STEP 3 Score VS USMLE WORLD AVERAGE

[FirstMANdown]

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There is a great thread for Step 2ck VS UW%. I though it might be helpful if anyone out there can give us there input with there Step 3 VS UW%...etc as well. Anyways Thanks for the contribution.

I'm do to take Step 3 in the next month. Will update this thread as well. For better or for worse.

 

[Torquer]

Hi, Yees UWSA give you explanation for questions, and it is very accurate, here is what i did for the test :

Date - July 15th
Preparation period : 2 1/2 months
Uworld : twice first time avg : 52%, second time average : 73%
MTB : twice ( very superficially )
Kaplan Qbank : once , avg score 53%
Listened to ********** lectures : once
Uworld CCS cases : twice ( the ready answered ones did only once, with some confirmation on some common topics such as AF )
UWSA: 510 / 220
NBME form 3 : 380
NBME form 2 : 310!!!!
Real Score : 215

Hope this helps

Congrats on getting done! How long did it take for your result to come out?

 

[Y3M]

.

 

[ramsesthenice]

Just got score back. Im a great test taker and just wanted to share quick in case anyone else feels the way I did.

Didn't read anything, just questions
Uworld average 70%, did about half the questions
Did all the Uworld CCS cases

Felt great about multiple choice.
CCS...very different. Had and OB case that I still don't know what happened but she died (It said she died). A sick ped's patient didn't fair much better. I messed up one more case that was obvious I just went down the wrong road. Did very well on the other cases.

Final score: 234

If you really kill the multiple choice section then you have more room for error on the CCS cases than a lot of sources would lead you to believe.

 

[CDI]

😱 Died?! Didn't know you could do that.

 

[ramsesthenice]

😱 Died?! Didn't know you could do that.

You have to try. She was bleeding and I thought I serial ordered CBCs and kept advancing the clock thinking she was getting more. In reality I was accelerating her hemmorage. It may have said she was unresponsive but I'm pretty sure it said she died. It was the end of day 2 and I was beyond checked out.

 

[Y3M]

if i only have time for one, which one should i do?
done uw qbank, done ccs, done MTB.

 

[Notanerd]

Just got score back... Posted before that I left the test feeling like I had failed it. Got my score report back 227, 62% on world first pass through in random tutor mode, then repeated missed questions.

I honestly have never left a test with such a WTF was that feeling before. I still think this is the hardest of the exams bc it's just so random. There was tons of stuff on that test I didn't see in world or in mtb especially pediatric ortho questions. I sorta feel like I just ended up on the right side of a lot of guessing.

 

[jodin9]

exactly 3 weeks

 

[musicinyou]

Would reviewing Uworld for step 2 be helpful for step 3?

 

[ramsesthenice]

Would reviewing Uworld for step 2 be helpful for step 3?

Hard to see how. The Uworld for step 3 is very thorough. The testable material is very broad and goes pretty far past what was on step 2. That being said, its not the MC that trips people up by and large. The most important thing to review is the CCS cases. The software is very clunky and your expected to play the part of 2-3 physicians in each case: its nothing like real life in a lot of ways.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Took my exam 9/7, just got my score 20 minutes ago and passed 🙂 UWorld x 1 was enough for me to pass pretty comfortably.

Good luck to everyone getting their scores today! 😀

 

[dolhan16]

Hey guys,

Been studying for step 3 for most of the summer (didnt match this year). Currently scheduled to take step 3 in 7 days. It may be my nerves but some advice would be appreciated.

UW (100% complete, random timed)- 65%. Finished the incorrects to 100%
NBME #1- 560
Generally hitting the important points in UWCCS but missing about 10-20% of the things. But every time the patient gets better. Its hard to know how well im doing as this part is more subjective

Just take the damn thing? Or wait until I have nbme #2 and UWSA done?

-Cheers

 

[ramsesthenice]

65% on uworld is well within passing range. If your patients are getting better on CCS you must be doing ok. Go for it!

 

[Dawkter]

Just took the final part of the USMLE saga today. Have to agree with what everyone said on this thread but thought I would add a few tips.

1) Whoever made up the 2 months, 2 weeks, #2 pencil mantra is lying. If you want to guarantee a pass, plan on doing UWorld once + all UWorld CCS cases.

2) Do not waste time reading MTB3. It really didn't help me much and in fact confuses you with all the esoteric drugs and information contradicting UWorld. If you were planning on reading this book, just do your UWorld incorrects.

3) There are random questions that no matter how much prep you put in, you can't/won't know.

4) CCS is not bad at all (I think, my score is still pending though). If you do the 52 cases in UWorld, you should be more than prepared. I may not have done great, but any additional prep would have been overkill.

5) If you went to a US medical school, take this thing early. Register through Connecticut. I just can't imagine going back and learning all this material 4-5 years into a radiology or ortho residency. I had so much OBGYN that even medicine residents (whom this test supposedly caters to) would have difficulty with.

6) Timing matters. Tutor mode doesn't prepare you for how your brain is going to think on the fly since there is no pressure and you have unlimited time to analyze all the labs. I did Tutor mode for half the Qbank and I think it hurt me overall.

7) Do the drug ad questions at the end. They are really long and can eat up time for something that could be potentially low yield. Get through the actual medical questions first.

Good luck everyone, supposedly 90-95% pass rate on this exam so we should all be fine 🙂

 

[bellevueperson]

Prelim medicine right now, so read MTB once, did all the peds, OB/gyn, urology, and ophthy UWorld questions and then as many random blocks as I could (ended up avg'ing 60% on 40% of MC and did all the practice cases), and finally skimmed MTB once more, focusing on tables, figures, and blue highlighted stuff. Ended up scoring a 237. FWIW, I scored 234 and 265 on steps 1 and 2, respectively, using similar approaches but of course not having to study during an ICU rotation.

