Usmle Step 2

[Swaydaa]

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Hey guys just took step 2 today. I hope this is legal?? I scored a 230 on Step 1 and I thought it was a little tougher. You will probably hear many more people say it was easier, so take my statement with a grain of salt!

1. I had no less than 20 questions (yes 20) on amenorrhea (all types), womans fertility, and womens endocrine......CANT STAND THAT CRAP!! What sucked the most is they ALL stated...the mans sperm count was good....I was waiting for one of those. Had many OB questions (35-40) I was pleased at that...I like OB

2. I had about 10 questions on congenital heart defects...know the blood gases and symptoms that go with each (I hate that crap). One associated with an XRAY. They don't give the "classical" buzzwords.

3. I finished my last 5 days of studying with surgery.....cant even recall 2-3 freakin pure surgery questions....what a total waste time (in my opinion).

4. about 40-50 questions concerning what test you would do next.

5. I consider myself pretty darn good at reading EKG's and recognizing dysrythmias....NOT A Single rhythm strip or EKG....damn. I did have a question that stated the patient had peaked T-waves.

6. I had exactly 5 questions on epi/stats. sensitivity, PPV, NPV, power....ONE asking about relative risk. Do a quick run through on doing the math for these things...I thought I was good, but I proved to be a little rusty (spent 4-5 minutes on one question trying to figure out where to put the numbers).

7. Had a good number of trauma questions...definatley worth a little extra time.

8. I was lucky mine did not have a bunch of DERM...I was scoring mid to low 60's on Q-bank for DERM. As a whole, I thought the Q-bank was good/OK for step 2. It was nowhere close to being as detailed as the actual test....but It does cover all the topics. MKASP was pretty darn good I must say.....real close to the actual IM questions!!

9. I hear the test bank has over 10,000 questions. I only had 376 questions, so everyones test may be totally different.

10. The test was freakin looooooooooooong as hell. 9 HOURS. the last block and half I was shot. My eyes were the only thing holding me to the computor...the rest of my body was FALLING AWAYYYYYYYYYYy. Get some good rest. Lot tougher than step 1 concerning getting through and reading the page long question with labs.

11. About 4 to 5 questions on acid base with the actual blood gas in the question...pure respiratory, compensated, etc.

12. OB/GYN blueprints in my opinion is the absolute gold standard for USMLE step 2. Best of the bluprints series. Pediactric blueprints follows OB at a close second. I thought internal medicine blueprints stunk like Sh-t for the exam. I wil post my results when I receive them and then offer my study plan if it worked???


Thanks for listening...just had to get it off my back. GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE. I hope you do well. 🙂

Anyone ELSE please feel free to add your experience!!!!

 

[irrka]

Just took my CK two days ago. Somewhat erratic studying for me through the couple of rotations only to hit the end of my testing period, so I'm sure I'm not going to be spewing 260s at people, but as long as it's better than Step 1 i'll be happy. Oh and my lucky ass managed to get into a car accident, so i had to run around for the last day and try to get a rental, try to not rub my neck too much and try to not get an ulcer from the ibuprofens 😉 Dont be like me.
Anyway here're some things i used with likes/dislikes

Kaplan Q book- loved it. Covered pretty much everything or mostly everything i came across on the test (most noteably for me porphyrias, of which i dont ever remember hearing EVER until picking up the Q book)

Usmleworld qbank - gets its job done. That being to scare you sensless with low scores first, but then give you enough information to get through most of what the test will throw at you.

Secrets- loved it. short and sweet review. especially when you know there are some random things you forget over and over and just need to keep looking at them (stupidly enough GC and Chlam treatments plus alternative treatments for me. yeah i'm a ******). Plus I was happy to get a one-pager subspecialty shindig

Crush- I tried it but found it wasn't really doing anything for me. then of course there are people that swear by that source

B+W- much as i liked that book during the third year, i found i just ended up surfing over a lot of information without it making the slightest of impacts on my brain. Maybe it was too down-to-the-bones for me, so i would just skim the information instead of STARING it down. who knows.

First Aid for Medicine- this is actually the book i first started studying with. I thought it was pretty good, especially for reviewing all that stuff i forgot over the year (my first rotation) That said, i didnt particularly like it during my actual rotation. go figure.

Good news: there was NO biochem on my test (i'd have pretty much bit the dust on that one). I did have some questions I just said (wtf? C!) but not too many (i think.... towards the end of the test, and by the end i mean second half, i was mostly concentrating on getting through without falling out of a chair. god that thing is LONG!!) Tons of STD stuff (mostly GC chlam), a couple ortho things. Not really much at all on COPD and blood gases and acid/base things, which i was pretty surprised about. Hardly any surgical stuff. Tons of glomerulonephritis/nephrotic syndrome and postinfectious arthritis. One EKG. Much less cardio than i would've thought. Fair share of pneumonias though as well as industrial exposures (at which i suck). Well this must've been where my brain completely turned off. cant remember much else about the test. Good luck to everyone.

