USMLE Official 2020 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[EMDoc22]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Since one hasn't been started, figured I'd start this for all us M2s and M3s taking Step this coming year.

DO student interested in EM. Estimated test date is mid June.

Goal is 230+ but I'd be happy with 225+.

Good luck everyone!

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Sh** just got real: scheduled in ~5 hours of content review/day between Pathoma (all of it) and B&B (weak subjects) starting tomorrow. Will have 2 full passes of Pathoma done before test day, plus will re-watch chapters 1-3 a couple of days before my exam. I also did 1 pass of Pathoma throughout the year. For some reason my Pathoma won't load any of the videos, like when I click on the chapter it just loads to a blank screen. I tried emailing them so hopefully it's fixed by tomorrow.

These next 3 weeks are are going to be crazy, but it's my fault for procrastinating and not starting my content review earlier. Just don't want to have any regrets when this is all said and done: at least this way if I do end up scoring way off my prediction, I'll know I gave it my all. I can't stand reading FA so I don't plan on touching it-- figure between UWorld, Pathoma, and all of Zanki I should have everything covered. Today sucked but this lit a fire under my a** and I'm ready to get this crap over with.

Find actually scrolling through the BnB slides isn't actually that bad. Can't stomach reading first aid either.

 

[bluelamin]

All the posts of low scores scared me into doing NBME 16 today lol. Hopefully I wont fail this one....

Just started block 4, will keep yall updated.

One thing for sure, I'm going to regret this decision since I still have 700 anki reviews to do tonight

i took nbme 16 like yesterday lol its not that bad actually

 

[ohmanwaddup]

Whelp I'm finished. haven't dived deep yet. First block felt great. 2nd block felt super hard and 3rd and 4th block felt tough but better than too. Seemed to be a decent amount of metabolism biochem and I still have like 900 zanki cards of metabolism left so the irony of tests always having a lot of my worst subject is not lost on me lol.

Ended up with the equivalent of a 200. Obviously not great but considering I got a 190 and failed NBME 15, I consider this an improvement.

I'll decide how upset I actually am after I see my percent correct.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Whelp I'm finished. haven't dived deep yet. First block felt great. 2nd block felt super hard and 3rd and 4th block felt tough but better than too. Seemed to be a decent amount of metabolism biochem and I still have like 900 zanki cards of metabolism left so the irony of tests always having a lot of my worst subject is not lost on me lol.

Ended up with the equivalent of a 200. Obviously not great but considering I got a 190 and failed NBME 15, I consider this an improvement.

I'll decide how upset I actually am after I see my percent correct.

The curve on 16 is rough. I had 80% correct and it was a 215. Nice improvement from baseline!

 

[hebrewBAMmer]

Got my score back today. Ended up with a 228. Kinda disappointing after score predictor was a 240 and UW2 was a 249 and Free 120 was 88%. Not sure what happened. Maybe the curve was harsher than I was expecting. I know 228 is still a solid score, but it somehow feels really disappointing after how much I improved (went from a 194 baseline on NBME20 to 249 on UW2). I was most likely going to be aiming for IM (with some fellowship) or Neurology anyway so my score thankfully won't eliminate me from either of those, but I'm not going to lie at how disheartening it was to get a 228. Not that I can really do anything about it anyway at this point, but I will say that it feels great to be done

 

[bluelamin]

is uw2 just not as predictive anymore?? i thought out of all exams its the best one but like now idk wats going on

 

[Deecee2DO]

Got my score back today. Ended up with a 228. Kinda disappointing after score predictor was a 240 and UW2 was a 249 and Free 120 was 88%. Not sure what happened. Maybe the curve was harsher than I was expecting. I know 228 is still a solid score, but it somehow feels really disappointing after how much I improved (went from a 194 baseline on NBME20 to 249 on UW2). I was most likely going to be aiming for IM (with some fellowship) or Neurology anyway so my score thankfully won't eliminate me from either of those, but I'm not going to lie at how disheartening it was to get a 228. Not that I can really do anything about it anyway at this point, but I will say that it feels great to be done

Congrats on being done man! Few questions for you if you dont mind:
Was 228 still in your 95%CI?
Were you doing UW on timed random?
How many qbanks did you do and did you do a lot of NBMEs?
What were your NBME scores leading up to test day?

