USMLE Official 2019 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[libertyyne]

Lets get this started.
M2. Mid Tier everything.
Entertaining some surgical sub-specialties.

Goal 270
Happy with 245

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[redsox93]

Im starting dedicated in a couple weeks and am struggling with First Aid. Everyone says just to read it but I feel like that is very inefficient and I retain very little. I tried watching boards and beyond alongside it but that feels so passive. Did anyone else struggle with this/what did you do to learn it?

I didn't read too much of first aid. I mainly focused on uworld and pathoma. But I did watch some boards and beyond during dedicated on subjects I felt weak on. And I would usually follow along in FA and take notes when I did that. But that was only for a few subjects. I don't think reading all of first aid is necessary as long as you read and understand the explanations to uworld questions and cover everything in pathoma.

 

[libertyyne]

does anyone else hate RX?
My averages in Uworld and Kaplan are almost 10 points higher.

 

[neurodjent]

does anyone else hate RX?
My averages in Uworld and Kaplan are almost 10 points higher.

I really really don’t like RX. It has horrible categorization and weird questions. My average on Rx is lower than my Uworld average. I actually find uworld to be a lot easier than Rx.

 

[libertyyne]

I really really don’t like RX. It has horrible categorization and weird questions. My average on Rx is lower than my Uworld average. I actually find uworld to be a lot easier than Rx.

thanks. I thought i was going insane. I always heard that RX was the easier, but the questions are confusing, and rely upon remembering one small detail in FA vs applying the information.

 

[Scrubs101]

does anyone else hate RX?
My averages in Uworld and Kaplan are almost 10 points higher.

Havent touched anything else yet, but i do Rx and my buddy does Uworld and when I show him some Rx questions he usually says Uworld would have given more hints. Rx does seem to be very heavy one “know this one word in first aid or you get it wrong” type thing. Not sure if this is true or not because i havent done kaplan or uworld but its a possibility.

 

[silverizon]

Total prep time 3 months. No actual dedicated period. Doing final year MBBS, so going through rotations (+ finals) and studying only half days every weekday, full day every weekend.

9/1 NBME 16 - 205
12/1 NBME 17 - 228
15/1 NBME 19 - 205
17/1 Free120 - 78%
18/1 UWSA1 - 243
19/1 NBME 18 - 223
21/1 UWSA2 - 237
Real deal - 245

Don't judge me for my NBME timings. I literally was doing everything wrong for Step 1. Don't even have a Uworld average score because I was using it wrong (system-based, tutor mode, and referring to books for all questions to get the answer).
Was very close to postponing my exam date but my mother told me to shut up, stop whining and sit for it the day that I was supposed to.
Am still in shock over my score. Was hoping for 220+ by the time I sat for the test.

 

[step1onyou]

Total prep time 3 months. No actual dedicated period. Doing final year MBBS, so going through rotations (+ finals) and studying only half days every weekday, full day every weekend.

9/1 NBME 16 - 205
12/1 NBME 17 - 228
15/1 NBME 19 - 205
17/1 Free120 - 78%
18/1 UWSA1 - 243
19/1 NBME 18 - 223
21/1 UWSA2 - 237
Real deal - 245

Don't judge me for my NBME timings. I literally was doing everything wrong for Step 1. Don't even have a Uworld average score because I was using it wrong (system-based, tutor mode, and referring to books for all questions to get the answer).
Was very close to postponing my exam date but my mother told me to shut up, stop whining and sit for it the day that I was supposed to.
Am still in shock over my score. Was hoping for 220+ by the time I sat for the test.

Congrats!! What resources and qbanks did you use? Also, what did you think of the real deal compared to the practice exams? Thanks!!

 

[silverizon]

Congrats!! What resources and qbanks did you use? Also, what did you think of the real deal compared to the practice exams? Thanks!!

Thank you! I used UWorld 1.5x. As I said, the first time I did UWorld, I used it wrong. Then I subscribed to Rx for 1 month and did around 50% of it. Before I reset my Uworld (forgot to go through my incorrects first) and did a second pass on half of the questions, average 75%.

