USMLE Official 2020 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

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Deecee2DO said:
I heard Amboss is the king of difficult. Harder than UW and Rx and Kaplan but the explanations are really good apparently. Kind of like training for a marathon in big ass Timberlands
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yea Amboss is crazy hard at times. Averaging 62% on Amboss and 70% on Kaplan. Yesterday I got 21/40 on a block and it was still 68th percentile lol so I guess it's hard for everyone.
 
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Shirafune said:
Haha. I actually considered ortho as a MS1 based on what I did as a pre-med. I'm thinking about ENT right now and possibly as neuro or IM as a backup (I really don't want to do GS).
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ENT is awesome. If I wanted to do surge that would be the specialty I’d do without a doubt coolest surgical sub. Are you a DO or MD student?
 
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Shirafune said:
Haha. I actually considered ortho as a MS1 based on what I did as a pre-med. I'm thinking about ENT right now and possibly as neuro or IM as a backup (I really don't want to do GS).
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With those scores you could also look at Urology and Ophthamology which seem to also be a good mix of medicine and surgery. The ENT, Ophtho, and Urology docs I know all seem to love their jobs/lives.
 
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GoCards05 said:
In person class?
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lol naw online but we have to take two more final exams that are 80% of our grade and if we fail we have to remediate the course if we fail both repeat the entire year. The exams are given via some web app where they do online proctoring and we can't leave our desk to use the bathroom for 5+ hour exam lol
 
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Shirafune said:
Haha. I actually considered ortho as a MS1 based on what I did as a pre-med. I'm thinking about ENT right now and possibly as neuro or IM as a backup (I really don't want to do GS).
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Congrats on your killer score! ENT is awesome, if I wanted to do surgery it's probably what I would do as well lol
 
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Deecee2DO said:
lol naw online but we have to take two more final exams that are 80% of our grade and if we fail we have to remediate the course if we fail both repeat the entire year. The exams are given via some web app where they do online proctoring
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We still have class (last block, heme). 2 exams. They made it P/F though and said they will still be curving the way they normally do. Then we have OMM and our doctoring class finals to take, plus whatever they decide to make us do for our OMM practicals and our doctoring class graded SPs.
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
We still have class (last block, heme). 2 exams. They made it P/F though and said they will still be curving the way they normally do. Then we have OMM and our doctoring class finals to take, plus whatever they decide to make us do for our OMM practicals and our doctoring class graded SPs.
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Yeah sounds about the same over here. I wish they would just let it go and allow us to study :smack:
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Yeah sounds about the same over here. I wish they would just let it go and allow us to study :smack:
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Lol yeah, there's definitely no way I'm going to have any motivation to study for an OMM final and my school makes them notoriously hard. This too shall pass though....1 month to go!

Also my school has a new class they added last year called transition to clerkship that takes up the first 3 weeks of May. It was mostly online modules anyways but there were labs a few times a week to review skills we haven't done in awhile (IVs, blood draws, etc) but we were also supposed to learn some new stuff like male/female sensitive exams and get BCLS certified and what not. Not sure what's going to happen with all of that.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
lol naw online but we have to take two more final exams that are 80% of our grade and if we fail we have to remediate the course if we fail both repeat the entire year. The exams are given via some web app where they do online proctoring and we can't leave our desk to use the bathroom for 5+ hour exam lol
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Gotcha. Most of our classes have been converted to pre-recorded lectures that we watch on our own time but we still have some stuff we have to join via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. We have two exams left that we're taking at home as well as quizzes. We also have to take the COMSAE at home. Our school says we'll be making up hands on stuff and clinical skills/OMM practicals sometime before we start rotations.
 
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Still doing Zanki Nuero. Still have to do : MSS (one bIG one for me ) then study cardio renal resp heme / gi and then antoher pass of endo/reprod -
*primal scream* Trying to do my best while not panicking excessively. one day at a time. I feel once nuero is done, I will be in better shape.
 
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cooldown said:
Still doing Zanki Nuero. Still have to do : MSS (one bIG one for me ) then study cardio renal resp heme / gi and then antoher pass of endo/reprod -
*primal scream* Trying to do my best while not panicking excessively. one day at a time. I feel once nuero is done, I will be in better shape.
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Felt zanki nuero was a waste of time for me even though alot of people like it. Most of the UWorld questions are alot easier than the things you see in that deck.
 
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Since my exam date has been pushed back. I started to do my daily zanki. Today I had 1500 cards. Want to get this number down so I can do 2blocks a day along with anki. Prop gonna do 4 days of zanki and then slowly work back UWorld into the plan.
 
