- Joined
- Feb 13, 2001
- Messages
- 1,343
- Reaction score
- 9
General: I didn't have a very different feeling about the test as a whole from what most people seem to have. I thought that about 15% was of the "know it right away" type (simple stuff like identifying obvious strep infections, P450 interactions, etc). About 60% was of the "I can do this if I think about it" type (e.g. is this person's calcium disruption due to renal failure, adenoma, lung cancer, etc; identifiying anemias; autonomic drugs, which I always seem to have to think about carefully). About another 20% was of the "I may get this if I think really hard, so I'll mark it and come back later" type (obscure drug interactions, complicated renal physiology questions, etc). About 5% of my test was hard to the point of not knowing what the hell they were looking for. I got drugs that I had never heard of (and I knew pharm cold), questions about OTC meds and commercial drug store "products" that I couldn't answer because I had never really thought about it, some damn hard anatomy questions (I'm talking Chung-detailed), and a few nasty neuro questions. All in all, I'm nearly certain I passed, but there's absolutely NO way of knowing how you did on this thing. If there was any test where you could say "I simply did my best and we'll see what happens", it's this one. They do a great job of keeping you feeling either stupid or unsure of yourself throughout most of it. I'd say the majority of the time, I was making very strong guesses between two likely choices (again, only 15% or so was answerable right away). On to the breakdown.
Anatomy: I forget who it was on SDN that got a lot of anatomy (I think it may have been doc05, but I don't remember). Add me to this list. I got about 4 gross anatomy questions per block (about 25-30 for the entire test), and I'd say half of them were very difficult. Even the ones I was expecting, like brachial plexus, were tough because they know what you know, and they know not to ask it! Not many no-brainers here. MRIs and CTs were either really easy or really hard, and I'd say I had about 8 questions involving images. I got about 5 histo questions (two were really easy, one of medium difficulty, the other two I didn't even try to think through and just guessed). Only about 4 or 5 embryo questions, but all organogenesis and developmental questions that really weren't in FA. I could only answer about 2 or 3 of these. Neuro was meaty - about 15-20 questions, and they ranged from things like knowing how to work through an MLF lesion to cerebellar problems to cortical problems, both sensory and motor. Very broad range, but if you know your neuro very doable. STUDY MORE NEURO THAN IS IN FA, MORE THAN 75% OF MY NEURO QUESTIONS CAME FROM OUTSIDE SOURCES!!! So all in all, I had about 50 anatomy questions total - a lot, considering what most people report.
Behavioral: About 3 stats questions that were no big deal, about 3 psychopath questions that were no big deal, and about 15 response questions that ranged from really easy to moderately difficult. Check it out, though: I got two questions (the first and last block) about physician compensation. You should read up on how payments work in HMOs, PPOs, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, because I got hit with it and didn't know it. About 25 behavioral questions total.
Biochem: About 3-5 of these "molecular biology" questions everyone has been talking about, but they really weren't all that bad. I did have some enzyme diseases and there were a few pathways questions. Nothing too dramatic. About 20 questions total.
Micro: Lots of stuff here. I felt like half of the test started out with "Pt is X y.o. male with high fever, productive cough, and pleuritic chest pain..." I felt like micro was very highly represented in that there were lots of path and pharm questions that involved knowing how to discern between different types of infections. A few questions were simply determining a bug based on lab tests, but most were clinical diagnoses. About 35 straight micro questions, but about 75 questions involved micro in some way or another. Suprisingly little immuno - only about 7 questions: one or two easy hypersensitivity q's, 2 or 3 immunological diseases, and then about 3 or 4 involving detailed understanding of immunology in a very meaningful way that I cannot possibly appreciate.
Path: The meat and potatoes of my test - at LEAST 125-150 questions were straight path questions. It was about a 65:35 split between path and pathophys, and much like the exam as a whole, there was a broad range of difficulty. Everyone on my exam either seemed to be diabetic, pregnant, or pregnant with diabetes. There is not a single system that went untouched, you really have to know it all. Not much else to say - know your path very well (I mean BRS well - FA might not cut it if you're not really strong in path).
Pharm: This was the shocker for me - I consider pharm to be my strongest subject and it was possibly the hardest part of the exam. They asked about 3 immunosuppressant questions, about 3-4 antineoplastics, about 10 autonomics, about 8 endocrine q's. I only got 2 antiviral q's and only about 3-5 antibiotics. Then a handful of no-brainers (mechanisms of common drugs, contraindictations, really easy stuff). The shocker is all of the crazy q's I got on drugs that I had never seen or about OTC drugs and drug store "products" (I can't go into more detail lest I expose myself to an "irregularity" - just be ready for anything). In all, about 40-50 questions.
Physio: This is a hard subject to comment on since most physio is in conjunction with path, micro, pharm - about half of the questions on the test have a physio "component" to them. In terms of straight physio questions, I probably had about 30 or so. I personally thought that the straight physio questions could be answered from FA + a moderate background in the subject. Nearly every physio questions you get will require you to "figure it out" rather than come up with the fact, and most will have graphs with them. I think everyone gets pretty much the same types of physio questions.
In all, I'd say that about 60% of the exam could be answered from FA and the rest required either outside sources or a decent memory/background from the first two years. The ones that were from FA, however, were not always straightforward, so don't take them for granted (matter of fact, don't take anything on this test for granted).
