OMGosh, is the CBSE or UW more like Step 1?

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sebsvenmdc

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So, people, my school gave us the CBSE this week. It was pretty darn hard. Most people felt really rushed. And most of us were wondering, "Are you serious?!" The exam just seemed like a very different beast from the format of UW and Kaplan Qbank MAINLY because the question stems on the CBSE were so freaking long! The CBSE did have maybe 20-30% questions of comparable length. But there were at least half that were insanely long...like 5 times the UW length.

The CBSE (Comprehensive Basice Science Exam) is a paper exam with 200 questions in 4 hours. Apparently, these questions are retired step 1 questions.

I think it's very important for all of us on here to know what is the most similar form and format of the actual Step 1 questions. So, is it this CBSE? Or does the current Step 1 resemble UW more? How do the NBME forms compare to the Step 1 and CBSE?

Also, what's a better predictor of performance on the step 1: CBSE or UW?
(Assuming that UW questions are done randomly, all questions, etc)

I appreciate any feedback - ESPECIALLY from Step 1 test takers that have done this exam!
 
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Ok, so 79 views, and no replies...nice, glad we're all getting a lot of feedback about this...

Come on guys, it's in EVERYONE'S BEST INTEREST to know which testing resource is the most like the actual Step 1.
 
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From what I've heard the UW questions are modeled after the harder questions on the real Step I so that wouldn't be an accurate representation of the range of difficulty on the exam.

As for the CBSE, I don't know cause my school didn't have it. But I heard the best tool to simulate the actual exam questions are the NBME self-assessments. So if you're curious about what the real thing is like, take one of those.
 
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I mean it depends. We also took a practice exam and there was def. material we have not covered yet, it also depends if you started studying yet (how much you will recognize). If you have not prepared I wouldn't sweat it too much (you cannot answer ques to stuff you havent reviewed) see how you do on an exam after some studying🙂
 
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I've been studying some since January...not insanely hard because I'm in the middle of a semester. There was stuff on there that I knew, most of it didn't seem impossible, I was just blown away by the discrepancy between the length of question stems on that exam and UW. Since that exam, I've been finishing UW and Kaplan question sets with time left over! I probably need to take one of those NBMEs for an accurate assessment.

Are the question stems of NBMEs much longer than UW and Kaplan?
 
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I agree, I felt the same way. However, NBME 4 I took last week was short and simple. I finished sections with like 10 mins left. We need someone who's taken the real deal let us know. Just saying it's like Uworld is ambiguous to me. Which part of world is like the real thing-concepts, exact questions, question length?
 
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I took NBME 6 and thought the stems were alot shorter than the ones in Uworld. People that I know who took the actual Step also said the questions were either of similar length or shorter than the Uworld quetions.
 
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Interesting responses, guys.

Another student just told me that the NBME is apparently trying to reduce the length of the question stems. I'm not sure by how much and how that would compare to UW/Kaplan.
 
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My school requires us to take the exam too. Is it as bad as you make it sound. Do you have any recommendations as far as how to prep, what to expect, and how it compares to the actual step. How long does it take to get the results?
 
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I Am Babycakes said:
I took NBME 6 and thought the stems were alot shorter than the ones in Uworld. People that I know who took the actual Step also said the questions were either of similar length or shorter than the Uworld quetions.
Click to expand...

The one thing I have noticed is that the NBMEs always appear shorter (I don't know if they actually are) than UW questions because it feels like UW compresses the screen more and makes the font bigger.

-----On a separate note---for those taking the CBSE----

The biggest thing is to take a NBME and see how you do. Do NOT freak (out of proportion) if you don't do as well as you thought. A lot of the time, you just need to study the subject a bit and do QUESTIONS. Whether you review your answers to all of them, only the questions you miss, or none of them - - one thing you'll start to understand is HOW questions are asked and WHY they ask them. Once you see that, you're on your way.

That's also something I think Goljan is great at (imo, you have to do his book with the audio at least one time, or else it doesn't make that much sense; he IS a little weak on CNS, Female/Male, and Skin disorders; but for everything else he's pretty damn good).
 
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RYC jimmys: it was pretty rough. I wouldn't go in thinking it's going to be in a walk in the park. You should mentally plan for a tough exam. It's not impossible though, so don't be discouraged. The national average is a 70 which corresponds to 200. I think this is why people talk about an average increase of 20 points, since the step 1 average is about 220ish. Honestly, I know some kids that scored around 200 on our CBSE, and I expect their scores to go up by much more than that based upon knowing how they've done in 2 years of med school, and their performance on UW/Qbank.
 
