USMLE Official 2018 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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How representative is NBME 19 and Free 120?

Exam coming up soon, 200 or 78% on NBME 19
73% on Free 120

Am I at risk of not passing...?
 
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mepo12 said:
How representative is NBME 19 and Free 120?

Exam coming up soon, 200 or 78% on NBME 19
73% on Free 120

Am I at risk of not passing...?
Click to expand...

19 is known to underestimate, but I think the real deal was harder than 19. Free 120 was pretty similar to the real thing in terms of difficulty, maybe slightly easier.
 
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Lannister said:
19 is known to underestimate, but I think the real deal was harder than 19. Free 120 was pretty similar to the real thing in terms of difficulty, maybe slightly easier.
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Personally, I thought Free 120 was wayyyy easier than 19. I've also taken NBME 13, 15, and 16, and they all felt easier than 19 too. And I'm not saying that because of the dreadful curve. I just felt like a lot of the questions on 19 were poorly worded or ambiguous.
 
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Foot Fetish said:
Personally, I thought Free 120 was wayyyy easier than 19. I've also taken NBME 13, 15, and 16, and they all felt easier than 19 too. And I'm not saying that because of the dreadful curve. I just felt like a lot of the questions on 19 were poorly worded or ambiguous.
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Haha it's really interesting how everyone has such different experiences! I thought 19 was, by far, the most straightforward NBME. Don't remember 13 at all. 15 and 16 were a bit more difficult for me but not too bad. And then 17 and 18 seemed crazy ambiguous.
 
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This thread has (obviously) been really heavy on all the details of the test as it should be, but thought I’d lighten the mood a little bit - what are/were everyone’s fun celebratory plans for after the test? Anyone have any cool trips or vacations planned?
 
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sharkbyte said:
This thread has (obviously) been really heavy on all the details of the test as it should be, but thought I’d lighten the mood a little bit - what are/were everyone’s fun celebratory plans for after the test? Anyone have any cool trips or vacations planned?
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I plan on replaying Skyrim for two weeks. In my parents' basement. Without a care in the world. Oh and fishing
 
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HybridEarth said:
I plan on replaying Skyrim for two weeks. In my parents' basement. Without a care in the world. Oh and fishing
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That sounds amazing. I might fire up call of duty again. I feel like after all the studying, it’ll be nice to own some 13 year old kids online all day long
 
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sharkbyte said:
That sounds amazing. I might fire up call of duty again. I feel like after all the studying, it’ll be nice to own some 13 year old kids online all day long
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Man I used to be extremely toxic on that game lmao. I used to get mad when my teammates weren't "good"... now I'm just like "this is bad, but wow Step 1 studying sucks way more. no reason to complain"
 
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sharkbyte said:
This thread has (obviously) been really heavy on all the details of the test as it should be, but thought I’d lighten the mood a little bit - what are/were everyone’s fun celebratory plans for after the test? Anyone have any cool trips or vacations planned?
Click to expand...

Straight from the testing center to the airport, for 3 days of camping at a bonnaroo music festival with some friends from high school.

Then 3 days at a bed and breakfast with my SO, who’s also taking step this weekend.

Then 2 days at Disney world with my family, celebrating my step dad finishing chemo/his 60th birthday.

Can’t. F-in’. Wait.

What are your plans?
 
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sharkbyte said:
This thread has (obviously) been really heavy on all the details of the test as it should be, but thought I’d lighten the mood a little bit - what are/were everyone’s fun celebratory plans for after the test? Anyone have any cool trips or vacations planned?
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Gonna be on a flight to Rome in less than 48 hours!
 
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The Knife & Gun Club said:
Straight from the testing center to the airport, for 3 days of camping at a bonnaroo music festival with some friends from high school.

Then 3 days at a bed and breakfast with my SO, who’s also taking step this weekend.

Then 2 days at Disney world with my family, celebrating my step dad finishing chemo/his 60th birthday.

Can’t. F-in’. Wait.

What are your plans?
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Wow, look at you! That'll be a ton of fun. Congrats to your step dad!

I'm keeping things pretty low key. Going to get dinner with my family after the test this Friday, then meeting up with some college friends for a couple days this weekend. After that, just relaxing around home, meeting up with hometown friends/family friends, etc. Might make day trips around the area to various places. I cannot WAIT to be done, I've totally forgotten what it was like to not have to study.
 
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QueenJames said:
You know what this cutie pie is doing???

Studying for the COMLEX.

Cause us DOs have the awesome privilege of showing how smart we are by taking TWO SETS OF EXAMSSSS.

***DAMN SONNNN WHERE'D YOU FIND THISSSSS***
Click to expand...

Question! Once this residency merger thing happens, will you guys still have to take both comlex and step 1?
 