 

[JKP]

zzz

 

[Legion560]

Just to quickly add my $.02:

Step 2 I thought was less nitpicky than the shelf exams to which people commonly make comparisons. However, the material is basically from the shelf exams, so it should be nothing new if you have passed every shelf.

I took four weeks off to study, but only put in a solid three and a half due to goofing off. That being said, three weeks should be plenty if one remains focused unlike me.

I used the following resources:
1. Kaplan Q bank and NMS Step 2 book
2. Step 2 Secrets
3. First Aid
4. Kaplan Step 2 Notes (surgery)
5. Blueprints ObGyn and Peds (my weakest shelf exams)
6. Boards and Wards
7. NBME practice tests ($45 each) **Very important**

I found that doing tons of questions helped the most. I made a point of finishing q-bank and annotating answers however I did not finish all of NMS as originally planned. NMS was a great resource and several of my classmates agree.
I liked Step 2 secrets much better than crush. I read secrets about 2 times cover to cover. Ditto for Boards and Wards.
I did not find First Aid very helpful and I thought the Kaplan notes were too dry at times (especially for medicine).

Although I listed six resources, I think Q-bank/NMS, Secrets and B&W are all you really need to at least pass Step 2 if not score significantly higher than the mean. If I had to do it over again, I would definitly stick with those three resources to really streamline my studying instead of wasting a week and a half messing around with lengthy dense text.

The one resource that I found extremely helpful was the NBME tests. I took the first one and got a score of 250 predicted. I didnt have enough time to do the second one.

My actual score was 244.

If you only have time to do one thing ,the NBME exams should be at the top of your list because they are pretty accurate at predicting your performance on the real deal. I got within 10 points of predicted so Im pretty happy with the results. Hope this helps.

Legion

 

[CANES2006]

I just got my Step 2 results back and I scored a 238/96!! Very happy about that since I only managed to score a 215/87 on my Step 1. So, there is hope for those of us who did mediocre on Step 1. 😉

I mainly studied from questions. I did Kaplan Qbank and Qbook, USMLE Step 2 Mock exams (Brochert) and NMS USMLE Step 2. I supplemented my weak areas with Prescription for the Boards, and read Step 2 Secrets once the week before the exam. Studied for 6 weeks total during one of my sub-I's.

Those who are into NBME correlations:
NBME Form 1: 570 (2 weeks before the exam)
NBME Form 2: 530 (1 week before the exam)

Hope this helps someone.

 

[shorrin]

when didja take it? was it the new FRED version? I'm waiting to submit ERAS till I get my scores.... 😱

 

[CANES2006]

when didja take it? was it the new FRED version? I'm waiting to submit ERAS till I get my scores.... 😱

Took it on 8/15 with the old software.

 

[shorrin]

Took it on 8/15 with the old software.

thanks! I took it on 8/17 with the new software.... I hate waiting...grr

 

[APACHE3]

Does the new software really make a difference? thanks

 

[shorrin]

Does the new software really make a difference? thanks

difference in what? In how you take the test, how well you do, or how long it takes to report?

 

[APACHE3]

Does it take longer with the FRED software?? If you're highliting and deleting passages, it has to be longer? I have ignored my USMLE CD with the FRED software. Can I still ignore it? Thanks

 

[shorrin]

Does it take longer with the FRED software?? If you're highliting and deleting passages, it has to be longer? I have ignored my USMLE CD with the FRED software. Can I still ignore it? Thanks

I don't think it takes any longer. In fact, it helps you from re-reading the question to find that nugget of info that your answer hangs on.

Don't listen to me though, on step 1 (old version) and step 2 (FRED) I only ever had 5 min max at the end of each section. No change for me, I am slow and enjoy the pain of standardized testing 🙄

Try out the new software, you might find it super helpful, it's very very easy!

And yes, you can ignore it 🙂

btw, I only used highlight for question (not strike out) and grey out for the answer choices.

 

[Aislin]

It was all the same for me in terms of time. I am a quick reader and found the highlight feature very useful. It helps you concentrate on the important things about the case. Finished the exam with a lot of time to spare (1 and a half hour to go) with FRED.

 

[redlined]

Just thought I would add my experience. Took it yesterday. I was surprised because I had two cardio questions, thats it. Too bad that's my strongest area. The rest of the test was pretty random I thought, nothing was unfamiliar, had a pretty good idea of what was going on, with the typical situation of two answers being right. I don't think there was any one source I used that really helped more than the other, the whole thing seemed so random. I did the usual Qbank, FA, Secrets.

Good luck to everyone who's going to be taking it.