For me, I felt like the real deal was nothing like Uworlds or NBME's at all. While doing the first block, I felt like I was doing an exam that's not step 1 LOL. But 2-7 was definitely step 1 so I just assume most of block 1 were experimental questions. I felt like they did test quite a number of non-'high yields' (prob 1/4th). Half the questions (maybe more) were me selecting out answers that were definitely wrong down to 2-3 options and selecting the more likely of them. Definitely felt like I don't know the exact answer for 1/3rd of the questions on step.

 

[step1onyou]

Thank you! I used UWorld 1.5x. As I said, the first time I did UWorld, I used it wrong. Then I subscribed to Rx for 1 month and did around 50% of it. Before I reset my Uworld (forgot to go through my incorrects first) and did a second pass on half of the questions, average 75%.

For me, I felt like the real deal was nothing like Uworlds or NBME's at all. While doing the first block, I felt like I was doing an exam that's not step 1 LOL. But 2-7 was definitely step 1 so I just assume most of block 1 were experimental questions. I felt like they did test quite a number of non-'high yields' (prob 1/4th). Half the questions (maybe more) were me selecting out answers that were definitely wrong down to 2-3 options and selecting the more likely of them. Definitely felt like I don't know the exact answer for 1/3rd of the questions on step.

Thanks for the response! Did you do Boards and Beyond or just stick to First Aid/Pathoma/Sketchy?

 

[Gurby]

Don't even have a Uworld average score because I was using it wrong (system-based, tutor mode, and referring to books for all questions to get the answer).

Seems like a pretty reasonable way to use it to me.

 

[silverizon]

Thanks for the response! Did you do Boards and Beyond or just stick to First Aid/Pathoma/Sketchy?

Unfortunately, no I did not do BnB. But it is one of the things I wish I'd done. I just didn't have the time.
Basically, things I did was UFAP, Sketchy and Goljan audio lectures.
Things I did not do but wish I did, BnB and Zanki. Probably would've helped me understand the concepts better and would've saved me a lot of anxiety over the last 2 weeks.

 

[silverizon]

Seems like a pretty reasonable way to use it to me.

It did help because it felt like I was reviewing some parts of FA over and over. e.g. if the answer is to be found under RNA translation, I'll re-read the whole translation part.
But I realised that my test taking skills weren't improving that way (time management, cancelling out the unlikely answer options first).

 

[Scrubs101]

Lol just got back into the thick of it for school (our “hardest class”), studied boards materials 2 days in the past 8 days, skipped gym 4/8 days, and still got the lowest exam grade ive gotten in all of med school RIP

See yall in 3 months to get back to it, hopefully i dont lose too much of my progress from these past two months feels good knowing my school is actively working against my ability to succeed

 

[Diphyllobothrium latum]

For anyone feeling like ruining their day and wondering what the infamous "wtf" questions are all about, try doing blocks of 40 social science questions from Kaplan. Let's just say there's literally 100 questions on patient safety, which is barely more than 1 page in FA.

 

[aymar]

Help: if I am only going to take 4 NBME's, which should I drop (15, 19, 16, 17, 18 )?

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Lol just got back into the thick of it for school (our “hardest class”), studied boards materials 2 days in the past 8 days, skipped gym 4/8 days, and still got the lowest exam grade ive gotten in all of med school RIP

See yall in 3 months to get back to it, hopefully i dont lose too much of my progress from these past two months feels good knowing my school is actively working against my ability to succeed

I have a friend that told me yesterday about that exam. RIP fam. *pours one out for the homies* They did ya’ll dirty.

 

[silverizon]

Help: if I am only going to take 4 NBME's, which should I drop (15, 19, 16, 17, 18 )?

Of the 5, I did not do 15. So I would say if you had to drop one, 15 then.

But I would recommend doing all 5. If you can't find a time to actually take 15 like a practice test, at least go through the questions together with answers briefly. Because I felt that the NBMEs do help on the real test.

 

[redsox93]

Of the 5, I did not do 15. So I would say if you had to drop one, 15 then.

But I would recommend doing all 5. If you can't find a time to actually take 15 like a practice test, at least go through the questions together with answers briefly. Because I felt that the NBMEs do help on the real test.

