USMLE Step 2 CK possible fail...

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sleepysloth

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I took the test in late July, and felt like I had no idea what was happening during at least half the exam. Either the questions were easy-medium difficulty, or they were long, complex, and convoluted. I know 97% of first time USMDs pass the exam.

I did pretty average during third year. UWSA 1: 234, CCSE that my school gave us: 230, NBME 4: 215, NBME6: 209 (I was having a really bad day though), and NBME7 230. My Step 1 was a 223.

-_- What happens if you fail? Do you just retake and apply to more programs? Looking to going into anesthesia...

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To make you feel better, most people feel the same way after exam. Based on your statistics, the chance for you to fail is very tiny. NBME and UWSA mostly underestimate(Though UWSA is generally closer)
Believe in yourself! Go have fun and eat like Po in Kung Fu Panda
 
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I felt brutal after mine as well. Like sick to my stomach and also thought what if I failed?. Felt like I was on autopilot and I was making educated guesses half the time.

I ended up scoring 10 better than my step 1 and was overall very happy with my score. My score was about 10-12 less than my NBMEs and UWSAs but that isn't drastic. My advice would be to trust your previous practice tests. It sounds cliche but its true. The reality is is that your previous scores are your "baseline." Even if you don't think (and you're a bad judge of your performance on that day) you did well, and hey, lets pretend you didn't do well, you won't stray drastically from your baseline which is in the 230s.

You'll be fine. Everyone feels scared and hey, its kind of a good thing you're worried after.
 
Hi,

Just posting because I also felt like crap for days/weeks after my STEP 2 CK and ended up doing fine! Scored right at average, a little lower than my practice exams, but still a lot better than I felt I did. By "felt like crap" I mean I felt like I failed, then I talked myself out of believing I failed because I hadn't failed any of my practices, but then I moved on to feeling like I barely passed. I cried for days after the exam and then I don't know how I managed to suppress until scores came out.

But just wanted to post on here that there is hope! No matter how ****ty you feel!! I felt so down after my exam!! I creeped on SDN looking for people who may have also felt like they failed, and searched for "what to do when you failed" and it always made me feel better reading posts of people feeling like crap and coming out fine! Which is what happened to me, and I truly felt like crap and thought I was doomed for residency. For those that feel the same, I just want to let you know you most likely did just fine!!
 
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Thank you all, even though I’m writing more than a semester after the last post; I convinced myself about writing my first post and would still like to briefly share my thoughts and experience. Because I literally found solace in some threads such as this one and maybe someone in the future would be able to find some measure of relief in our posts. I am certain now that my personal experience with step 2 ck very closely resembles that of many of you.

During the exam, I struggled with time management; I wasn’t able to review more than 1-2 questions in probably 3 blocks, in the other 5 I either had just enough time to answer the last question or more commonly had to pick answers without reading the entire question stem in the final 1-3 items. I can vaguely recall at least 5 questions I had to blindly click an answer, and still left unanswered 3-4 questions in the entire exam. Regarding the content of the questions I found them to be dificcult; just as someone before me described I felt prepared for less than a third of the questions and still had to hurry due to the time concern. Walking out of the testing center I felt horrible; many questions kept coming back to my mind one after the other both the ones I was not able to answer propperly due to the time and also many intems in which I made trivial and stupid mistakes; not taking into account those which were dificult and was certain I got them wrong. All of this led to an utterly demoralizing waiting period, I also had trouble sleeping and in all honesty was prepared for a failing score or a very low passing one.

The final score I received after the grueling waiting period was 268, for which I am immensely thankful to god. I am still not able to explain it, maybe because of the timing issue your brain can only hold on to and remember the most challenging questions or those you are sure you got wrong (even if they were not that difficult) and disregards the ones on which you made an appropriate thought process or you just had the pieces of knowledge to figure out the answer or discard the distractors.

Bottom line, the whole purpose of me writing this is not to tell the story or the score , but to provide those going through the difficult waiting process with some relief and hopefully make this waiting a little less distressing and maybe even achievig what this 3 weeks should be used for (in my opinion) and that is resting and disconnecting from the exam experience. Even if you felt terrible walking out of step 2 Ck there is a good chance you did well and a very very high chance that you did considerably better than you think you did.

Best regards,
 
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Thank you all, even though I’m writing more than a semester after the last post; I convinced myself about writing my first post and would still like to briefly share my thoughts and experience. Because I literally found solace in some threads such as this one and maybe someone in the future would be able to find some measure of relief in our posts. I am certain now that my personal experience with step 2 ck very closely resembles that of many of you.

During the exam, I struggled with time management; I wasn’t able to review more than 1-2 questions in probably 3 blocks, in the other 5 I either had just enough time to answer the last question or more commonly had to pick answers without reading the entire question stem in the final 1-3 items. I can vaguely recall at least 5 questions I had to blindly click an answer, and still left unanswered 3-4 questions in the entire exam. Regarding the content of the questions I found them to be dificcult; just as someone before me described I felt prepared for less than a third of the questions and still had to hurry due to the time concern. Walking out of the testing center I felt horrible; many questions kept coming back to my mind one after the other both the ones I was not able to answer propperly due to the time and also many intems in which I made trivial and stupid mistakes; not taking into account those which were dificult and was certain I got them wrong. All of this led to an utterly demoralizing waiting period, I also had trouble sleeping and in all honesty was prepared for a failing score or a very low passing one.

The final score I received after the grueling waiting period was 268, for which I am immensely thankful to god. I am still not able to explain it, maybe because of the timing issue your brain can only hold on to and remember the most challenging questions or those you are sure you got wrong (even if they were not that difficult) and disregards the ones on which you made an appropriate thought process or you just had the pieces of knowledge to figure out the answer or discard the distractors.

Bottom line, the whole purpose of me writing this is not to tell the story or the score , but to provide those going through the difficult waiting process with some relief and hopefully make this waiting a little less distressing and maybe even achievig what this 3 weeks should be used for (in my opinion) and that is resting and disconnecting from the exam experience. Even if you felt terrible walking out of step 2 Ck there is a good chance you did well and a very very high chance that you did considerably better than you think you did.

Best regards,
Thanks for this , it helps , though I feel I really did do horribly on my step 2 CK and I don't want to expect any thing.
 
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