 

[Jalopycat]

Hi everyone...
Just wanted to briefly give my opinion. I took mine on 9/16. It was not near as bad as what I expected. I felt like it was easier than kaplan qbank and when I got home, I didn't cry like I did after step 1. It's a big relief to have it over with, now the long wait begins. I was below average on step 1 so I'm really hoping I scored better this time. I feel a lot better about it, but sometimes feeling good about a test has come back to bite me.

I mainly used crush step 2 and boards & wards. I did all of qbank, and gosh darn it, I didn't have one question on the exam about Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, or pediatric developmental milestones! About 50% of the exam were easy points. About 30-40% of them I could narrow down to 2 choices, and the other 10% I really wasn't sure about. I felt like peds, ob/gyn, and psych were really straightforward and not tricky at all. I did have some tough cardiology/pulmonology questions that I didn't expect.Good luck everyone!

 

[corpsmanUP]

So were they initiating the new software at different locations at different times? Because I took it 8-29 and found it to be the same old software as step I. And if the current trend holds true, my release date should be this wednesday!!!

 

[corpsmanUP]

Took it 8-29, got reported today.

262/99

 

[lmh14]

HOLY COW - I'm convinced that my test was 45% OB/Gyn, 45% Trauma, and 10% "Huh????" 🙂 But nonetheless - I'm done, I'm done, I'm done!!!! 😀

 

[lmh14]

Let me actually add something helpful....

USMLE World was an excellent resource - I would recommend it to anybody - well worth the money. Also, I think that (at least for me) four weeks was a good amount of time to spend studying. Any more than that and I probably would have gone absolutely insane, not to mention driving my roommates insane. In fact, three weeks of hard core studying might do it if you are super motivated. As far as books go, I wasn't a big fan of First Aid. It was too "readable" - I prefer a list/bulleted format. I liked Secrets, and would recommend reading through it at least once. Good luck!

 

[corpsmanUP]

I'll repeat myself; If you study for your Shelf exams as much as you can, and do well on your Shelf exams, you will not need to study much at all for Step II. That is the beautiful thing about 3rd year. You finally start to learn common sense as it applies to medicine, and you get to leave behind all those basic science dweebs who don't know how to relate to people. This is your chance to learn the art of being a doctor, which is the art of clinical medicine. Study an hour a day for your entire 3rd year, and add an additional few hours the nights before a Shelf exam. Score above 90% on your Shelf exams on average, and you will do very well on Step II. There is no sense in blowing off your Shelf exams only to have to study the stuff the month before boards. I studied for boards quite honestly about 1-3 hours a day for the couple of weeks leading up to step II. In fact, I took the COMLEX and then took an entire week off before the USMLE. I had been pulling 95-99%ile on Shelfs so I knew it was statistically improbable to do anything but similar on the real USMLE II. Your incentive to do well on rotations and Shelfs should also be to boost your GPA or make honors on rotations. If you are consistently scoring in the 40th percentile on Shelf exams, then don't think you are going to score a 250 on step II without considerably more effort. But if you score in the top 10-20 percent on Shelfs, then it is more than likely you could do the same on the USMLE II (>240) without much effort at all. 3rd year is finally an opportunity to learn to be a doctor, something we all have wanted to do for a long time. Use the desire to learn what you enjoy as a way of excelling. A lot of people blow off 3rd year, but then they have to spend weeks and hours studying for Step II. Do as I have said and you won't be sorry. Plus you will have a relaxed vacation while everyone else kills themselves studying all day long. I challenge anyone to show me someone who was consistently in the top percentiles on Shelfs and did poorly on the USMLE or COMLEX. Its basically impossible unless you take it hung over!

 

[obgyn06]

I just have to *somewhat* disagree with the above post (or at least give some perspective).

I CONSISTENTLY bombed my shelf exams. I was so worried about the oral exams that I put off studying for the shelves. For example, I score like a 49% on psyc, a 70% on neuro and my best was an 84% on ob/gyn. I am scared to even ASK what I got on medicine.

I DID NOT study that much for step 2. For step 1, I *tried* to study 9-5 for 5 weeks. Yea right. I ended up doing more like 6 hrs a day for 5 1/2 weeks. I got a 208. For step 2, I decided to take a different approach. I relied on questions mostly. I spent 80% of my time doing questions and going over the answers. I spent the rest of the time doing first aid and secrets. I studied about 5 hrs a day for hmm 3 days a week for 3 weeks. I seriously slacked. I knew my strategy was either make it or break it. At any rate, I ended up with a 250. So don't let your potentially not so stellar performance on your shelves give you an indication of what you can or cannot achieve on step 2. It's not like step 1...where if you missed it the 1st time around there is no way in heck you can make up for it. I didn't study that much during 3rd year OR for step 2 and I EASILY made up for it. So please don't feel discouraged. Do lots and lots of questions and GO THROUGH the answers carefully. Don't spend too much time trying to "get through" all the material of 3rd year or first aid or whatever. Just focus on questions and answers and extra material if you get a chance. And you will do GREAT. Even if you BOMBED shelves. Good luck!!

obgyn06

 

[corpsmanUP]

I just have to *somewhat* disagree with the above post (or at least give some perspective).

