Step I USMLE world score keeps going down...

[cassieandcheeta]

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Hi everyone,

My USMLE world scores have been going down for the last 3 question sets....I have gotten above average before which I was really happy about, but it's been going down and down and down again (3 times ina row)...is this natural, or am I doing something wrong here???

 

[lilnoelle]

Hi everyone,

My USMLE world scores have been going down for the last 3 question sets....I have gotten above average before which I was really happy about, but it's been going down and down and down again (3 times ina row)...is this natural, or am I doing something wrong here???

I wouldn't worry about 3 times in a row. Just keep doing questions. Each time you have a new block, they're questions you haven't seen before.... I'm guessing a lot of people never have an "upward trend".

Don't sweat it, just keep working away.

 

[2cr8tive]

it's really not a big deal. happens to me all the time. i was in mid-high 60s, then dropped below avg even got one in 40s and then im up again in mid-high 60s now. but u know im getting more used to the trend and it's not scary anymore.

 

[ShyRem]

I actually did an excel spreadsheet of my progress. Have every block on there with the average %, my %, and the ratio of the two %s (to account for difficulty of questions). Then I graphed it. I was definitely feeling really bad about my progress until I looked at my graph - a DEFINITE upward trend. At this point, I'm generally in the mid-high 60s with an occassional 80s. I have occassional flashes of stupid however, where I only get in the 50s.

The graphing definitely helped ease my mind about how I was doing.

 

[Instatewaiter]

happened to me too.

Toward the beginning of studying my scores were pretty stable. Then they started to go up. About as soon as I got more confident my scores started going back down. I got kinda depressed and then they went back up again, and then back down.

I am now at the end of my studying and I find that my scores are starting to get more consistent since I have been through all of the material.

Most of the variance you are going to see w/ UW or any question bank is going to come from having a test in stuff that either you are weak on or that you havent studied. I know it's been said on here about a hundred times in the past week but use the Q-banks as a learning tool rather than a marker of where you stand. The more mistakes you make now (esp when a question pisses you off) the less likely you are going to miss that question again.

Remember the real deal is 7 sections long so the variance you see over a single section is going to be averaged out through the 7 sections.

 

[Tiger26]

I actually did an excel spreadsheet of my progress. Have every block on there with the average %, my %, and the ratio of the two %s (to account for difficulty of questions). Then I graphed it. I was definitely feeling really bad about my progress until I looked at my graph - a DEFINITE upward trend. At this point, I'm generally in the mid-high 60s with an occassional 80s. I have occassional flashes of stupid however, where I only get in the 50s.

The graphing definitely helped ease my mind about how I was doing.

Did the exact same thing--made me feel a lot better

 

[GynGuy1983]

Did the exact same thing--made me feel a lot better

USMLE Consult actually does the same thing. I wish UW offered something similar 🙁