USMLE Official 2020 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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All right fam, time to descend back into the dedicated suck fest for COMLEX. Decided I'm not going to do UWorld but go through Sketchy again over the next 4-5 days (since it seems like COMLEX loves micro and pharm), read some Pathoma, do Zanki and work through Savarese and OnlineMedEd OMM videos. Pray for me as I go through the self-induced torture of remembering missed questions on Step as I go through my resources again. One more week!
 
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So I am hearing UWSA2 is hardcore genetics and molecular bio. Does anyone think BnB for both subjects is good enough to nail them down? Figured Id watch them again. Trying to find good questions on them but I don't want to use up UWorld questions and Kaplan blows. How are the Amboss questions for both subjects?
 
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Deecee2DO said:
So I am hearing UWSA2 is hardcore genetics and molecular bio. Does anyone think BnB for both subjects is good enough to nail them down? Figured Id watch them again. Trying to find good questions on them but I don't want to use up UWorld questions and Kaplan blows. How are the Amboss questions for both subjects?
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I am planning on doing BnB for them but haven't gotten to it yet lol and I am going to take UWSA2 today, so stay tuned to see how that goes. Those are generally my weaker subjects, and BnB has been good in covering things I am not confident in. I watched BnB for biochem, but I thought he went into too much detail and I'm not sure how helpful it actually was. Overall, I think it's a good resource for any area you're weak in so at least check it out and see how you feel.
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
I am planning on doing BnB for them but haven't gotten to it yet lol and I am going to take UWSA2 today, so stay tuned to see how that goes. Those are generally my weaker subjects, and BnB has been good in covering things I am not confident in. I watched BnB for biochem, but I thought he went into too much detail and I'm not sure how helpful it actually was. Overall, I think it's a good resource for any area you're weak in so at least check it out and see how you feel.
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Fire! Ill skip his biochem since I did it earlier in the year and yeah he goes into hellish detail. Pumped to see how you do since weve been around the same stat wise. Youre gonna wreck it! My guess is mid to high 250s
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
Damn! Congrats, glad to hear you're happy with your score. I remember you back from our MCAT/application days. We were stats buddies then IIRC, guess we'll find out if the trend continues lol
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of course I remember my stat buddy! I see your posts all the time like “that’s my FL girl!”
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Fire! Ill skip his biochem since I did it earlier in the year and yeah he goes into hellish detail. Pumped to see how you do since weve been around the same stat wise. Youre gonna wreck it! My guess is mid to high 250s
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I've watched the metabolism chapter from BnB and the lectures are wayyy too detailed in my opinion. But be sure to watch the one called "Inborn errors of metabolism" it is a good sum up.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
So I am hearing UWSA2 is hardcore genetics and molecular bio. Does anyone think BnB for both subjects is good enough to nail them down? Figured Id watch them again. Trying to find good questions on them but I don't want to use up UWorld questions and Kaplan blows. How are the Amboss questions for both subjects?
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IIRC (the real thing, UWorld and the NBMEs are all blurring together for me now lol), it was stuff that is in the B&B cell bio section. It wasn’t necessarily difficult, just stuff I hadn’t seen in a while so it was hard to remember everything and I made some silly mistakes. There was definitely more cell bio on there than any of the other practice exams but it wasn’t overwhelming so maybe just skim FA before you take it and then use B&B after to hit whatever you missed? I don’t think you need to watch those entire sections in B&B to do well as I definitely didn’t and I got a 251 and you’ve been scoring consistently higher than me.
 
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So I personally think the date adjusted reddit predictor is absolute bull****. If I date adjust it to the past week it says my predicted score is a 230 but if I put my original start date its a 247. Date adjusted or not it still says 247 as overall. So which one am I supposed to trust? Maybe it was my recent NBME 22 that I bombed? I dont see how one supposedly extremely unpredictive NBME can bring my score down 17 points lol. I just don't see how 22 could have that strong of an influence
 
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I’m thinking of pushing both tests back at this point. My scores look good, but I have been in a huge mental fog and haven’t been able to get much studying done this week. I had a nice three-hour ugly cry yesterday over the rotation site stress - got an email back from our coordinator that says no schedule yet. I have to pay rent at two places totaling around $3,000 for July to hold my spot in my new town plus pay month to month rent prices ($500/month higher than normal) where I am now, plus I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to get a moving company if they won’t tell me when I have to move.

I’m just completely overwhelmed. It’s going to be completely obnoxious to have to move my tests later because I have three tests at my school in July to finish out the spring semester.

What do you guys think - should I suck it up and push through since my scores are good and moving it is only going to be somewhat helpful as I’m going to have to stop studying for boards to work on school exams, or move them since my mental state is crap?
 
