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Took the boards this morning. Thank god its all over. I have some very hazy memories of the experience so I?ll try to do my best.
Got there before the center opened, but so did the 10 or so other people from my class taking it. They called us one by one once they did open and got us all started pretty quick. Center staff was nice, explained everything and the girl at the desk who watching us was really cute so that was a plus. 😀 She was cool to chat with on breaks. Only annoying thing was some inconsiderate guy taking another exam whose computer broke and who was being really loud when talking to the proctor while she kept asking him to whisper. I wanted to throw one of my markers at him. 😡 The three plastic sheets I got were plenty, I hardly filled up half of one.
Banged out four blocks as soon as I sat down, felt pretty good about most of them. Took a little wee wee break and few minutes in the waiting room came back for Round 5 and got absolutely destroyed. 😱 I guess the lack of sleep caught up with me at this point and I thought I was gonna collapse on question 20. I got all cross eyed and had trouble concentrating on the screen. Took another break w. a walk outside in the rain, muched on a brownie and some water and came back for round 6, got killed again. Decided to rough it out for Round 7 and actually did decent. I guess taking breaks sucked for me.
As far as the breakdown of the exam, I?m really hazy on that b/c I couldn?t even remember the questions after I finished the block. There were definitely a lot of multi-discipline questions. I felt like I had a ton of Pharm followed by path/physio and beh sci. Anatomy embryo and micro weren?t too big. Biochem was there but it was doable as was the mol bio stuff.
Pharm: FA was enough for the basic stuff but there were some off the wall questions where I hadn?t heard of a single drug in the answer choices. MechOfAction and Side Effects were the most high yield stuff especially the antimicrobials, CNS drugs and ANS drugs. You should know the ENTIRE FA pharm section cold (each and every page, even the stuff you think you?ll never see).
Path: A lot of thinking questions here where you need to understand the disease process and the pathophysiology. I didn?t think it was anything crazy; mostly the big diseases. I seemed to have a lot of female repro path but I?m not too strong in this area so maybe I just feel like it was over represented (I wish women wouldn?t bleed so much). Not too many zebras. The gross and micro pictures tended to help more than hurt. In most cases the picture gave away the answer in case you didn?t get it from the passage.
Physio: As someone else has mentioned, graphs are the key. Understand the concepts behind the commonly used graphs like peak flow rate, cardiac function curves, etc. Be able to apply these graphs to many diff situations. Endocrine is high yield too. Be ready to see lots of questions with 3 columns of variables with arrows going up and down in each one.
Anatomy: I didn?t have much. Very clinically relevant. X-rays, CT?s were decent. Know limb innervation and dermatomes. Brain anatomy is very high yield. Brain cross sections, spinal cord lesions, all that stuff. Embryo ? I had very little. Mostly path related embryo and origins of various organs and structures.. Major milestones of in utero development and understanding of how various interruptions in these manifest might help.
Biochem: Know the pathways and the major diseases mentioned in FA. Biochem in FA is enough in my opinion. Mol Bio is a different story. I used the Kaplan Lecture Notes and felt pretty comfortable with most of my questions but then again I didn?t seem to have as many questions here as other people on this board (or maybe it just felt this way). I felt these questions were more about understanding than remembering. A lot of the time the answer could be obtained just from careful reading of the question and elimination of outlandish choices, there was usually only one choice that seemed to stand out
Beh Sci: I felt like this was a big chunk of my exam. Nothing too crazy. Some personality disorders. Run of the mill stuff like schizo, depression, anxiety ? the big ones. Several stats questions one of which blew my mind but the rest were simple enough. Dr/Pt relationship and ethics questions are a lot easier than Kaplan. One choice makes sense not two or three like in Qbank.
About me:
Did pretty well most of the 1st 2 years in classes. Understanding the major concepts throughout the first 2 years is really important for the boards. The last few weeks of cramming can only do so much, its icing on the cake.
Books: FA2004 (several times through) BRS Path 3 times, Pathophys for the Boards and Wards, BRS Physio. BRS Behavior, Kaplan Lecture Notes in Biochem, Beh sci (select chapters) and Anatomy (embryo stuff), MMRS, Lange for Immuno, HY Anatomy, Neuro.
Question Sources: All of Robbins qbook, most of Kaplan Qbook
Qbank once through all random w no repeats (73% with 75-88 range at the end)
NBME Self Assesments timed 610 and 640
150 Released at Prometric ? 83%
Kaplan diagnostic before I started studying 56%
Kaplan Full length diagnostic at the center ? 80%
Kaplan Full Length CD-ROM 74%
MCAT V12 B10 P10 N
I had a few repeats from the released items one from the NBME Self Assessments and several repeat concepts but not exact questions.