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Steve_Zissou said:
****, got headaches, chills, and fatigue with a mild cough. Here’s to hoping it’s not Coronavirus. Sure is making it hard to focus though.
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Lol i have allergy-symptoms like that daily living in my state. At this point thinkin about all that is just a distraction. if you get a fever above 102 then yes get it check out but otherwise, relax breath stretch and get your head back in the game bro . ain't no body got time for dad

PS- the person who got a crush on something/someone impossible after 2+ years of no crush-life and thinking about the crush and losing focus
 
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Steve_Zissou said:
Which ones are the ones worth taking? I still haven’t done a single one and am not sure which to start with.
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I know 18 is supposed to be the most predictive one so most people save that one for towards the end. Honestly these free ones are all old ones that I wasn't planning on taking anyways haha, they're the ones they retired. May snag one or two since they're free but I'm not sure yet. Maybe 15 and/or 16?
 
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Chelsea FC said:
Not sure if ur on a time crunch or have other decks to do but I would def put that one on the back burner for others.
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Hey Chelease FC, which ones are more imp? haev to do: cardio renal resp heme gi and pscyh/public health and then OMM too.

I have done the micro deck but haven't kept up with it.
yes it's taking a lot of time when I should be itially doing the 300 neuro uworld q.
Today trying to finsh it (very close maybe 2-3 hours left) and then do the Nuero pharm deck and then start questions tomorrow early morning. Definately in the grind mode.
 
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cooldown said:
Hey Chelease FC, which ones are more imp? haev to do: cardio renal resp heme gi and pscyh/public health and then OMM too.

I have done the micro deck but haven't kept up with it.
yes it's taking a lot of time when I should be itially doing the 300 neuro uworld q.
Today trying to finsh it (very close maybe 2-3 hours left) and then do the Nuero pharm deck and then start questions tomorrow early morning. Definately in the grind mode.
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Regarding the OMM deck, I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly enjoy OMM so I’m doing 10 new cards a day and that’s it. It’s really hard for me to get in the mood to learn about cranial and **** like that so I’m gonna take it super slow.
 
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Steve_Zissou said:
Regarding the OMM deck, I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly enjoy OMM so I’m doing 10 new cards a day and that’s it. It’s really hard for me to get in the mood to learn about cranial and **** like that so I’m gonna take it super slow.
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yes I am the same way. So that's a good strategy. If you have a fixed time you do the cards, would you like to do a daily video call where we both do our OMM separetly but "together"? I am don't learn well under stress so I would like to start that.
 
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@Chelsea FC - thanks for keepin me honest. There is a fine line between learning the material, being calm and present yet also not taking too long and keeping pace. I learn best when it's peaceful and the mind is quiet without pressure or stress. I think I need to start devoting 1-2 hours starting this weekend in order to plan the general month, and lead up to test date as well as a weekly plan / LIST Of things to have done ecah week that I review daily at night to see how I'm pacing myself.
 
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cooldown said:
yes I am the same way. So that's a good strategy. If you have a fixed time you do the cards, would you like to do a daily video call where we both do our OMM separetly but "together"? I am don't learn well under stress so I would like to start that.
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While I greatly appreciate the offer, I'm gonna have to decline as my flow is all over the place and I usually just toss them into the middle of a set of micro cards or path.
 
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cooldown said:
Hey Chelease FC, which ones are more imp? haev to do: cardio renal resp heme gi and pscyh/public health and then OMM too.

I have done the micro deck but haven't kept up with it.
yes it's taking a lot of time when I should be itially doing the 300 neuro uworld q.
Today trying to finsh it (very close maybe 2-3 hours left) and then do the Nuero pharm deck and then start questions tomorrow early morning. Definately in the grind mode.
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Literally all those decks are higher yield and better done than nuero. Cario especially/res & renal. Micro deck is gold but can be crammed because sketchy makes it easy to remember. I did alot fo the neuro deck and just felt I wasted my winter break and should have done another deck I didnt finish
 
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Also today was the first day I did 2 blocks of Uwolrd and all my 1500 anki reviews. With Covid my exam got pushed back so I have no excuse not to do my anki at the end of days. Also I notice my largest issue with Uworld is that I am a horrible test taker. I know the info but just cant connect it when put into a clinical vignette.
 
