With being so close can you expand on your experience of the test, how you felt, how often you felt like you guessed, the ccs experience and what your prep was going in: resources, year in training, field, etc.....
Not to single you out, but it would make a lot of people feel better about being so close to the edge and getting your perspective of how the process was.
Congrats too!
No worries, I'm happy to explain a bit. Anyone can feel free to send me a DM if they want to discuss things in a more private manner.
USIMG
Step 1: 200 (first pass)
Step 2 CK: (211; on third attempt. Dealing with personal stuff and should have waited but didn't because I was an idiot)
Step 2 CS: Pass (first attempt)
Step 3: 196 (first attempt)
Had 2 LOA during medical school (both related to money because I was paying cash)
*I know my scores suck and will be an uphill battle but I believe a program director will see my life experience and other academic achievements and say, "we need that dude in our program."
Resources used: DIT Step 3 (I didn't buy it; someone hooked me up), Step 2 CK notes. and uworld (assessments, ccs cases, and q-bank). I only had about a 2-2.5 month to study.
I am currently NOT in residency and took the exam beforehand because I don't want to deal with it then. I am a USIMG and graduated Nov 2017 (debated to continue with medicine or use my other masters degrees to get rich because my overall scores suck; I chose medicine). I will add that I have a problem with standardized test (I get super nervous, my throat closes, and have a difficult time breathing) but for some reason I'm straight with regular exams and tend to dominate those.
My experience/thought about the test was that it was SUPER weird in terms of the question(s) asked. They had a lot of Step 1 material (mechanisms of drugs, having to choose the specific bug based off description such as gram + cocco-bacilli, etc) and some off the wall stuff. In addition, there were a good amount of concepts that no matter how much you studied or prepared, there just was no way of narrowing down based off the answer options (most were A-E). On day 1 I felt that I was guessing about 50-60%; could be a little higher. The question stems were long, somewhat similar to uworld, but they went out of their way to be SUPER vague. It could have just been my test form but from other people I spoke to testing on the same day felt the same. I don't have an intern year yet but I am sure that if I did I could have possibly got some of the weird questions right. I went into the test just wanting to pass (196) because I wasn't trying to destroy it; I was so fed up of studying and "running on the AMA hamster wheel" that I felt a pass would suffice. PLEASE STUDY A SHYT-TON of biostats; it was HEAVY and I had at least 5-9 questions on EVERY block. I also had 1-2 abstracts that were just impossible to do just because of the amount of text to read, decipher, and formulate a theory in order to pick the correct answer option.
On the second day I had ZERO biostats, however, the questions were still challenging but more manageable. Most people would agree with my assessment because that has been their experience as well. Had a friend just take it and they confirmed that their second day was just like mine in terms of experience. Now, as far as the CCS cases, I cannot stress enough to read the 41 non-interactive cases on uworld BEFORE doing the regular 51 cases. The reason I say this is because you can become familiar with things and understand what needs to be ordered and when to order it. You have to remember, you are now considered the top dog (at least on the exam) and have to think like a clinician so your orders have to be calculated. Half of the battle is getting accustomed with the software program and knowing the names of drugs (generic or name brand) and types of procedures along with consults that may or may not be needed.
