USMLE Official 2019 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Doctor Dream said:
Been lurking on this forum for a while, just got my score back today (took exam on 5/3) and wanted to share my experiences and relieve some anxiety for people who are doing fine in UWorld but unhappy with their NBME's. I didn't kill step, but my NBME's were way lower than what Uworld was putting me at. For some reason, NBME's and I never clicked, and I am still mystified how people do so well on them. I'm going against the grain on SDN when I say this, but NBME's are trash. Short, often unclear and vague questions with no explanations to the answers, curves steeper than the grand canyon, and $60 a pop. I felt they were not representative of my ability and I finally have proof lol.

Here's my scores, my goal was 240 but I'm happy with a score above 220
Real thing - 237
NBME 18 (3 weeks out) - 211
NBME 21 (2 weeks out) - 217
NBME 20 (1.5 weeks out) - 221
NBME 22 (1 week out) - 221
Free 120 (1ish week out) - 84%
UWSA2 (1 week out) - 243
UWSA1 (a few days out) - 262
UWorld - 70%, only had time to get through about half of it though and was averaging upper 70's for my blocks by the end

Overall, my exam was very fair. The questions themselves mostly felt like UWorld with a hint of NBME. They're generally shorter than UWorld, but much more clear than NBME. It also targeted a couple of random topics pretty heavily that I'm glad I went over. Obviously FA was a must, but there were some questions that were literally right out of Pathoma, I also can't talk up sketchy pharm or micro enough, I was able to either immediately pick the right answer and move on or narrow down answers because I could picture the drawings. I also bleed Anki and made my own cards from FA, pathoma and sketchy and UWorld and reviewed those pretty much every day without fail, which helped a ton.

More than happy to answer any questions, keep plugging along everyone and go slay this thing!
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Would you have changed your practice test order at all given how much UWSA1 overpredicted your score?
 
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Hey quick question for you guys who are practicing or have taken the exam. How important/high yield is it to know the chromosome number and specific mutations listed in first aid? (ex. Hemachromatosis is a C282Y mutation or Wilsons is on chromosome 13). Thanks in advance & Goodluck to all you guys
 
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CyrusHabs7695 said:
Hey quick question for you guys who are practicing or have taken the exam. How important/high yield is it to know the chromosome number and specific mutations listed in first aid? (ex. Hemachromatosis is a C282Y mutation or Wilsons is on chromosome 13). Thanks in advance & Goodluck to all you guys
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Itll never be the only thing you get in a question
 
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wonko said:
Yeah this whole predictive business is meh. All the NBME's are tilted towards something (like 20 is heavy on immuno, 23 is heavy on anatomy and embryo etc) and you'll do better on some and worse on others. All these count for nothing if you mess up or ace the test. Also now that people are like "uworld 2 and 18 are predictive so imma take them last" is a self fulfilling prophecy as in of course the ones you take closest to your actual test will be taken with a similar level of knowledge...

That being said, just took 23 and dropped 12 points from 20. Life sucks.
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I also did worse on 23 than on earlier exams. Glad to know it's not just me
 
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Doctor Dream said:
Been lurking on this forum for a while, just got my score back today (took exam on 5/3) and wanted to share my experiences and relieve some anxiety for people who are doing fine in UWorld but unhappy with their NBME's. I didn't kill step, but my NBME's were way lower than what Uworld was putting me at. For some reason, NBME's and I never clicked, and I am still mystified how people do so well on them. I'm going against the grain on SDN when I say this, but NBME's are trash. Short, often unclear and vague questions with no explanations to the answers, curves steeper than the grand canyon, and $60 a pop. I felt they were not representative of my ability and I finally have proof lol.