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I'm trying to set realistic goals for my step score and was wondering what you guys thought. I took the CBSE 3 months before my test is scheduled and I had only made it through the Behavioral Science, Biochem and first few pages of the micro section in FA before I took the test. Other than that, I had only done a couple Qbank questions and no UW. My score equated with a 220 on step. If I got that, with basically no studying, would it be a realistic goal to shoot for a 260+?
 
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NCF145 said:
I'm trying to set realistic goals for my step score and was wondering what you guys thought. I took the CBSE 3 months before my test is scheduled and I had only made it through the Behavioral Science, Biochem and first few pages of the micro section in FA before I took the test. Other than that, I had only done a couple Qbank questions and no UW. My score equated with a 220 on step. If I got that, with basically no studying, would it be a realistic goal to shoot for a 260+?
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Yeah I wish I knew how high an increase I could expect/hope for. I'm very paranoid that I'm stuck at the score I got on it. I'm hoping I can just use all the paranoid/uneasy energy to focus on studying.
 
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We also just recently took the CBSE and received our results this week. Definitely was an interesting test. I'll echo some of what's already been said in that I was also a little surprised by the questions, seemed like most of them were like 4th order clinical vignette paragraphs. I was going pretty slow through the first half and had to pick up the pace through the last half to finish on time.
 
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aggiesarah2007 said:
Yeah I wish I knew how high an increase I could expect/hope for. I'm very paranoid that I'm stuck at the score I got on it. I'm hoping I can just use all the paranoid/uneasy energy to focus on studying.
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There's a lot of studying to be done between now and then - I'm definitely going to try to use this as a motivator, as I believe the Deans intended, than anything that "determines my fate." But I think I've said this to you before... 😉
 
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arroser said:
There's a lot of studying to be done between now and then - I'm definitely going to try to use this as a motivator, as I believe the Deans intended, than anything that "determines my fate." But I think I've said this to you before... 😉
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😛
It's like its become a UTH party in here.
This is me...being motivated!!! I'm off to read more First Aid now! Perhaps I'll play the Goljan audio while I sleep.....
 
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sebsvenmdc said:
RYC jimmys: it was pretty rough. I wouldn't go in thinking it's going to be in a walk in the park. You should mentally plan for a tough exam. It's not impossible though, so don't be discouraged. The national average is a 70 which corresponds to 200. I think this is why people talk about an average increase of 20 points, since the step 1 average is about 220ish. Honestly, I know some kids that scored around 200 on our CBSE, and I expect their scores to go up by much more than that based upon knowing how they've done in 2 years of med school, and their performance on UW/Qbank.
Click to expand...

Hey sebsvenmdc, where did you find the stats on the national average on the CBSE?
 
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sebsvenmdc said:
Interesting responses, guys.

Another student just told me that the NBME is apparently trying to reduce the length of the question stems. I'm not sure by how much and how that would compare to UW/Kaplan.
Click to expand...

DisclaimeR: I didn't read the rest of this thread so someone else may have said this already, but I thought this was an important post to respond to...

The stems on the real test are really really long. Much longer than the ones on the NBME - longer than most of the USMLEworld ones too, I'd say.

I never had any time troubles on USMLEworld, Kaplan, or NBMEs - but on the real thing the first couple of blocks were cutting it close before I adjusted to the pace.

Don't count on getting short question stems.
 
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How is my previous comment about the means for the CBSE and the Step 1 incorrect? Firstly, the mean for the Step 1 is around 220ish. That is correct. Secondly, I stated that the mean for the CBSE is 200. This is most likely correct because a score of 70 corresponds to 200. I have the actual NBME grading scale and conversion chart that our school issued to us showing us the breakdown of our scores, etc. The national mean for all shelf exams is 500 or 70 depending upon whether it's a basic science shelf or clinical exam shelf or CBSE.

Please elaborate on how my statements are incorrect. Thanks.
 
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sebsvenmdc said:
How is my previous comment about the means for the CBSE and the Step 1 incorrect? Firstly, the mean for the Step 1 is around 220ish. That is correct. Secondly, I stated that the mean for the CBSE is 200. This is most likely correct because a score of 70 corresponds to 200. I have the actual NBME grading scale and conversion chart that our school issued to us showing us the breakdown of our scores, etc. The national mean for all shelf exams is 500 or 70 depending upon whether it's a basic science shelf or clinical exam shelf or CBSE.