 

[PHHM]

uworld once 59%, second time 80%, then repeated the ones i had wrong plus more random blocks
MTB once
kaplan about 50% of the questions with a grade of about 55%
all CCS cases from uworld, most of them twice

St 3: 225

St 1: failed on first attempt, then in the 200s
St 2: in the 220s

 

[PHHM]

can we use this to calculate our percentile ?
http://bayes.bgsu.edu/nsf_web/jscrip...ormal_icdf.htm

Is the curve a normal distribution?

 

[EM2013]

Trolled this thread a lot in the past month so time to give back:

Background
Step I : 250s
Step II: 260s

PGY-1 in Emergency Medicine

Preparation: UWorld Q-bank and Cases; didn't bother to read a board review book

Uworld Avg: Mid-high 60s

I went into the test feeling relatively prepared having done all of the qbank and cases. Seriously, the first day knocked me on my ass. Echoing what many others have said, the stems are as long as novels and have a ton of irrelevant information to sift through. Timing was never an issue for me on any of the other steps - I finished Step I/II blocks with ~10-15 minutes left - but for some reason I was finishing each block with seconds to spare and even ran out of time on 1-2 blocks and had to make a quick guess on 1-2 questions. The questions seemed so random. So much of the exam is based on stuff you see in an outpatient clinic - stuff I haven't though about in a long time. I legit walked out of the first day feeling like crap...

The second day was much better. Stems were shorter and questions seemed more straightforward. You need to go through ALL the Uworld cases as these were money for the exam.

If I could do it differently: Leave the abstract / Ad questions to the end. I didn't do this and it cost me on time. They are stressful questions and just take too long.

Final Verdict: 230s

SEE YA USMLE.

 

[Dawkter]

Just took the final part of the USMLE saga today. Have to agree with what everyone said on this thread but thought I would add a few tips.

1) Whoever made up the 2 months, 2 weeks, #2 pencil mantra is lying. If you want to guarantee a pass, plan on doing UWorld once + all UWorld CCS cases.

2) Do not waste time reading MTB3. It really didn't help me much and in fact confuses you with all the esoteric drugs and information contradicting UWorld. If you were planning on reading this book, just do your UWorld incorrects.

3) There are random questions that no matter how much prep you put in, you can't/won't know.

4) CCS is not bad at all (I think, my score is still pending though). If you do the 52 cases in UWorld, you should be more than prepared. I may not have done great, but any additional prep would have been overkill.

5) If you went to a US medical school, take this thing early. Register through Connecticut. I just can't imagine going back and learning all this material 4-5 years into a radiology or ortho residency. I had so much OBGYN that even medicine residents (whom this test supposedly caters to) would have difficulty with.

6) Timing matters. Tutor mode doesn't prepare you for how your brain is going to think on the fly since there is no pressure and you have unlimited time to analyze all the labs. I did Tutor mode for half the Qbank and I think it hurt me overall.

7) Do the drug ad questions at the end. They are really long and can eat up time for something that could be potentially low yield. Get through the actual medical questions first.

Good luck everyone, supposedly 90-95% pass rate on this exam so we should all be fine 🙂

Scored in the 220s, not perfect but not complaining at all. Best of luck guys!

 

[ihatescience]

Step I : 220s
Step II: 250s

PGY-1 in Medicine

Preparation: MTB; UWorld Qbank and Cases

Uworld Avg: 55-60%

This was honestly the most difficult of all the step exams. The first day's set of questions were, for the most part, extremely hard. It'd be relatively easy to narrow between two answer choices, but from there it was a guess. Lot of ambiguity, and mostly focused on outpatient internal medicine with peds/ob mixed in. Majority were management questions. Some "physical exam finding" questions (ie: most specific finding for disease XX). Had approximately 18-20 drug ad/abstract questions in total. These questions tended to incorporate biostatistics, including basic calculations (know how measure SN, SP, NNT, PPV, etc) and concepts of research study design (prospective vs retrospective, power, etc).

The second day MCQs were similar, with some drug ads mixed in there. The cases were mostly straightforward, but definitely messed up management on several due to not remembering how to treat certain conditions in populations (read: kids) that I hadn't interacted with since third year. As others have said, the uworld CCS cases are important to practice. Have a standardized approach to each case (ie: in an emergency setting, order labs/begin therapeutics before physical exam) to get at least basic points.

I'd recommend taking it sooner rather than later. Though the test officially changes later in 2014, I could definitely sense a change in types of questions asked and emphasis on basic material from step 1 (though not as much as step 2 ck).

Final Score: 220s

Good luck to all!

 

[Killer T Cell]

Saw this post when I was studying for Step 3 and now it is time to contribute!
Step 1: 224
Step 2: 226

PGY2 - Pediatrics

Preparation - MTB (used mainly as a reference book once in a while), UWorld Qbank, UWorld CCS

UWorld Avg - 61-62%; All questions done in random (all topics), timed exam mode with blocks of 48 questions. I cannot emphasize how important this is to help build up the stamina for this exam and help simulate the actual exam blocks. It is a 2 day marathon and timing is key!