I prepared using Kaplan (did the course), QBank, and FA. I went through all of the Kaplan books during the course, went through FA twice after the course, and did about 70% of QBank. Total QBank average was around 70%, but I was scoring consistently in the 80s by the last week. I think QBank is somewhat of a sham in that it really doesn't test what Step 1 tests. Don't get me wrong - they're both hard, just in totally different ways. QBank is hard because you know you can't answer many of the questions. Step 1 is hard because you think you can answer most of the questions, but most of them have two or more seemingly right answers. QBank is definitely more fact-based rather than the reasoning-based USMLE. I may be one of the only people to go ahead and say that I thought step 1 was harder than QBank - once you memorized all of the HLA types, chromosome numbers, and know what is AD and AR, you are all set to get a decent score on QBank. Not so with step one (only one question asking for inheritance type and NO HLA types).
Feel free to ask questions. Just glad this sumbitch is over...
Anatomy: I forget who it was on SDN that got a lot of anatomy (I think it may have been doc05, but I don't remember). Add me to this list. I got about 4 gross anatomy questions per block (about 25-30 for the entire test), and I'd say half of them were very difficult. Even the ones I was expecting, like brachial plexus, were tough because they know what you know, and they know not to ask it! Not many no-brainers here. MRIs and CTs were either really easy or really hard, and I'd say I had about 8 questions involving images. I got about 5 histo questions (two were really easy, one of medium difficulty, the other two I didn't even try to think through and just guessed). Only about 4 or 5 embryo questions, but all organogenesis and developmental questions that really weren't in FA. I could only answer about 2 or 3 of these. Neuro was meaty - about 15-20 questions, and they ranged from things like knowing how to work through an MLF lesion to cerebellar problems to cortical problems, both sensory and motor. Very broad range, but if you know your neuro very doable. STUDY MORE NEURO THAN IS IN FA, MORE THAN 75% OF MY NEURO QUESTIONS CAME FROM OUTSIDE SOURCES!!! So all in all, I had about 50 anatomy questions total - a lot, considering what most people report.
Behavioral: About 3 stats questions that were no big deal, about 3 psychopath questions that were no big deal, and about 15 response questions that ranged from really easy to moderately difficult. Check it out, though: I got two questions (the first and last block) about physician compensation. You should read up on how payments work in HMOs, PPOs, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, because I got hit with it and didn't know it. About 25 behavioral questions total.
Biochem: About 3-5 of these "molecular biology" questions everyone has been talking about, but they really weren't all that bad. I did have some enzyme diseases and there were a few pathways questions. Nothing too dramatic. About 20 questions total.
Micro: Lots of stuff here. I felt like half of the test started out with "Pt is X y.o. male with high fever, productive cough, and pleuritic chest pain..." I felt like micro was very highly represented in that there were lots of path and pharm questions that involved knowing how to discern between different types of infections. A few questions were simply determining a bug based on lab tests, but most were clinical diagnoses. About 35 straight micro questions, but about 75 questions involved micro in some way or another. Suprisingly little immuno - only about 7 questions: one or two easy hypersensitivity q's, 2 or 3 immunological diseases, and then about 3 or 4 involving detailed understanding of immunology in a very meaningful way that I cannot possibly appreciate.
Path: The meat and potatoes of my test - at LEAST 125-150 questions were straight path questions. It was about a 65:35 split between path and pathophys, and much like the exam as a whole, there was a broad range of difficulty. Everyone on my exam either seemed to be diabetic, pregnant, or pregnant with diabetes. There is not a single system that went untouched, you really have to know it all. Not much else to say - know your path very well (I mean BRS well - FA might not cut it if you're not really strong in path).
Pharm: This was the shocker for me - I consider pharm to be my strongest subject and it was possibly the hardest part of the exam. They asked about 3 immunosuppressant questions, about 3-4 antineoplastics, about 10 autonomics, about 8 endocrine q's. I only got 2 antiviral q's and only about 3-5 antibiotics. Then a handful of no-brainers (mechanisms of common drugs, contraindictations, really easy stuff). The shocker is all of the crazy q's I got on drugs that I had never seen or about OTC drugs and drug store "products" (I can't go into more detail lest I expose myself to an "irregularity" - just be ready for anything). In all, about 40-50 questions.
Physio: This is a hard subject to comment on since most physio is in conjunction with path, micro, pharm - about half of the questions on the test have a physio "component" to them. In terms of straight physio questions, I probably had about 30 or so. I personally thought that the straight physio questions could be answered from FA + a moderate background in the subject. Nearly every physio questions you get will require you to "figure it out" rather than come up with the fact, and most will have graphs with them. I think everyone gets pretty much the same types of physio questions.
In all, I'd say that about 60% of the exam could be answered from FA and the rest required either outside sources or a decent memory/background from the first two years. The ones that were from FA, however, were not always straightforward, so don't take them for granted (matter of fact, don't take anything on this test for granted).
I prepared using Kaplan (did the course), QBank, and FA. I went through all of the Kaplan books during the course, went through FA twice after the course, and did about 70% of QBank. Total QBank average was around 70%, but I was scoring consistently in the 80s by the last week. I think QBank is somewhat of a sham in that it really doesn't test what Step 1 tests. Don't get me wrong - they're both hard, just in totally different ways. QBank is hard because you know you can't answer many of the questions. Step 1 is hard because you think you can answer most of the questions, but most of them have two or more seemingly right answers. QBank is definitely more fact-based rather than the reasoning-based USMLE. I may be one of the only people to go ahead and say that I thought step 1 was harder than QBank - once you memorized all of the HLA types, chromosome numbers, and know what is AD and AR, you are all set to get a decent score on QBank. Not so with step one (only one question asking for inheritance type and NO HLA types).
Feel free to ask questions. Just glad this sumbitch is over...
