Step 1 - Philosophy Regarding Performance

[TakotsuboOkazaki]

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I have been doing a lot of reading across this forum and others regarding Step 1 performance.

Do YOU truly believe that a high step 1 score is anyone's game is the approach is rigorous and suited to the individual?

In other words, how much of a role do you believe intelligence has to play in someone's score? Is there a ceiling that, no matter how much practice time is devoted, certain people cannot break?

I am curious if the consensus is that Step 1 is a game that can be learned or if it is a test where inborn variability in cognitive ability play a large roll?

Thoughts?

 

[studentdocftw]

It is both. There is the content (the so called, "game") that everyone has to learn and apply to questions, and there is also a factor of intelligence that is naturally a part of the process. If I gave 10 different people 200 words to memorize and 1 week to prepare, do you really expect everyone to remember the same amount of words? Now extrapolate that to thousands of random factoids, in a time pressured environment and that is where baseline intelligence factors into the exam. Both are important..and if you are weak in one, you better have the other.

 

[Chibucks15]

Eh it’s definitely both, and sometimes no amount of hard work make up for it. I studied several months longer and harder than my buddy and he beat me by like 20 points. And I did decently well. Everyone has their ceiling and it drives me wild when people on here say it’s simply a work ethic issue

 

[deleted87051]

Agree it is both and some people are naturally gifted at multiple choice tests. They can get very good scores with little effort and superb scores with an average amount of effort. These same people may or may not be the best at writing or shooting darts or doctoring. But they consistently score very well on every multiple choice test they’ve ever taken.

 

[siliso]

Yes, everyone probably has a personal ceiling and some people will hit that ceiling with far less effort than others. I had an easy go of getting a ridic score doing basically only questions for a couple weeks dedicated because I have a native talent for test taking and memorization.

But so what. I’m not a better or worse doctor now, few years out of residency, than my classmates who had to work harder or didn’t score as high back in the day...in fact today no one could tell us apart. I hate to see, and think it’s really unfounded, for my students now to think of themselves as “weak” or something because they didn’t happen to have the pretty irrelevant superpower of excellent bubble-filling. Respectably passing a rigorous licensing exam is an accomplishment in itself, and shows that you have what it takes to be a competent physician.

 

[libertyyne]

245-255 Raw brawn is possible. 270 + you need raw brawn and brain.

 

[FindersFee5]

Definitely a combination of both, not sure where the cutoff probably is but I'd say ~245 as @libertyyne said.

An underrated aspect of preparation is how well you understand how you learn and the meta-cognition you're able to bring to your learning and problem solving process. This is not classically seen as an element of "intelligence" but is super duper important when preparing for this test.