 

[Deecee2DO]

Sh** just got real: scheduled in ~5 hours of content review/day between Pathoma (all of it) and B&B (weak subjects) starting tomorrow. Will have 2 full passes of Pathoma done before test day, plus will re-watch chapters 1-3 a couple of days before my exam. I also did 1 pass of Pathoma throughout the year. For some reason my Pathoma won't load any of the videos, like when I click on the chapter it just loads to a blank screen. I tried emailing them so hopefully it's fixed by tomorrow.

These next 3 weeks are are going to be crazy, but it's my fault for procrastinating and not starting my content review earlier. Just don't want to have any regrets when this is all said and done: at least this way if I do end up scoring way off my prediction, I'll know I gave it my all. I can't stand reading FA so I don't plan on touching it-- figure between UWorld, Pathoma, and all of Zanki I should have everything covered. Today sucked but this lit a fire under my a** and I'm ready to get this crap over with.

Was thinking to save you your sanity lol just sticking to your weaknesses on Pathoma may save you more time and less stress. If you know a topic I wouldnt watch it. Maybe look at your UW percentiles and what the lowest topics are do those first then as you go through Pathoma skip your strongest subjects. Im doing the same as you rewatching Pathoma chapters 1-3 but im only watching my weak topics

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Was thinking to save you your sanity lol just sticking to your weaknesses on Pathoma may save you more time and less stress. If you know a topic I wouldnt watch it. Maybe look at your UW percentiles and what the lowest topics are do those first then as you go through Pathoma skip your strongest subjects. Im doing the same as you rewatching Pathoma chapters 1-3 but im only watching my weak topics

I likely will end up skipping portions of videos if I'm watching it and feel like I know everything already. But I definitely feel like I would benefit from an overview of everything to refresh my brain! But we'll see how it goes and if it becomes too much I'll cut back.

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Got my score back today. Ended up with a 228. Kinda disappointing after score predictor was a 240 and UW2 was a 249 and Free 120 was 88%. Not sure what happened. Maybe the curve was harsher than I was expecting. I know 228 is still a solid score, but it somehow feels really disappointing after how much I improved (went from a 194 baseline on NBME20 to 249 on UW2). I was most likely going to be aiming for IM (with some fellowship) or Neurology anyway so my score thankfully won't eliminate me from either of those, but I'm not going to lie at how disheartening it was to get a 228. Not that I can really do anything about it anyway at this point, but I will say that it feels great to be done

What was your other NBME scores and uworld percent?

 

[hebrewBAMmer]

is uw2 just not as predictive anymore?? i thought out of all exams its the best one but like now idk wats going on

Imho, the exam felt like 7 blocks of UW but had the curve of the NBMEs lol. For some people it clearly predicted, but a lot of us seemed to have a big drop. Interestingly, I know I got nearly every pharm question right cause it was legit all from sketchy, and my score report listed pharm as "same" rather than "higher" so maybe it was curved more harshy, but idk. It's all guesses at this point.

Congrats on being done man! Few questions for you if you dont mind:
Was 228 still in your 95%CI?
Were you doing UW on timed random?
How many qbanks did you do and did you do a lot of NBMEs?
What were your NBME scores leading up to test day?

228 was still in my 95% CI (my CI was 220-260 though so almost any score I would have gotten fell in that range).

I did UW on timed random, yes. I started with tutor mode but ended up switching to timed, random to start simulating the exam style more.

I did all of UW, and then did a little bit of amboss with time left. Only did 1 pass of UW (72% first pass). Started a second pass of the incorrects but those blocks were averaging 85-90% so I figured I knew my incorrects pretty well by that point. I then did some amboss questions which went fine (didn't do that many cause it was getting close to my exam)

NBMEs I did 16 (230), 21 (205), and 24 (215). I decided to stop paying $60 cause I felt it was ridiculous how much money I was paying to not get answer explanations and that the real exam was way closer to UW question details than the NBMEs. For what it's worth, I had one question from NBME 24 word-for-word on my exam (which I know I got right because I was complaining to people how stupid the answer choice was on the NBME).

