Step 3 reflection

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Silo004

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Took exam at the end of intern year because I was spooked by how hard uWorld was and how terribly I had done on their questions over 2-3 weeks of studying during the year.

I averaged around 60% on uworld. Studied really hard and got a whopping 207 on UWSA. Called bs on entire process and just took the exam. Broke 240 on previous steps.

Exam is long. Felt the worst of any step I took. Final score 235. Wish I had studied less, but grateful it's over.

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I just did day 1, taking the second day next week. Felt terrible. I did fairly well on previous step exams (230s step 1, 260s step 2) but this one just felt awful. I was averaging 70% on uworld but I felt totally unprepared after seeing the real exam. **** all the "step 1" type questions about drug mechanisms and what kind of mutation causes a disease.
 
I just did day 1, taking the second day next week. Felt terrible. I did fairly well on previous step exams (230s step 1, 260s step 2) but this one just felt awful. I was averaging 70% on uworld but I felt totally unprepared after seeing the real exam. **** all the "step 1" type questions about drug mechanisms and what kind of mutation causes a disease.

Was there a lot of difficult biostats too?
 
They were mostly basic, with a few WTF questions thrown in that I wouldn't have been able to study for. If you know how to calculate/interpret sensitivity, specificity, NNT/NNH, odds ratio, relative risk, and how to use a 2x2 contingency table, you should be fine for the majority of the calculation problems. For the drug ads and other biostats questions, know the major types of studies (cohort, retrospective, RCT, etc), as well as major types of error/bias. Definitely pay attention to the p-values and whether the confidence interval crosses 1.

This covers the majority of what you should know.
I also found this video helpful.
 
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