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Chelsea FC said:
Literally all those decks are higher yield and better done than nuero. Cario especially/res & renal. Micro deck is gold but can be crammed because sketchy makes it easy to remember. I did alot fo the neuro deck and just felt I wasted my winter break and should have done another deck I didnt finish
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Thanks bro, good motivation that the good stuff remains. I am "Bad" at paassively reading FA so anki helps hunker down the info into your head .
I have done the micro deck but I should be reviewing it daily? I think maybe 25 cards a day at the beginning b.c at end of the day motivation is low to start something new however easy. Maybe if i START 25 cards of micro review in the morning, i will be motivation to keep up with the review in the evening. I have done micro deck but it's unreal how you can forget info if it is't matured and things u knew well---> you dont know them so well close to test date---> significantly low score.
 
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Chelsea FC said:
Also today was the first day I did 2 blocks of Uwolrd and all my 1500 anki reviews. With Covid my exam got pushed back so I have no excuse not to do my anki at the end of days. Also I notice my largest issue with Uworld is that I am a horrible test taker. I know the info but just cant connect it when put into a clinical vignette.
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I find that rephrasing or paraphrasing symptoms/the exact question helps me a lot. I sometimes speak my thought process out loud then explain to myself why my thought process was wrong when I’m reviewing. It’s helped here and there when I see questions with similar reasoning/wording.
 
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Steve_Zissou said:
I find that rephrasing or paraphrasing symptoms/the exact question helps me a lot. I sometimes speak my thought process out loud then explain to myself why my thought process was wrong when I’m reviewing. It’s helped here and there when I see questions with similar reasoning/wording.
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Yeah, i have been doing that as well. or just writing out symptoms and asking myself what should I think is going on and how u differentiate your 2 top diagnoses. I make cards of myself doing that but worry I will just memorize the card and not actually pick up on the patterns
 
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cooldown said:
Thanks bro, good motivation that the good stuff remains. I am "Bad" at paassively reading FA so anki helps hunker down the info into your head .
I have done the micro deck but I should be reviewing it daily? I think maybe 25 cards a day at the beginning b.c at end of the day motivation is low to start something new however easy. Maybe if i START 25 cards of micro review in the morning, i will be motivation to keep up with the review in the evening. I have done micro deck but it's unreal how you can forget info if it is't matured and things u knew well---> you dont know them so well close to test date---> significantly low score.
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My Uworld average in in the high 50s so I am in no positive to be dishing out any advice. I think Micro is the easiest thing to use flashcards for because its linked to sketchy and most of the times u either know the buzz word or u dont.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Ok so did 2 blocks of 40 timed UW for the first time today after finishing Rx last weekend. Am I the only person that thinks UW is actually easier? My scores went way up compared to Rx. The questions are written so much better
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Yep, you are definitely right, UW is a lot easier than Amboss. I got nervous last night and tried a set of 20 questions untimed and on tutor mode and got 70% right. The questions were definitely phrased better and to the point. It got my confidence back up after getting pummeled by Amboss. I might just stick with UW from now on. I will finish it early than restart it again before my exam.
 
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DrStephenStrange said:
Yep, you are definitely right, UW is a lot easier than Amboss. I got nervous last night and tried a set of 20 questions untimed and on tutor mode and got 70% right. The questions were definitely phrased better and to the point. It got my confidence back up after getting pummeled by Amboss. I might just stick with UW from now on. I will finish it early than restart it again before my exam.
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Wait till you take NBMEs. Its a ****show. Got rocked by form 21 lol. Completely agree with u though
 
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UWorld is definitely the gold standard question bank. My percentages on UWorld are much higher than my Kaplan percentages and I feel like the questions are easier to understand. If I miss something on UWorld, it's usually because I just forgot a Zanki fact or didn't apply the concept correctly and the explanations are very clear and concise. I took NBME 20 a couple weeks ago and found the questions much more vague and/or convoluted than UWorld. My friend who took Step a couple months ago said that she thought it was harder than UWorld and that it was more similar to the new NBMEs in terms of not as many buzzwords and having to infer a lot more FWIW.
 
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GoCards05 said:
UWorld is definitely the gold standard question bank. My percentages on UWorld are much higher than my Kaplan percentages and I feel like the questions are easier to understand. If I miss something on UWorld, it's usually because I just forgot a Zanki fact or didn't apply the concept correctly and the explanations are very clear and concise. I took NBME 20 a couple weeks ago and found the questions much more vague and/or convoluted than UWorld. My friend who took Step a couple months ago said that she thought it was harder than UWorld and that it was more similar to the new NBMEs in terms of not as many buzzwords and having to infer a lot more FWIW.
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Wow that stinks its harder than UW? And similar to NBMEs? that reeallly sucks
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
I think this just depends who you talk to? Again from the 2019 thread (I really did my homework lol), most people thought it was most similar to UWorld and the Free 120.
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Yeah this was definitely just one person's opinion but I was a bit disconcerted to hear that since most people in the 2019 thread did say it was most like UWorld. My friend ended up doing really well but that was what she said when I asked her how it went so it freaked me out a little bit since I thought the NBME was harder than UWorld. She didn't do all the new NBMEs but said it would be a good idea to do as many of those as possible and while I don't think I want to do all of them anymore, I'll probably do at least 2-3 plus the UWSAs.
 
