! 272 !!!!!!!!
I performed better than any practice test! I'm in utter shock right now!
NBME 15: 252
NBME 16: 263
NBME17: 265
NBME18: 267
UWSA 2: 264
UWORLD: 87% correct
USMLE RX: 94%

I'll do a detailed write up later, I'm too shocked right now

 

[TheIllusionist]

Congrats everyone. I remember the feeling last year. Also, the whole under overpredict thing for the assessments has so much individual variation that I wouldn't put too too much stock into it.

If you hit your relative strengths that day more than your relative weaknesses, you'll overperform. Relative meaning how you compare at those subjects to others. Let's everyone sucks at embryology. Your goal is just to suck less.

 

[Krabbeman]

Congrats!!! Amazing score!! How Many questions do you think you got wrong?

Probably between 40-70.

I felt I was destroying the first 5 blocks. Like 90% of questions crushing it.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I missed 1/2 of my 6th and 7th blocks tho.

I screwed myself by never taking a layered practice exam. Like I shoulda done some back to back, or paired with a UWorld/free 120.

My endurance ran out. If They scored just my first 5 without blocks 6 and 7, I think I woulda done a lot better. Highly encourage doing back to backs for some of your exams

 

[pbrocks15]

Probably between 40-70.

I felt I was destroying the first 5 blocks. Like 90% of questions crushing it.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I missed 1/2 of my 6th and 7th blocks tho

WOW. What do you think helped you most when preparing? Also do you think fatigue had anything to do with those last few blocks?

 

[Krabbeman]

WOW. What do you think helped you most when preparing? Also do you think fatigue had anything to do with those last few blocks?

I just edited my response lol

Yea like I just edited that one to say- I did not do enough like FULL length exams. I took nbmes but they're only 200 Qs, and I sometimes was laxidazical about timing my breaks.

Fatigue was probably the biggest factor.

Biggest help was probably nbmes and Uworld. I know, pretty classic answer. I think my total possible range of scores was a 250-260. Even though I scored at what I think was the bottom of my range (based on practice exam scores), I still walked away with a decent score. And I think if you're a pretty smart individual, and study your @$$ off- 250+ is a given, even if you had a bad test day like I did. As long as you do the basic UWorld, some NBMEs, FA, etc.

 

[Krabbeman]

Also, a random after thought.

I used UWorld and my NBMEs too much of a gauging how I was doing tool rather than a learning tool.

I'd get super frustrated if I did poorly on block, and I was taking the practice exams- gunning to do well on them.

But the correct attitude is not to worry about how you're doing. But to learn from every problem.

Sometimes I feel my constant obsession with where I was falling was a hindrance. It kept me from TRULY learning the most I could from every question.

 

[pbrocks15]

I just edited my response lol

Yea like I just edited that one to say- I did not do enough like FULL length exams. I took nbmes but they're only 200 Qs, and I sometimes was laxidazical about timing my breaks.

Fatigue was probably the biggest factor.

Biggest help was probably nbmes and Uworld. I know, pretty classic answer. I think my total possible range of scores was a 250-260. Even though I scored at what I think was the bottom of my range (based on practice exam scores), I still walked away with a decent score. And I think if you're a pretty smart individual, and study your @$$ off- 250+ is a given, even if you had a bad test day like I did. As long as you do the basic UWorld, some NBMEs, FA, etc.

Haha Thanks! I figure you'd see that question coming. So looking at your other post as well, you would recommend actually reviewing each NBME and USWA answer?

Did you ANKI your UWorld Wrongs or concepts? Or did you just read through it slowly w/ your X number of questions each day?

 

[Krabbeman]

Haha Thanks! I figure you'd see that question coming. So looking at your other post as well, you would recommend actually reviewing each NBME and USWA answer?

Did you ANKI your UWorld Wrongs or concepts? Or did you just read through it slowly w/ your X number of questions each day?

I did not use ANKI for anything every. Never have and never will. Friggin hate ANKI lol

 

[minitank72]

I took my exam 5/6, and a USMLE update says scores the week of 5/7 won't be released until July. Now I'm not certain if I'll get my score today, next week or in July.. does anyone have an idea?

Also anyone who has taken their exam on a Sunday, did you get your score back 3 Wednesdays later or 4?