Here's my scores, my goal was 240 but I'm happy with a score above 220
Real thing - 237
NBME 18 (3 weeks out) - 211
NBME 21 (2 weeks out) - 217
NBME 20 (1.5 weeks out) - 221
NBME 22 (1 week out) - 221
Free 120 (1ish week out) - 84%
UWSA2 (1 week out) - 243
UWSA1 (a few days out) - 262
UWorld - 70%, only had time to get through about half of it though and was averaging upper 70's for my blocks by the end

Overall, my exam was very fair. The questions themselves mostly felt like UWorld with a hint of NBME. They're generally shorter than UWorld, but much more clear than NBME. It also targeted a couple of random topics pretty heavily that I'm glad I went over. Obviously FA was a must, but there were some questions that were literally right out of Pathoma, I also can't talk up sketchy pharm or micro enough, I was able to either immediately pick the right answer and move on or narrow down answers because I could picture the drawings. I also bleed Anki and made my own cards from FA, pathoma and sketchy and UWorld and reviewed those pretty much every day without fail, which helped a ton.

More than happy to answer any questions, keep plugging along everyone and go slay this thing!
Click to expand...

When did you start UW? In dedicated?
 
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Frogger27 said:
Would you have changed your practice test order at all given how much UWSA1 overpredicted your score?
Click to expand...
Nah, i knew it over predicted and wasn't the most reliable (UWSA2 is most predictive according to surveys on reddit). I just took it for a last minute confidence boost.
 
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honey0102 said:
When did you start UW? In dedicated?
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Yeah i did. I wish I would have started it sooner. I thought i'd have time to easily finish it over the 4 weeks but all my flashcard reviews and practice tests made that impossible. I might have done better with less flashcards and more uworld but who knows. Toward the last few days i felt like more cards and hammering home what i knew were weaker topics for me and high yield random facts was more useful than more question practice.
 
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TheVagooseIsLoose said:
DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY - 24 HOURS REMAIN
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source.gif
 
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Scrubs101 said:
Looking great with a month to work with, keep grinding and hit your weaknesses hard!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I have a list of my weaknesses I’m slowly tackling. It’s a literal list I wrote on an index card lol. Just finished my deep dive of autonomics, micro, and antibiotics since the semester ended. Those were high on my list.
 
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This is exactly what I needed to read. Thanks for sharing! Back to Pathoma...

Doctor Dream said:
Been lurking on this forum for a while, just got my score back today (took exam on 5/3) and wanted to share my experiences and relieve some anxiety for people who are doing fine in UWorld but unhappy with their NBME's. I didn't kill step, but my NBME's were way lower than what Uworld was putting me at. For some reason, NBME's and I never clicked, and I am still mystified how people do so well on them. I'm going against the grain on SDN when I say this, but NBME's are trash. Short, often unclear and vague questions with no explanations to the answers, curves steeper than the grand canyon, and $60 a pop. I felt they were not representative of my ability and I finally have proof lol.

Here's my scores, my goal was 240 but I'm happy with a score above 220
Real thing - 237
NBME 18 (3 weeks out) - 211
NBME 21 (2 weeks out) - 217
NBME 20 (1.5 weeks out) - 221
NBME 22 (1 week out) - 221
Free 120 (1ish week out) - 84%
UWSA2 (1 week out) - 243
UWSA1 (a few days out) - 262
UWorld - 70%, only had time to get through about half of it though and was averaging upper 70's for my blocks by the end

Overall, my exam was very fair. The questions themselves mostly felt like UWorld with a hint of NBME. They're generally shorter than UWorld, but much more clear than NBME. It also targeted a couple of random topics pretty heavily that I'm glad I went over. Obviously FA was a must, but there were some questions that were literally right out of Pathoma, I also can't talk up sketchy pharm or micro enough, I was able to either immediately pick the right answer and move on or narrow down answers because I could picture the drawings. I also bleed Anki and made my own cards from FA, pathoma and sketchy and UWorld and reviewed those pretty much every day without fail, which helped a ton.

More than happy to answer any questions, keep plugging along everyone and go slay this thing!
Click to expand...
 
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Glad I wasn't able to move my test up. With the constant tornado warnings and flooding going on my studying the last 3 days has essentially been one block of UW and 100 anki cards the whole day. Trying to take today to get back the killer mentality but it isn't going well lol. I have to study at home because the school might flood and with two toddlers I'm at about 20% effectiveness.

