USMLE World Scores and Step II Scores

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lmh14

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Probably been discussed before, but can't find a recent thread....

I'm just curious about what scores people were getting on USMLE World, and then how you ended up doing on Step 2.

All you have to do is post two numbers...... 🙂

Thanks folks, and good luck with everything!!
 
PM is straight out of UW. If you know the PM in that and the charts/tables you'll be good.

Maybe for your test. There was preventive medicine on mine that I could only find on uptodate (looking questions up after the test). Wasn't in MTB or secrets. Seriously doubt it was in uworld too.

Granted some of it was straight forward. But it is very possible to go more in-depth than that small section in MTB and even UW.

Actually I thought PM was the hardest topic on my test.
 
Maybe for your test. There was preventive medicine on mine that I could only find on uptodate (looking questions up after the test). Wasn't in MTB or secrets. Seriously doubt it was in uworld too.

Granted some of it was straight forward. But it is very possible to go more in-depth than that small section in MTB and even UW.

Actually I thought PM was the hardest topic on my test.

Agreed, the preventative medicine on my exam was difficult and somewhat random, NOT covered in UW or other resources. Tried to think it out to reason my way to the correct answer.
 
I took my exam on July 27 so should I be expecting my score on sept 25? Or is it "no later than july 27" but including july 27?
July 27th being a Saturday, and still technically part of the week, I'd think you could expect it next week or the week after (as part of the normal delay that happens with some scores)
 
Exam date: 7/18

Step 1: well below average (not SDN average...the real average). Was looking for at least 20-30 point improvement.

NBME 4 5 days into prep: <190 :scared:
UWSA 2 weeks in: 241 🙄
NBME 2 2.5 weeks (because I didn't believe Uworld): 244
Uworld 1st pass: 65% (all but 200 IM questions)
Uworld 2nd pass: 78% (16% unused) - all random, mostly timed blocks
Total prep time: 3.5 weeks.

Also, I ended M3 on medicine and started studying 2 days after my shelf.

Real Deal: 240-250 😀 - walked out feeling like I absolutely failed.

Sources: Tried watching a few DIT videos, scrapped that. I used MTB2 + MTB3 + Secretsx1.5. After the first week decided I just needed to do questions and study my Uworld notes. I would go to look up things from Uworld questions in these books, and even my Step up 2 Ck and find nothing. ~85% of my prep was just doing blocks and studying Uworld notes. I ended up with ~50 pages of printed Uworld notes from my first pass, I made flashcards from my notes on quizlet and studied those daily on my phone w/ the flashcard deluxe app. I also did ~4 blocks of random timed blocks of questions a day. After the second week I was pretty burnt out and had quite a few off days, or days where I just didn't study at all. Honestly I probably could've taken it after 2 weeks of studying. The last week I maybe had 2-3 good study days - most of which consisted of doing flashcards while watching movies or TV.

I have really bad test anxiety and timing was a problem last year. I worked really hard studying for step 1 so not doing well was a huge confidence killer going into this one. Last year I did random, timed tutor. I think I got in the habit of seeing whether my answer was correct or not immediately and that greatly affected my confidence going forward. My scores were always lower on random timed blocks, so naturally I mostly did timed tutor 🙄.

So this year my prep goal was to answer confidently and keep it moving. I have a really bad habit of mulling over questions and changing answers multiple times instead of trusting my instincts/knowledge.

Long story short, I addressed what I think went wrong last year and tried my best to fix those issues and evidently it worked! I couldn't be happier...unless I got a 270 but oh well.

Hopefully I give some hope to people with low step 1 scores in desperate need of improvement and/or those with REALLY low initial practice exams (>50 point improvement in 3 weeks)

Good luck to those still studying or waiting for their scores!
 
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Exam date: 7/18

Step 1: well below average (not SDN average...the real average). Was looking for at least 20-30 point improvement.

NBME 4 5 days into prep: 188 :scared:
UWSA 2 weeks in: 241 🙄
NBME 2 2.5 weeks (because I didn't believe Uworld): 244
Uworld 1st pass: 65% (all but 200 IM questions)
Uworld 2nd pass: 78% (16% unused) - all random, mostly timed blocks
Total prep time: 3.5 weeks.

Also, I ended M3 on medicine and started studying 2 days after my shelf.

Real Deal: 246 😀 - walked out feeling like I absolutely failed.