My exam was really heavy on sketchy micro/pharm, and biochem. I knew all the biochem in pixorize which helped, but there was a respectable amount of it not covered in pixorize. If I had to redo it knowing what I do now, might have spent some more time in biochem, but legitimately my entire score report had nearly every subject performance listed as "same" instead of "higher" or "lower". That to me seemed to say I knew pretty much everything in respectable detail but nothing in an insanely detailed amount lol

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

And then you have people like this....

--

I am absolutely 100% baffled in a good way and fairly convinced they switched my score with someone else's. Was fully preparing myself for passing-but-low, hoping for 230s.

Free 120: 76.7%

UWSA1: 230

UWSA2: 234

NBME 15: 219

NBME16: 234

NBME 17: 219

NBME 18: 226

UWorld first pass 63.4%

Score predictor: 238 (CI 229-247)


Actual: 251 ??!?

--

I have no idea what to think anymore, throwing all my thoughts out the window. May the odds be in your favor fam, definitely not changing my original 230 goal at this point as it seems so random

hello, this was me. 100% an outlier and while I still have no idea how it happened, the exam I got definitely played more to my strengths than the NBMEs I took, which didn't resemble my exam in the slightest. Way less heavy on weird biochem (which is one of my major weaknesses), way more long ass question stems, and some of the low yield stuff played to my obscure knowledge (literally got a question that was basically mosquito species identification)

I should probably go back to that reddit post and add dates to all those exams, since my dedicated period got totally interrupted by quarantine and those UWorlds (which were the most similar to the test I got) were taken early in studying like, 2 months before my exam. I think if I had taken them the week before or so I would have scored significantly higher and the prediction would have made more sense. I also was too cheap to spend money on NBMEs and mostly did the free ones - I'm curious now if the paid ones would have been better predictors. While we're at it, might as well also note that my UWorld blocks by the end were generally averaging higher than that 63, but after several thousand questions there's only so much you can raise your average score.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

hello, this was me. 100% an outlier and while I still have no idea how it happened, the exam I got definitely played more to my strengths than the NBMEs I took, which didn't resemble my exam in the slightest. Way less heavy on weird biochem (which is one of my major weaknesses), way more long ass question stems, and some of the low yield stuff played to my obscure knowledge (literally got a question that was basically mosquito species identification)

I should probably go back to that reddit post and add dates to all those exams, since my dedicated period got totally interrupted by quarantine and those UWorlds (which were the most similar to the test I got) were taken early in studying like, 2 months before my exam. I think if I had taken them the week before or so I would have scored significantly higher and the prediction would have made more sense. I also was too cheap to spend money on NBMEs and mostly did the free ones - I'm curious now if the paid ones would have been better predictors. While we're at it, might as well also note that my UWorld blocks by the end were generally averaging higher than that 63, but after several thousand questions there's only so much you can raise your average score.

Hey, solid performance! Congrats and thanks for sharing more details.

 

[hebrewBAMmer]

So just to express myself here cause I feel like I need an outlet to, I've begun to look at my 228 score as less of a "I didn't do great" and more of a "I did well enough to keep myself competitive for the fields I'm interested in." I'm not going to lie.... it's hard to look past the disappointment of the score predictor, but really I should be counting this as a win that I didn't knock myself out of what I'm actually interested in. Best of luck to everyone here!

 

[CyrusHabs7695]

So just to express myself here cause I feel like I need an outlet to, I've begun to look at my 228 score as less of a "I didn't do great" and more of a "I did well enough to keep myself competitive for the fields I'm interested in." I'm not going to lie.... it's hard to look past the disappointment of the score predictor, but really I should be counting this as a win that I didn't knock myself out of what I'm actually interested in. Best of luck to everyone here!

Hey as long as you put it the most amount of work you could during dedicated, then there's nothing to be ashamed of. Congrats on being done and don't look back!!!

