USMLE Official 2021 Step 2 CK Experiences With Scores Thread

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EMDoc22

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All right y'all, let's get this party started. Here's to a smooth sailing third year, no Prometric drama with Step 2, in-person aways and interviews, and no CS/hopefully PE.

School: bone wizard

Step 1: mid 230s
Level 1: mid 570s

Step 2 goal: 250+
Level 2 goal: 600+

Interests: EM, OB/GYN (distant second)

Rotations (in order): Peds, IM, FM, Psych, Neuro, Surgery, EM, OB/GYN and then several electives mixed in

Resources: UWorld, Online MedEd, Tzanki deck since it's shorter and the Step 1 decks burned me out, might check out B&B for Step 2 when it comes out since Dr. Ryan saved my butt on Step 1

My rotations go until the end of June and unfortunately my schedule is pretty backloaded with my final 3 rotations being EM, OB and ICU so I guess that means I'll be taking Step 2 in early July. Obviously I'm not sure how auditions/aways will be playing out next summer and if PE will be a thing so a lot up in the air right now in terms of scheduling. My school does COMATs for our shelf exams but I don't plan on using any DO-specific resources for COMATs or Level 2 as I've heard UWorld is all you need.
 
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I've been trying to do one UWorld block per day but not sure if that's going to be sustainable. I have IM next and all of our rotations are only 4 weeks long so there's no way I'm going to get all of the questions and cards done before my shelf. I'm thinking of transitioning to 25 questions per day on weekdays and one block of questions per day on the weekends since I'm just plain exhausted when I get home at the end of the day.
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
lol its official, step 1 broke me. Struggling to get through 300 dorian reviews, during step I would get through 2000 plus no problem. I'm done studying all day, until maybe my IM rotation. Now I'm lucky to get 6 hours of studying a day on the weekend.
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Dude hearddddd that! Step 1 absolutely destroyed me. Its going to take months to recuperate and get my desire to study back. Going hard for months even years for one exam broke me down so much. I can barely study for 15 mins. i literally went from taking Step 1 to going straight into surgery 3 days later then taking comlex several days ago and now studying for a shelf exam. Never been so burned out in my entire life
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
This seems like a lot lol. I've literally just been doing Dorian + OME, it takes maybe 2 hours a day if that.
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It probably is to much, Feel like after months of sunup to sundown it feels stressful to not study every waking moment. I do gotta spend some extra time though cause I put off all the aquifer cases.
 
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Surg shelf on Thurs. I feel unprepared af lol the comquest questions are mad hard and sort of freaking me out. Any advice for approaching management questions? Getting them all wrong. By weds ill have watched all of the OME vids and have done all the surg comquest questions but thats all ive done. Im always the one to be prepared but this one idk lol im just still fried from boards so I started studying like a few days ago
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
@fldoctorgirl sorry to keep asking you questions, but how was the OMM on the family med COMAT
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There was none. They occasionally put OMM findings in a stem but I just ignored it. Had nothing to do with any of the questions or answers. From my understanding all the COMATs are this way or have no more than 1-2 OMM questions.
 
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I just realized it might be 2021 before I take my first COMAT. My clinical site scheduled me IM 1, Peds 1, FM 1, Psych (12/07-01/01), IM 2, Peds 2, FM 2, GS 1, OB, and GS 2. Since we don’t take any COMATs until after the second rotation if there are two, psych’s gonna be my first COMAT If my schedule doesn’t get changed again and it may not be until January since I finish my psych rotation January 1st.

This means all of my COMATs are going to be graded harsher, right, since they’re all at least halfway through the year? I think I remember reading that was a thing somewhere.
 
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calivianya said:
This means all of my COMATs are going to be graded harsher, right, since they’re all at least halfway through the year? I think I remember reading that was a thing somewhere.
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My understanding is the COMAT’s are graded on a scale based on your testing cohort
 
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calivianya said:
I just realized it might be 2021 before I take my first COMAT. My clinical site scheduled me IM 1, Peds 1, FM 1, Psych (12/07-01/01), IM 2, Peds 2, FM 2, GS 1, OB, and GS 2. Since we don’t take any COMATs until after the second rotation if there are two, psych’s gonna be my first COMAT If my schedule doesn’t get changed again and it may not be until January since I finish my psych rotation January 1st.