Please elaborate on how my statements are incorrect. Thanks.
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well on the CSBE our average was like 170ish. Only a handful of us scored above a 67, so I highly doubt 200 is an average nationally. I am sure shelf exams are higher since they tend to go along with modules that people are studying at the time (whereas a lot of the CSBE is not yet studied or studied a long time ago material)
 
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What Noeljan said... as well as the fact that some school administer cbse different number of times... give the cbse at different times... where students at different school finished different modules/classes, at different places of reviewing/studying for the board... so you can't just say the national cbse average is so and so
 
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sebsvenmdc said:
RYC jimmys: it was pretty rough. I wouldn't go in thinking it's going to be in a walk in the park. You should mentally plan for a tough exam. It's not impossible though, so don't be discouraged. The national average is a 70 which corresponds to 200. I think this is why people talk about an average increase of 20 points, since the step 1 average is about 220ish. Honestly, I know some kids that scored around 200 on our CBSE, and I expect their scores to go up by much more than that based upon knowing how they've done in 2 years of med school, and their performance on UW/Qbank.
Click to expand...

My girlfriend's score went up almost 80 pts from the CBSE at our school to Step 1. We take it before we've even finished the second-to-last organ system, so theres material on there that no one would know unless they studied ahead, but that just goes to show you that the improvements vary a lot. She didn't study at all until a week after school finished, but then again, she was in the top 10 of her class too. Somehow I still scored quite a bit higher on the CBSE than she did though and I'm def not top 10 haha
 
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Off topic a bit, but I would point out that the Kaplan Qbank I've been doing along with classes correlated almost exactly with my CBSE exam.

Did anybody else doing questions notice the same?
 
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kdburton said:
My girlfriend's score went up almost 80 pts from the CBSE at our school to Step 1. We take it before we've even finished the second-to-last organ system, so theres material on there that no one would know unless they studied ahead, but that just goes to show you that the improvements vary a lot. She didn't study at all until a week after school finished, but then again, she was in the top 10 of her class too. Somehow I still scored quite a bit higher on the CBSE than she did though and I'm def not top 10 haha
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Yeah they gave it to us before we did repro so virtually everyone got those questions wrong. I heard that most people at our school from previous years did 50-60 points better (which would make sense since that syncs up the results from the CBSE with the previous class average).

Mostly I think it's just used to remind us how clueless we are so we start studying :laugh:
 
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Noeljan said:
well on the CSBE our average was like 170ish. Only a handful of us scored above a 67, so I highly doubt 200 is an average nationally. I am sure shelf exams are higher since they tend to go along with modules that people are studying at the time (whereas a lot of the CSBE is not yet studied or studied a long time ago material)
Click to expand...

You've been on SDN for over 5 years?!? They should have a reality TV show of you surfing SDN.
 
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Interesting comments. Well, I will say that clinical shelf exams in general are scored such that a score of 70 corresponds to the national average with a standard deviation of 8. Also, other basic science shelf exams are centered about a national mean of 500 with a 100 point standard deviation.

The CBSE reports indicate that a score of 70 corresponds to a Step 1 score of 200. Since these are old step 1 questions, it might be that the mean for all old step 1 test takers (i.e. those that took these questions when they were actual step 1 questions, and not CBSE questions) comes out to be 70 or 200.

You can guess what the mean is on these things, but I think the best conservative guess is 70.
 
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sebsvenmdc said:
Interesting comments. Well, I will say that clinical shelf exams in general are scored such that a score of 70 corresponds to the national average with a standard deviation of 8. Also, other basic science shelf exams are centered about a national mean of 500 with a 100 point standard deviation.

The CBSE reports indicate that a score of 70 corresponds to a Step 1 score of 200. Since these are old step 1 questions, it might be that the mean for all old step 1 test takers (i.e. those that took these questions when they were actual step 1 questions, and not CBSE questions) comes out to be 70 or 200.

You can guess what the mean is on these things, but I think the best conservative guess is 70.
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again, I highly doubt the mean is 70 when the average at my school as I think 57, with only 6-10 people scoring above a 67. Keep in mind that our schools ave USMLE was a few points above national average last year (and our practice test results were the same). The score is based on people who actually took Step 1 as a real step 1. so if you got a 200 on the practice test, that means you would have gotten a 200 along with everyone who had prepared for a however long for the real test. I find it hard to believe that my school would do that bad overall on the practice test if schools around the coutry were cranking out averages on 70's on the test in March.
 