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throwaway9999999999 said:
I feel like I’m an outlier, felt great after the exam but as the time keeps passing I am starting to get more and more neurotic and feel like I dropped the ball


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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That's how I felt. It was challenging but I didn't feel defeated. As time went on, I started thinkging I failed it LOL
 
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The Knife & Gun Club said:
Now theres some impressive consistency, congrats on the awesome score! Care to share your NBME breakdown?



Wondering when people talk about their NBME average, does this apply to people who took the NBMEs well before their exam?

For example my NBME average is 219 (200, 213, 221, 242), but the first two of those NBMEs were taken 12 and 8 weeks prior to test date so I don't imagine they'd be very predictive.
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CBSE 260 2 months out, NBME 16 252 2 months out, 18 252 19 255 UW1 269 UW2 258
 
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Lannister said:
Question! Once this residency merger thing happens, will you guys still have to take both comlex and step 1?
Click to expand...

Who knows.

Idc what or where I end up in residency-wise so I'm taking both so I can apply to more places and because COMLEX is such a ****ty exam, it makes sense for us to take the USMLE if we want to be compared to our fellow MD brethren.
 
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Finally broke 260 on NBME!

NBME 17 - 263 😀

Of the 8 I got wrong, 3 were changed from correct to incorrect, 1 was careless (literally a repeat question I had seen before and gotten right lol), and 2 I was able to narrow down to two choices. The remaining 2 kinda stumped me.

Exam is on Monday.
 
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BrachialComplexus321 said:
Could you briefly share the resources and schedule of your 4 months of prededicated and your 5 week dedicated period? Those are amazing scores and would love to hear your study plan! Thank you!
Click to expand...

B&B+sketchy+Uworld+kaplan Qbank pre-dedicated, Pathoma+Uworld+sketchy+FA-skim during dedicated. Did not take notes except wrongs on dedicated uworld pass.
 
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Just to give the heads up for the people that are about to take the exam!

The vignettes were most the same the length of uw ones "OR" longer, there were only a handful that were like “nbmes length” so I really struggled with the time, as in one block I had to guess on the last 3 questions. But the rest of the blocks were all “stressed and pushing “ for time (I had 10 questions left and 10 min left kind - yeah I know) only one block I had 4 minutes to spare to check my answers.

My test was real heavy on behavorial questions ( 5+ in each block). That was my lowest score card on UW , as I always struggled with those. Also a lot of distractors and vague questions, but were also a few “freebies”. A few weird social ones and the rest were standard NBMEs concept/style - but longer.

I was pressed for time I did a bunch of careless mistake - my tally is up to 20 now, of things that I should have not missed pretty straight forward material.
Anyways , I just want to give the heads up that the vignettes are long and convuloted and if you struggle with time in UW or nbmes make sure you get to speed for the test day.

My UW first pass was about 77% , UWSA 2 253 ( one week before) and NBME 18: 248 ( 4 days before).
By the end I was finishing my UW bocks with 4-7 minutes to spare, and NBMEs 2-5 min, that was NOT enough for real exam for my version.

Good luck for everyone taking the exam
 
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throwaway9999999999 said:
How much did you end up with? Did it match your NBMEs?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Well so I only took two NBME's and ended scoring 13 points higher on the real thing than my highest nbme (real deal was a pretty decent score since I'm not gunning for any of the super competitive specialties). I personally didn't see the value and it felt more like a time and money sink OTHER than the fact that you're being exposed to formating similar to the real thing. Plus the closer you take it to your test day, the higher the potential to psyche yourself out.
 
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B-wildered said:
Just to give the heads up for the people that are about to take the exam!

The vignettes were most the same the length of uw ones "OR" longer, there were only a handful that were like “nbmes length” so I really struggled with the time, as in one block I had to guess on the last 3 questions. But the rest of the blocks were all “stressed and pushing “ for time (I had 10 questions left and 10 min left kind - yeah I know) only one block I had 4 minutes to spare to check my answers.

My test was real heavy on behavorial questions ( 5+ in each block). That was my lowest score card on UW , as I always struggled with those. Also a lot of distractors and vague questions, but were also a few “freebies”. A few weird social ones and the rest were standard NBMEs concept/style - but longer.

I was pressed for time I did a bunch of careless mistake - my tally is up to 20 now, of things that I should have not missed pretty straight forward material.
Anyways , I just want to give the heads up that the vignettes are long and convuloted and if you struggle with time in UW or nbmes make sure you get to speed for the test day.

My UW first pass was about 77% , UWSA 2 253 ( one week before) and NBME 18: 248 ( 4 days before).
By the end I was finishing my UW bocks with 4-7 minutes to spare, and NBMEs 2-5 min, that was NOT enough for real exam for my version.

Good luck for everyone taking the exam
Click to expand...

Congrats on being done! What did you think overall about the difficulty level of the questions?
 