I CONSISTENTLY bombed my shelf exams. I was so worried about the oral exams that I put off studying for the shelves. For example, I score like a 49% on psyc, a 70% on neuro and my best was an 84% on ob/gyn. I am scared to even ASK what I got on medicine.

I DID NOT study that much for step 2. For step 1, I *tried* to study 9-5 for 5 weeks. Yea right. I ended up doing more like 6 hrs a day for 5 1/2 weeks. I got a 208. For step 2, I decided to take a different approach. I relied on questions mostly. I spent 80% of my time doing questions and going over the answers. I spent the rest of the time doing first aid and secrets. I studied about 5 hrs a day for hmm 3 days a week for 3 weeks. I seriously slacked. I knew my strategy was either make it or break it. At any rate, I ended up with a 250. So don't let your potentially not so stellar performance on your shelves give you an indication of what you can or cannot achieve on step 2. It's not like step 1...where if you missed it the 1st time around there is no way in heck you can make up for it. I didn't study that much during 3rd year OR for step 2 and I EASILY made up for it. So please don't feel discouraged. Do lots and lots of questions and GO THROUGH the answers carefully. Don't spend too much time trying to "get through" all the material of 3rd year or first aid or whatever. Just focus on questions and answers and extra material if you get a chance. And you will do GREAT. Even if you BOMBED shelves. Good luck!!

obgyn06

Its always great to hear about a success story. Your 250 is a big success OB! Congrats. But if I am in Vegas, I am going to play the odds. NBME Shelf exam scores have been studied and it has been verified that there is indeed a clear correlation with shelf performance and USMLE II scores. Of course there will be people like you who are atypical, and maybe that will give some people hope. But I think it makes more sense to offer people the advice of studying hard for shelfs so that their knowledge is cumulative all year. I don't think anyone here is likely to buy into the idea that you studied hardly any in 3rd year or for your boards, and miraculously pulled a 250 after a 208 Step I score. I mean do you want us all to believe that you gained this knowledge by some form of instinctual animal 6th sense? For everyone reading this, believe who you want to believe and then decide for yourself how to approach 3rd year. Do you take the road of the admitted slacker who by the grace of God defied all odds to have such an admittedly unearned high score, or do you believe the person that says you will be rewarded by hard work? The LCME has your school follow a set curriculum for a good reason, and your shelf exams are absolutely preparing you to take the USMLE II. Sure, there are probably a lot of people who could slack in 3rd year and end up with a great board score, but they don't do it by "hardly studying for boards". If you really believe that you can score a 250 after average shelf scores, hardly any board prep, and general slacking, then you are already on your way to a fine vacation on the river deNile!!

 

[obgyn06]

Oh dear. I wasn't trying to get in an argument with you. And you certainly don't have to believe me. I was merely stating that for some people, it is too late to go back and study hard for the shelves...they are in 4th year now. For me, it was too late. I was trying to give *those* people some encouragement that you can still pull off a great board score. 🙂

For all the others that are beginning 3rd year, I wholeheartedly agree with you that it would be much easier if you do fabulous on your shelves. The scores you got on the shelves are very impressive and not many people I know scored that high. I want the people that didn't (or don't) score that high to not feel as if they will now do poorly on step 2. There was no need to attack me. 😡

Good luck to you all!

 

[rotatores]

CorpsmanUP...you need to chill man...Obygn06 was clearly just offering a different perspective...of which I actually agree with (well...I agree with you both). My example isn't as good as Obgyn06's but...I consistently scored in the upper 60's with a couple of low 70s for my shelfs....I ended up with a 224...not steller...but definitely better then my shelfs would have indicated.

rotatores

 

[corpsmanUP]

CorpsmanUP...you need to chill man...Obygn06 was clearly just offering a different perspective...of which I actually agree with (well...I agree with you both). My example isn't as good as Obgyn06's but...I consistently scored in the upper 60's with a couple of low 70s for my shelfs....I ended up with a 224...not steller...but definitely better then my shelfs would have indicated.

rotatores

I am chilled, and OB, there are no attacks coming from me. You entered into a debate and that is what these forums are. Its not like we are sitting in church here you know! I simply didn't want people to get the impression that you can do poorly on your shelf exams, and then hardly study at all for boards and expect miracles. If you wanted to give people "hope" as you said then you either should have admitted that your strategy was not the best idea, or you should have fessed up about how much you really studied for step II. Telling you that I don't believe you is not an attack. Its just my opinion. I don't believe that you could do sub par on shelf exams, hardly study for boards as you admit, and pull a 250. That send the wrong message...not hope. There is about as much hope in your story as in a lottery ticket.