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Cirrus83 said:
You've been on SDN for over 5 years?!? They should have a reality TV show of you surfing SDN.
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you hush up"cirrus" They should have a reality show about you🙂 that would be even better S.
 
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If I'm planning on getting 100% of the questions correct, does any of this even matter?
 
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I got an 80 on my CBSE with 8 weeks to study...what kind of score improvement do people think is realistically possible. They gave us next to no correlation data at our school about past years classes.
 
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Noeljan said:
again, I highly doubt the mean is 70 when the average at my school as I think 57, with only 6-10 people scoring above a 67. Keep in mind that our schools ave USMLE was a few points above national average last year (and our practice test results were the same). The score is based on people who actually took Step 1 as a real step 1. so if you got a 200 on the practice test, that means you would have gotten a 200 along with everyone who had prepared for a however long for the real test. I find it hard to believe that my school would do that bad overall on the practice test if schools around the coutry were cranking out averages on 70's on the test in March.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not sure. Look, I don't think you should be discouraged regardless of how you did. I've heard of a lot of people scoring like 60+ points higher on the real thing. My point was that maybe the average of people taking these questions as the actual step 1 was 220 which they shifted to be a 200 or 70...and these people would have a big advantage over those taking the cbse because this was their actual step. That would mean that lower scores for CBSE scorers would be comparable to a 200. I don't know. I have to admit that I can't find anywhere on the form where it talks about the mean -- this was pure speculation on my part. Good luck with your studying!
 
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Glaxo said:
I got an 80 on my CBSE with 8 weeks to study...what kind of score improvement do people think is realistically possible. They gave us next to no correlation data at our school about past years classes.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but that's a great score, I think.
 
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Glaxo said:
I got an 80 on my CBSE with 8 weeks to study...what kind of score improvement do people think is realistically possible. They gave us next to no correlation data at our school about past years classes.
Click to expand...

80... that's like 225... with 8 wks... you'll probably get like 260+? 😕
 
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sebsvenmdc said:
Yeah, I'm not sure. Look, I don't think you should be discouraged regardless of how you did. I've heard of a lot of people scoring like 60+ points higher on the real thing. My point was that maybe the average of people taking these questions as the actual step 1 was 220 which they shifted to be a 200 or 70...and these people would have a big advantage over those taking the cbse because this was their actual step. That would mean that lower scores for CBSE scorers would be comparable to a 200. I don't know. I have to admit that I can't find anywhere on the form where it talks about the mean -- this was pure speculation on my part. Good luck with your studying!
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thanks🙂 I actually did "well" on the practice test, and if I were to go up by 60 points that would be a dream score🙂 hopefully it is true. My point is not to place too much weight on this test, as the ave was 57 at my school and we tend to do very well on the boards (i have also heard people go up 60-80 points) good luck to you too
 
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Noeljan said:
thanks🙂 I actually did "well" on the practice test, and if I were to go up by 60 points that would be a dream score🙂 hopefully it is true. My point is not to place too much weight on this test, as the ave was 57 at my school and we tend to do very well on the boards (i have also heard people go up 60-80 points) good luck to you too
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yeah, we still have a long way to go!
 
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Noeljan said:
thanks🙂 I actually did "well" on the practice test, and if I were to go up by 60 points that would be a dream score🙂 hopefully it is true. My point is not to place too much weight on this test, as the ave was 57 at my school and we tend to do very well on the boards (i have also heard people go up 60-80 points) good luck to you too
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I think if you went up by 60 points you'd be able to match in plastics at hopkins :laugh:
But seriously, have you taken any NBME's yet? I'm debating whether to take one to see where I am, gonna be finished with the basic sciences after today and am debating whether to take an NBME to see or to just start systems.
 
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Cirrus83 said:
I think if you went up by 60 points you'd be able to match in plastics at hopkins :laugh:
But seriously, have you taken any NBME's yet? I'm debating whether to take one to see where I am, gonna be finished with the basic sciences after today and am debating whether to take an NBME to see or to just start systems.
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Actually there was a guy at our school who matched in integrated plastics at Hopkins like 5 years ago. He got a 283 on Step 1 which I think was the highest score in the nation that year. I'd probably have an MI if I got my score back and it was that high
 
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kdburton said:
Actually there was a guy at our school who matched in integrated plastics at Hopkins like 5 years ago. He got a 283 on Step 1 which I think was the highest score in the nation that year. I'd probably have an MI if I got my score back and it was that high
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The question is would it be subendocardial or transmural?
 
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