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sharkbyte said:
Congrats on being done! What did you think overall about the difficulty level of the questions?
Click to expand...
Hey - I thought was similar to nbmes , some straight forward , some vague that you had to eliminate the “known ones” to arise to the answer, but way longer, so for me was more challenging but not impossible. My take is that study what you can and make sure not to lose the easy points, everything else I figure you need some luck.
 
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Exam is this weekend - is it normal to feel like I forgot everything? I haven't been stressed at all during dedicated but the reality of this test hit me like a stack of bricks today lol
 
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sharkbyte said:
This thread has (obviously) been really heavy on all the details of the test as it should be, but thought I’d lighten the mood a little bit - what are/were everyone’s fun celebratory plans for after the test? Anyone have any cool trips or vacations planned?
Click to expand...
My boyfriend and I are headed to Alaska to go mountain climbing for a week after I finish my test next week. When we get back I start IM rotation and he starts 4th year stuff so it'll be a much needed vacation for both of us!
 
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Lannister said:
I am done with step 1 and it feels freaking amazing. Cannot stop grinning like an idiot lol.

Overall I thought the test was fine, challenging but not impossible or unfair in any way. I'm not going to look up answers but I'm pretty confident that if I wanted to, I could find maybe 98% of the answers in UFAP. There was almost nothing I hadn't at least heard of before. Not that I knew all the answers by any means, definitely got a ton wrong, but for almost every question I felt like it had been touched on somewhere in my studying or classes.

Most challenging questions were probably some weird ethics questions. There was a good spread of subjects, maybe a little heavy on renal (fine by me), and light on micro and biochem. Very few stats questions which I was cool with.

Vignettes were very long. Luckily time was not an issue for me, but prepare for vignettes that are much longer than any of the practice NBMEs.

I'm terrible at comparing exams so not sure if I felt it was more similar to Uworld or NBMEs.
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Took today. Felt exactly like what you were describing here. In terms of similarity, it felt like 7 blocks of UWQbank. Next closest were later NBMEs/free120. It was a very fair test, but I hope the curve isn't brutal as a result. Almost everything was in UFAP, and the stuff that wasn't I had seen in class before or just knew somehow.
 
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socalrulez said:
Took today. Felt exactly like what you were describing here. In terms of similarity, it felt like 7 blocks of UWQbank. Next closest were later NBMEs/free120. It was a very fair test, but I hope the curve isn't brutal as a result. Almost everything was in UFAP, and the stuff that wasn't I had seen in class before or just knew somehow.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post! Curious - how much micro/pharm ended up on your exam? Been hearing that there isn't as much on it.
 
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pbrocks15 said:
Thanks for the post! Curious - how much micro/pharm ended up on your exam? Been hearing that there isn't as much on it.
Click to expand...
prob 5 questions per block of micro/pharm combined. Prob 2 micro on whole test that I wasn't 100% sure, but intuition led me to a 50/50 shot for most of these. Pharm is one of my strengths (thanks sketchy), felt like it was straight forward throughout. I felt like my whole exam had a great spread, and nothing was particularly picked apart in depth.

I spent some time in dedicated going over parasites/fungi and their low yield treatments that are only in FA and not sketchy b/c I had heard horror stories of rare tropical stuff and whatever. Overkill for my exam, but wouldn't want to discourage studying these in case they're on yours.
 
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NecFasc92 said:
I see your uncle and raise you a father: "why are you studying so much for that exam. None of us studied. Me: 'the score matters dad, it pretty much determines what we can go into.' Dad: 'Hmm that's weird we just passed and then picked whatever field we wanted.. walks off...' Me: ......."
Click to expand...


Thank you for understanding my pain and agony
 
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socalrulez said:
prob 5 questions per block of micro/pharm combined. Prob 2 micro on whole test that I wasn't 100% sure, but intuition led me to a 50/50 shot for most of these. Pharm is one of my strengths (thanks sketchy), felt like it was straight forward throughout. I felt like my whole exam had a great spread, and nothing was particularly picked apart in depth.

I spent some time in dedicated going over parasites/fungi and their low yield treatments that are only in FA and not sketchy b/c I had heard horror stories of rare tropical stuff and whatever. Overkill for my exam, but wouldn't want to discourage studying these in case they're on yours.
Click to expand...

Good to know! I'm taking it a little easier on Sketchy these upcoming days because I'm weak in a few more important points I think but going to definitely review them. 5 total per block isn't a lot at all, but I feel like as the vibe I got from you these are questions that we gotta make sure we get.

Edit: Also curious, how was the biochem and physio on the exam? Is UW/FA enough?
 
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pbrocks15 said:
Good to know! I'm taking it a little easier on Sketchy these upcoming days because I'm weak in a few more important points I think but going to definitely review them. 5 total per block isn't a lot at all, but I feel like as the vibe I got from you these are questions that we gotta make sure we get.