 

[pbrocks15]

I did not use ANKI for anything every. Never have and never will. Friggin hate ANKI lol

Hahaha It isn't for everyone that's for sure. How did you find it best to work through UWorld? And do do you recommend then going through every answer in the NBMEs/USWAs?

 

[Krabbeman]

Hahaha It isn't for everyone that's for sure. How did you find it best to work through UWorld? And do do you recommend then going through every answer in the NBMEs/USWAs?

For sure I would go over every question as thoroughly as possible if I could do it over again- no matter which form of assessment.

I would read the explanations for UWorld, and then quick glance at FA too. I didn't do this. If I got it right and I knew why I got it right, I just read the key explanation at the bottom.

But there's a lot of good info in the other answer choice information. I wish I woulda done that... but time was a limiting factor for me

 

[Mortiest Morty]

Congrats on the score! What was the breakdown of your day during dedicated? What did you feel was most helpful looking back?



Congrats!!! That's a fantastic score!

Thanks!!
One chapter of Pathoma or Sketchy Path in the morning
Two blocks of Uworld (Subject based, non-timed)
Break for the gym
Two blocks of Uworld (Random, timed)
Anki/ Sketchy

Rinse and repeat.

Zanki definitely helped alleviate the stress of memorizing the minutia coming into study block. Doing as many UW questions as possible and reading every answer explanation, I got several questions that were literally reworded UW questions. I thought the pepper subdecks were gold during the dedicated period for subjects I felt weak on. Other than that going into test day confident in your effort. There is a sea of information that could appear on your exam that you will have no control over, but I believe remaining as calm as possible and trusting your gut will give you the best shot at whatever they try and throw at you!

Good luck!

 

[coldcase331]

Random question for everyone. I've been using the Pepper Pharm deck to study pharm. One problem I'm running into is that for some reason anki is randomly setting my review count to 0 during the middle of a session. For example, I currently have the deck set to 60 new/150 review. I'll get to the point of like 35 new/25 learning/85 review, and if I start to hit "Easy" too many times, my review count will suddenly go to zero. Does anyone know how to fix this?

 

[theboatman]

Got my score today thought I'd share my experience with everyone. I am a religious UFAPer.

MS2: tons of pathoma until I literally had every page memorized, some first aid, sketchy, no anki
Study block: UW x1, First aid x2, Practice tests, no anki
All practice tests in 5 weeks of study block.

UW first pass, timed, random: 82%
NBME15: 254
NBME16: 265
NBME18: 253
UWSA1: 269
UWSA2: 256

Step 1: 259

Unlike most people on here, I actually felt pretty good walking out of step, felt like I hit my UWSA range. I googled a ton afterwards and think I got on the lucky side with guessing but also counted a decent number that I missed.

As you can see, I did not use anki and I actually think Anki is a terrible way to learn and test yourself for boards.

Feel free to ask any questions.

 

[DubbiDoctor]

Ahhhhh. Difficult to be disappointed. Way underperformed relative to practice exams, but if I say I'm not happy with it, I'd sound like a prick. Kinda felt like I underperformed because of now difficult it felt compared to my NBMEs.

Uworld: 84%
NBMEs (13 (5wks out),15,16,17,18 (all within 1-2 weeks out)): 232, 255, 255, 255, 255
official: 250

No matter what the outcomes, God is good. I'm content🙂

250 is a great score that will be competitive for any specialty. Congrats! I wonder if the reason you did

OMG!!! 272 !!!!!!!!
I performed better than any practice test! I'm in utter shock right now!
NBME 15: 252
NBME 16: 263
NBME17: 265
NBME18: 267
UWSA 2: 264
UWORLD: 87% correct
USMLE RX: 94%

I'll do a detailed write up later, I'm too shocked right now

Congrats! How many do you think you got wrong? How long did you study for? What do you think distinguished your performance from other people who studied extensively and did well but not 270+ well?

Got my score today thought I'd share my experience with everyone. I am a religious UFAPer.

MS2: tons of pathoma until I literally had every page memorized, some first aid, sketchy, no anki
Study block: UW x1, First aid x2, Practice tests, no anki
All practice tests in 5 weeks of study block.