Agreed do as many as you can. Had a question that was verbatim from one of the NBMEs or the free 120 can’t remember which one

 

[Scrubs101]

I have a friend that told me yesterday about that exam. RIP fam. *pours one out for the homies* They did ya’ll dirty.

it really be like that somedays

*jumps under you pouring one out to drown my sorrows*

 

[JDDrCOX]

I hope all is going strong in their studies, just wanted to come by and post an update. ANS, Cardio and renal drugs done with vascular and cardio pathology at school. We have midterm next Monday so will be reviewing that stuff and doing questions on RX.

 

[FindersFee5]

Did y'all see this?

Is it changing any of your plans? I'm a little annoyed actually because I just made a day by day plan for my dedicated this weekend. Now I gotta figure out if I want to sub old exams for this or fit in 3 additional full exam days.

 

[libertyyne]

Does any know if there is a chart that has all the biochem pathways for step one something like this, but with only testable stuff. I saw the summary table in First aid was good, but i want more like it.
http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1

 

[sunshinefl]

Does any know if there is a chart that has all the biochem pathways for step one something like this, but with only testable stuff. I saw the summary table in First aid was good, but i want more like it.
http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1

Opened that and immediately closed it.

Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me dawg.

 

[libertyyne]

Opened that and immediately closed it.

Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me dawg.

like the relationships it shows between seemingly disparate topics that are taught. I just want a baby version for step. Lol. My biochem professor said they were thinking of giving something similar to test takers . I doubt it tho, how else are they going to get gotcha questions.

 

[neurodjent]

Did y'all see this?

Is it changing any of your plans? I'm a little annoyed actually because I just made a day by day plan for my dedicated this weekend. Now I gotta figure out if I want to sub old exams for this or fit in 3 additional full exam days.

I'm gonna have to think about this because I was planning on taking all of the available tests (13-19) throughout my dedicated. Looks like by the time dedicated rolls around for me there will be 5 additional tests.

Since I was already planning on taking 8 practice tests anyways, I may just buy two between 15, 16, and 18 and use those in the beginning of my studies. This definitely screws with what I had already planned.

 

[Agent Michael Scarn]

Stupid question since these are new NBMEs without prior data from students who took the exam. are the scores you see correlated to a 3-digit step 1-type score (like does it say this equates to a 240 or whatever)? Or are the score predictions people quote based on reddit crowdsourcing/calculations?

 

[libertyyne]

Stupid question since these are new NBMEs without prior data from students who took the exam. are the scores you see correlated to a 3-digit step 1-type score (like does it say this equates to a 240 or whatever)? Or are the score predictions people quote based on reddit crowdsourcing/calculations?

For all we know these are old USMLE questions that are being retired so NBME will know the distribution of the quesitons and the scores related to that.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Got my score back today and did well, so sharing strategies for those trying to build their study plan:

Score: 261

UWorld first pass: 84% (fully random, timed, 40 question blocks)

Practice scores (exams are order of completion):
School sponsored NBME (November): 235
NBME 13: 248
NBME 15: 246
NBME 19: 261
NBME 16: 267
UWSA1: 264
Free 120: 93%
NBME 17: 252
NBME 18: 265
UWSA2: 264
(take with grain of salt due to new NBME forms being released and old ones being retired)

Resources: firecracker, UFAP, sketchy, anki, Kaplan QBank

Going into dedicated: had watched all of sketchy micro and pharm and did all of the cards in the Pepper anki decks for those, maintaining them every day during school. Did 120 firecracker flashcards per day, started firecracker at the very beginning of med school (for this I always marked all my past stuff as "current" and actual current school stuff as "urgent" so I'd get a 50/50 split). These two resources are what I thank for getting a good score on my school's NBME without having started dedicated yet. My school is an 18 month curriculum so we do step 1 in January. Did every subject/system specific Kaplan QBank question to prep for each system's final exam during school as well.

Dedicated: got like 6 weeks (including christmas break, so had to spend a good portion of that studying).
First week I watched all of pathoma and annotated while I watched, then did the Duke pathoma anki deck after each chapter. After week 1 I just did uworld, read every explanation, and made an anki card for every question I got wrong.

