shelf scores in compairson to Step II scores?

[Vincristine]

Anyone out there have an information (anecdotal or better) about any sort of correlation between Shelf Scores and Step II scores? I' ve gotten almost the same exact grade on the Medicine, Peds, and Surgery Shelf Exams and would be happy with such a percentile for Step II. I'm wondering how likely this is. (My Step I score was just about the mean.)

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[Kalel]

My IM PD told me that there was a pretty good correlation between the IM shelf and step II score. Personally, I thought that the shelves were harder then step II, and I did a little bit better on step II then I did on my IM shelf. I think that you should be fine in getting the percentage/score that you want if you study as hard as you did for your shelves.

 

[Vincristine]

Originally posted by Kalel
I think that you should be fine in getting the percentage/score that you want if you study as hard as you did for your shelves.

That's the issue I'm having. Most of my studying has been PreTest and scoring about the 77% percentile. I haven't put much emphasis on the shelf exams because of the way they effect my grade. It's evident that I'm much better at clinical questions than basic science ones. However, I studied my butt off for Step I and still only scored at the mean. I'm trying to figure out when to fit Step II into my schedule and it's not looking like I'll have the designated study time like I took for Step I. Of course I'm trying to do significantly better on Step II especially given my Step I scores.....



EDIT: Doing Pretest and scoring 77 percentile on Shelf Exams.

 

[Kalel]

I think scoring 77% on the pretest series is good for step II purposes because if you are doing the specialty pretest books, step II is actually more general then those books. I'd also recc purchasing q bank, spending 150 for those 900 questions helps motivate you to study for one month. I ended up post-poning my step II because I was so unmotivated to study for my original date; I think that it's useful if you are doing an easy rotation at the same time that you are trying to study, because sometimes it's difficult to start/wake up during the day if you have nothing official on your schedule. I had a whole month off when I was supposed to be studying for step II, but I ended up not doing anything besides watching tv and playing on my computer when I should have been studying. It just felt too much like vacation time to study. Good luck! You are doing the right thing by taking it early in the year by the way, to improve your app with a strong step II score.