UW first pass, timed, random: 82%
NBME15: 254
NBME16: 265
NBME18: 253
UWSA1: 269
UWSA2: 256

Step 1: 259

Unlike most people on here, I actually felt pretty good walking out of step, felt like I hit my UWSA range. I googled a ton afterwards and think I got on the lucky side with guessing but also counted a decent number that I missed.

As you can see, I did not use anki and I actually think Anki is a terrible way to learn and test yourself for boards.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Can you be more specific about the # of questions you missed? Since you mastered UFAP, about how many questions - rough percentage - could not be answered by knowing everything in UFAP?

 

[Dr. Death]

Question for those that have taken the test recently. Were there times where you felt they tested multiple times on the same fact? I.e. multiple questions where the answer is Langerhans cell histiocytosis or some other rare disease?

 

[theboatman]

Can you be more specific about the # of questions you missed? Since you mastered UFAP, about how many questions - rough percentage - could not be answered by knowing everything in UFAP?

I know I missed 10 or so. That's out of maybe 40 I looked up afterwards. Lots of ethics questions I was very unsure about. Those suck.

And I'd say around 5%. A good number I thought were not UFAP but then I'd go back and find a line or a word or two in First Aid with the answer.

 

[theboatman]

Question for those that have taken the test recently. Were there times where you felt they tested multiple times on the same fact? I.e. multiple questions where the answer is Langerhans cell histiocytosis or some other rare disease?

100%. I was shocked this happened to me on 3 topics. Good if you know the topic, bad if you don't. Literally had like 4 questions on one very specific anatomy topic that I happened to have looked at the week before the test.

 

[pbrocks15]

Thanks!!
One chapter of Pathoma or Sketchy Path in the morning
Two blocks of Uworld (Subject based, non-timed)
Break for the gym
Two blocks of Uworld (Random, timed)
Anki/ Sketchy

Rinse and repeat.

Zanki definitely helped alleviate the stress of memorizing the minutia coming into study block. Doing as many UW questions as possible and reading every answer explanation, I got several questions that were literally reworded UW questions. I thought the pepper subdecks were gold during the dedicated period for subjects I felt weak on. Other than that going into test day confident in your effort. There is a sea of information that could appear on your exam that you will have no control over, but I believe remaining as calm as possible and trusting your gut will give you the best shot at whatever they try and throw at you!

Good luck!

Got my score today thought I'd share my experience with everyone. I am a religious UFAPer.

MS2: tons of pathoma until I literally had every page memorized, some first aid, sketchy, no anki
Study block: UW x1, First aid x2, Practice tests, no anki
All practice tests in 5 weeks of study block.

UW first pass, timed, random: 82%
NBME15: 254
NBME16: 265
NBME18: 253
UWSA1: 269
UWSA2: 256

Step 1: 259

Unlike most people on here, I actually felt pretty good walking out of step, felt like I hit my UWSA range. I googled a ton afterwards and think I got on the lucky side with guessing but also counted a decent number that I missed.

As you can see, I did not use anki and I actually think Anki is a terrible way to learn and test yourself for boards.

Feel free to ask any questions.

For sure I would go over every question as thoroughly as possible if I could do it over again- no matter which form of assessment.

I would read the explanations for UWorld, and then quick glance at FA too. I didn't do this. If I got it right and I knew why I got it right, I just read the key explanation at the bottom.

But there's a lot of good info in the other answer choice information. I wish I woulda done that... but time was a limiting factor for me

Thanks for all the help. Do you guys feel that the exam was testing minutiae or rather, broader on the plane of giving you a disease presentation and asking you something a little more general about that disease that you might not have read elsewhere but can reason?

 

[orangetea]

 

[Lannister]

My favorite questions are the ones where the patient comes in and is like "oh yeah I was diagnosed with some disease when I was a baby but I don't remember what it was called". And then it turns out they have like cystic fibrosis or something. Like idk maybe I'm wrong but I think most people with cystic fibrosis are aware that they have cystic fibrosis.

 

[theboatman]

Is it possible that these repeating questions might be some of the experimental questions? They can present a topic in a few different ways and analyze how students perform on them so that they can choose which one to use for real in future exams..

Obviously this is a possibility, but I actually highly doubt that. I actually think this is a result of a flaw in the way the system pulls questions from the question bank. I will give you 3 examples to support this:

1) In the SAME block, I had a question I did not know the answer to. However, 3 questions later, the exact answer was in the stem of the subsequent question.
2) In the SAME block, I had 2 questions literally asking the same thing with slightly different stems. I was able to compare the answer choices in each question to easily eliminate answers and narrow down the correct answer quickly.
3) In different blocks, I had pretty much an identical question, however one had a picture and one did not.