I can't wait for this crap to be over with.
 
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libertyyne said:
Exam tomorrow. Completely burnt out, watched nothing but TV this morning. There is a lot i dont know and I feel like i forgot everything. Cant even focus on doing any cards or watching any videos. Not sure if I even care about my score at this point.
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You got it dude. Done all you can and now all that's left is to roll in like a boss tomorrow and walk out knowing you busted ass for two years.
 
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libertyyne said:
Exam tomorrow. Completely burnt out, watched nothing but TV this morning. There is a lot i dont know and I feel like i forgot everything. Cant even focus on doing any cards or watching any videos. Not sure if I even care about my score at this point.
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That feeling is totally how i felt too. Just review whatever you think is extremely important to hit again and then relax. I went for a hard run, studied a few hours and played mario kart the day before. The run made sleeping a lot easier.
 
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libertyyne said:
Exam tomorrow. Completely burnt out, watched nothing but TV this morning. There is a lot i dont know and I feel like i forgot everything. Cant even focus on doing any cards or watching any videos. Not sure if I even care about my score at this point.
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You got this. You could just fart on the monitor and probably score higher than most. Crush it!
 
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libertyyne said:
Lets get this started.
M2. Mid Tier everything.
Entertaining some surgical sub-specialties.

Goal 270
Happy with 245
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^^ GL to thread starter @libertyyne & everyone else taking the test tomorrow.... Look how far ya'll have come since this thread started last July.. keep that 270 mindset tomorrow and you'll crush it 😉
 
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Hey guys how do you stop making careless mistakes? Like I'm not doing terribly but it's frustrating when like 1/3 of my mistakes are from really obvious misreadings. I think I look at the clock and rush too much or something or I'm just rigid and trying to match the answer with what's in my head before taking in all the evidenc. It's on the scale of reading left as right or if the question is myelofibrosis and it asks what's in the spleen I read it as bone marrow. Or overlooking a huge hint in the stem. Really frustrating since I've been working at it and these questions if missed on the real deal are like throwing dozens of study hours down the drain.
 
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medicineman1234 said:
Hey guys how do you stop making careless mistakes? Like I'm not doing terribly but it's frustrating when like 1/3 of my mistakes are from really obvious misreadings. I think I look at the clock and rush too much or something or I'm just rigid and trying to match the answer with what's in my head before taking in all the evidenc. It's on the scale of reading left as right or if the question is myelofibrosis and it asks what's in the spleen I read it as bone marrow. Or overlooking a huge hint in the stem. Really frustrating since I've been working at it and these questions if missed on the real deal are like throwing dozens of study hours down the drain.
Click to expand...
Don’t know if it will help, but I try to be mindful of the answers as I go through the stem. So like if it’s a cardio question and they want the valve abnormality, as soon as you realize it’s systolic you cross out all the diastolic. It takes longer to get through the stem but by the time I’ve finished there’s rarely anything left to be tripped up on.

If I dont do that, I end up reading all the answers and start skimming back through the stem and make similar mistakes as what you’re describing.
 
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Ho0v-man said:
Don’t know if it will help, but I try to be mindful of the answers as I go through the stem. So like if it’s a cardio question and they want the valve abnormality, as soon as you realize it’s systolic you cross out all the diastolic. It takes longer to get through the stem but by the time I’ve finished there’s rarely anything left to be tripped up on.

If I dont do that, I end up reading all the answers and start skimming back through the stem and make similar mistakes as what you’re describing.
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Yea I realize I'm not crossing things out nearly as much as I should which saves time when going back to questions and seems to be how the 250+ ppl do it. Thank you I'll do it on to orrows block for sure
 
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For those who have already taken the exam I have some questions:
1. how were the pharm q's? I feel like in the NBME's they give hard pharm q's and some drugs were on there that I didn't recognize at first. Is USMLE that difficult as well? I was told by upperclassmen that side effects of tested on most but I want to know what you guys saw
2. How high yield is psych + psych drugs? Did you find them challenging?
3. How were the biostats questions? Our dean told us with coming exams they're going to be putting more biostats related q's
4. How were the anatomy q's? I took NBME 22 and got a lower score than normal because of all those weird GI anatomy q's
 