This means all of my COMATs are going to be graded harsher, right, since they’re all at least halfway through the year? I think I remember reading that was a thing somewhere.
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Are all these month long rotations? If so why do you have 2 of each. The only one that is 8 weeks for me is IM. Other than that I take a COMAT at the end of 4 weeks for the others.
 
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DrStephenStrange said:
Are all these month long rotations? If so why do you have 2 of each. The only that is 8 weeks for me is IM. Other than that I take a COMAT at the end of 4 weeks for the others.
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Each school does something differently. Seems like her school does 2 months of each core and then no elective time.
 
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AnatomyGrey12 said:
My understanding is the COMAT’s are graded on a scale based on your testing cohort
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Thank you! Would have been nice to have had one early, then.

DrStephenStrange said:
Are all these month long rotations? If so why do you have 2 of each. The only one that is 8 weeks for me is IM. Other than that I take a COMAT at the end of 4 weeks for the others.
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Nice schedule! I know I don’t want peds or FM so I would have been really happy with four weeks of each of those instead of eight. Surgery’s something I’m curious to see if I’ll like so I don’t mind eight weeks of that. I get that I have time to study more for my COMATs but I definitely would have happily traded that time for an elective or two in third year.
 
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Wrapping up my current rotation (online) but will have surgery in person in a few weeks. Any advice on how to survive?? Is it as bad as everyone says it is?
 
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GoCards05 said:
Lmao you guys I got a 132 on the peds COMAT and I honestly have no idea how that happened. I marked at least 50 questions and guessed blindly on at least 30 of them.
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lol I didnt even know you could get that high. I thought the highest score was a 128
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
lol I didnt even know you could get that high. I thought the highest score was a 128
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Yeah I have no idea what the actual scale is since the NBOME doesn't release that information. I mean I'll gladly take it but they had to have dropped a bunch of questions because I marked at least 50 questions on that exam.
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
Asked my family med doc for a letter of rec today and he said yes. I think I'm just going to ask all my preceptors for one. Worst they can do is say no and then I'll potentially have a surplus of letter
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Ive always wondered whats better volume or quality. More people you ask more youll have in the bank which is a pro but then could risk quality. If youre too picky for quality you may come up short
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Ive always wondered whats better volume or quality. More people you ask more youll have in the bank which is a pro but then could risk quality. If youre too picky for quality you may come up short
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I don't think I'm going to waive viewing them. That way I can pick and choose
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
Ugh, what trash. So much for that plan
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You can still collect them and based off your interactions with them throughout the rotation or even just based on their reaction to you asking for a letter you can pick and choose which ones you'd want to keep.
 
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Do you guys think for IM comat 40 questions per day is overkill or doable (its a 4 week rotation so 24 days until my comat). My days are gonna be pretty long (12ish hrs per day) but theres some down time during the day apparently. I was thinking 20 comquest 20 UWorld. There are 1500 IM UWorld questions which means I would need to do like 60+ questions per day to finish all of them and I feel like that may be a recipe for burnout/disaster
 
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Deecee2DO said:
Do you guys think for IM comat 40 questions per day is overkill or doable (its a 4 week rotation so 24 days until my comat). My days are gonna be pretty long (12ish hrs per day) but theres some down time during the day apparently. I was thinking 20 comquest 20 UWorld. There are 1500 IM UWorld questions which means I would need to do like 60+ questions per day to finish all of them and I feel like that may be a recipe for burnout/disaster
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have not done IM but I was pulling 10+ hours a day in FM and was usually able to do only 40 a day.
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
Family Med COMAT felt super tough ngl. Almost rant out of time on it which is a first for me when it comes to standardized exams.
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Dude comats suck lmao they make the exam knowing its gonna be hard af and everyone just rides the curve lol waste of an entire day
 
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Welp fam it was probably inevitable but I'm very likely COVID+ (official results still pending but I had direct contact with a confirmed positive person last week and have some minor symptoms). I'm on a 2 week quarantine now through the end of next week and am missing 2/4 weeks of my IM rotation. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some online stuff at home and then finish out in-person with no make up time needed but we will see. I guess the bright side is that I'm getting this out of the way sooner rather than later and won't have to miss any time on the rotations in specialities I'm actually interested in next semester.
 