Hey Rotatores: Your shelf scores predicted exactly what you got on the USMLE II. You basically helped my argument. A USMLE II score of 224 is about 6 points above the mean, and puts you somewhere around the 60-65th percentile if you convert the 3 digit score to a percentile. Your shelf scores you are mentioning are obviously the percentiles because the 2 digit scores you mention would be failing in most schools. So yes, your 60-70 percentiles on the shelf exams reflects perfectly your 60-65 percentile on the USMLE step II. Remember, the 2 digit USMLE score is NOT a percentile like the Shelf exams. You can have a 94 on the USMLE but that only puts one in the 75th percentile roughly.

Bottom line, study hard for shelf exams and do the best you can on them. If you do this, and you score adequately, you can virtually guarantee that you will do at least this well on the USMLE. Do very well on them and you can virtually guarantee doing very well on the USMLE II. Do poorly on them and you cannot expect miracles without significantly changing your study habits.

 

[rotatores]

No...the 60s and 70s are NOT percentiles for the shelf. That's just the two digit score (you should know that). For the most part...around a 75 on the shelf is about 50%...so I did not prove your point. Instead I increased from about 40-50% to about 65%.

 

[corpsmanUP]

No...the 60s and 70s are NOT percentiles for the shelf. That's just the two digit score (you should know that). For the most part...around a 75 on the shelf is about 50%...so I did not prove your point. Instead I increased from about 40-50% to about 65%.

You must know something different than me then. Because on all my shelf exam score reports, the 2 digit grade is given along with the percentile. And on EVERY one of my shelf reports, a 2 digit grade below 70 puts you in the 1st percentile. At my school, to pass you must have a percentile greater than the 1st percentile, meaning 2nd or higher. And on most shelf exams, this means a score of roughly 70-75 to pass. So the only reason I was questioning your scores of 60-70 was because that would have meant you had essentially beein the 1st percentile each time. So are you sure that is where you were?

 

[tigershark]

Hey Rotatores: Your shelf scores predicted exactly what you got on the USMLE II. You basically helped my argument. A USMLE II score of 224 is about 6 points above the mean, and puts you somewhere around the 60-65th percentile if you convert the 3 digit score to a percentile. Your shelf scores you are mentioning are obviously the percentiles because the 2 digit scores you mention would be failing in most schools. So yes, your 60-70 percentiles on the shelf exams reflects perfectly your 60-65 percentile on the USMLE step II. Remember, the 2 digit USMLE score is NOT a percentile like the Shelf exams. You can have a 94 on the USMLE but that only puts one in the 75th percentile roughly.

The two-digit score you recieve on your shelf exam is not a percentile, but if your school gives you the print out they recieve from the NBME it does give you the conversion.

If you are saying that you had raw scores of 99 on most shelf exams, I find that very hard to believe in light of you only getting a 262 on step2. If you really did have a raw score of 99 on most shelfs I would expect a step 2 score of around high 270s/low 280s, seeing as how a raw score of 90 is usually enough to be in the 99th percentile for most shelfs.

Anyways, I'm not trying to flame you because I agree with what you are saying, you just seem to be saying some inconsistent things about how the shelf exams are scored. The average student is not going to be able to hit the 99th percentile on all or any of the shelfs no matter how hard they study.

I do agree that the best way to study for step2 is by studying hard for the shelf exams. During third year I basically made the shelf exam my main priority in every rotation and now studying for step2 is a breeze.

I also agree that if your shelf scores have been mediocre dont expect to score high on step2 without some serious studying.

 

[tigershark]

You must know something different than me then. Because on all my shelf exam score reports, the 2 digit grade is given along with the percentile. And on EVERY one of my shelf reports, a 2 digit grade below 70 puts you in the 1st percentile. At my school, to pass you must have a percentile greater than the 1st percentile, meaning 2nd or higher. And on most shelf exams, this means a score of roughly 70-75 to pass. So the only reason I was questioning your scores of 60-70 was because that would have meant you had essentially beein the 1st percentile each time. So are you sure that is where you were?

You're reading the reports wrong or something....all the shelf exams are standardized to have a mean of 70 with a SD of around 8....so 70 is the 50th percentile and you can figure out the rest from the SD.

 

[corpsmanUP]

Guys, this is really all I can tell you in terms of what info we are given about the shelf exams and their correlating percentiles. First of all, we are given a standardized letter from our Dean on school letterhead that says something like....this NBME shelf exam was adminstered blaha blah blah...and then they put this chart at the bottom of the page that shows all possible grades basically and their correlating percentiles. To help you know what my school is telling us, below is the info from some of my shelf reports.