 

[Deecee2DO]

Was wondering what yall's opinion is on taking NBME 23 four weeks out instead of UWSA1. UWSA1 will allow me to learn new info from UW but considerably less predictive. I have so much less faith in the UW assessments now that I am leaning more toward NBMEs to help me keep a good gauge that i will be 99.9% confident I will end up with at the very least a 240 which I assume will have to be high 240s and 250s on the NBMEs right before my exam to be really sure

 

[calivianya]

All these people with either crazy above or crazy below their predictions have got me nervous.

I’ve still got time, but my UWorld blocks are a hot mess - in the past two weeks I’ve been mostly 60-70s, but I have three blocks >85% and three blocks <50%, too. So the stuff I know I know well, and the stuff I don’t know, I really don’t have a single clue. I’m usually a good test taker so if I have somewhat of an idea what’s going on I usually get the question right, but I still have major content gaps and it’s terrifying.

Literally got 40 question random blocks back to back that were a 90% and a 55% this week.

I feel like if I don’t drastically improve my weaknesses, my actual test could be entirely made of stuff I don’t know. All of a sudden it doesn’t feel like the test is long enough to be fair.

 

[hebrewBAMmer]

Hey as long as you put it the most amount of work you could during dedicated, then there's nothing to be ashamed of. Congrats on being done and don't look back!!!

I definitely put in a ton of work during dedicated (was doing around ~1200 flashcards/day + UW blocks), and based on my late practice scores of UW2 and Free120, truly did feel ready and felt like I couldn't have studied more. Shame it didn't work out better, but I did enough to not hurt my chances for my fields of interest, and as an average/somewhat below average med student, I really shouldn't complain too much

 

[ohmanwaddup]

alright did the math. 75% correct on NBME 16 = 200. What a wild curve lol. Happy with that percent correct and a 5% increase in the number correct makes me happy to. Might do the first Uworld assessment next week we will see.

 

[EMDoc22]

I never thought I'd see the day where UWorld seems to be losing some of it's predictive value. 2020 really has been wild.

Also, is it not weird that people who tested as recently as May 23 got their scores today? That's not even 2 weeks when it normally takes at least 3. Not saying that has anything to do with the scores but I just don't recall them ever doing that.

 

[Deecee2DO]

I definitely put in a ton of work during dedicated (was doing around ~1200 flashcards/day + UW blocks), and based on my late practice scores of UW2 and Free120, truly did feel ready and felt like I couldn't have studied more. Shame it didn't work out better, but I did enough to not hurt my chances for my fields of interest, and as an average/somewhat below average med student, I really shouldn't complain too much

Thats awesome you are done man! Congrats on getting through the trenches. If you don't mind sharing and if you remember roughly how many practice questions did you do? Did you do multiple banks?

 

[calivianya]

I never thought I'd see the day where UWorld seems to be losing some of it's predictive value. 2020 really has been wild.

Also, is it not weird that people who tested as recently as May 23 got their scores today? That's not even 2 weeks when it normally takes at least 3. Not saying that has anything to do with the scores but I just don't recall them ever doing that.

It’s got to be because of the social distancing, right? I know the prometric centers near me are talking about leaving every other seat empty, which I’m sure all of the prometric centers are doing now. If those centers were usually full before with the same proportion of med students, it’s possible that only half of the normal volume of people are taking step 1 on any given day.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

So just to express myself here cause I feel like I need an outlet to, I've begun to look at my 228 score as less of a "I didn't do great" and more of a "I did well enough to keep myself competitive for the fields I'm interested in." I'm not going to lie.... it's hard to look past the disappointment of the score predictor, but really I should be counting this as a win that I didn't knock myself out of what I'm actually interested in. Best of luck to everyone here!

Love this mindset. Enjoy your freedom!

All these people with either crazy above or crazy below their predictions have got me nervous.

I’ve still got time, but my UWorld blocks are a hot mess - in the past two weeks I’ve been mostly 60-70s, but I have three blocks >85% and three blocks <50%, too. So the stuff I know I know well, and the stuff I don’t know, I really don’t have a single clue. I’m usually a good test taker so if I have somewhat of an idea what’s going on I usually get the question right, but I still have major content gaps and it’s terrifying.

Literally got 40 question random blocks back to back that were a 90% and a 55% this week.