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GoCards05 said:
Welp fam it was probably inevitable but I'm very likely COVID+ (official results still pending but I had direct contact with a confirmed positive person last week and have some minor symptoms). I'm on a 2 week quarantine now through the end of next week and am missing 2/4 weeks of my IM rotation. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some online stuff at home and then finish out in-person with no make up time needed but we will see. I guess the bright side is that I'm getting this out of the way sooner rather than later and won't have to miss any time on the rotations in specialities I'm actually interested in next semester.
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I'm sorry, that stinks. Hope you don't feel too crappy!
 
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GoCards05 said:
Welp fam it was probably inevitable but I'm very likely COVID+ (official results still pending but I had direct contact with a confirmed positive person last week and have some minor symptoms). I'm on a 2 week quarantine now through the end of next week and am missing 2/4 weeks of my IM rotation. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some online stuff at home and then finish out in-person with no make up time needed but we will see. I guess the bright side is that I'm getting this out of the way sooner rather than later and won't have to miss any time on the rotations in specialities I'm actually interested in next semester.
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Wow, sorry to hear that. I hope it's not too bad and you get over it soon.
 
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Does anyone have any info on wether having Step 2CK scores after 21st would be pushing it? Let's say in the situation that someone has a good Step 1 score, how late after October 21 to you think we can push it. My reason is that I'm going to be studying during rotations for it, but would feel much more comfortable if I had some time off to focus on it.
 
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GoCards05 said:
Welp fam it was probably inevitable but I'm very likely COVID+ (official results still pending but I had direct contact with a confirmed positive person last week and have some minor symptoms). I'm on a 2 week quarantine now through the end of next week and am missing 2/4 weeks of my IM rotation. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some online stuff at home and then finish out in-person with no make up time needed but we will see. I guess the bright side is that I'm getting this out of the way sooner rather than later and won't have to miss any time on the rotations in specialities I'm actually interested in next semester.
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Damn bro! Im sorry to hear that. Feel better my homie
 
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GoCards05 said:
Welp fam it was probably inevitable but I'm very likely COVID+ (official results still pending but I had direct contact with a confirmed positive person last week and have some minor symptoms). I'm on a 2 week quarantine now through the end of next week and am missing 2/4 weeks of my IM rotation. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some online stuff at home and then finish out in-person with no make up time needed but we will see. I guess the bright side is that I'm getting this out of the way sooner rather than later and won't have to miss any time on the rotations in specialities I'm actually interested in next semester.
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That sucks. Take it easy and rest up! Hopefully you don’t have to make the time up - my school came up with an online research module, of all things, for if we have to miss a rotation - since we already have canvas stuff that we have to do for our rotations even if we do them in person. Maybe at worst you’ll just have extra things on canvas.
 
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Anyone using the Brosencephalon step 2 deck or heard anything about it? Im using it now and its not closed deletions it gives you a lot of charts which im not a huge fan of because I spend too much time on one card. What are yalls recommendation
 
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Y'all the misinformation I see on social media about COVID is truly destroying me soul. I should probably just delete my facebook, but the memes get me through my day
 
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ohmanwaddup said:
Y'all the misinformation I see on social media about COVID is truly destroying me soul. I should probably just delete my facebook, but the memes get me through my day
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I deactivated my Facebook account back in June, and it was the best decision I ever made for my mental health lol. I don't think I will go back anytime soon.
 
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Anyone paying attention to the sh** show regarding PE? Kinda wondering if I should schedule my date from now since it seems all of c/o 2021 is going to be insanely backlogged.
 
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fldoctorgirl said:
Anyone paying attention to the sh** show regarding PE? Kinda wondering if I should schedule my date from now since it seems all of c/o 2021 is going to be insanely backlogged.
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My school's timeline for third and fourth year said we should register for PE in September of third year. I feel like there's no way the NBOME is going to be able to restart in November and I really don't want to flush $1300 down the drain but I feel like I should just bite the bullet and register for this **** show next month so I have a date. I hope that somehow the NBOME will return to reality and realize the PE needs to be suspended for a while like the NBME did but I'm not holding my breath.
 
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