USMLE STEP 3 Trick Works!!

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analyzer18 said:
Don't worry, brunettee! You PASSED!! Be happy about that!! It would have been so much worse to fail... and from what i've heard, programs dont care so much about the score on step 3, moreso just that you took it and passed. it was a really hard test. I'm so nervous that I failed...I was actually looking out for my score today but I guess I'll have to wait another week. When was your 2nd test day?
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Thank you for the kind words. Yeah the exam was horrible and I felt like I got hit by a tornado.
My 2nd day was August 15th...so exactly 3 weeks from that day.
When was your 2nd day? If I passed it...you definitely overpassed!
 
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Hey everyone.Congrats to everyone for clearing step 3. I got my result today and failed with a score of 191. IMG applying for the upcoming match with ck 1 year ago.I knew I sucked at biostats and underestimated this test a bit. Can anyone provide me some advice on how I can go about to pass and improve on this? Planning to retake by the end of November. First time I did Uworld x1. U world ccs x 2 and some of step 1 FA .Would appreciate any advice.
 
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syed2636 said:
Hey everyone.Congrats to everyone for clearing step 3. I got my result today and failed with a score of 191. IMG applying for the upcoming match with ck 1 year ago.I knew I sucked at biostats and underestimated this test a bit. Can anyone provide me some advice on how I can go about to pass and improve on this? Planning to retake by the end of November. First time I did Uworld x1. U world ccs x 2 and some of step 1 FA .Would appreciate any advice.
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My biostatistics/epidemiology showed “low” performance as well even tho I studied my a$$ off for that. How is your performance on the CCS? Mine was on “high” and I believe that is what saved me. Did you do the official nbme cases? I had 1 out of the 6 on my real exam with a twist of course. If I were you I would do uworld again + the cases 2-3 times and also I would buy ccscases (100 cases) that are worth it to do! Do that! And also for reading pleasure when you are taking a break...read crush ccs (the book). It’s a good source as well. You can do it!
 
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Mine was on "same" for all the fields except stats which was low. I did the official Fred cases and indeed got 1 similar case. Don't really what went wrong since I followed all the known protocols. monitorings, treatments, etc. All but 1 case improved. Want to also improve a bit on the MCQs part as well. Thanks for your input will work on it.
 
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Good day folks,

Thank you for this thread. It is very helpful. I believe that my score will be available next week. I am so scared because my test felt horrible and I ran out of time in all my blocks. CCS felt weird as well and the cases ended very early except one kid who was always irritated. I don’t want to fail before applying this year. I hope I won’t but some of the experiences here make me feel very apprehensive.
 
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FryyM said:
Psychiatry PGY2 here.

First attempt Christmas week 2018.
Did UWorld 3 QBank, half-assed UWorld CCS & Biostats, went through MTBs. Halfway through Day 2 I knew I was failing. Sure did (187).

Second attempt April 17 & 19.
Re-did UWorld 3 twice (had most questions near memorized), did through UWorld CCS twice (both the simulations and the read-only cases), really dug into MTBs, read Step 3 Secrets, did some Online MedEd vids for my weaker topics, read the Biostats practice material, got a 204 on UWorld Self-Assess module #2. Felt significantly better throughout both test days.
Got my results earlier today — failed with a 193.
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How was your CCS performance on the exam? Thank you for sharing your expérience.
 
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Sudheer87300 said:
First, thank you one and all for sharing their experiences and guidance.This group is really helpful for me.It is time for me to post my experience.
Total preparation time : 3 months.
Resources used : Uworld , step 2 ck uworld tables,step 1 first aid for pharma and micro.
Gap between my step 2 ck and step 3: more than year.
study plan: totally dedicated for step 3.
ccs resources: Uworld , ccscases.com
Assessment: USWA 1: 198 ( 1 month before exam)
USWA 2: 204 ( 2 weeks before exam)
Final score: 233
USWA were not predictive for me.Hope this helps who are taking this last exam.
Any questions please comment,happy to help.Thank you and all the best.
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Congratulations. How was your CCS performance on the exam?
 
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Benabar said:
Good day folks,

Thank you for this thread. It is very helpful. I believe that my score will be available next week. I am so scared because my test felt horrible and I ran out of time in all my blocks. CCS felt weird as well and the cases ended very early except one kid who was always irritated. I don’t want to fail before applying this year. I hope I won’t but some of the experiences here make me feel very apprehensive.
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I also get my scores next week and I continue to feel terrible as time draws near. My study partner passed this week with a 200. That’s just makes me scared. I would hate to retake this exam but I’m hoping for the best and preparing for the worst at this point. I’ll settle for a passing score at this point.
 