Shelf / My Score / Percentile / 50th percentile
OBGYN / 95 / 94th / 85
FM / 100 / 99th / 83
Psych / 99 / 98th / 85
Med / 100 / 99th / 86
Surg / 98 / 97th / 85
Peds / 99 / 98th / 84

So perhaps my school is scaling our percentiles or something to adjust the mean, but that does not mean that my 2 digit score is anything other than what it is. I don't know what to tell you though. I have never actually seen an NBME score report itself. I am just telling you that if you look at my 2 digit scores, they absolutely correlate with the 2 digit score on the USMLE II. I don't think anyone would argue with that. And sorry Tiger to have dissapointed you by not being 270-280. Quite honestly I have never heard of many people ever scoring above 270. I have heard a few high 260's from time to time, but 280 is insane!!

 

[tigershark]

Guys, this is really all I can tell you in terms of what info we are given about the shelf exams and their correlating percentiles. First of all, we are given a standardized letter from our Dean on school letterhead that says something like....this NBME shelf exam was adminstered blaha blah blah...and then they put this chart at the bottom of the page that shows all possible grades basically and their correlating percentiles. To help you know what my school is telling us, below is the info from some of my shelf reports.

Shelf / My Score / Percentile / 50th percentile
OBGYN / 95 / 94th / 85
FM / 100 / 99th / 83
Psych / 99 / 98th / 85
Med / 100 / 99th / 86
Surg / 98 / 97th / 85
Peds / 99 / 98th / 84

So perhaps my school is scaling our percentiles or something to adjust the mean, but that does not mean that my 2 digit score is anything other than what it is. I don't know what to tell you though. I have never actually seen an NBME score report itself. I am just telling you that if you look at my 2 digit scores, they absolutely correlate with the 2 digit score on the USMLE II. I don't think anyone would argue with that. And sorry Tiger to have dissapointed you by not being 270-280. Quite honestly I have never heard of many people ever scoring above 270. I have heard a few high 260's from time to time, but 280 is insane!!

Like I said, I wasnt trying to flame you, your numbers just seemed inconsistent. Yes a 270-280 is insane, but equally so are raw scores of 99 on all or almost all of shelf exams.

Obviously we are talking apples and oranges here because your school is doing something with the raw scores recieved from NBME, it's not possible to recieve a raw score of 100...

 

[Ophtho24]

Corpsman those are some danged sweet scores. Wish I had them. The raw score is how many you got right out of 100. So clearly corpsman is smoking these things. The nature of stats says you can't get over 99th percentile so his scores seem to actually make perfect sense. One thing that I found out at my school was that the NBME varies your percentile score depending on your raw score based on which quarter of the year you take the exam. So if you get a 89 raw score first quarter of the year that may be equal to a percentile of 95th that early on but if you get an 89 raw score the last quarter of the year that may only equate to a percentile of 89th. I don't know if this affects your guys discussion at all but I found it interesting.

 

[corpsmanUP]

Corpsman those are some danged sweet scores. Wish I had them. The raw score is how many you got right out of 100. So clearly corpsman is smoking these things. The nature of stats says you can't get over 99th percentile so his scores seem to actually make perfect sense. One thing that I found out at my school was that the NBME varies your percentile score depending on your raw score based on which quarter fot eh year you take the exam. So if you get a 89 first quarter of the year thay may be equal to a percentile of 95th that early on but if you get an 89 the last quarter of the year that may only equate to a percentile of 89th. I don't know if this affects your guys discussion at all but I found it interesting.

Thanks Ophtho! Too bad I am going into FM where my scores are really not worth too much. Maybe I could sell 40 points or so!! 🙂 And as a DO, people make even more strange faces over scores like these. I just always tell them that I chose to be a DO because I felt that DO's are better family physicians than MD's. I don't have any difficulty stating that there will not be an MD around who will provide a higher level of FM to their patients than myself. There are just some things an MD cannot do! I take pride in that, and I take pride in knowing that every point higher on these exams could potentially be a person I help in some way.

 

[yobabydoc]

Hey yall...I am having a sort of "not feeling like doing too many questions day" but I want to finish these USMLEWORLD questions before my test. I rescheduled for the 13th orig. the 6th. Need some encouragement here 🙁

 

[Ophtho24]

I only did half the questions and felt like I did more than enough. Just took the exam on Monday and felt well prepared. Take it the 13th, don't push it back anymore I previously posted that I feel 2 weeks is adequate. I did 2 weeks and 5 days and think that might have been too much. Just knock the test out and get on with your life. the test wasn't hard enough to stress that much out about. Many questions you will find very easya nd of course there will be some where you think "where the heck did that come from?"