USMLE Step 1 Score: 253/99
Good luck to everyone who has yet to take it.
Got there before the center opened, but so did the 10 or so other people from my class taking it. They called us one by one once they did open and got us all started pretty quick. Center staff was nice, explained everything and the girl at the desk who watching us was really cute so that was a plus. 😀 She was cool to chat with on breaks. Only annoying thing was some inconsiderate guy taking another exam whose computer broke and who was being really loud when talking to the proctor while she kept asking him to whisper. I wanted to throw one of my markers at him. 😡 The three plastic sheets I got were plenty, I hardly filled up half of one.
Banged out four blocks as soon as I sat down, felt pretty good about most of them. Took a little wee wee break and few minutes in the waiting room came back for Round 5 and got absolutely destroyed. 😱 I guess the lack of sleep caught up with me at this point and I thought I was gonna collapse on question 20. I got all cross eyed and had trouble concentrating on the screen. Took another break w. a walk outside in the rain, muched on a brownie and some water and came back for round 6, got killed again. Decided to rough it out for Round 7 and actually did decent. I guess taking breaks sucked for me.
As far as the breakdown of the exam, I?m really hazy on that b/c I couldn?t even remember the questions after I finished the block. There were definitely a lot of multi-discipline questions. I felt like I had a ton of Pharm followed by path/physio and beh sci. Anatomy embryo and micro weren?t too big. Biochem was there but it was doable as was the mol bio stuff.
Pharm: FA was enough for the basic stuff but there were some off the wall questions where I hadn?t heard of a single drug in the answer choices. MechOfAction and Side Effects were the most high yield stuff especially the antimicrobials, CNS drugs and ANS drugs. You should know the ENTIRE FA pharm section cold (each and every page, even the stuff you think you?ll never see).
Path: A lot of thinking questions here where you need to understand the disease process and the pathophysiology. I didn?t think it was anything crazy; mostly the big diseases. I seemed to have a lot of female repro path but I?m not too strong in this area so maybe I just feel like it was over represented (I wish women wouldn?t bleed so much). Not too many zebras. The gross and micro pictures tended to help more than hurt. In most cases the picture gave away the answer in case you didn?t get it from the passage.
Physio: As someone else has mentioned, graphs are the key. Understand the concepts behind the commonly used graphs like peak flow rate, cardiac function curves, etc. Be able to apply these graphs to many diff situations. Endocrine is high yield too. Be ready to see lots of questions with 3 columns of variables with arrows going up and down in each one.
Anatomy: I didn?t have much. Very clinically relevant. X-rays, CT?s were decent. Know limb innervation and dermatomes. Brain anatomy is very high yield. Brain cross sections, spinal cord lesions, all that stuff. Embryo ? I had very little. Mostly path related embryo and origins of various organs and structures.. Major milestones of in utero development and understanding of how various interruptions in these manifest might help.
Biochem: Know the pathways and the major diseases mentioned in FA. Biochem in FA is enough in my opinion. Mol Bio is a different story. I used the Kaplan Lecture Notes and felt pretty comfortable with most of my questions but then again I didn?t seem to have as many questions here as other people on this board (or maybe it just felt this way). I felt these questions were more about understanding than remembering. A lot of the time the answer could be obtained just from careful reading of the question and elimination of outlandish choices, there was usually only one choice that seemed to stand out
Beh Sci: I felt like this was a big chunk of my exam. Nothing too crazy. Some personality disorders. Run of the mill stuff like schizo, depression, anxiety ? the big ones. Several stats questions one of which blew my mind but the rest were simple enough. Dr/Pt relationship and ethics questions are a lot easier than Kaplan. One choice makes sense not two or three like in Qbank.
About me:
Did pretty well most of the 1st 2 years in classes. Understanding the major concepts throughout the first 2 years is really important for the boards. The last few weeks of cramming can only do so much, its icing on the cake.
Books: FA2004 (several times through) BRS Path 3 times, Pathophys for the Boards and Wards, BRS Physio. BRS Behavior, Kaplan Lecture Notes in Biochem, Beh sci (select chapters) and Anatomy (embryo stuff), MMRS, Lange for Immuno, HY Anatomy, Neuro.
Question Sources: All of Robbins qbook, most of Kaplan Qbook
Qbank once through all random w no repeats (73% with 75-88 range at the end)
NBME Self Assesments timed 610 and 640
150 Released at Prometric ? 83%
Kaplan diagnostic before I started studying 56%
Kaplan Full length diagnostic at the center ? 80%
Kaplan Full Length CD-ROM 74%
MCAT V12 B10 P10 N
I had a few repeats from the released items one from the NBME Self Assessments and several repeat concepts but not exact questions.
USMLE Step 1 Score: 253/99
Good luck to everyone who has yet to take it.