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GoCards05 said:
Yeah this was definitely just one person's opinion but I was a bit disconcerted to hear that since most people in the 2019 thread did say it was most like UWorld. My friend ended up doing really well but that was what she said when I asked her how it went so it freaked me out a little bit since I thought the NBME was harder than UWorld. She didn't do all the new NBMEs but said it would be a good idea to do as many of those as possible and while I don't think I want to do all of them anymore, I'll probably do at least 2-3 plus the UWSAs.
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Yeah that was scary to hear since my avg for UWorld so far is about a 76% timed random and I just took NBME 21 tday and scored a 215 lol
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Yeah that was scary to hear since my avg for UWorld so far is about a 76% timed random and I just took NBME 21 tday and scored a 215 lol
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We are literally the same! I got 219 on 20 a couple weeks ago as a baseline which I was happy with since it's supposed to be one of the harder ones but after hearing that I was less than thrilled since I'm banking on the real thing being more like UWorld. Again it's just her opinion and while she still scored really well she said the questions were much more NBME-like than UWorld-like and also felt there was a lot of minutiae on her form. I know they're supposedly making some changes to the type of questions starting in May so hopefully that doesn't mean even more vague minutiae for us.
 
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GoCards05 said:
We are literally the same! I got 219 on 20 a couple weeks ago as a baseline which I was happy with since it's supposed to be one of the harder ones but after hearing that I was less than thrilled since I'm banking on the real thing being more like UWorld. Again it's just her opinion and while she still scored really well she said the questions were much more NBME-like than UWorld-like and also felt there was a lot of minutiae on her form. I know they're supposedly making some changes to the type of questions starting in May so hopefully that doesn't mean even more vague minutiae for us.
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Nice! How far out from your exam are you? I take mine June 15th (covid permitting) so i am hoping I can shoot up 40 points until then lol fingers crossed. Also, do you know where I can find the amount of questions I got wrong? A lot of reddit threads talk about calculating your score based on how many questions you missed but Im confused because my NBME just gave me my score in my score report immediately afterward so not sure what they are talking about
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Nice! How far out from your exam are you? I take mine June 15th (covid permitting) so i am hoping I can shoot up 40 points until then lol fingers crossed. Also, do you know where I can find the amount of questions I got wrong? A lot of reddit threads talk about calculating your score based on how many questions you missed but Im confused because my NBME just gave me my score in my score report immediately afterward so not sure what they are talking about
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Not sure about finding how many you got wrong, but there is a spreadsheet on reddit that is a "predictor" that might be of interest.
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Nice! How far out from your exam are you? I take mine June 15th (covid permitting) so i am hoping I can shoot up 40 points until then lol fingers crossed. Also, do you know where I can find the amount of questions I got wrong? A lot of reddit threads talk about calculating your score based on how many questions you missed but Im confused because my NBME just gave me my score in my score report immediately afterward so not sure what they are talking about
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I take my exam on June 15th as well. Step on the 15th and COMLEX on the 22nd and I'm praying the prometrics are open by then! On the MyNBME homepage, click on your exam then there should be two buttons that say "view your results interactively" and "download your score report". Choose the view results button and that will take you to the assessment score page with the graph. At the top of that page there are two buttons that say "review all" and "review incorrect" and if you select review all it will let you go through all the questions to see which ones you got right and wrong. There are no explanations which isn't very helpful but you can at least see what you put and what the right answer was.
 
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GoCards05 said:
I take my exam on June 15th as well. Step on the 15th and COMLEX on the 22nd and I'm praying the prometrics are open by then! On the MyNBME homepage, click on your exam then there should be two buttons that say "view your results interactively" and "download your score report". Choose the view results button and that will take you to the assessment score page with the graph. At the top of that page there are two buttons that say "review all" and "review incorrect" and if you select review all it will let you go through all the questions to see which ones you got right and wrong. There are no explanations which isn't very helpful but you can at least see what you put and what the right answer was.
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Thanks man! Appreciate it
 
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