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moromoke said:
I also get my scores next week and I continue to feel terrible as time draws near. My study partner passed this week with a 200. That’s just makes me scared. I would hate to retake this exam but I’m hoping for the best and preparing for the worst at this point. I’ll settle for a passing score at this point.
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I remember that you did well on your CK so trust me people CK >230 tend to get at least 220 on step 3. I barely passed my step 3 but I also didn’t do well on CK...so there is deff a correlation Relax. Most likely you did better than you think you did!
 
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moromoke said:
I also get my scores next week and I continue to feel terrible as time draws near. My study partner passed this week with a 200. That’s just makes me scared. I would hate to retake this exam but I’m hoping for the best and preparing for the worst at this point. I’ll settle for a passing score at this point.
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Did your permit expire yet? Mine did not. I could still see it.
 
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brunettee said:
I remember that you did well on your CK so trust me people CK >230 tend to get at least 220 on step 3. I barely passed my step 3 but I also didn’t do well on CK...so there is deff a correlation Relax. Most likely you did better than you think you did!
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I hope so. It’s not easy to relax lol. But Thanks for been confident in me passing. I know a couple of people with good scores on previous steps that failed.
The whole exam was just weird. All but one of my 10 min cases ended around 7 minutes. 20 min cases went on and on till 16 to 17 minutes. Used all my time in 2 cases which I had no clue lol. All felt better. Forgot to give morphine on very first case but caught it 2 hours later and gave it. My last patient had the worst vitals bp was 70/30 and hg was 10. Fluids didn’t help. I was like transfuse that b....and wowza! Patient feeling better. I used all 20 minutes on her. We are not supposed to transfuse unless hg was <7 but it seem to stabilize this one patient. Fingers crossed till wed morning!
 
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you got this. personally this was the hardest usmle exam for me. the USMLE needs to do a better job of letting people know how they grade CCS. it is wayyy too open for interpretation and isn't fair for test takers in my opinion..
 
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The exam is also going under review for the passing cut off in december! Hahaha...Im pretty sure they will increase the cut off and make it even more difficult to pass. What a bunch of money grabbers the NBME is!
Glad to be done with that $hit
 
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Hey gang.

I wrote the exam on August 20th. My permit is no longer available. On FSMB, after clicking the red "USMLE Step 3", my status is listed as "approved". My grey box (without a yellow link to reapply) says, "Your Step 3 application will expire soon." This is different from other people whose boxes that say "Your Step 3 application has expired."

Can anyone help me interpret this?
 
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BPMED said:
Hey gang.

I wrote the exam on August 20th. My permit is no longer available. On FSMB, after clicking the red "USMLE Step 3", my status is listed as "approved". My grey box (without a yellow link to reapply) says, "Your Step 3 application will expire soon." This is different from other people whose boxes that say "Your Step 3 application has expired."

Can anyone help me interpret this?
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I am expecting my score this week as well but nothing expired yet for me.
 
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BPMED said:
Hey gang.

I wrote the exam on August 20th. My permit is no longer available. On FSMB, after clicking the red "USMLE Step 3", my status is listed as "approved". My grey box (without a yellow link to reapply) says, "Your Step 3 application will expire soon." This is different from other people whose boxes that say "Your Step 3 application has expired."

Can anyone help me interpret this?
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I'am also expecting this week, but mine still says approved. No change yet.
can you post a screen shot cos I ve never read any such thing.
this is a mind f...
 
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Wrote mine on aug 23rd.... permit has been unavailable since I sat and fsmb still says approved. This is unchanged since the 23rd 🙁. Should I be expecting my result next week then?
 
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My permit link just disappeared...what could I expect the fsmb site to say if I passed and when would that change occur?!
 
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So after reading up and agonizing over this.... you should see approved turn into expired sunday before score release on fsmb. On the nbme-ish candidate site there should be no option to print your permit. If your application was not meant to expire before that sunday on fsmb, but it expired cause of scoring you will be able to reapply (bad) or if you click reapply and it says you cant (good). That's my general idea. I've settled on my score coming next week because it has not changed from approved and I still see a blue link to print my permit even though I cant print it cause I sat.
 
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Wrote the exam on August 20th. FYI my FSMB changed from active to expired with no link to reapply this AM.
 
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Aug 21 23. Permit link proof Sunday evening with approved to expired 1am pst monday. So things are going I guess.
 
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This is what my FSMB looks like now...good news?
 

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orodrigu said:
This is what my FSMB looks like now...good news?
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Supposedly, that's money. I would get some z's and not read around this forum or reddit any further. For the vast majority the "trick" works - pass or fail - (we can't think of a better name, really?), but there are some unverified outliers. I've been looking into those cases, but for the most part it's either their TRUE expiration came before score release, or it's some form of unverified s**tposting.
 