I strongly believe the system is flawed, which results in the program testing the same concept multiple times for some students (like myself) and leaves you at the end of the test feeling like there were certain areas you were over tested in and several more areas they never remotely touched.

 

[Sparbudart]

Long-time lurker here, just sharing to encourage people not to get too down about their practice NBMEs and remember how rough the curve can be.

NBME 13 - 196
NBME 15 - 209
NBME 16 - 225
NBME 17 - 223
NBME 18 - 232
NBME 19 - 225
UWSA 1 - 251
UWSA 2 - 245
That's the order I took the NBMEs, the UWSAs were interspersed in there, but I'm not sure of the exact dates for those. I took one practice test per week during dedicated.

STEP 1 (5/4) - 244 (thrilled, considering I was perfectly ready to accept ~225-230)

I'm not a confident standardized test-taker, and I didn't feel great coming out, but on test day I trusted my gut and didn't change my answers (which seemed to be a big part of why I didn't have stellar scores on the NBMEs). Good luck to every still waiting for their scores or preparing to test; remember, you know more than you think you do!

 

[Lannister]

Need some advice here.
I have two weeks left until my exam, and I have no idea what to do. I finish UWorld, and I don't really have plans to go through it again. I've taken both UWorld assessments and three NBMEs. I watched Pathoma along with my classes and over the past few weeks I've re-watched a few chapters in my weaker areas. I don't really feel the need to watch Sketchy at this point.

Pretty much all I have left to do is the last three NBMEs, maybe a few of the older NBMEs, and finish my read-through of First Aid. That's definitely not enough stuff to occupy my time for two weeks. I'll probably end up doing more Kaplan but I just know I will have a hard time taking it seriously.

Any suggestions for other things I could do?

 

[Blunt Dissection]

Long-time lurker here, just sharing to encourage people not to get too down about their practice NBMEs and remember how rough the curve can be.

NBME 13 - 196
NBME 15 - 209
NBME 16 - 225
NBME 17 - 223
NBME 18 - 232
NBME 19 - 225
UWSA 1 - 251
UWSA 2 - 245
That's the order I took the NBMEs, the UWSAs were interspersed in there, but I'm not sure of the exact dates for those. I took one practice test per week during dedicated.

STEP 1 (5/4) - 244 (thrilled, considering I was perfectly ready to accept ~225-230)

I'm not a confident standardized test-taker, and I didn't feel great coming out, but on test day I trusted my gut and didn't change my answers (which seemed to be a big part of why I didn't have stellar scores on the NBMEs). Good luck to every still waiting for their scores or preparing to test; remember, you know more than you think you do!

This gives me a little hope since my practice scores are pretty close to yours. 1 more week!

 

[cgk]

Long-time lurker here, just sharing to encourage people not to get too down about their practice NBMEs and remember how rough the curve can be.

NBME 13 - 196
NBME 15 - 209
NBME 16 - 225
NBME 17 - 223
NBME 18 - 232
NBME 19 - 225
UWSA 1 - 251
UWSA 2 - 245
That's the order I took the NBMEs, the UWSAs were interspersed in there, but I'm not sure of the exact dates for those. I took one practice test per week during dedicated.

STEP 1 (5/4) - 244 (thrilled, considering I was perfectly ready to accept ~225-230)

I'm not a confident standardized test-taker, and I didn't feel great coming out, but on test day I trusted my gut and didn't change my answers (which seemed to be a big part of why I didn't have stellar scores on the NBMEs). Good luck to every still waiting for their scores or preparing to test; remember, you know more than you think you do!

May I ask how many weeks long was your dedicated study period? Also was NBME 13 taken as a baseline before your dedicated study began? thanks!

 

[coldcase331]

Need some advice here.
I have two weeks left until my exam, and I have no idea what to do. I finish UWorld, and I don't really have plans to go through it again. I've taken both UWorld assessments and three NBMEs. I watched Pathoma along with my classes and over the past few weeks I've re-watched a few chapters in my weaker areas. I don't really feel the need to watch Sketchy at this point.