Having done all the UWorld questions + Cases (including the 'non-interactive' ones), I walked into this exam feeling prepared. First day was ok, I felt like the number of questions I definitely knew in each block were about 25%. 50% of the questions I was able to narrow it down to about 2 choices and had to make an educated guess from them. And the other 25%, I had very little clue for the most part and had to just 'wing it' based on my gut feeling. The multiple choice experience on day 2 followed a similar story (maybe a little easier and shorter questions). Being a pediatrics resident, I felt extremely comfortable with almost all the peds questions and even adult pathology that can be seen in Children. It's the Geriatrics/ Older age health screening questions that primarily threw me for a loop. The CCS was good for the most part. Out of all the cases, there was only 1 case where I was a bit confused. I stabilized the patient, did all the acute management, but they just didn't get better. I was convinced all I needed was more time for the patient to recover and advanced the clock a little bit faster and the case ended all of a sudden. Don't know how that patient turned out!! All the rest of the cases were very similar to U-World and I felt very confident. And all of them ended fairly fast, often in the middle of my management, which left me with an incomplete closure feeling. And I am convinced that I forgot to add all the routine health maintenance things you put in at the end of the case (unrelated to the acute management).

Overall, I walked out after 2 days feeling completely confused about my performance. I felt as if I had done enough to pass and anything more than that was just icing on the cake.

Final Score: 227

Final Impression: All you need to do is all the UWorld Questions and Cases to pass this exam. Don't take this exam lightly. Put in the effort and you'll get the results. Best of luck!!

 

[tony05]

Time to give back:

Step 1: >240
Step 2: >250

Prep time 4 weeks, read through MTB (not sure how helpful this was in hindsight), UWorld Avg - 65% in random/timed mode, repeated incorrects and finished all CCS cases twice.

Question stems on the first day were long but overall most questions were pretty straightforward, day 2 had shorter stems, all CCS cases ended ahead of time and were straightforward.

Walked out of the exam and felt good about my performance.

Final Score: >240

Just glad that I'm done prior to the 2014 changes and the 5 month score report delay coming up in 2014...

Echoing the other posts -- UWorld questions and CCS cases were all that is needed to pass this exam

Good luck everyone!

 

[Deferoxamine]

I just want to say that I'm really happy that I can officially break up from the USMLE for good. Then again, I stopped taking the USMLE seriously when they told me on Step 2 CS that my weakest area was "speaking English".

IM resident, PGY-3. I "studied" for about 7 days, with frequent reminders from my friends that my life would be much better when this was over. Did all of UWorld x1, finished with 66% average on the questions. Did the UWorld CCS cases as well. In the final day or two before the test, I ended up taking long naps and in general just stopped caring.

Test Experience
The objective of Day 1 was to pretty much just sit there and "take it" for 8 hours. Others here have commented on the lack of extra time at the end of the blocks, and I agree. I suppose the Drug Ad questions are there to test how lucky we are, because even when I had time to read them 3 times, I still couldn't understand what they were actually asking. The Ob/Gyn questions were surprisingly straightforward. Day 2 was a much better sampling of multiple choice questions, though a few were poorly worded. I am not sure what answer to pick when all of them seem wrong. Other times, I was able to remember the correct answer from my 3rd-year shelf exams.

Then came CCS. Folks, I don't know if I was just fatigued from 2 straights days of testing after not taking a real test since 2010, but I absolutely BOMBED the first 3 cases. At least I'm pretty sure I did. It is nothing like real life at all. I had to take a break after this and get my mind back on track. The rest were "okay", though I'm pretty sure I transfused a patient who didn't need it. Perhaps I got an outlier here, but my cases were absolutely nothing like any of the practice CCS cases from UWorld, and in my opinion were significantly harder. Strangely, a few things in the UWorld question bank did help me on CCS on test day, and a few things on UWorld CCS did come to my rescue on the real test multiple choice questions, but not vice versa.

Step 3: High 220's

Breakdown on Score Report: I did ABYSMAL on Pediatrics et.al., but apparently I take damn good care of the 18 to 54 year-olds. As I expected, my CCS flirted with that gray shaded line on the bar graph, whatever the heck that means.

Do UWorld Q's and CCS and you should be okay, but primarily to familiarize yourself with the software again and get "good" at grabbing the easy free points on CCS (with orders, labs, and counseling). I can't say the QBank actually helped me though, as it appears they are seeing what people are using to study and are adjusting the test questions accordingly. And just as a frame of reference here, I was someone who got 98th/99th percentile on many 3rd-year med school shelf exams who literally walked out of this test thinking I might have failed it. If you're going to have limited amounts of time to prepare for Step 3, just be aware that this test will probably make you very uncomfortable. Accept it, plow through it, and you'll be fine.

 

[XPaeZX]

I have lurked these forums from quite some time and now is time to share my experience.

I studied on and off for 3 months, focused primarily on doing qbanks and reading some stuff out of MTB3.

UWORLD cumulative 74%
Kaplan qbank 70%
Usmleconsult 66%
Did uworld ccs cases thrice
Real step score: 239

CCS cases are all right.. They end when you do everything correctly or you ask for the correct consult ( in surgical cases )
Finished all cases in 10 minutes or less.

Contrary to what a lot of people have shared here and in other forums I felt day 1 to be easier than day 2. Most of the material was covered by uworld.

I felt the exam difficulty to be just like Step 2 CK, the trick is to switch your mind from diagnosis and treatment questions into prognosis/PE finding kind of questions.

Good luck!

 

[potato51]

Took mine on 11/19-20, got my score back on 12/11 and passed comfortably. Good feeling! I spent my little free time during 2 weeks going through all of USMLEWorld questions and all 52 of the UW CCS simulations, which I highly recommend since it's almost exactly like the real test. Good luck to everyone doing this. If you're like me and didn't take the exam early in residency, don't worry. You'll probably be fine, but really understand the explanations USMLEWorld gives you and remember your common sense when you do the CCS.

 

[medicaresucks]

time to give back. Just took the beast and two days are done.
So basically i've been putting off step 3 because i've been lazy and what not. I was "scared" of this CCS portion and i tried to avoid it as much as possible during my prep.

