okayyyyyyyyy.... Took the bad boy about 10 days ago... All I can say is that the test is too freakin' long. I made some dumb mistakes because I was tired of staring at a computer. It's only 1 block longer than step I, but the questions include so much unnecessary information that you just want to scream. For example, I got some question about a lady in the ER with abdominal pain. The question went through all kinds of exam findings, a bunch of labs (mostly normal and irrelevant), and at the end of the question there is the following... "Chest x-ray reveals free air under the right diaphragm. What is the most appropriate next step in treatment?" AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!! That was during my 4th block before I took a break.
The hardest thing about that test is being forced to read through a bunch of stuff only to find out after you have read it that 90% of the information is just thrown in for padding. I am a medium-fast test-taker, and the most time I had left in a block after answering all the questions was about 2 minutes.
As for the difficulty of the test.... It was hard. At this point I just care about passing, but I have to say that it was pretty challenging. I prepared at about 50% strength compared to step I, and I think that I nearly underprepared. I did 80% of the Kaplan Q-bank and thought that it was decent preparation. Although, for Step I there was a much stronger correlation between Q-bank and the exam I thought. Kaplan questions did hit most of the subjects well enough so that I would recommend it. But don't expect any repeats like Step I. I did all 5 NMS tests in 5 days right before the exam. These exams were okay as far as preparing you for the real thing. The NMS exams cover a little too much detail, and I think that because of that they are not as high-yield for Step 2 as Q-bank was. I used Boards & Wards, and prescriptions for my "texts"... They were okay, I recommend them.
The test itself... pretty balanced subject questions... I have heard people say that their tests had a lot of ob/gyn/ or ortho, or whatever. Mine was really evenly balanced. Not as much psych, or ob/gyn, as I would have thought. And I expected more renal, and less cards... But overall it was pretty balanced.
I am pretty certain that I passed, but I know that I thought it would be easier than it was. If I had studied with the idea that I would "just pass", I am not sure if I would have. For me the hardest thing to deal with was the fatigue factor. I just got sick of reading normal lab values by the last couple of blocks, and wound up making some very, very dumb mistakes.
I'll post again when I get my score report... 😉