Starting maybe week 3, took NBME 13 and 15 (they are older and less predictive of the real thing).

4th week, took NBME 19, then 16. Doing uworld blocks after each exam just to make it feel more like true legnth (NBMEs are 200 questions, 4 blocks of 50, real thing has 280). Then I took UWSA 1 (the uworld practice exams have 4 blocks of 40 questions each, more similar to the real thing's 7 blocks of 40). What I did with that one is got up early, went to the school library, and then took the UWSA 1 exam followed by the free 120 (which is a set of 3 blocks of 40 questions each released by USMLE as a tutorial of sorts, but it's the best approximation of what the real questions were like in my opinion). The UWSA1 + free 120 totaled 7 blocks 40Qs each, so it was essentially my full length run through.

5th week, took NBME 17 and 18 on two different days, and finished uworld.

The last week, took UWSA2 monday, spent tuesday reviewing the answers I didn't get to from that on monday and read up on topics I had made a list of that I felt shaky on, Wednesday did some light last minute content review and watched netflix, drove to city where testing center is the night before, went to a restaurant that evening and split a hotel with a classmate, then got up and took step 1.

General thoughts: the buildup is worse than the exam. I felt worse in October about step than I did immediately following the exam. Dedicated is the worst part. Seeing your practice scores fluctuate and getting UWorld blocks where you suddenly take a major score dip when you had been improving previously can be an emotional roller coaster. You just have to keep pushing through - the blocks are random and you never know if they'll happen to hit a bunch of subjects you're weak on in one block, deflating your score. The best advice I heard was to treat UWorld as a learning tool and not to get too hung up on your percent scores from that.

When I know something is on the horizon I start to prepare - I've never been much of a procrastinator, so that's why I started things like FC and anki early and kept them going during school. It helped me a lot because I'm more confident when I've been studying something at a constant baseline, but that kind of strategy might not work for everyone so it's important to know how you learn the best.

About the changes in the NBME practice tests, I think the big thing for me was just sitting down and doing a ton of practice questions, more than actual predictiveness of the exam. Most of the NBMEs have shorter question stems than the real thing, but you can often reason through questions on the actual exam vs. the NBMEs which tend to be more cold recall. I do hope the new forms they're coming out with look and feel more like the real exam - I thought the "4 blocks, 50 questions each" format was dumb when the real test is 40Q x7.

That's what I can come up with now, but if you have questions about other details feel free to PM or ask here too!

 

[JimsonWeed]

Original goal was 260, but I’m hoping for 245+ at this point.

13 - 250
15 - 250
16 - 252
17 - 252
19 - 250
Free 120 - 87% (very disappointed with this)

Did not take UWSA1, UWSA2 or 18 because I wasn’t sick of scoring 250 and decided it would be better for me to study then do practice exams the last couple days. Also didn’t want the unrealistic scores that would boost my confidence from the UWSAs. Not sure if this was the right call. Had a 84.5% of UW when I stopped, still had 200 questions left. Scored > 90 on the last four blocks though so it would probably have gone up a little with the last 200.

It’s hard to say how many were not covered by the major resources but I would say maybe 3 at the most were actually really difficult to the point that I had no clue how to even make an educated guess. That being said this might be me that I overlooked something or it was covered in Zanki or First Aid (which I never opened). There were maybe 20-30 questions though that weren’t directly covered like I couldn’t point you to a single line or paragraph in a resource but instead required you to use your knowledge of physiology/pathology to answer a unique scenario.

Thanks so much! Currently starting to put down some beers! Can’t wait for it to be your turn!

Hey just wanted to let you know your posts have been very helpful. Did you end up getting your actual score yet? I’m sure you did amazing on the real deal. I’m interested to see how it compares to your nbmes since you did so consistently well on all the ones you took.