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star050 said:
For those who have already taken the exam I have some questions:
1. how were the pharm q's? I feel like in the NBME's they give hard pharm q's and some drugs were on there that I didn't recognize at first. Is USMLE that difficult as well? I was told by upperclassmen that side effects of tested on most but I want to know what you guys saw
2. How high yield is psych + psych drugs? Did you find them challenging?
3. How were the biostats questions? Our dean told us with coming exams they're going to be putting more biostats related q's
4. How were the anatomy q's? I took NBME 22 and got a lower score than normal because of all those weird GI anatomy q's
Click to expand...
1) medium difficulty. Most of my questions (including pharm) were setup as an experiment that you had to interpret and then (for pharm) pic the drug that acted similarly. So many questions in general though dealt with a study that you had to interpret or understand and pick the choice that answered their question.
2) I think they’re high yield, but I felt like my test was very light on psych, but heavy on Neuro
3) Biostats was pretty straight forward. Know your formulas and you’ll be fine. I had a few over bias types and what kind of study was performed as well.
4) I think I had probably around 15 anatomy questions. Some I only knew because of zanki, one I knew because I was with vascular surgery this summer, and then there were a few reproductive anatomy questions that I had 0 clue on and still don’t know what they wanted.
 
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I decided to push my date up last week because of stagnation.
Current status:

Uworld % 72 first pass, 90 2 pass
Amboss exam: 244
UWSA1: 262
NBME 18: 238
NBME 21: 232
NBME 22: 242
NBME 20: 250
NBME 23: 238
NBME 24: 244

I feel like playing whack a mole. I really reigned genetics and biochem in, and now my performance in cardio and endo is dropping. Ugh. 10 more days until exam. Still have UWSA2 and the free 120 to do.

Any ideas for a last minute push?
 
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Just wanted to stop by and say kudos to all of you who are busting your ass all day, day in and day out. I honestly have no idea how anyone has the drive to study the amount of hours some of you do every day for weeks on end. It is truly impressive and will most certainly pay off.

I am only 2 or so weeks into dedicated and I have about had it. I try to study from 8am-7pm doing pomodoro 30 on, 10 off. This pretty much turns into 30 on, 20-30 off every time and once it hits noon I am essentially operating at 25%. I think I would be lucky to get 5 hours of actual studying in per day. I get 1k+ anki cards and 40 uworld questions done a day but I feel like I am making no progress. This whole process sucks and I can't wait for it to be over. I absolutely hate studying, always have, and this is practically my nightmare. I am strongly considering moving my test up and getting it done with as soon as/if I start hitting my target score on practice exams.

Well, anyways, for all of you who are capable of pushing through and crushing it every day, that is amazing and keep up the good work. To anyone else out there like me, you're not alone, keep pushing through! There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
 
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neurodjent said:
Just wanted to stop by and say kudos to all of you who are busting your ass all day, day in and day out. I honestly have no idea how anyone has the drive to study the amount of hours some of you do every day for weeks on end. It is truly impressive and will most certainly pay off.

I am only 2 or so weeks into dedicated and I have about had it. I try to study from 8am-7pm doing pomodoro 30 on, 10 off. This pretty much turns into 30 on, 20-30 off every time and once it hits noon I am essentially operating at 25%. I think I would be lucky to get 5 hours of actual studying in per day. I get 1k+ anki cards and 40 uworld questions done a day but I feel like I am making no progress. This whole process sucks and I can't wait for it to be over. I absolutely hate studying, always have, and this is practically my nightmare. I am strongly considering moving my test up and getting it done with as soon as/if I start hitting my target score on practice exams.