I did uworld all in tutor mode and never mixed and got like 65% average or something. I did one of uworld stupid ccs cases and thought it was too hard. I dragged my feet doing those ccs cases. Then of course i was freaked out thinking about it during my day 1 mcq. Anyways, i would only read the answer explanations for the uworld cases only and right a little blurb about it in a notebook.

DO not do that. I thought the mcq was pretty straight forward for the most part.. i read both master the boards for step 2ck and step 3 at the same time bc i think its more complete.

Day 1: Flew by and i couldn't believe how the questions were pretty straight forward. This may be due to my extensive prep using both step 2ck and step 3 and psuedo outlining them and doing all of world and then redoing the mediicine questions all. But it wasn't bad... I kept thinking about how i was screwed for ccs especially because they started me late and i knew i'd be getting out late.


day 2: i finished day 1 and got out and it was almost 730pm... i went back to my stupid way of studying ccs and went thorugh all the cases reading only the answer explanations... its now 11 pm.. then i downloaded the nbme 6 cases and tried to do one and realized i didnt' know what the hell to do and almost had a panick attack thinking that im totally F'd.. i went back to world and picked the easiest cases and actually did them in their interactive mode and got at least more familiar with it and then reveiwed my notebook of blurbs about all 52 cases and basically thought id be screwed. I went to bed at 245 am after not sleeping much even before day 1. I even thought about pulling an all nighter but i'm glad i didn't.

The MCQ on day 2 were easier than day 1 and i was finishing 5 minutes early and just taking breaks. If you know outpt medicine thats what the exam is.. now finally i got to the ccs cases and once you know the software they really are not bad. I dont think uworld had covered them all but if you've done some medicine months then it makes it that much easier .
Bottom line. Get familiar with ccs from uworld by doing the cases and do the nbme 6 released cases and you won't have to have **** sleep and freak like i did. All my cases still ended early and no one died so i think i'll at least pass that part even on its own but still i was scared as hell.

Oh and another thing. I was being anal thinking i'd need to use kaplan qbook and qbank but im glad i didn't. stick to uworld and master the boards... ill update this with my score but it really felt like taking step 2ck again for the most part to be honest.

 

[NorGwynCrab]

I also lurked these forums during my test prep, so I thought I'd post my experience. For what it's worth, I'm in my intern year (TY, but had 3 hard medicine months leading up to this test, which helped me tremendously). I studied for about 6 weeks - maybe an hour or two a day after work, and more on weekends.

I did a pretty basic prep using UW x 1 and CCS x 1. Finished all the questions in tutor mode. I read the explanations for every question but did not review anything a second time. UW average was 64%.

I found the test to be fair, for the most part. I answered all the questions in order, finished with about 5-10 minutes to spare on each block, marked maybe a quarter of the questions. The CCS was more difficult, but I think this had more to do with the technology than my knowledge base. I panicked on the early cases (why isn't this ending??), then settled down a little bit.

Final score: 235.

My approach to this was to finish UW once, which I figured would be enough to pass. I don't think that's an unreasonable study plan.

 

[Lavan]

I was a TY, took prior to any medicine months. Felt that my ER month was probably useful clinically for the test but certainly not necessary. I pretty much agree with this post.

I want to just put another more #2 pencil-type story: I couldn't bring myself to get through all of UW. Probably did half. My scores didn't improve on random sections as I was going, and I was clearly coasting on test-reflexes from Step 2 (1.5 years later). Downloaded the free USMLE practice CCS stuff and did a few of those. Read the UW CCS explanations over a couple of nights so I would have some algorithms and cases in my head. My score was a 4 points lower than for Step 1. If you safely passed Step 1 and Step 2, you will have no trouble passing Step 3 with minimal preparation. This has applied to every other resident I know personally. One of my colleagues dropped 20 points from Step 1, which seems to be about the bigger end of the drops for those aggressively slacking.

My wife worked diligently on UW MCQ and CCS cases for 2 weeks, got through everything once, and her score jumped another ten points from Step 2 CK.

This test has higher pass rate than Step 1 and Step 2 CK and is taken by busy residents who generally don't take much time to study, so it's obviously not bizarrely difficult. The CCS software is just awkward and cumbersome. The only thing you probably absolutely must do is familiarize yourself with the case format and the proper orders to make sure you do things by the book.

 

[AlexMorph]

To the guy who made that table with the correlation of scores, nice work. My UWorld % was 63, all in tutor mode. Actual score was 234. Step 1 and 2 were > 260 so I guess I dropped a fair amount, but I'm not going into a primary care field so I don't care.

With regards to what I thought of the test, honestly, it's not that bad. There are just a ton of questions and many of them you will not know, but it's ok. If you did reasonably well in your medical career, the test is easy to pass.
Important advice would be to get used to the CCS software. Once you figure that out, it's easy points. All I did was do UWorld once, that's all.

 

[Knicks]

Can someone please explain what type of changes they will be making to Step 3?

 

[Stellar Clouds]

I did about 3/4 of the uworld questions all in tutor mode, scoring 71%. Did all of the uworld CCS practice cases x1. Actual score 243.

Don't stress too much over this test!