 

[watermelon master]

Got my score back today and did well, so sharing strategies for those trying to build their study plan:

Score: 261

UWorld first pass: 84% (fully random, timed, 40 question blocks)

Practice scores (exams are order of completion):
School sponsored NBME (November): 235
NBME 13: 248
NBME 15: 246
NBME 19: 261
NBME 16: 267
UWSA1: 264
Free 120: 93%
NBME 17: 252
NBME 18: 265
UWSA2: 264
(take with grain of salt due to new NBME forms being released and old ones being retired)

Resources: firecracker, UFAP, sketchy, anki, Kaplan QBank

Going into dedicated: had watched all of sketchy micro and pharm and did all of the cards in the Pepper anki decks for those, maintaining them every day during school. Did 120 firecracker flashcards per day, started firecracker at the very beginning of med school (for this I always marked all my past stuff as "current" and actual current school stuff as "urgent" so I'd get a 50/50 split). These two resources are what I thank for getting a good score on my school's NBME without having started dedicated yet. My school is an 18 month curriculum so we do step 1 in January. Did every subject/system specific Kaplan QBank question to prep for each system's final exam during school as well.

Dedicated: got like 6 weeks (including christmas break, so had to spend a good portion of that studying).
First week I watched all of pathoma and annotated while I watched, then did the Duke pathoma anki deck after each chapter. After week 1 I just did uworld, read every explanation, and made an anki card for every question I got wrong.

Starting maybe week 3, took NBME 13 and 15 (they are older and less predictive of the real thing).

4th week, took NBME 19, then 16. Doing uworld blocks after each exam just to make it feel more like true legnth (NBMEs are 200 questions, 4 blocks of 50, real thing has 280). Then I took UWSA 1 (the uworld practice exams have 4 blocks of 40 questions each, more similar to the real thing's 7 blocks of 40). What I did with that one is got up early, went to the school library, and then took the UWSA 1 exam followed by the free 120 (which is a set of 3 blocks of 40 questions each released by USMLE as a tutorial of sorts, but it's the best approximation of what the real questions were like in my opinion). The UWSA1 + free 120 totaled 7 blocks 40Qs each, so it was essentially my full length run through.

5th week, took NBME 17 and 18 on two different days, and finished uworld.

The last week, took UWSA2 monday, spent tuesday reviewing the answers I didn't get to from that on monday and read up on topics I had made a list of that I felt shaky on, Wednesday did some light last minute content review and watched netflix, drove to city where testing center is the night before, went to a restaurant that evening and split a hotel with a classmate, then got up and took step 1.

General thoughts: the buildup is worse than the exam. I felt worse in October about step than I did immediately following the exam. Dedicated is the worst part. Seeing your practice scores fluctuate and getting UWorld blocks where you suddenly take a major score dip when you had been improving previously can be an emotional roller coaster. You just have to keep pushing through - the blocks are random and you never know if they'll happen to hit a bunch of subjects you're weak on in one block, deflating your score. The best advice I heard was to treat UWorld as a learning tool and not to get too hung up on your percent scores from that.

When I know something is on the horizon I start to prepare - I've never been much of a procrastinator, so that's why I started things like FC and anki early and kept them going during school. It helped me a lot because I'm more confident when I've been studying something at a constant baseline, but that kind of strategy might not work for everyone so it's important to know how you learn the best.

About the changes in the NBME practice tests, I think the big thing for me was just sitting down and doing a ton of practice questions, more than actual predictiveness of the exam. Most of the NBMEs have shorter question stems than the real thing, but you can often reason through questions on the actual exam vs. the NBMEs which tend to be more cold recall. I do hope the new forms they're coming out with look and feel more like the real exam - I thought the "4 blocks, 50 questions each" format was dumb when the real test is 40Q x7.

That's what I can come up with now, but if you have questions about other details feel free to PM or ask here too!

Few questions for you: Did you mature the zanki deck before dedicated? Did you do your reviews every day during dedicated or was it just before dedicated? What % did you get on kaplan qbanks? Do you think that 6 weeks was enough time or do you wish you took it earlier or later?

Thank you!!

 

[NeuResurgens]

Few questions for you: Did you mature the zanki deck before dedicated? Did you do your reviews every day during dedicated or was it just before dedicated? What % did you get on kaplan qbanks? Do you think that 6 weeks was enough time or do you wish you took it earlier or later?