Well, anyways, for all of you who are capable of pushing through and crushing it every day, that is amazing and keep up the good work. To anyone else out there like me, you're not alone, keep pushing through! There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
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Needed this today. Productivity has been real real low
 
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Chibucks15 said:
Needed this today. Productivity has been real real low
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Well, my productivity today has been high! But it has been packing, not studying. Hahaha. Felt good to be a normal person out in the world this morning. Had brunch with my husband and then picked up packing supplies at Home Depot. But I have to move before my exams anyway so takeaway I’m being productive.
 
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neurodjent said:
Just wanted to stop by and say kudos to all of you who are busting your ass all day, day in and day out. I honestly have no idea how anyone has the drive to study the amount of hours some of you do every day for weeks on end. It is truly impressive and will most certainly pay off.

I am only 2 or so weeks into dedicated and I have about had it. I try to study from 8am-7pm doing pomodoro 30 on, 10 off. This pretty much turns into 30 on, 20-30 off every time and once it hits noon I am essentially operating at 25%. I think I would be lucky to get 5 hours of actual studying in per day. I get 1k+ anki cards and 40 uworld questions done a day but I feel like I am making no progress. This whole process sucks and I can't wait for it to be over. I absolutely hate studying, always have, and this is practically my nightmare. I am strongly considering moving my test up and getting it done with as soon as/if I start hitting my target score on practice exams.

Well, anyways, for all of you who are capable of pushing through and crushing it every day, that is amazing and keep up the good work. To anyone else out there like me, you're not alone, keep pushing through! There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Click to expand...
I've done more post-step vacation planning in the past 2 days than I've done studying.

Right there with you bud, right there with you...
 
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Gurby said:
Just when I feel like I've got the UW thing figured out and my %correct is ready to start climbing... Score my lowest score ever on a block... on a block where the average was a pretty reasonable 63%

tenor.gif
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Yesterday I had one where my score was lower than usual by 20%. 3 weeks to go but man I gotta shake the brain fog if I’m gonna do alright on this thing haha
 
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Gurby said:
Just when I feel like I've got the UW thing figured out and my %correct is ready to start climbing... Score my lowest score ever on a block... on a block where the average was a pretty reasonable 63%

tenor.gif
Click to expand...

I had that happen to me yesterday. I made damn sure that todays block would go better and it did. It sucks in the moment but its definitely the motivation you need sometimes.
 
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Gurby said:
Just when I feel like I've got the UW thing figured out and my %correct is ready to start climbing... Score my lowest score ever on a block... on a block where the average was a pretty reasonable 63%

tenor.gif
Click to expand...
roller coaster of emotions
I went from 95% on a block to 68% right after. Then the next block I got 5 of the first 5 questions wrong and not a single one wrong after.

*snip snap gif of Michael scott*


At this point I’m apathetic to the scores themselves...but a weak block performance means twice the time to review and double the anki cards made :diebanana:
 
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Update. Took NBME 24 today and got a 240. Was actually a little pissed because I was feeling like I was doing a bit better than that but I made some dumb mistakes and my concentration today wasn't very good so I probably didn't really deserve better. My scores have all hovered right around a 240 +-4 for the last month and I am hoping that means I've given myself a great shot at a 240+ with a punchers chance at a 250.

Taking UW2 on Tuesday after the holiday and then the Free 120 on Friday. Finishing up the Rapid Review anki deck, anatomy deck, the Sketchy Pepper Pharm deck, last 200 UW questions and then just reviewing FA for my weaknesses. I can't wait for this to be over with as I'm burning out HARD.
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
Update. Took NBME 24 today and got a 240. Was actually a little pissed because I was feeling like I was doing a bit better than that but I made some dumb mistakes and my concentration today wasn't very good so I probably didn't really deserve better. My scores have all hovered right around a 240 +-4 for the last month and I am hoping that means I've given myself a great shot at a 240+ with a punchers chance at a 250.

Taking UW2 on Tuesday after the holiday and then the Free 120 on Friday. Finishing up the Rapid Review anki deck, anatomy deck, the Sketchy Pepper Pharm deck, last 200 UW questions and then just reviewing FA for my weaknesses. I can't wait for this to be over with as I'm burning out HARD.
Click to expand...

We're in the very same boat. When is your test?
 
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