 

[BeardedRunner]

I found this thread to be helpful, so I'll post my experience.
I studied for 5 weeks, during a "less busy" rotation. I used Uworld and read MTB Step 3.
Test Day 1: I agree with a lot of previous posts that there were many questions that I could not answer with certainty; I was able to narrow my answer down to two choices, and then guess. UWorld is definitely good practice, but like someone else stated above, there is a lot of material on the test that is not in UW, and there is a lot of material in UW that is not on the test. It felt like I had to guess on close to 50% of the Day 1 questions, so I did not feel very confident after the exam after Day 1.
Day 2 - the questions were more straight forward, but there were still a bunch of tricky cases.
CCS - was just like Uworld, very straight forward, make sure to pratice and get used to the format of this section
I got my score back this week and passed comfortably 🙂

 

[path or no path]

Agree with many above.
My prep: 1.5 weeks of powering through all of UWorld, twice, and reading the Peds, Surgery, OB/GYN, and Psych sections of MTB since I am in medicine. Honestly, I don't know why MTB has such great reviews. I thought it was very superficial and not nearly as comprehensive as it should have been. I would give it 2.5/5 stars. I also did the two NBME practice tests they have for Step 3. I also did all of UW CCS cases.

Day 1: Question stems were much longer, much more vague, and there was definitely a lot of time pressure. I finished timed UW blocks with at least 10 minutes to spare, on the real thing, I ran out of time on 2-3 blocks and had to just pick a random answer on several questions. There were must have been at least 30-40% of questions where I narrowed down to 2-3 choices, and had to guess. Makes you feel VERY uncomfortable because you know it could go either way. Like others have said, material covered in UW or MTB is probably 30% of what you need to know for the test. The scope of Step 3 is just so broad. I had to remember things I studied for shelf exams during third year of med school. The abstracts and drug add questions were just so random, I didn't make a serious effort to answer them correctly. I seriously walked out the first day thinking there was ~ 50% chance I failed.

Day 2: Huge difference. The length, and difficulty of questions was MUCH easier than on day 1. Very comparable to UW, some questions were almost identical. The CCS cases were for the most part very straight forward. UWORLD CCS was all you needed to prep and I felt very confident about CCS.

Score: 233, huge relief.

Bottom line: UWORLD is definitely the most high-yield source for prep, although realize it will cover maybe 30-40% of material you need to know. I can't honestly recommend MTB.
My recommendation would be to take this test very seriously, spend the time and effort and get it over with. Don't be in that 4% who fail it on the first try.

Good luck to everyone.

 

[HighPinkHeels]

Hi All!Definitely did my share of lurking around so I figured that I should share my experience. I am currently a prelim in a pretty rigorous internal medicine program and will be doing dermatology next year. I definitely did not stress myself out as much as I did on the previous STEP exams and I did not have time to devote serious study time. In total, I studied for 30 min to an hour after work for 2 weeks and then for 3 full days. I did not have time to read anything and only used USMLE world - was only able to do 30% of the Qbank and averaged 67% and I did all of the CCS cases. In the end I am so glad that I did not give this exam more of my time.

Mentally I had prepared myself for the fact that this test would have some amount of ridiculous questions and that no amount of preparation would prepare me. The test was exactly what I expected. I think I knew about 33% of the material, made an educated guess and narrowed it down to 2 possibilities on 33%, and had no clue for the rest. I've never had a time issue on shelves or other step exams, but on this test I would finish with only 5 minutes to spare (usually have had 10-15 minutes on previous USMLE exams). The first day of the exam was brutal since I haven't sat that long for an exam in a while, but the material itself was comparable to UWorld. I actually enjoyed the CCS questions because they were more real life and not testing esoteric material. All the CCS questions ended at 5-7 minutes for me and I was done with the exam by 1pm on the second day.End result: 238 (lower than my previous step scores) BOTTOM LINE: If you did well on the previous step exams, your step 3 score will be comparable. If you don't care about your step 3 score, just use USMLE World and do as much of it as you can with the little time you have. This exam is hard, but hardly dictates the future for most people.

Good luck everyone!

 

[AthensBeth]

I took Step 3 on 1/18 and 1/20, nearly five years after graduating in 2009. I haven't worked in clinical medicine or set foot in a hospital since, unless you count the two times I gave birth. I forgoed residency and chose jobs that allowed me more time with my daughters (like adjunct teaching and a one-year postdoc). I got a 225 on step 1 and a 245 on Step 2, but I was nervous about preparing for this one. I needed to catch up to pass the thing and help prepare me for the residency program I will hopefully be starting this summer. So my study strategy was more intense than the norm.

I used exclusively USMLE World (2.5 x) and Kaplan Q Bank (finished half). On my first time, I got 60% for both. I think I brought my world avg up to 86% on the second round. I did world CCS cases twice. it wasabout 3-4 hours a dayfir 6 weeks. A lot of the test, like previous posters mentioned, was random stuff and general health mainentance not stressed on the Qbanks. However, health maintenance ended up being my best subject for some reason on my score report. So for all you in similar situations: the knowledge comes back!

I felt certain that I failed on day 1. Day 2 was more encouraging. It's a long couple days. Got my score report today, and miraculously:

Step 3: 222

So relieved. To any one thinking of taking time off, it can be done! Well, I guess I have to wait for match day for confirmation, but I'm feeling good about it all.

 

[FranklinBluthMD]

To add to the sample size

US MD graduate
IM Resident @ university program
Step 1: 250
Step 2 CK: 251

Prep: 2 weeks - powered through all of UW on random and tutor (1 run through - 70% right). Did all the cases the day before the test to get used to the software.
Test days: Day 1 - finished in about 6 hours (got there at 7; started at 7:15 -> home by 2). Day 2: finished in about 5ish hours.

Result: 240 (they don't do 2 digit scores anymore if you pass - who knew?)

What I wish I did more of: Pediatrics and joint/ortho stuff. Lots of managing non surgical tears/sprains that all the test choices seemed like something you would do in combination but you could only pick one.
Re the cases: not that bad at all - 10 of the 12 were very straight forward and easy fixes and ended very quickly - two were hard but I could manage the patients well enough.