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calivianya said:
I’m thinking of pushing both tests back at this point. My scores look good, but I have been in a huge mental fog and haven’t been able to get much studying done this week. I had a nice three-hour ugly cry yesterday over the rotation site stress - got an email back from our coordinator that says no schedule yet. I have to pay rent at two places totaling around $3,000 for July to hold my spot in my new town plus pay month to month rent prices ($500/month higher than normal) where I am now, plus I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to get a moving company if they won’t tell me when I have to move.

I’m just completely overwhelmed. It’s going to be completely obnoxious to have to move my tests later because I have three tests at my school in July to finish out the spring semester.

What do you guys think - should I suck it up and push through since my scores are good and moving it is only going to be somewhat helpful as I’m going to have to stop studying for boards to work on school exams, or move them since my mental state is crap?
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I think the best thing you could do is take your exam if your scores are good. You want to take them at your peak! Its only one day of stress vs weeks of stress if you have to move your exam. Get it over with while you know the most! Just my 2 cents but you know yourself better than me obviously
 
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Y'all idk how to feel lol now I'm scared what if I get a biochem or cell bio heavy form on the real deal. Like I'm satisfied with the score but at the same time kinda not satisfied??? Idk what I'm saying I feel weird.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
I think the best thing you could do is take your exam if your scores are good. You want to take them at your peak! Its only one day of stress vs weeks of stress if you have to move your exam. Get it over with while you know the most! Just my 2 cents but you know yourself better than me obviously
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Thanks. I’m leaning toward this, too, but I’ll also just be kicking myself forever if I’m distracted, making stupid mistakes, and don’t do as well as I could.

fldoctorgirl said:
Y'all idk how to feel lol now I'm scared what if I get a biochem or cell bio heavy form on the real deal. Like I'm satisfied with the score but at the same time kinda not satisfied??? Idk what I'm saying I feel weird.
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I’m scared of that, too. Fingers cross that our biochem sections aren’t too bad!
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
Y'all idk how to feel lol now I'm scared what if I get a biochem or cell bio heavy form on the real deal. Like I'm satisfied with the score but at the same time kinda not satisfied??? Idk what I'm saying I feel weird.
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I feel that as med students we are never satisfied. I remember last year during the first Endo phys exam I got my highest score ever for an inclass exam at the time, an 81. I was super pumped and had a huge smile for hours. Then the average came out and it was an 87%. I was crushed and sad for the rest of the weekend

Looking at dedicated, I Jumped 20 points in two weeks (190-211) with a month to go, pretty decent Uworld score, and even with improvement you can see me in here constantly upset and worried

Idk if this will help but i have been constantly impressed by your scores and performance. I truly think you are a Step1 Bad A$$ and have little doubt you will not go far on the exam. Its natural to be worried and focused on the negative, especially when the stakes are this high, but dont forget that you have put in the work.
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
247 UWSA2. Was hoping for a bit higher but this definitely hit a lot of my weak spots with biochem and cell bio for sure. If it's +/- 5-10 I'm happy.

I had a 249 on UWSA1, and told myself I'd be happy as long as I hit 240s on this one. 250s would've been nice though ha
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247 on both 18 and UWSA2 leads me to believe youll get at least a 240 on test day and a 255 if you have a baller day and the test plays to your strengths. I think youre safely above 240 which from what I recall if you want to do IM youll get looks from some REALLY solid university IM programs
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
I feel that as med students we are never satisfied. I remember last year during the first Endo phys exam I got my highest score ever for an inclass exam at the time, an 81. I was super pumped and had a huge smile for hours. Then the average came out and it was an 87%. I was crushed and sad for the rest of the weekend

Looking at dedicated, I Jumped 20 points in two weeks (190-211) with a month to go, pretty decent Uworld score, and even with improvement you can see me in here constantly upset and worried