I feel like if I don’t drastically improve my weaknesses, my actual test could be entirely made of stuff I don’t know. All of a sudden it doesn’t feel like the test is long enough to be fair.

This 1000%. This is my worst fear. I was getting in the 80s throughout the last few days, then today I dropped a 60% (my lowest score ever, only ever had one other block with this score) and then a 67% after. Lots of stupid mistakes too, my head just wasn't in the game. I'm terrified that this will happen to me on test day.

I never thought I'd see the day where UWorld seems to be losing some of it's predictive value. 2020 really has been wild.

Also, is it not weird that people who tested as recently as May 23 got their scores today? That's not even 2 weeks when it normally takes at least 3. Not saying that has anything to do with the scores but I just don't recall them ever doing that.

People were suspecting on Reddit that it may be since there are less people testing due to social distancing and what not.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Was wondering what yall's opinion is on taking NBME 23 four weeks out instead of UWSA1. UWSA1 will allow me to learn new info from UW but considerably less predictive. I have so much less faith in the UW assessments now that I am leaning more toward NBMEs to help me keep a good gauge that i will be 99.9% confident I will end up with at the very least a 240 which I assume will have to be high 240s and 250s on the NBMEs right before my exam to be really sure

I would get UWSA1 out of the way sooner rather than later. The later you take it the more it'll over predict. I always heard that if you take it way before your exam, it can be predictive of where you'll end up after dedicated. Obviously now I feel confident in nothing related to the predictive power of anything lol, but I think I would still get it over with and save the NBME for your next one.

 

[Deecee2DO]

Looking back at the score predictor, am I an idiot in thinking that taking out my baseline NBME score and calculating my new prediction without it (huge outlier) is more predictive? I took my baseline in early march which is like 25-35 points lower than my scores in the past 3 months. If i take it out my predicted average score skyrockets even my bottom 95% CI moves up like 10 points. I feel like that outlier brings me down a lot since the rest of my scores/NBMEs since then have been astronomically higher and its been almost 4 months since I took my baseline NBME

 

[Deecee2DO]

I would get UWSA1 out of the way sooner rather than later. The later you take it the more it'll over predict. I always heard that if you take it way before your exam, it can be predictive of where you'll end up after dedicated. Obviously now I feel confident in nothing related to the predictive power of anything lol, but I think I would still get it over with and save the NBME for your next one.

Was thinking of doing it four weeks out but maybe I'll just do it next weekend and then 22 the weekend after. UWSA1 5 weeks out may predict me a little better. I hate that UWSA seem like they are starting to have less predictive value its scary

 

[calivianya]

This 1000%. This is my worst fear. I was getting in the 80s throughout the last few days, then today I dropped a 60% (my lowest score ever, only ever had one other block with this score) and then a 67% after. Lots of stupid mistakes too, my head just wasn't in the game. I'm terrified that this will happen to me on test day.

I have adopted a new strategy to hopefully address the head in the game problem. You’re probably going to laugh, but I’m a Peloton user and they have a meditation section, and I’ve started doing five minute meditations between question blocks to clear my head and calm myself down.

I am fully planning on taking every single break and doing a meditation in between each section of step 1, too, to hopefully prevent burnout.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Looking back at the score predictor, am I an idiot in thinking that taking out my baseline NBME score and calculating my new prediction without it (huge outlier) is more predictive? I took my baseline in early march which is like 25-35 points lower than my scores in the past 3 months. If i take it out my predicted average score skyrockets even my bottom 95% CI moves up like 10 points. I feel like that outlier brings me down a lot since the rest of my scores/NBMEs since then have been astronomically higher and its been almost 4 months since I took my baseline NBME

Not crazy, I've seen recommendations from people to do this if you have a crazy outlier for a solid reason (like yours).

 

[hebrewBAMmer]

Thats awesome you are done man! Congrats on getting through the trenches. If you don't mind sharing and if you remember roughly how many practice questions did you do? Did you do multiple banks?