Pretty much all I have left to do is the last three NBMEs, maybe a few of the older NBMEs, and finish my read-through of First Aid. That's definitely not enough stuff to occupy my time for two weeks. I'll probably end up doing more Kaplan but I just know I will have a hard time taking it seriously.

Any suggestions for other things I could do?

Honestly just finish your pass of first aid and take it. You're scores are already phenomenal

 

[Lannister]

Honestly just finish your pass of first aid and take it. You're scores are already phenomenal

So I just talked to my advisor and she said to finish 17, 18, and 19 as soon as possible and if they go well to just move up the test. I'll probably take 17 tomorrow and 18 on Monday and make the decision after I get my score for 18, so as not to let a mediocre score on 19 freak me out and change my mind haha. So if 17 and 18 go well, I will probably end up taking it next Friday or the Monday after.

I'm just afraid that if I move it up and do poorly I'll have so much regret.

EDIT: The only slot left in my area is June 2nd so I guess if I do move it up it will be that day. Assuming that slot doesn't get taken haha that would make the decision easy for me.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Need some advice here.
I have two weeks left until my exam, and I have no idea what to do. I finish UWorld, and I don't really have plans to go through it again. I've taken both UWorld assessments and three NBMEs. I watched Pathoma along with my classes and over the past few weeks I've re-watched a few chapters in my weaker areas. I don't really feel the need to watch Sketchy at this point.

Pretty much all I have left to do is the last three NBMEs, maybe a few of the older NBMEs, and finish my read-through of First Aid. That's definitely not enough stuff to occupy my time for two weeks. I'll probably end up doing more Kaplan but I just know I will have a hard time taking it seriously.

Any suggestions for other things I could do?

So I just talked to my advisor and she said to finish 17, 18, and 19 as soon as possible and if they go well to just move up the test. I'll probably take 17 tomorrow and 18 on Monday and make the decision after I get my score for 18, so as not to let a mediocre score on 19 freak me out and change my mind haha. So if 17 and 18 go well, I will probably end up taking it next Friday or the Monday after.

I'm just afraid that if I move it up and do poorly I'll have so much regret.

EDIT: The only slot left in my area is June 2nd so I guess if I do move it up it will be that day. Assuming that slot doesn't get taken haha that would make the decision easy for me.

Yea I was gonna say move it up but seems like you've got the right idea.

If I recall you've been preparing pretty thoroughly for quite a while so it would be nice to get out of the way and take a nice long vacation.

 

[bom602]

So I just talked to my advisor and she said to finish 17, 18, and 19 as soon as possible and if they go well to just move up the test. I'll probably take 17 tomorrow and 18 on Monday and make the decision after I get my score for 18, so as not to let a mediocre score on 19 freak me out and change my mind haha. So if 17 and 18 go well, I will probably end up taking it next Friday or the Monday after.

I'm just afraid that if I move it up and do poorly I'll have so much regret.

EDIT: The only slot left in my area is June 2nd so I guess if I do move it up it will be that day. Assuming that slot doesn't get taken haha that would make the decision easy for me.

FWIW, my only regret is not moving mine up more when I felt better. You gotta hit that sweet spot, and hindsight will always be 20/20 if you don't get the score you want, but if you're nailing those NBME's then go for it. You got this!

 

[Lannister]

Yea I was gonna say move it up but seems like you've got the right idea.

If I recall you've been preparing pretty thoroughly for quite a while so it would be nice to get out of the way and take a nice long vacation.

Yeah I really don't know why I am freaking out so much about moving it up. Not only would it be nice to be done with it and have a few more days off, but it would also take away my secret fear that I'm going to show up on my original test day and something is going to happen so I'm not able to take the test that day, and then I won't be able to go on the vacation I have planned. Probably wouldn't happen but I can't stop thinking about it lol.

FWIW, my only regret is not moving mine up more when I felt better. You gotta hit that sweet spot, and hindsight will always be 20/20 if you don't get the score you want, but if you're nailing those NBME's then go for it. You got this!

This is really encouraging to hear, thank you!!

