Ok guys.. I feel now a little better, not completely recovered though, I'll post my experience.
I'm an IMG and did my step 1 5 years ago during med school, when I managed to have 2 months of dedicated study and got in the end 245. I had a good time, it was fun to study for this exam, and it was important to consolidate my medical knowledge.
Not sure why I decided to do my step 2 given that non US IMGs seem not to be much appreciated these days... I dream of getting a fellowship in my area of interest and I'm willing to work for that goal, I'm not going for the match. My advice for non-us IMGs is: think well before spending thousands of dollars with this and months of study, because it may all be in vain. 60% of you will do it for nothing. Before it was easy for nonUS IMGs to get positions, not anymore. There are US IMGs that fill the places, not you anymore. And I think it should be like that.
Now, as a resident I didn't have much time to study for this one, and I always heard that it is "easier" than step 1. So I used only UW, in 3 weeks I was able to complete almost all of it (with the exception of 300 qs).
In my first few blocks I was getting about 57%...then rapidly increased for 65s...In my last 15 blocks I was scoring between 70-80 and got 3 or 4 88s and 1 or 2 68s. 72th percentile overall.
I felt a bit defeated before doing the exam because I thought I could finish all UW. I don't like to perform without being prepared but in my mind I kept telling me "this will be easy".
It wasn't.
Some people say it is easier, others say that it is a terrible nightmare. For me, the UW questions were really easy and repetitive. Let me say to you that UW for step 2 has not the same quality of its predecessor. Too many similar questions and explanations, you end up reading the same things all over again, preventing you from learning TONS, I mean literally, TONS of subjects that will be asked and you never heard about (or maybe you did in med school, or on the wards, or if you like to go to uptodate when you are in the bathroom which is my case). I used uptodate a lot for this exam, and I think it helps you to answer many questions.
I left step 1 exam saying "either this is too easy or I'm too smart". Well, for this one I say "either I'm too dumb, or the exam is really difficult", and I think these feelings are in tight correlation with the fact that UW for step 1 is one step further than the actual exam. It is harder and better done than the actual exam, so when you arrive the exam you feel you are doing a elementary class test. This was my experience.
Well, for step 2 I started with confidence, but the first 10 qs were asking things that I never heard about with patients presenting symptoms that were unrelated. Tons of comorbidities, polimedications, every single detail of a disease is asked and you must know it all because they will put you in the options treatment regimens that are very similar, many drugs from the same class (not like in UW questions), so you must know the specific treatment for that disease. Don't read it passively like I did thinking the exam would be similar to UW.
You must know every single exam to ask to diagnose diseases. I cannot give you examples of course, but they put things in a way I didn't expect, because UW didn't provide me the correct training to answer it. So these first 10 qs of the first block were dramatic, and they put me down for the rest of the block and also the next block. These first 2 blocks if I was sure about 10 qs in each block it would be good. I gave too much answers without being sure of it. I think 60% of the questions I answered I was unsure. The next 2 blocks were better and the last 4 I can say that 50% of the qs were at UW level.
I'd read the questions and be exhausted only from reading them. My mind was flying during the exam, I was not concentrated and I was overwhelmed. I'd arrive at question 30 and have only 10 minutes left, making the last 10 questions a nightmare where I had to think read fast, think fast and answer faster. In the end I think I only answered about 2 questions without reading the stem. In the ones that I was sure about the diagnosis or about what option to select even before looking at it they'd ask a completely different thing I was thinking.
My keypoints are:
-don't be defeated by the first questions or blocks, it will get better eventually.
-manage your time. I'm foreign so maybe I take more time to read it, but I doubt it is easy to read all that question stems without being tired in the end of each block, even for native speakers. Many of the questions will require you to interpret the english language, and not medicine
-don't use only UW. I hope to be wrong and get a high score after studying only UW (even though I felt I failed). But if you want to ace this test you should use uptodate, maybe other question banks. Use uptodate!!!! Read the summaries and you'll be fine. The books that cover the subjects of this exam seem to be terrible (mtb, step up, FA, secrets)
-don't go there thinking it is easy.
-PRACTICE NBMES!! Maybe if had done this in the middle of my study I would have a better idea of what was expecting me. I don't know the NBMES but I suppose at least 1 of them is similar to the test
-The questions are difficult for everyone guys so if you find them difficult then 99.9% of the people will feel the same about it.
Okay guys sorry for my english, I just can't speak foreign languages when I'm tired and I hope to be here in 3 weeks telling you that I was having a "poststep 2 partum depression" and brag about my score like a good SDN folk should do!