Idk if this will help but i have been constantly impressed by your scores and performance. I truly think you are a Step1 Bad A$$ and have little doubt you will not go far on the exam. Its natural to be worried and focused on the negative, especially when the stakes are this high, but dont forget that you have put in the work.
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Thank you for saying this. You're right that we are never satisfied: literally my only goal before dedicated was to hit a 230 on Step. I'm interested in IM, mostly community or low-tier academic programs since my main goal is to go back home. Obviously it would be nice to score higher and higher, but realistically I don't need to? Thanks for the bit of reality.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
247 on both 18 and UWSA2 leads me to believe youll get at least a 240 on test day and a 255 if you have a baller day and the test plays to your strengths. I think youre safely above 240 which from what I recall if you want to do IM youll get looks from some REALLY solid university IM programs
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If this was last year I would've felt baller! It's just the reports coming out that UWSA2 is overpredicting people that has me bugged out. I'm trying to take solace in the fact that this exam felt like it hit all the stuff I know least, and I still did good overall, but it's just all meh. Either way, I've never been more ready to be done with anything in my life lol
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
If this was last year I would've felt baller! It's just the reports coming out that UWSA2 is overpredicting people that has me bugged out. I'm trying to take solace in the fact that this exam felt like it hit all the stuff I know least, and I still did good overall, but it's just all meh. Either way, I've never been more ready to be done with anything in my life lol
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Youve actually exceeded your expectations and have more than accomplished all of your goals over the course of this entire study period. Id say its a win. FWIW two of my buds with 250+ Steps scored lower than you on 18 if that makes you feel any better lol
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
If this was last year I would've felt baller! It's just the reports coming out that UWSA2 is overpredicting people that has me bugged out. I'm trying to take solace in the fact that this exam felt like it hit all the stuff I know least, and I still did good overall, but it's just all meh. Either way, I've never been more ready to be done with anything in my life lol
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There was a huge Reddit thread last year in July when everyone’s scores came out after the delay that UWSA2 was overpredicting too. I really don’t think anything has changed other than it’s our year so we are grasping onto every last bit of data so we can get some feel for where we stand/how we’re going to do. I know I definitely have been. I think it’s good to remember that while these practice exams and the predictor are good to monitor progress and maybe give us a ballpark of where we can land on the real deal, it’s not gospel and there will always be people doing better, worse and right around their predicted score. And we all know there’s a ton of selection bias in many of these reports with the people on the very high end and very low end tending to be the most vocal while most people are falling right in the middle. We have no idea what form we will get on test day and if it will be one that plays to our strengths or weaknesses and I feel both blessed and cursed that I got what I felt was a more straightforward form that didn’t target my weaknesses but I also overthought many of my responses (that ended up being wrong). I think I subconsciously kept telling myself it couldn’t be this straightforward and now I fear there will be a very unforgiving curve. Other people get harder forms that don’t play to their strengths at all but have a much more generous curve. There’s so many variables that go into this exam and since we have no idea how it’s really scored, it makes an already highly driven and perfectionist group of people even more anxious when the stakes are this high. You’ve been scoring pretty consistent across a wide variety of assessments and that’s a good indicator that you have a solid foundation. I think this year has shown that there’s really no single benchmark that can 100% predict how you’re going to do so we need to make sure we’re looking at everything together. Your data points together point towards the odds of you getting a score you’re happy with being pretty high so just walk into that exam with no regrets and knowing you’ve done everything you can to prepare and give it your best shot! That’s all we can really ask of ourselves.
 
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calivianya said:
I’m thinking of pushing both tests back at this point. My scores look good, but I have been in a huge mental fog and haven’t been able to get much studying done this week. I had a nice three-hour ugly cry yesterday over the rotation site stress - got an email back from our coordinator that says no schedule yet. I have to pay rent at two places totaling around $3,000 for July to hold my spot in my new town plus pay month to month rent prices ($500/month higher than normal) where I am now, plus I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to get a moving company if they won’t tell me when I have to move.

I’m just completely overwhelmed. It’s going to be completely obnoxious to have to move my tests later because I have three tests at my school in July to finish out the spring semester.

What do you guys think - should I suck it up and push through since my scores are good and moving it is only going to be somewhat helpful as I’m going to have to stop studying for boards to work on school exams, or move them since my mental state is crap?
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I freaked out and moved mine for similar reasons. I just wasn’t in a good mental state and hadn’t been getting much done. I just wouldn’t feel right going into my test with the amount of anxiety I was feeling. Do what you have to do if you feel like you truly can’t focus right now.
 
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@fldoctorgirl Thoughts? Seems like if youre predicted at low 240s-245 or 250 on the dot its showing to be accurate AF. Predictions in the 230s seem less accurate as well as 247 for some reason which is a weird random number
 

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Deecee2DO said:
@fldoctorgirl Thoughts? Seems like if youre predicted at 245 or 250 on the dot its showing to be accurate AF. Predictions in the 230s seem less accurate as well as 247 for some reason which is a weird random number
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Seems like a predicted score of 240+ only overpredicts by about 5 points or less (on average of course) according to this and the higher you go, the more accurate it gets. Below 240 is where it seems to start overpredicting by 10 or more, likely because the predictor was built off of data from the higher scorers. Would gladly take -5 from my predicted and not look back.
 