Don't over think it - don't ignore studying at all but if you did well on step 1 or 2 (and not 270+ like it seems everyone on this forum did on step 1/step 2 - I think I did okay for my first two steps and I got into my top choice at a great IM program) you are going to be okay. Of the 3, I feel this one is more a test of the thinking process instead of memorizing random pathology tidbits or interesting and testable side effects. You still need to know that stuff, but the test seems to want to see if you things like "if the person is in respiratory distress, secure the airway" or "this person has chest pain, lets start with an exam, ekg, and labs - don't pick the option that says "emergent 10 vessel CABG""

Best of luck to everyone taking it.

 

[eyegotlucky]

Ophtha resident, FMG

2010
April Step 1 -89
June Step 2 CK - 90
July CS - Pass

2011-2013, Residency Training

January 2014 - Study

Feb 2nd week, 2014
Step 3 - 192 (PASS)

Experience:
I'm posting this as guide for things not to do on taking Step 3. What I did was kamikaze. I had very limited time in preparing for this exam since I still have other local certifying exams to do in a couple of months to come. I studied for barely a month, after 3.5 years from taking CK and for doing ophtha residency outside the US. My father is sick so I still have to manage him, take him to the hospital 2x for admission, and go back and forth again to the clinics for his follow up. So my preparation, unsurprisingly, was a disaster. I read MTB once, went over selected topics on First Aid (and not on its CCS cases), Did Uworld for 3 weeks, finishing only 70% of its MCQ content and averaging 50%. I did all of their CCS cases and read its online printable contents ONCE.

Day 1 was a nightmare. I finished 3 or 4 blocks by clicking a random answer at the end of those blocks due to lack of time. Time management is very essential in Step 3. Honestly, I think the exam is a bit unfair for having lengthy clinical questions (and abstracts hello??) to answer in a very limited timeframe. But I guess I can't do anything about it. So I just crossed my fingers and went on. There were fortunately a lot of ophtha questions which I readily answered. But there were also questions in ortho, etc. which I think I bombed. I was VERY NAUSEATED at the end of the day, perhaps due to lack of sleep, stress, and jet lag. My head ached. I was not able to eat dinner properly later.

Day 2 was more forgiving. MCQs were still difficult. I found it easy to answer the CCS though. I had only 1 case of a hypotensive infant that can't seem to improve in spite of all managements that I did. Everything else was quite a walk in the park for me. BUT STILL, my results show that I just did average on this part of the exam, so I really don't know how they score it. Funny how a case turned out quite similar to what my dad has, so management of it came easy for me.

So after the exam, I knew that it could turn out either way. I had a good feeling on CCS, but bad on MCQ. So I was really happy when I got the passing mark! I just need to pass and my grade won't be really significant. My advice to anyone who would take this is for you to have enough time studying. You really need to focus on this. I think 2 months would be enough if you're an IM or Fam Med resident, but in my case, I would have gotten a better grade if I study for 3-4 months. Better take it a few weeks after taking Step 2 CK because topics are quite the same. Another downside here is that it's been 3.5 years since i took CK so I had really a difficult time. But I passed thankfully! Although barely. But what the heck, I'm done! But I know I just got very lucky on this one. 🙂

 

[sciencebird]

Got my score back today, the fourth Wednesday from my exam (took it 2/17 and 2/18/14).

UW average: 59%, went through once
UW simulated exam, 221
Real score, 210.

I did about half the cases and read through the rest.

Good luck to everyone! This was my best test score ever, first time to break 200. I'm a PGY2, and I studied about a month on rotation and used one vacation week to study.

 

[cf817]

Just got my score...US FMG, IM PGY-1, studied on and off during an ICU rotation for 1 month, with 1 dedicated weekend.

Step 3- 226

Uworld Question x1- 62% Mostly tutored, some random timed
Uworld Cases- Completed most of them, then got ADD, plus running out of study time, and read the rest
Crush Step 3 CCS- Flipped through night before, page with order sets for commonly seen cases types was useful.
MTB Step 3- Wrote all my notes from incorrect questions in relevant sections...but in the end, didn't even read through the whole book, just peds and ob/gyn...Overall wouldn't recommend this book at all...no stats, misses a lot and over emphasizes non-high yield material. But just like everyone else has said over and over...Uworld questions are most important

Overall, nothing ground breaking or new with what I am going to say. No matter how hard or how long you study there will still be at least 25% where you might audibly say WTF in the testing center. Very random. I had a good amount of stats. But what I have always done with stats is leave it for the night before the test, memorize the formulas that night and morning then as jot them down on the scratch paper they give you, and that helped a lot as always. Skipping the drug ads for the end is money like everyone has said. I had a lot of peds, ob/gyn, and at several random optho questions. And of course very gray area, irritating ethics questions that you just get to a 50/50 and do your best. I think the only thing I feel I can add that is significant is that I did very well on the CCS cases. I think reading previous posts and some horror stories about people getting the cases right and still getting hammered on the grading made me paranoid enough to figure a decent method. Similar to the stats method I use, I wrote down down common order sets for cases like ab pain, ACS, AMS, ED/Trauma, Pregos, Ob/gyn plus in big letters I wrote CONSULT EVERYTHING! That way I wouldn't get hung up on forgetting the bread and butter gravy stuff that you get from UWorld etc and could stay focused on the finer details of the what the case was looking for. I think the fact that always remembering to consult about things like bad habits (smoking, drugs, non-compliance, risk sex etc) either during the case or on the final order page is what gave me the boost. Also remember to report reportable disease like TB, HIV etc.

Other than that it's like everyone has said before...it's long, random, frustrating and you'll probably feel like you failed, but it will most likely work out just fine. Good luck and thanks to all before me for the advice that helped me for all of my USMLEs! I can now say FU USMLE 🙂 !