Thank you!!

I didn't use Zanki or Bros except to study subject specific stuff before some of the more challenging group exercises we did for the curriculum (maybe used zanki cards a total of 2 times). I did continue to do reviews every day during dedicated, including the deck of missed questions from UWorld. I also made all my own anki cards to cover the particular learning points our school emphasized throughout the curriculum so I think you could say anki was still my primary study resource during classes. Once a system was over I'd export these school-specific decks for storage and delete them from the app. Besides that, I created specific biostats and biochem decks from those sections of first aid as I already knew they were things I disliked and wouldn't remember easily otherwise.

I was batting about 80% on Kaplan but maybe still had 500 questions left to go (only did the subject specific ones and didn't really do many of the multisystem or general principles ones). I think 6 weeks was enough, but I do wish it didn't overlap with Christmas/New Years break (would have liked 2 weeks of relative step-free break time just to hang out with family and enjoy the holidays and then 6 weeks of true dedicated). I'm glad I didn't take it earlier as I felt it took most of my time to get ready, but I'm not convinced that even another week or two would have significantly boosted my score from what I got, if that makes sense. You know when you'll be taking it?

 

[watermelon master]

I didn't use Zanki or Bros except to study subject specific stuff before some of the more challenging group exercises we did for the curriculum (maybe used zanki cards a total of 2 times). I did continue to do reviews every day during dedicated, including the deck of missed questions from UWorld. I also made all my own anki cards to cover the particular learning points our school emphasized throughout the curriculum so I think you could say anki was still my primary study resource during classes. Once a system was over I'd export these school-specific decks for storage and delete them from the app. Besides that, I created specific biostats and biochem decks from those sections of first aid as I already knew they were things I disliked and wouldn't remember easily otherwise.

I was batting about 80% on Kaplan but maybe still had 500 questions left to go (only did the subject specific ones and didn't really do many of the multisystem or general principles ones). I think 6 weeks was enough, but I do wish it didn't overlap with Christmas/New Years break (would have liked 2 weeks of relative step-free break time just to hang out with family and enjoy the holidays and then 6 weeks of true dedicated). I'm glad I didn't take it earlier as I felt it took most of my time to get ready, but I'm not convinced that even another week or two would have significantly boosted my score from what I got, if that makes sense. You know when you'll be taking it?

Thanks a lot for the info. I'm batting around 82% on Kaplan but the major difference between you and me is that I've been doing Zanki pretty thoroughly. I still have to get through a few units but i'll be taking it in June after a 6 week study period. I feel like 6 weeks should be enough and I definitely don't want to take too much time where I start to forget what I learned at the beginning of dedicated.

Your Uworld scores are really good though. I just dabble here and there with subject specific questions but by no means do I do a lot of questions (am saving around 75% of Uworld for dedicated and will do around 25% before). I'm getting around 80% on uworld too.

Hopefully I can get a score similar to yours!!

 

[NeuResurgens]

Thanks a lot for the info. I'm batting around 82% on Kaplan but the major difference between you and me is that I've been doing Zanki pretty thoroughly. I still have to get through a few units but i'll be taking it in June after a 6 week study period. I feel like 6 weeks should be enough and I definitely don't want to take too much time where I start to forget what I learned at the beginning of dedicated.

Your Uworld scores are really good though. I just dabble here and there with subject specific questions but by no means do I do a lot of questions (am saving around 75% of Uworld for dedicated and will do around 25% before). I'm getting around 80% on uworld too.

Hopefully I can get a score similar to yours!!

I hope so too! It's relieving to make your goal score for sure. Doing Zanki consistently should be very helpful to you going into dedicated - even though I didn't use it too much myself I did hear good things about it. Good luck and like I said feel free to ask if you have any other questions

 

[DubbiDoctor]

I hope so too! It's relieving to make your goal score for sure. Doing Zanki consistently should be very helpful to you going into dedicated - even though I didn't use it too much myself I did hear good things about it. Good luck and like I said feel free to ask if you have any other questions

Hey, so the NBME recently change the score reports for step 1 and step 2 ck but they only show the sample report for step 3 on the website. Can you post an image of "Your Performance Compared to Others". I'm curious to see the distribution. Also, how about many questions could not be answered by UFAP?