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GoCards05 said:
Seems like a predicted score of 240+ only overpredicts by about 5 points or less (on average of course) according to this and the higher you go, the more accurate it gets. Below 240 is where it seems to start overpredicting by 10 or more, likely because the predictor was built off of data from the higher scorers. Would gladly take -5 from my predicted and not look back.
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Actually i think the low 240+ is underpredicting by about 5. Its (actual-predicted) on the Y axis which means those people got a higher score on the real thing since those are plotting at +5
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Actually i think the low 240+ is underpredicting by about 5. Its (actual-predicted) on the Y axis which means those people got a higher score on the real thing since those are plotting at +5
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I would ugly cry tears of joy if I got +5 from my predicted. Hopefully people keep adding their data so we can get a larger sample size to see if this holds up.
 
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GoCards05 said:
I would ugly cry tears of joy if I got +5 from my predicted. Hopefully people keep adding their data so we can get a larger sample size to see if this holds up.
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You will bro! Im predicted at like 246 right now so minus or plus 5 im happy with but i still have a month of dedicated yet so Im hoping to reach my goal of 250+. Havent taken UWSA2 UWSA1 or 18 yet
 
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Deecee2DO said:
You will bro! Im predicted at like 246 right now so minus or plus 5 im happy with but i still have a month of dedicated yet so Im hoping to reach my goal of 250+. Havent taken UWSA2 UWSA1 or 18 yet
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A month to go with your practice scores and your odds are looking good! If I somehow get 250+ (please please please be accurate UWSA2) then literally anyone and everyone on this thread can too.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Did you get a 250+ on UW2???
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I somehow managed to pull a 251 on it which I'm starting to think was a fluke lol. My NBMEs all hovered right around 230 and UWSA1 was 243 at the beginning of dedicated so I'm thinking I just got lucky on UWSA2. I would be absolutely ecstatic just to hit the average between my NBMEs and UWSAs.
 
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GoCards05 said:
I somehow managed to pull a 251 on it which I'm starting to think was a fluke lol. My NBMEs all hovered right around 230 and UWSA1 was 243 at the beginning of dedicated so I'm thinking I just got lucky on UWSA2. I would be absolutely ecstatic just to hit the average between my NBMEs and UWSAs.
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Nice! 251 is baller. Praying to get a 250+ on it. Will be devastated if I dont get at least high 240s on it lol. Did you think it was tough?
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Nice! 251 is baller. Praying to get a 250+ on it. Will be devastated if I dont get at least high 240s on it lol. Did you think it was tough?
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You got this! I remember second guessing myself a lot (which freaked me out since I was 5 days out at that point but I think it was because I just really wanted to do well on it) and probably flagged 10-12 questions per block (which I also did on the real deal) and definitely was a little surprised by my score. There was more cell bio than any other practice exam I took but nothing completely outrageous and tbh a lot of it was stuff I know I had seen before but just forgot. I didn't think it was anymore difficult than any other low 60s average UWorld block and I believe the average on it is 237 or something like that. One thing I would suggest though is to look at your percentile and compare that to the real USMLE percentiles. So a 251 on UWSA2 is 76th percentile and that same percentile on the real deal is 245 so I can see why it's overpredicting some people by 5-10 points and it's nice to give yourself a little more of a range. UWorld was definitely much kinder to me than the NBMEs lol.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
@fldoctorgirl Thoughts? Seems like if youre predicted at low 240s-245 or 250 on the dot its showing to be accurate AF. Predictions in the 230s seem less accurate as well as 247 for some reason which is a weird random number
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That 230 dot where the person scored ~198ish and the predicted 220 that failed...

I’m really glad there aren’t a bunch of those kinds of dots, but that’s just really, really terrible. Some stuff of nightmares right there.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
@fldoctorgirl Thoughts? Seems like if youre predicted at low 240s-245 or 250 on the dot its showing to be accurate AF. Predictions in the 230s seem less accurate as well as 247 for some reason which is a weird random number
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Like mentioned, I think it likely has to do with the predictor being built off of high scores. I'm predicted at 246 right now so I'll gladly take +/- 5 from that.
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
Damn that chart truly shows how slanted all the data is. makes me a little nervous
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Just anecdotal, but one of my friends used it and got predicted 230 +/- 7, and he got a 226. And that was a couple weeks ago. But yes, as a lower scorer, it makes me nervous that it appears to be less reliable on the lower end.
 
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sunshinefl said:
Just anecdotal, but one of my friends used it and got predicted 230 +/- 7, and he got a 226. And that was a couple weeks ago. But yes, as a lower scorer, it makes me nervous that it appears to be less reliable on the lower end.
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If I get in my CI, even at the lowest end (222) i will be super bummed but its not the end of the world. As a DO student getting under a 200 would probs be the end of my Meds-Peds goal though, and seeing that in this chart through me for a loop.
 
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