Edit: Also curious, how was the biochem and physio on the exam? Is UW/FA enough?
Click to expand...

Micro questions were mostly gimmies, absolutely should not miss.

biochem was straightforward, UW came in clutch for physio. Redid all the phys questions after resetting UW (~150 questions) last week as a refresher, and it helped.
 
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orangetea said:
My uncle told me "back in his day" his co-residents matched into Plastics with a 210.
2018: What a time to be alive.
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My uncle was paid $1000 dollars to intentionally infect himself with a nasty strain of influenza as a control for the development of interferon therapy back in the 70s.

This was 2 weeks before his step 1, which he ended up failing. Still matched plastics.

+pissed+
 
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Nurse_Elk1ns said:
I can't stop thinking of the 5-10 cringeworthy mistakes I made on my exam... the wait for the score is brutal
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We all feel that way. I had a nightmare after a brutal surgery day that my step score was 200, and they pulled me off because it was too low for me to be near patients.

I might have a problem lol

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
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NecFasc92 said:
I see your uncle and raise you a father: "Why are you studying so much for that exam. None of us studied. Me: the score matters dad, it pretty much determines what we can go into. Dad: Hmm that's weird we just passed and then picked whatever field we wanted.. walks off... Me: ......."
Click to expand...
+1. Dad, an emeritus chief of service: "Who cares what you got on some computer thing? Your attending on rounds or in the OR won't be asking you multiple choice questions, the oral boards aren't multiple choice, and your patients won't come in labeled A through E."
Me: "I know, but that's how they decide these days. Step 1 trumps everything - grades, research, clinical evals, recommendations, all of it's subordinate to Step."
Dad: "Well, that's just dumb. In fact, I think I'm going to call those people. No, I'll write them a letter."
Me: *gritting teeth*
 
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NecFasc92 said:
I see your uncle and raise you a father: "Why are you studying so much for that exam. None of us studied. Me: the score matters dad, it pretty much determines what we can go into. Dad: Hmm that's weird we just passed and then picked whatever field we wanted.. walks off... Me: ......."
Click to expand...

HAH I had this same conversation with MY dad a couple weeks ago.
 
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The Knife & Gun Club said:
My uncle was paid $1000 dollars to intentionally infect himself with a nasty strain of influenza as a control for the development of interferon therapy back in the 70s.

This was 2 weeks before his step 1, which he ended up failing. Still matched plastics.

+pissed+
Click to expand...

No one in my family is in medicine (1st Gen only person in my family with more than a high school diploma) but when I go to family functions with my boyfriend's family his dad and uncle and aunt all talk about how they didn't even take STEP. They had a test at the end of medical school and they just had to pass it (very old school docs). But they are all in nice specialities (ENT, Cardio, Neurosurgery, and Derm) and David's aunt tells me all the time that when she went into Derm that's what the "bottom of the class" used to go into because its easy. And the cardiologist was originally emergency medicine and then literally just decided he wanted to do cardiology instead so he switched. Meanwhile I'm like hoping that next Friday goes okay so I can at least do internal medicine somewhere. I should have grown up in the 60s and 70s.
 
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HybridEarth said:
Exam is this weekend - is it normal to feel like I forgot everything? I haven't been stressed at all during dedicated but the reality of this test hit me like a stack of bricks today lol
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The day before Step was the only day I really freaked myself out a bit and felt like I forgot EVERYTHING. The good news is that you definitely can't forget everything the day before your test and when I got to my test, there weren't a lot of topics I thought I forgot (more questions about things I had never heard of before). You'll do great!
 
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Took the beast. I’ll write more later, but for now I just feel like it was a bear. My experience was basically what everyone else here has said.

I gave it my best and I got whatever I got though. I don’t think more time would’ve helped (could have even hurt tbh). I feel like I got very good at the Uworld classic questions, but maybe didn’t take enough time to develop a more complete picture of some disease beyond the buzzwords.

Definitely didn’t feel good coming out though. I was in the 240s my last 3 practice tests, but wouldn’t be surprised if I landed in the 210s. I know everyone feels this way though so take from it what you will.
 
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The Knife & Gun Club said:
Took the beast. I’ll write more later, but for now I just feel like it was a bear. My experience was basically what everyone else here has said.

I gave it my best and I got whatever I got though. I don’t think more time would’ve helped (could have even hurt tbh). I feel like I got very good at the Uworld classic questions, but maybe didn’t take enough time to develop a more complete picture of some disease beyond the buzzwords.

Definitely didn’t feel good coming out though. I was in the 240s my last 3 practice tests, but wouldn’t be surprised if I landed in the 210s. I know everyone feels this way though so take from it what you will.
Click to expand...


you had a pretty good progression in your scores from what I recall I am sure it will show on your report!

When you say you got used to uworld do you mean that they just explained the same concepts in a different way than what we are used to seeing on uworld?
 
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