 

[libertyyne]

Hey, so the NBME recently change the score reports for step 1 and step 2 ck but they only show the sample report for step 3 on the website. Can you post an image of "Your Performance Compared to Others". I'm curious to see the distribution. Also, how about many questions could not be answered by UFAP?

 

[NeuResurgens]

Hey, so the NBME recently change the score reports for step 1 and step 2 ck but they only show the sample report for step 3 on the website. Can you post an image of "Your Performance Compared to Others". I'm curious to see the distribution. Also, how about many questions could not be answered by UFAP?

Yep, what @libertyyne posted is pretty much what it looked like. Your question about UFAP is harder because I don't remember many exact details about the questions. I can say however that when I felt a question was hard, it felt more like it was because I just didn't study that particular detail with enough specificity. As far as true "wtf where did this come from" type questions, I don't remember any specifically, but there may have been 1 or 2. It's really not that many - vast majority of it will be covered somewhere in UFAP.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Lookin for people’s’ thoughts. I was originally planning on reviewing Renal over spring break (pathoma/sketchy pharm/Zanki) ‘cause we had that unit in school before I was doing Zanki. But my Biochemistry could also use a brush up (first class of med school; remember nothing except the scant subjects I’ve been exposed to in UWorld recently.)

Do you guys think it would be more beneficial to completely review renal or Biochemistry over my spring break?

 

[Frogger27]

Hey ya'll. My dedicated period is about 5 weeks long. Should I wait to use UWorld for this or should I buy the 3 month and start 3 months out?

 

[libertyyne]

Lookin for people’s’ thoughts. I was originally planning on reviewing Renal over spring break (pathoma/sketchy pharm/Zanki) ‘cause we had that unit in school before I was doing Zanki. But my Biochemistry could also use a brush up (first class of med school; remember nothing except the scant subjects I’ve been exposed to in UWorld recently.)

Do you guys think it would be more beneficial to completely review renal or Biochemistry over my spring break?

both of those are high yeild subjects. I would focus on your weakest subject and hammer it out.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

both of those are high yeild subjects. I would focus on your weakest subject and hammer it out.

 

[NeuResurgens]

Lookin for people’s’ thoughts. I was originally planning on reviewing Renal over spring break (pathoma/sketchy pharm/Zanki) ‘cause we had that unit in school before I was doing Zanki. But my Biochemistry could also use a brush up (first class of med school; remember nothing except the scant subjects I’ve been exposed to in UWorld recently.)

Do you guys think it would be more beneficial to completely review renal or Biochemistry over my spring break?

Similar to @libertyyne. I would add that renal is likely going to have slightly more questions, but biochem will have plenty and they're more likely to require recall over reasoning.

Hey ya'll. My dedicated period is about 5 weeks long. Should I wait to use UWorld for this or should I buy the 3 month and start 3 months out?

It's 2500 questions, so depends how long you think you'd take to do all of them (and you should finish UWorld). Do you have Kaplan? If so, try doing a block of 40 questions and see how long it takes you to complete it and then review the whole thing, reading all the answers and explanations. If that feels overwhelming and you don't think you could do that 3x per day during dedicated, it might help to get a head start. If you can do 3 blocks every day you should be fine. You might even start 1 month, 2 weeks early etc., whatever you think would make it manageable for you.

 

[sunshine02]

Does anyone have any recommendations for what to set anki intervals to? My current intervals are below and I'm in dedicated but my reviews are piling up to A TON. I'm also not exactly clear on what these intervals mean (do these apply only when you're doing new cards)?

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Does anyone have any recommendations for what to set anki intervals to? My current intervals are below and I'm in dedicated but my reviews are piling up to A TON. I'm also not exactly clear on what these intervals mean (do these apply only when you're doing new cards)?
View attachment 252167

I have the same intervals + the load balancer....it's a life saver, definitely get it if you don't have it.

 

[sunshine02]

I have the same intervals + the load balancer....it's a life saver, definitely get it if you don't have it.

