step 3 late in residency

[decal]

Hi everyone,

Haven't been on here in years but need to pick everyone's brain.

I am a US medical school grad in the last year of a long residency. I did well on Step 1 and 2, but for a lot of dumb reasons I put off Step 3 until now and am really regretting.

I am about 1/4 through the UWorld QBank and am averaging 60% correct. I have a hard time gauging where this places me. I am going to try to finish the QBank, review missed questions, and go through CCS cases before taking the test.

Anyone with similar experiences and advice for how to tackle this?

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[Blueprint Med School]

Hi there. What kind of residency are you in right now? If you're in an IM residency you're already at an advantage. I think it's hard to gauge where a 60% in the Qbank puts you. If you really want to know where you stand, I would suggest taking a UW Self Assessment. Those tend to be pretty accurate. But I wouldn't recommend "wasting" them early on in your study period either. Save them until you are a week or two out from your exam. I ended up scoring very close to my UWSA 2.
Waiting until the end of residency to take Step 3 can actually be a positive thing. I took Step 3 after my intern year and I thought that having a year of residency under my belt actually helped me a lot in answering the questions. So the fact that you have already completed several years of residency actually puts you at an advantage since managing patients is probably second nature to you at this point. The key to doing well on this exam is just sitting down and forcing yourself to study despite working a full time job. Also, I recommend purchasing and doing all 100 simulated cases on CCScases.com. They actually simulate the CCS case portion of the exam and give you a score. I thought it did a pretty good job helping me prepare for that portion of the exam.

Best of luck!

- Annette G, MD, MPH - USMLE Tutor and Residency Advisor at Med School Tutors

 

[decal]

Unfortunately, I am in a pediatric subspecialty, not IM. Thus, I haven't touched the majority of the content since medical school.

I do not really care about my score except that I want to pass. I also want to get it over with as soon as possible.

Appreciate your thoughts.

 

[TonySoprano]

if you are averaging 60% on UWorld then you are doing well to start off. 60% on Uworld is already around the average for Step 3. If you had average CCS case performance on the exam then your score would be ~215. So your starting point is really good. I think keep studying and you can definitely do +220