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Benabar said:
Mine too. It is quite frightening.
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To save you the time.... supposedly if you fail theres a glaringly noticable yellow box with a link to reapply if you fail on that screen. Could not for the life of me find a picture cause no one wanted to post one. Mine also looks the same as yours and I felt like hot trash after my exam. USMLE really about to ask me about inheritance patterns of things at this point? I mean, really?
 
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Phallacy said:
To save you the time.... supposedly if you fail theres a glaringly noticable yellow box with a link to reapply if you fail on that screen. Could not for the life of me find a picture cause no one wanted to post one. Mine also looks the same as yours and I felt like hot trash after my exam. USMLE really about to ask me about inheritance patterns of things at this point? I mean, really?
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Yellow box appears on that screen I screenshot?
 
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Phallacy said:
To save you the time.... supposedly if you fail theres a glaringly noticable yellow box with a link to reapply if you fail on that screen. Could not for the life of me find a picture cause no one wanted to post one. Mine also looks the same as yours and I felt like hot trash after my exam. USMLE really about to ask me about inheritance patterns of things at this point? I mean, really?
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But some people received their yellow box after the score was posted according to this thread.
 
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Guys, stepping out of the lurking zone because the anxiety is killing me. I was terrified coming out of the exam because I honestly thought I bombed it. Wrote my Day 2 on Aug 17th. This is what I am seeing on my FSMB account:

Status: Expired
Eligibility extension status: Approved
Your eligibility extension has been approved. You may reschedule your exam on any date prior to new extended expiration date. No additional extensions will be granted for step 3 application.

The status said "Approved" yesterday. I don't see any new link and neither am I going to check again because my heart rate is going over the roof over this thing lol. Does this sound okay or should I not raise any hopes at all?
 
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niuvi said:
Guys, stepping out of the lurking zone because the anxiety is killing me. I was terrified coming out of the exam because I honestly thought I bombed it. Wrote my Day 2 on Aug 17th. This is what I am seeing on my FSMB account:

Status: Expired
Eligibility extension status: Approved
Your eligibility extension has been approved. You may reschedule your exam on any date prior to new extended expiration date. No additional extensions will be granted for step 3 application.

The status said "Approved" yesterday. I don't see any new link and neither am I going to check again because my heart rate is going over the roof over this thing lol. Does this sound okay or should I not raise any hopes at all?
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It sounds like the rest of the other people who have been posting lately except that you had an extension approved. Unfortunately we can do nothing at this point but hope, wait and see.
 
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Benabar said:
It sounds like the rest of the other people who have been posting lately except that you had an extension approved. Unfortunately we can do nothing at this point but hope, wait and see.
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Thanks! It's (eligibility extension) the reason I had to post it out here since I don't see anyone with similar extension history. Let's see!
 
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Looking back through this entire thread the last known case of a yellow box indicating failure and being a true positive was september 2018. Log in info States they made a security change on Jan 22 2019. Looking on other forums some people literally had the audacity to call fsmb to ask about their score because of a yellow box or lack thereof and legit explained the exploit to the person on the phone. More recent posts state no yellow box until after score release and confirmed failure. We may be looking at a serious case of people ruining things for everyone else.

Ps I'm literally about to call a psych consult for myself
 
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Phallacy said:
Looking back through this entire thread the last known case of a yellow box indicating failure and being a true positive was september 2018. Log in info States they made a security change on Jan 22 2019. Looking on other forums some people literally had the audacity to call fsmb to ask about their score because of a yellow box or lack thereof and legit explained the exploit to the person on the phone. More recent posts state no yellow box until after score release and confirmed failure. We may be looking at a serious case of people ruining things for everyone else.

Ps I'm literally about to call a psych consult for myself
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Well then...back to freaking out for me.
 
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niuvi said:
Well then...back to freaking out for me.
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If you want to distract yourself you can wonder why someone with a medical degree would be so ******* ***** and call and ask fsmb about an exploit. It's been a wonderful mental exercise. I've gone from anxiety to disbelief <-> seething rage.
 
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Getting pumped for results tomorrow, does any one know what time results will start trickling in?
 
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Phallacy said:
Supposedly, that's money. I would get some z's and not read around this forum or reddit any further. For the vast majority the "trick" works - pass or fail - (we can't think of a better name, really?), but there are some unverified outliers. I've been looking into those cases, but for the most part it's either their TRUE expiration came before score release, or it's some form of unverified s**tposting.
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Wait...so if our permit says "Expired", it just means our score will be released at midnight? it doesn't mean we necessarily passed? or it means we did pass?
 
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analyzer18 said:
Wait...so if our permit says "Expired", it just means our score will be released at midnight? it doesn't mean we necessarily passed? or it means we did pass?
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Exactly!. trick don't matter anymore.
Now we just wait 45min.
I feel like pulling my hair out.
gonna watch a move then come back to this.
 
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