USMLE Self Correcting?

[Pinesinger]

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Hey all,

Someone asked me today if the USMLE Step One adjusts the difficulty of the questions based on whether or not you answer things correctly...I had heard a rumor about this but haven't been able to get it confirmed. The GRE does this, and someone said that the USMLE was either going to switch or had switched to this format. Has anyone heard anything about this?!

Thanks 🙂

 

[north2southOMFS]

Holy cow, a friend just took step one today and he said the same thing. He said right away he had no idea the answer to the first 7 or ten questions, then all the sudden the next 8-9 were a piece of cake.

I can't believe that is true though.

 

[Idiopathic]

This has been rumored for a while. Not sure if the new software is a tool for implementing this or not, but I would be surprised if the USMLE goes to this anytime soon. Just my personal belief.

 

[Wrigleyville]

This is what standardized tests such as the GMAT do. They start out giving you a question of average difficulty, and then adjust the questions based on how you're doing. This works fine for an aptitude test, but I don't see how they'd pull it off for an exam that relies on such a huge knowledge base as the USMLE.

 

[mattie113]

i thought about this too.... but then i realized that you can just click "mark" and move to the next question in the block and then come back to it later - it seems that this system of harder/easier questions could only work if you were presented with one question at a time (like the GRE). unless they have easier/harder blocks of 50 based on how you performed on the previous one.

 

[Samoa]

i thought about this too.... but then i realized that you can just click "mark" and move to the next question in the block and then come back to it later - it seems that this system of harder/easier questions could only work if you were presented with one question at a time (like the GRE). unless they have easier/harder blocks of 50 based on how you performed on the previous one.

On adaptive tests, you still wouldn't be able to go back to any previous questions, even when the test as a whole is in block format. So I doubt it's adaptive.

 

[automaton]

i think i read in First Aid that the test is not adaptive. otherwise on NBME i would have gotten nothing but "point to the heart" or "is this a head or an arm?" type questions.

 

[lumbering]

From Iserson's Getting into A Residency 7th edition page 167:

"How well an examinee does on the initial blocks of questions may determine which subsequent blocks he or she gets." (the context relates to all three step exams).

I really hope that this is true because I felt that my later blocks were more difficult. I remember crushing block 3 (probably like 47/50 correct) only to have my ego blasted in blocks 4-7.

 

[Law2Doc]

Hey all,

Someone asked me today if the USMLE Step One adjusts the difficulty of the questions based on whether or not you answer things correctly...I had heard a rumor about this but haven't been able to get it confirmed. The GRE does this, and someone said that the USMLE was either going to switch or had switched to this format. Has anyone heard anything about this?!

Thanks 🙂

From what I saw this is not the case. There were a good mix of gimme's and obscure questions throughout. Also hard is too relative a term on this test since everybody's knowledge base is going to be a bit different. It's not like one can universally say this question is harder than this one until after the test, in which case you can see which questions everybody got right versus nobody. And you can't really get this data from older tests because Kaplan and World catch on very fast and what was hard last year becomes easy (better covered) the next.

 

[GOGETA]

i think i read in First Aid that the test is not adaptive. otherwise on NBME i would have gotten nothing but "point to the heart" or "is this a head or an arm?" type questions.

Thats just 😆 I laugh so hard I woke up the neiborghs.

I hope they get harder when you do good, because in my test
Block 1= nice and easy like NBME1
Block 2= I had a good idea I think I did aceptable.
from block 3-5 I was and they just out of me.

Block 6 I was able to do it, was like NBME3
Block 7 Again was like a comination of NBME1,3 and really heavy on Behavior.

Now Im just waiting , lets hope next week is time

 

[71263]

Ive heard this about Step 3 for sure, and maybe step 2. Nobody has told me this about one. Nevertheless, I usually find that i struggle initially and that the best part of each block is the middle 15-20 or so.

 

[GOGETA]

From Iserson's Getting into A Residency 7th edition page 167:

"How well an examinee does on the initial blocks of questions may determine which subsequent blocks he or she gets." (the context relates to all three step exams).

I really hope that this is true because I felt that my later blocks were more difficult. I remember crushing block 3 (probably like 47/50 correct) only to have my ego blasted in blocks 4-7.

Ok and from where did he got that information?
Only the USMLE people knows exactlly how they score the test, and all of theother things.

 

[google_singh]

No, USMLE does not change its difficulty level according to the patteren of ur answering.....such tests are known as Adaptive tests. GRE is an example of it

 

[Miami_med]

They do not. Your friend could have answered the easy questions first if he had started on number 16 and worked backwards, which is weird but doable. The questions don't change and you can move back and forth between all 50.

 

[blankaflour]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=411809

 

[GOGETA]

I think they just program the test, so you have:
3 questions from all of the NBME exams
a little % of questions they know are out
10% of experimental questions
a few that are like if you are taking this test, you at least know this, so here get this right.
questions that only 50% can answer
some really hard questions

and wala 350 questions, now how they grade it, beats me.
But maybe the get harder by block.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

I have never heard that it is adaptive.

Interestingly I just had a friend take RN boards, which is a computerized, adaptive exam. She did like 65 questions and the computer bascially just said "thank you, you pass."

I wish Step1 had been like that.