Thank you very much! So I did some Rx throughout M2 but didn't really follow any set pattern on it. I did all the UW questions (~3000) and maybe about 40 or so amboss questions. That might be on the lower end of what some people do, but there's only so many ways one can ask about things like cystic fibrosis uniquely, so I felt like doing all of UW gave me enough ability to understand what's relevant in a question and what's useless

 

[Type2Fiber]

Was wondering what yall's opinion is on taking NBME 23 four weeks out instead of UWSA1. UWSA1 will allow me to learn new info from UW but considerably less predictive. I have so much less faith in the UW assessments now that I am leaning more toward NBMEs to help me keep a good gauge that i will be 99.9% confident I will end up with at the very least a 240 which I assume will have to be high 240s and 250s on the NBMEs right before my exam to be really sure

UWSA1 still feels fairly similar to the actual thing, the main thing about it is the curve, not the difficulty of the questions. I wouldn't put off doing it, you will learn more from UWSA1 than any NBME regardless of the predictive value of the score you get. You can easily do both in a 4 week time frame

 

[calivianya]

UWSA1 still feels fairly similar to the actual thing, the main thing about it is the curve, not the difficulty of the questions. I wouldn't put off doing it, you will learn more from UWSA1 than any NBME regardless of the predictive value of the score you get. You can easily do both in a 4 week time frame

Thanks for saying this. I was planning on only doing NBMEs and then UWSA2 since I still have a lot of Doctors in Training to finish and UWSA2 was supposed to be more predictive than UWSA1, but I think I will swap out one of the NBMEs for UWSA1 now.

 

[stickgirl390]

Y’all, don’t forget that the National average is 230/235, not the 250s that you see all over SDN. If you pass Step 1 on your first try, you deserve an entire cake all to yourself. Celebrate that accomplishment! Every point over 194 is written proof of your hard work and dedication.

And above all, remember that you are not a number. Your application is more than that, and YOU are more than that!

 

[ohmanwaddup]

anyone else torn by a desire a protest and show solidarity, but also have an ungodly amount of anki reviews everyday?

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Thanks for saying this. I was planning on only doing NBMEs and then UWSA2 since I still have a lot of Doctors in Training to finish and UWSA2 was supposed to be more predictive than UWSA1, but I think I will swap out one of the NBMEs for UWSA1 now.

Definitely UWSAs + Free 120 >>> any NBME.

 

[maieutic]

Does azathioprine inhibit the purine salvage pathway? UWorld mentions this in some question (ID: 15364), but based on the picture it seems like it should inhibit only the de novo pathway. Google mentions the de novo pathway as well.

 

[CyrusHabs7695]

For years now the UW assessments, Qbank and Free 120 have been the most predictive/reliable, I wouldn't let a few outliers on one day of reddit posting change all of that

 

[Deecee2DO]

Does azathioprine inhibit the purine salvage pathway? UWorld mentions this in some question (ID: 15364), but based on the picture it seems like it should inhibit only the de novo pathway. Google mentions the de novo pathway as well.

Amazing question. It blocks both but immune cells are most drastically affected by de novo so in its utility as a chemo drug and for autoimmune the de novo inhibition is whats really making the largest impact immunologically

 

[iforget2]

For years now the UW assessments, Qbank and Free 120 have been the most predictive/reliable, I wouldn't let a few outliers on one day of reddit posting change all of that

I agree. If they had implemented the changes with the higher proportion of ethics questions and the changes in pharmacology I could see it affecting the predictability of Free 120 and UWSAs, but this is not yet the case.

 

[Deecee2DO]

Don't let anyone tell you Kaplan is harder than UW. Its not lol UW requires so much more thinking its insane. Actually regressed on UW having spent so much time on kaplan the past 5 weeks fml

 

[CyrusHabs7695]

2 weeks out, grind is real. got 20% of uworld left, uw2, free120, lets get it

 

[maieutic]

Amazing question. It blocks both but immune cells are most drastically affected by de novo so in its utility as a chemo drug and for autoimmune the de novo inhibition is whats really making the largest impact immunologically

Yeah the lymphocyte effects I understood. The distinction they've made is that mycophenolate inhibits the de novo pathway only, so its relatively specific for lymphocytes since other hematopoeitic stem cells can bypass the blockade via the salvage pathway.