Hey yall...I am having a sort of "not feeling like doing too many questions day" but I want to finish these USMLEWORLD questions before my test. I rescheduled for the 13th orig. the 6th. Need some encouragement here 🙁

 

[yobabydoc]

I only did half the questions and felt like I did more than enough. Just took the exam on Monday and felt well prepared. Take it the 13th, don't push it back anymore I previously posted that I feel 2 weeks is adequate. I did 2 weeks and 5 days and think that might have been too much. Just knock the test out and get on with your life. the test wasn't hard enough to stress that much out about. Many questions you will find very easya nd of course there will be some where you think "where the heck did that come from?"

Thank you so much. I appreciate the words of encouragement....that's what doctors are about...healing the soul as well. Best of all to you 🙂

 

[harshanl]

A big thank you for all the excellent information on these fora that has helped me through my Steps.
I got my scores today - STEP 2 273/99, based on Qbank(80%), Crush Step2, Boards and Wards, Blueprints and ALS.

I revised intensively for 2 weeks during my vacation.
My technique was to skim each book cover to cover followed by revision by subject coupled to doing all available questions on that subject.
I think this shows that a decent knowledge base coupled with a focused short review can truly achieve good results. No need to slave for longer over more sources or question banks. The above sources are more than adequate.
Hope this helps prospective test takers.
All the best,
Harshan

 

[Jalopycat]

Here are my results:

Step 1: 198 🙁
Step 2: 236 😀

The NBME "prediction" test was way off. 7 days before I took step 2, it predicted I would make a 207. My qbank average was 62% (also not a good predictor for me). I really hope programs will consider my step 2 score also when it comes time to rank....

 

[chicamedica]

Just got back from taking step 2. . .

Am I like the only one who thought it was hard? I feel like i'm the minority here.

WHOA MAN!! IT WAS HARD!!!! 😱
I think i failed. . . 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

It was weird. . .like the first 2 sections, I felt like i didn't know a thing. Then it seemed to get a little easier. I still felt like I was making educated guesses for most questions. It was only a question here and there that I felt solid about the answer.

Maybe the computer does in fact automatically adjust the question difficulty. . .

I hope those first 2 sections didn't mess me up too bad. I JUST WANNA PASS. . .

 

[AASweets]

I also took Step 2 today and felt it was extremely difficult. I thought it bore little resemblance to the NBME I or Usmleworld questions.

I also thought the first sets were most difficult and felt there were few "gimmes."

My "themes" were hypercalcemia and unrestrained motor vehicle drivers. I seemed to have the same questions multiple times. I wonder if these are the the experimental questions. Perhaps asking the same questions in slightly different ways to the same tester enables them to validate the "old" questions against the "new" questions. I wonder because I have seen others post that they also seemed to get nearly identical questions multiple times.

I don't really think posting specifics about the test helps alot because I think everyone's test is drawn randomly from a huge test bank, but here is my experience....

My test today:
Lots of endo - especally hypercalcemia, a few thyroid, some ACTH
Only a few congenital diseases
3 murmurs
Unlike what most people have posted, I had EKGs(4) and radiology studies (10) where you had to use the EKG, Xray, etc to answer the question (couldn't do so just from the written stem). Three derm pictures - 1 was of too poor quality to see it, but you really needed it to answer the question.
4-5 biostats - not bad
Many, many long stems with irrelevant/distractor information
Many answer sets with more than 5 options
Quite a bit of the usual OB - bleeding +/- pregnancy
Nlot too much peds and in many questions the patient was a kid, but the disease was not ped specific
Maybe 5 terms (tests/diseases/treatments) either in the response set or in the question stem that i had never heard of...
About 25 psych questions
4 ethics questions

 

[chicamedica]

I also took Step 2 today and felt it was extremely difficult. I thought it bore little resemblance to the NBME I or Usmleworld questions.

I also thought the first sets were most difficult and felt there were few "gimmes."

My "themes" were hypercalcemia and unrestrained motor vehicle drivers. I seemed to have the same questions multiple times. I wonder if these are the the experimental questions. Perhaps asking the same questions in slightly different ways to the same tester enables them to validate the "old" questions against the "new" questions. I wonder because I have seen others post that they also seemed to get nearly identical questions multiple times.

I don't really think posting specifics about the test helps alot because I think everyone's test is drawn randomly from a huge test bank, but here is my experience....

My test today:
Lots of endo - especally hypercalcemia, a few thyroid, some ACTH
Only a few congenital diseases
3 murmurs
Unlike what most people have posted, I had EKGs(4) and radiology studies (10) where you had to use the EKG, Xray, etc to answer the question (couldn't do so just from the written stem). Three derm pictures - 1 was of too poor quality to see it, but you really needed it to answer the question.
4-5 biostats - not bad
Many, many long stems with irrelevant/distractor information
Many answer sets with more than 5 options
Quite a bit of the usual OB - bleeding +/- pregnancy
Nlot too much peds and in many questions the patient was a kid, but the disease was not ped specific
Maybe 5 terms (tests/diseases/treatments) either in the response set or in the question stem that i had never heard of...
About 25 psych questions
4 ethics questions

funny, we must have had the same test. . .lucky us. I think i know the derm photo you're referring to. . . 😉 from hearing your description, i suspect the tests on a particular day must be the same, but probably vary from day to day.

totally right about not resembling Usmleworld at all. . .that was going through my head the whole time.