 

[MetroPath]

Hello everyone,

Anyone know what question bank or review material is helpful for those "outpatient" type questions everyone talks about on Step 3?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Dwindlin]

Anesthesia Resident, currently in a Surgical prelim, so I use almost none of content on a daily basis. Had the Q-bank for a month, did questions intermittently, did manage to make it through the whole thing, maybe half the CCS cases. Didn't use any other resources.

UW (mix of Tutor/Timed): 65%
Step 3: >240

CCS was the lowest area on my breakdown, I would recommend doing as many of those cases as possible. The cases for the most part were straight forward, but even on test day I wasn't 100% comfortable with the format and actually moving through cases.

Best of luck everyone.

 

[argonaut1]

I looked at this thread while studying for step 3, so thought I would add to the list.

I'm a PGY-3 general surgery resident. I studied for and took the test during a research rotation. Step 1 and Step 2 scores were both around 240. I studied for around 2 weeks in addition to a lighter work schedule. I did all the USMLE World questions in 10-20 unused question blocks on tutor mode, and my average was 66%. I used the World mobile app a lot and did questions whenever I had a free few minutes. I reviewed about half the World cases. Didn't use any other sources.

It's a long test, and I felt really rushed on several sections to finish before time was up. I generally thought I did well on the the cases. All but one of them finished early. On that one, the outpatient got partially better, but there must have been something that I didn't do. Two of the cases had obscure diagnoses seemingly unrelated to their primary complaint, but I was able to catch on and get them (I think). The rest of them were hallmark-type cases that you'd study for Step 2 CS.

Final score: 239, so right around my other step scores. Glad to have it over with. Good luck to everyone studying for it.

 

[greg1184]

Step 1: 214, Step 2 CK: 229
UWorld: 61% mostly tutor, a few blocks timed
Kaplan QBank: 62% only a few blocks done.
NBME 1: 470
NBME 2: 460
UWSA: 210 :/

Took step 3 today. I am a surgical prelim. I did MTB, uworld mostly tutor mode, and a few blocks from Kaplan Qbank.

UWorld as usual is very good. However, it seemed like this time around they recycled a bunch of step 2 questions in their bank. Step 3 is very much a clinical judgement exam, and Uworld at times seemed to focus on trivial details and obscure rare diseases. With that being said, I cannot say enough what a high quality resource USMLE world is just from a teaching standpoint. The quality of explanations cannot be beat. I feel like I obtained most of my medical knowledge from this tool. The qbank itself is very well coded. Kaplan Qbank is horribly coded and riddled with bugs. The highligher function isn't good and neither is the strike through. I couldnt even answer one of the questions because I literally couldnt mark an answer!

As for the exam itself, the first day was a mix of very straightforward and very hard ambiguous questions. Timing was at times a challenge and I found myself rushing at the end of some of the blocks. I felt like total crap at times during the exam. My favorite set of questions were the series questions where you findout if you got the first question in the series correct. Thank god most of the time I got it correct.... only a few times did I found myself kicking myself in the heel. Many of the questions on this exam try to dip into your practical medical knowledge that is NOT on any other qbank or book. There are a few Step 1 level mechanism questions as well. Day 2 was easier aside from a part of one of the blocks. I highly recommend you do the free sample questions for step 3. I got two questions almost verbatim from that set. For CCS, getting used to the interface is a must. UWorld mimics the Primus interface to perfection. I did some of the cases and then read the explanations for almost all of the cases. Once you get used to the interface, the case themselves are relatively straightforward. Although I am kicking myself for forgetting to order some things (IVF for acute chest, etc), almost all of the cases resulted in my patient improving and the case ending early. I actually these simulations were kinda fun. /nerd.


Hopefully I did enough to pass...

 

[gargsk5]

Got score back today, 3 weeks after taking test.
Test date: March 15/17 2014
Score results date: April 10, 2014
Step 3 Score: 229, pass
Step 1: 246, Step 2: 241
Currently in prelim medicine program. Have not had any breaks from undergrad, masters, and med school.
Study prep: 85% of UWORLD questions, that's it. About 3 weeks of studying while on elective month.

I thought the test was the hardest out of the 3 in terms of time. The question stems are looong, and you have to sometimes read the labs and the last sentence and just take a guess. I never had time to finish any of the "new drug" or "abstract" questions. I saved those for the end, and just guessed on them (I consider myself a very fast test taker, never had issues on other step exams).

The CCS portion is very easy if you are familiar with the program; know how to advance time, get labs and tests, and move patient to appropriate location...you should do just fine.

Good luck to everyone! Do not stress, yes the test is difficult and very long, but you will pass don't worry.

 

[MDEJ]

step 1 = 244
step 2 = 256
step 3 = ?

my ordeal just ended. Awaiting result.
2 and half weeks of studying during a super easy rotation. Did all of uworld qbank on timed, 20-40 qs blocks. avg 65%.
CCS got through maybe the first 25 cases and ran out of time, couldn't even read through the rest of cases.
Literally flipped through the MTB the night before for OB section only. I looked at other sections way back when but I thought there was a lot of contradictory info in MTB compared to uworld so I stopped looking at it.
UWSA = 237

real thing was so cray. talk about randomness, the exam was all over the place. It felt like they couldn't decide what they wanted to test me on so they just "made up" random questions. I actually got excited when I saw a "normal" question testing my medical knowledge. Apparently the new face of medicine is 40% ethics 40% stats and maybe 20% med/ped/ob/surg/psych. [don't take it literally].
I was dreading CCS coz certainly wasn't prepared for it. for the most parts my cases took 10-15 mins each. Two 10 min cases, I took most of the time allotted. [No one died, although I did order procedure that patient refused, looks bad, I know].