Then for azathioprine they specifically say that it blocks both the de novo and the salvage pathways, which means it suppresses non-lymphocyte hematopoeitic stem cells more or less equally. The mechanism picture they have doesn't show this, so I googled to understand how. Everywhere I've checked, azathioprine is described as inhibiting the de novo pathway only. Maybe suppression of other cell lines is due to 6-thioguanine metabolites inhibiting DNA/RNA synthesis by acting as false nucleotides, but this still doesn't explain why UW says azathioprine inhibits the salvage pathway.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

Yeah the lymphocyte effects I understood. The distinction they've made is that mycophenolate inhibits the de novo pathway only, so its relatively specific for lymphocytes since other hematopoeitic stem cells can bypass the blockade via the salvage pathway.

Then for azathioprine they specifically say that it blocks both the de novo and the salvage pathways, which means it suppresses non-lymphocyte hematopoeitic stem cells more or less equally. The mechanism picture they have doesn't show this, so I googled to understand how. Everywhere I've checked, azathioprine is described as inhibiting the de novo pathway only. Maybe suppression of other cell lines is due to 6-thioguanine metabolites inhibiting DNA/RNA synthesis by acting as false nucleotides, but this still doesn't explain why UW says azathioprine inhibits the salvage pathway.

These drugs are the bane of my existence. I can never keep them straight

 

[CyrusHabs7695]

These drugs are the bane of my existence. I can never keep them straight

haha that one jack** riding in with the balloons on the right side of the drawing

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

Honestly what a joke this is. 3rd NBME (22) today and 238. Thought the 1st and 3rd section was crazy hard. All my NBMEs are around ~240. I just want to get up that hump and travel upward to the 240s.

 

[ohmanwaddup]

Honestly what a joke this is. 3rd NBME (22) today and 238. Thought the 1st and 3rd section was crazy hard. All my NBMEs are around ~240. I just want to get up that hump and travel upward to the 240s.

I'd recommend going through and seeing what your percentage is. Gave me a bit more confidence when it came to my scores so far.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

When you have 4 correct-to-incorrect changes on a UWorld block

Also as a side note why is UWorld so obsessed with Turner's syndrome I feel like I've done 50 questions on it alone

 

[Deecee2DO]

Honestly what a joke this is. 3rd NBME (22) today and 238. Thought the 1st and 3rd section was crazy hard. All my NBMEs are around ~240. I just want to get up that hump and travel upward to the 240s.

My goal as well! Its a hard hump to break since many of the questions we are missing are testing on crap that you can barely find anywhere and it comes down to testing strategy/picking the correct answer when you don't know. What is your UW percentage?

 

[SuaveCardigans]

When you have 4 correct-to-incorrect changes on a UWorld block

Also as a side note why is UWorld so obsessed with Turner's syndrome I feel like I've done 50 questions on it alone

I knew so effing much about Turner syndrome, and it ended up being complete overkill for the 1 question about it on my exam

 

[Thesimplelifeofamyloid]

My goal as well! Its a hard hump to break since many of the questions we are missing are testing on crap that you can barely find anywhere and it comes down to testing strategy/picking the correct answer when you don't know. What is your UW percentage?

Finished with 80% (88 percentile). UWSA1 254. About a month to go. These scores are making feel like I've been sitting here with cotton in my ears for the last month. That's exactly my same problem. I'm starting to think the only people that got 250+ on these were the ones that did all of the NBMEs beforehand and saw the repeats. It's always just random things

 

[Deecee2DO]

Finished with 80% (88 percentile). UWSA1 254. About a month to go. These scores are making feel like I've been sitting here with cotton in my ears for the last month. That's exactly my same problem. I'm starting to think the only people that got 250+ on these were the ones that did all of the NBMEs beforehand and saw the repeats. It's always just random things

Dude i know! looking back on ones i got wrong on 24 the majority questions i got wrong were like whats this completely obscure mutation that no one knows about that isnt on google FA pathoma BnB or UWorld or any of the other banks ive done lmao. Whoevers getting consistent 250+ on the new NBMEs then damn they must have a PhD in molecular or looking stuff up. Many of the older forms are also easier than new so its easer to get 250+