Thanks for the suggestion! I do have load balancer but I'm not convinced it's working; one day I'll get 40 cards for one topic and the next day I'll get 200. I honestly haven't noticed a reduction in the cards. If I get a mature card wrong, it starts immediately at the beginning again so I'm wondering if it has something to do with my intervals... or maybe I should just leave my intervals be? It's taking too much time to do the cards during dedicated

 

[getfat]

Just finally got registered for USMLE and COMLEX step 1. Planning on a Mid June Test date.

I was hoping to take a full length test this week so I can get a gauge of how well I am doing.

I noticed a couple other posts mention NBME 13 as a first test. Is this the best first test when I'm sitting for a test in 4 months?

I was curious if maybe i should take a kaplan full length and save NBME 13 for maybe marchish

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Just finally got registered for USMLE and COMLEX step 1. Planning on a Mid June Test date.

I was hoping to take a full length test this week so I can get a gauge of how well I am doing.

I noticed a couple other posts mention NBME 13 as a first test. Is this the best first test when I'm sitting for a test in 4 months?

I was curious if maybe i should take a kaplan full length and save NBME 13 for maybe marchish

I was thinking about taking one over spring break (wasn't originally going to) because the NBMEs are getting replaced on march 25th apparently:

NBME to Replace 80% of Step 1 Self-Assessments in March. What to Do?

Wondering the same as you though - which to take if they are all going away anyways..

 

[neurodjent]

I was thinking about taking one over spring break (wasn't originally going to) because the NBMEs are getting replaced on march 25th apparently:

NBME to Replace 80% of Step 1 Self-Assessments in March. What to Do?

Wondering the same as you though - which to take if they are all going away anyways..

I wasn't thinking about taking one over spring break but it may be interesting to gauge where I'm at. I would lean towards taking 13. I am intending on taking all of the new NBMEs through dedicated as well as 15 and 18 since we can purchase them before march 25th but can take them up until June 23rd. I only want to include two "old" ones during dedicated since many people have taken them and their validity is known.

 

[libertyyne]

I was thinking about taking one over spring break (wasn't originally going to) because the NBMEs are getting replaced on march 25th apparently:

NBME to Replace 80% of Step 1 Self-Assessments in March. What to Do?

Wondering the same as you though - which to take if they are all going away anyways..

It depends on your test date, I will be taking all of the NBME's, but I was thinking about burning through the old ones before dedicated starts. The problem however, is that only three out of the 5 new ones will come out before my test date. So I plan on keeping 5 for dedicated, or One per week.
Im not too concerned about validity of the new tests, or predictive value considering I think the NBME probably knows what it is doing validity wise, and the predictive value always has a margin of error of 10+- points anyway.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

I wasn't thinking about taking one over spring break but it may be interesting to gauge where I'm at. I would lean towards taking 13. I am intending on taking all of the new NBMEs through dedicated as well as 15 and 18 since we can purchase them before march 25th but can take them up until June 23rd. I only want to include two "old" ones during dedicated since many people have taken them and their validity is known.

Ohhhh I didn’t realize we could take them until the 23rd after purchase. Game changer.

Are you purchasing all of the NBMEs or just a select few that are going away after March? I honestly haven’t done much research at all into which NBMEs to take and when yet. This article was the first time I started thinking.

 

[neurodjent]

Ohhhh I didn’t realize we could take them until the 23rd after purchase. Game changer.

Are you purchasing all of the NBMEs or just a select few that are going away after March? I honestly haven’t done much research at all into which NBMEs to take and when yet. This article was the first time I started thinking.

As long as we buy the old ones before March 25th, we have 90 days to take it so we'll have enough time before our exams.

I was gonna take 16 as a baseline at the beginning of dedicated but I may do 13 or 15 over spring break. Then I was gonna take 18, 20-24, UWSA 1 and 2, as well as the free 120. I am still working on the order but it may look something like 16, 18, UWSA1, 20, 21, 22, 24, UWSA 2, Free 120. Maybe I'll put 18 later in the lineup, idk yet. I know that's a lot of practice exams but I learn better with practice questions.