I hope they take into account the difficulty level when scoring!

 

[invitro]

Hey......

That makes me feel so much better!

I took step 2 on the 12th.....i thought it was really tough...

I studied step 2 secrets really well......

Since step 2 doesn't matter as much I just want to pass, but it took the wind out of my sails for a while. 🙁

Ah, well, 90% pass right?

Also had the same ? about derm, lots of MVA, lots of sick people with pneumonia/chest pain!!!!!

lessee what happens!

 

[Ophtho24]

I got my score from my dean today. Score was posted Oct. 19th. I took the test on Sept 26th. I recieved a 252 (I am assuming 99 on the two digit scale.) I only used Crush and USMLEworld. I studied for 2 weeks and 5 days. I only got through 1100 questions out of like 2200. My estimated score on my NBME subject exam (test 1) was a 262. So I guess the prediction was close. I posted before that some of the hard questions on the subject exam seemed to be based off of some of the hard questions on USMLEworld so I think if you use USMLEworld they may have hijacked the content of questions (the questions are NOT exactly the same) but this can obviously give you a marginal advantage. This may account for my real score being lower than predicted. I would still say based on my score the subject exams give you a decent idea of your real performance even if you use USMLEworld. I am sure they get less accurate as you get into the very high scores. My final average on USMLEworld was 68%. My scores usually ranged between 62 and 75% correct. My first two exams were in the 50s with one down at like 51 so don't flip out if your first scores suck it just takes a little practice. Anyhow I am pleased with my score and glad to be back to my normal life. Now if I could just match... Good luck to those who still need to take. I didn't feel it was anywhere near as difficult as step I which I got a 241 on.

 

[Ophtho24]

sorry posted twice and am apparently too stupid to figure out how to delete message.

 

[B-Bone]

just got my step 2 results. I got a 239. this is an 11 point improvement over my step 1. My prep included reading First Aid for about 4 hours and doing about 900 q-bank questions (with an average of 72%). I literally studied for like a total of 15-20 hours over 2 weeks. Looks like I scraped by OK.

 

[Daredevil]

just got my step 2 results. I got a 239. this is an 11 point improvement over my step 1. My prep included reading First Aid for about 4 hours and doing about 900 q-bank questions (with an average of 72%). I literally studied for like a total of 15-20 hours over 2 weeks. Looks like I scraped by OK.

sweet score. when did you take it??

 

[B-Bone]

sweet score. when did you take it??

9/30

 

[Plinko]

Just got back from taking step 2. . .

Am I like the only one who thought it was hard? I feel like i'm the minority here.

WHOA MAN!! IT WAS HARD!!!! 😱
I think i failed. . . 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

It was weird. . .like the first 2 sections, I felt like i didn't know a thing. Then it seemed to get a little easier. I still felt like I was making educated guesses for most questions. It was only a question here and there that I felt solid about the answer.

Maybe the computer does in fact automatically adjust the question difficulty. . .

I hope those first 2 sections didn't mess me up too bad. I JUST WANNA PASS. . .

I was wondering if anyone has confirmed whether or not the computer adjusts the question difficulty. I've heard plenty of rumors but no one seems to know for sure. Took the test a week ago and felt it was quite difficult. It seems like the people who took it in August or September seemed to think it was easy whereas those who took in October not so much. I felt it was much harder than qBank.

 

[Daredevil]

9/30

Cool.. me too. Did you get the results by mail or from your school?

DD

 

[denali459]

I am happy to say there is hope for people with a poor step 1. My step 1 score was 194 but my step 2 score was 237. Not a bad improvement if I do say so myself. I used boards & wards, crush, and q-bank and I studied for 2 weeks. Good luck everyone! I honestly believe that if you just paid attention in your clinical rotations and passed your chairman's exams you will do fine.

 

[chicamedica]

I was wondering if anyone has confirmed whether or not the computer adjusts the question difficulty. I've heard plenty of rumors but no one seems to know for sure. Took the test a week ago and felt it was quite difficult. It seems like the people who took it in August or September seemed to think it was easy whereas those who took in October not so much. I felt it was much harder than qBank.

Yeah I seriously think the test was changed in October. I just talked to a classmate and friend who took step 2 yesterday and he also thought it was hard (and he's a pretty smart guy). I'm not sure about the question difficulty adjustment. He said his first 2 sections were somewhat doable, but that some of the subsequent sections were impossible. My first 2 sections were the impossible ones. So maybe the sections just get shuffled? 😕 😕 😕 😕