Stay tuned for final result.

 

[LKnope]

Prelim medicine resident.
Step 1 - 213
Step 2 - 264
Step 3 - 246

I took the test March 26/27 and got my score back today - so just shy of 3 weeks later. I mainly used uworld - one time through using random blocks of 20 or 40 mostly on untimed tutor, averaging 60-70%. I tried supplementing uworld with MTB especially for OB/GYN and peds but as others have commented, a lot of the information seemed contradictory.

UWSA 3 days before the test: 232

I spent a few days repeating the 6 NBME practice CCS cases to try and get comfortable with the crazy software but never really felt like I mastered it. I made it through about 25 of the uworld cases.

The actual test felt especially brutal - particularly day 1. I have never had a problem with timing before but as others have attested, the question stems on this thing are ridiculous and there were several blocks where I was racing the clock to finish. I felt like it was pretty OB/GYN and biostats/drug ad heavy but that may be because those are definitely my weaker areas. It also felt like there were quite a few basic science/step 1 esque questions - like virulence factors, etc. Day 2 MCQs blocks felt a bit easier or at least less rushed. CCS was about as miserable as I expected it to be. I didn't kill any of the patients and the diagnoses were fairly straightforward but I must have managed some of them pretty horribly because several of the cases stretched on for almost the entire time limit. All in all, I walked out of the test on both days feeling really crappy. I figured I probably passed but possibly just barely. For what it's worth, CCS did end up being one of my lower scoring areas - just shy of crossing into the grey area. Anyway, very happy to have the test behind me and considering how I felt leaving the test, very happy with the score! Good luck to everyone! Just try to keep in mind that it will likely turn out fine/better than expected but you will likely feel crappier after this test than you are used to feeling!

 

[jknolls]

Prelim medicine here. Just got my score back for step 3 yesterday.

Step 1 - > 250
Step 2 - > 250
Step 3 - > 240

Did all of UW - 71% correct.
MCQs were quite difficult at times and I don't think any amount of preparation would have helped with these. CCS were quite easy. Overall, I left with a bad feeling at the end of day 2 because of MCQs but in the end, I wound up doing better than I'd expected.

UW is all you need. I skimmed through MTB which may have helped a little bit, but not too much and I don't think it's worth it. If you did well on Step1 and Step2, it's quite difficult to fail Step3.

 

[greg1184]

Step 1: 214, Step 2 CK: 229
UWorld: 61% mostly tutor, a few blocks timed
Kaplan QBank: 62% only a few blocks done.
NBME 1: 470
NBME 2: 460
UWSA: 210 :/

Took step 3 today. I am a surgical prelim. I did MTB, uworld mostly tutor mode, and a few blocks from Kaplan Qbank.

UWorld as usual is very good. However, it seemed like this time around they recycled a bunch of step 2 questions in their bank. Step 3 is very much a clinical judgement exam, and Uworld at times seemed to focus on trivial details and obscure rare diseases. With that being said, I cannot say enough what a high quality resource USMLE world is just from a teaching standpoint. The quality of explanations cannot be beat. I feel like I obtained most of my medical knowledge from this tool. The qbank itself is very well coded. Kaplan Qbank is horribly coded and riddled with bugs. The highligher function isn't good and neither is the strike through. I couldnt even answer one of the questions because I literally couldnt mark an answer!

As for the exam itself, the first day was a mix of very straightforward and very hard ambiguous questions. Timing was at times a challenge and I found myself rushing at the end of some of the blocks. I felt like total crap at times during the exam. My favorite set of questions were the series questions where you findout if you got the first question in the series correct. Thank god most of the time I got it correct.... only a few times did I found myself kicking myself in the heel. Many of the questions on this exam try to dip into your practical medical knowledge that is NOT on any other qbank or book. There are a few Step 1 level mechanism questions as well. Day 2 was easier aside from a part of one of the blocks. I highly recommend you do the free sample questions for step 3. I got two questions almost verbatim from that set. For CCS, getting used to the interface is a must. UWorld mimics the Primus interface to perfection. I did some of the cases and then read the explanations for almost all of the cases. Once you get used to the interface, the case themselves are relatively straightforward. Although I am kicking myself for forgetting to order some things (IVF for acute chest, etc), almost all of the cases resulted in my patient improving and the case ending early. I actually these simulations were kinda fun. /nerd.


Hopefully I did enough to pass...

201. Passed... glad to not have to take another USMLE exam ever again.

 

[MDEJ]

...

 

[MDEJ]

step 1 = 244
step 2 = 256
step 3 = ?
my ordeal just ended. Awaiting result.
2 and half weeks of studying during a super easy rotation. Did all of uworld qbank on timed, 20-40 qs blocks. avg 65%.
CCS got through maybe the first 25 cases and ran out of time, couldn't even read through the rest of cases.
Literally flipped through the MTB the night before for OB section only. I looked at other sections way back when but I thought there was a lot of contradictory info in MTB compared to uworld so I stopped looking at it.
UWSA = 237
real thing was so cray. talk about randomness, the exam was all over the place. It felt like they couldn't decide what they wanted to test me on so they just "made up" random questions. I actually got excited when I saw a "normal" question testing my medical knowledge. Apparently the new face of medicine is 40% ethics 40% stats and maybe 20% med/ped/ob/surg/psych. [don't take it literally].
I was dreading CCS coz certainly wasn't prepared for it. for the most parts my cases took 10-15 mins each. Two 10 min cases, I took most of the time allotted. [No one died, although I did order procedure that patient refused, looks bad, I know].
Stay tuned for final result.

And the verdict is....
PASSED
final score, 228
Ba Bye USMLE