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

UWorld asks for the treatment of a disease, then when you choose the correct treatment they say "no actually that treatment has never been proven to show a survival advantage, you should've just given then a statin because even though their lipids are fine everyone gets a statin"

 

[Lannister]

View attachment 234507
UWorld asks for the treatment of a disease, then when you choose the correct treatment they say "no actually that treatment has never been proven to show a survival advantage, you should've just given then a statin because even though their lipids are fine everyone gets a statin"

Lol I know exactly which question you're talking about, got it wrong too.

 

[coldcase331]

View attachment 234507
UWorld asks for the treatment of a disease, then when you choose the correct treatment they say "no actually that treatment has never been proven to show a survival advantage, you should've just given then a statin because even though their lipids are fine everyone gets a statin"

One thing I learned, the answer is never Niacin unless they specifically talking about getting red in the face lol

 

[donovank730]

Any estimations what 90% correct on step gets you? I know I missed 9 and think I probably missed another 9, so somewhere near 20 atleast that I am aware of

 

[The.Supinator]

Any estimations what 90% correct on step gets you? I know I missed 9 and think I probably missed another 9, so somewhere near 20 atleast that I am aware of

260+ let us know how it works out please

 

[orangetea]

Long-time lurker here, just sharing to encourage people not to get too down about their practice NBMEs and remember how rough the curve can be.

NBME 13 - 196
NBME 15 - 209
NBME 16 - 225
NBME 17 - 223
NBME 18 - 232
NBME 19 - 225
UWSA 1 - 251
UWSA 2 - 245
That's the order I took the NBMEs, the UWSAs were interspersed in there, but I'm not sure of the exact dates for those. I took one practice test per week during dedicated.

STEP 1 (5/4) - 244 (thrilled, considering I was perfectly ready to accept ~225-230)

I'm not a confident standardized test-taker, and I didn't feel great coming out, but on test day I trusted my gut and didn't change my answers (which seemed to be a big part of why I didn't have stellar scores on the NBMEs). Good luck to every still waiting for their scores or preparing to test; remember, you know more than you think you do!

great job!

by any chance do you remember what percentages you had for your NBME.. for example how many questions did you get wrong to get a 225 vs 232? Thank you!

 

[Mr.Emboli]

Hey guys,

Just wanted thank everyone that replied to my posts and helped me out.

I ended up getting a 254.

Found out yesterday. I am content and happy with my score. Thank you to this community for being so supportive and helpful.

Best of luck to everyone taking step 1!

Best,

Mr. Emboli

 

[mikil100]

Only 4 more days of studying left for me before I take the dive. One of those days (the day before) I'm only going to be doing some very light studying and no practice questions.

I don't have any glaring weak points, although I am going to review my two weakest areas: biostats and and genetics, but even that is only at 12% incorrect on UW. I have 660 UW questions left, so I can definitely finish most (second pass). I am wondering what should I be doing other than UW these last few days of crunch time?

I have a list of some sketchypharm/sketchy micro that I want to re-watch. I also have a boatload of Anki that's due every day, but I think at this point Anki has served it's purpose and now isn't worth the time. Obviously I'm going do due the FA rapid review and I have the free 120 as well. Anyone that took the exam have any comments on last minute studying that was beneficial?

 

[sharkbyte]

View attachment 234507
UWorld asks for the treatment of a disease, then when you choose the correct treatment they say "no actually that treatment has never been proven to show a survival advantage, you should've just given then a statin because even though their lipids are fine everyone gets a statin"

LOL definitely experienced this once. The ones I dont't like are the experiment ones, like "A researcher is interested in investigating this and this so he injects mice with radiolabeled blah to find out blah." They remind me of like, high school biology type questions where it's some random fact from basic bacteriology or virology that has gotten lost in the weeds after doing so much intense organ system prep. I think UWSA1 had some ridiculous experiment question where the answer was "internal ribosome entry site" or some BS and only like 27% of people got it right.

 

[coldcase331]

LOL definitely experienced this once. The ones I dont't like are the experiment ones, like "A researcher is interested in investigating this and this so he injects mice with radiolabeled blah to find out blah." They remind me of like, high school biology type questions where it's some random fact from basic bacteriology or virology that has gotten lost in the weeds after doing so much intense organ system prep. I think UWSA1 had some ridiculous experiment question where the answer was "internal ribosome entry site" or some BS and only like 27% of people got it right.

Dude...don't even get me started on that question. I did a bunch of cell bio/genetics in undergrad and never EVER heard of that.