Sources: Tried watching a few DIT videos, scrapped that. I used MTB2 + MTB3 + Secretsx1.5. After the first week decided I just needed to do questions and study my Uworld notes. I would go to look up things from Uworld questions in these books, and even my Step up 2 Ck and find nothing. ~85% of my prep was just doing blocks and studying Uworld notes. I ended up with ~50 pages of printed Uworld notes from my first pass, I made flashcards from my notes on quizlet and studied those daily on my phone w/ the flashcard deluxe app. I also did ~4 blocks of random timed blocks of questions a day. After the second week I was pretty burnt out and had quite a few off days, or days where I just didn't study at all. Honestly I probably could've taken it after 2 weeks of studying. The last week I maybe had 2-3 good study days - most of which consisted of doing flashcards while watching movies or TV.

I have really bad test anxiety and timing was a problem last year. I worked really hard studying for step 1 so not doing well was a huge confidence killer going into this one. Last year I did random, timed tutor. I think I got in the habit of seeing whether my answer was correct or not immediately and that greatly affected my confidence going forward. My scores were always lower on random timed blocks, so naturally I mostly did timed tutor 🙄.

So this year my prep goal was to answer confidently and keep it moving. I have a really bad habit of mulling over questions and changing answers multiple times instead of trusting my instincts/knowledge.

Long story short, I addressed what I think went wrong last year and tried my best to fix those issues and evidently it worked! I couldn't be happier...unless I got a 270 but oh well.

Hopefully I give some hope to people with low step 1 scores in desperate need of improvement and/or those with REALLY low initial practice exams (58 point improvement in 3 weeks)

Good luck to those still studying or waiting for their scores!

wow..congratulations..!!! really needed some motivation to do well and i found your post..58 points in 3.5 weeks gives me a lot of hope..i am 3 weeks away from my exam and a low step 1 scorer..really need 240-250 plus to compensate for that..took NBME 3 two days back and scored 206..how many hours did you put in each day..?
 
"Score reports for Step 2 CK are usually available within four weeks of testing. However, because of routine modifications to the test item pool, score reporting for most Step 2 CK examinations administered in late July and August will take longer. The target date for reporting Step 2 CK scores for most examinees testing in late July and August is Wednesday, September 25, 2013. For examinees whose circumstances require that they receive Step 2 CK scores before September 25, it is recommended that they take Step 2 CK no later than July 27, 2013."

I took my exam on July 27 so should I be expecting my score on sept 25? Or is it "no later than july 27" but including july 27?


I posted this on another thread, but thought it applied here, too. I also took the test 7/27 and was wondering the same thing. I emailed them and got this response:

"Results for computer-based examinations (Steps 1 and 2 CK) are typically reported within three to four weeks after your test date. However, because of routine modifications to the test item pool, score reporting for most Step 2 CK examinations administered in late July and August will take longer. The target date for reporting Step 2 CK scores for most examinees testing in late July and August is Wednesday, September 25, 2013. Since you took your exam so close to the beginning of the USMLE Step 2 CK score delay, your score may or may not be delayed."

It seems crazy to me that they can give a definitive date in their announcement, but refuse to give any definitive information when you ask them about it. Anyways... there you have it. Basically, we get to play a really fun waiting game.
 
wow..congratulations..!!! really needed some motivation to do well and i found your post..>50 points in 3.5 weeks gives me a lot of hope..i am 3 weeks away from my exam and a low step 1 scorer..really need 240-250 plus to compensate for that..took NBME 3 two days back and scored 206..how many hours did you put in each day..?
Thanks! During the beginning I was putting in ~12 hours (probably only 10 hours of actual productive time)...allowing for ~4 blocks, reviewing those blocks and whatever other reading + flashcards I needed to do. After a couple weeks I got burnt out though and was doing closer to 7-8 hours a day. However, reviewing the blocks got much easier for me as I started to solidify the material more and more. I think that was eating up a lot of time towards the beginning half of my study period. Towards the end I was much more efficient at reviewing blocks.
 
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Gave the exam today and I found it extremely difficult. Walked out feeling like crap. Felt much better with Step 1. I had pretty high NBME exam scores/UWSA but this felt much more difficult. Anyways we will see September 25th.
 
Gave the exam today and I found it extremely difficult. Walked out feeling like crap. Felt much better with Step 1. I had pretty high NBME exam scores/UWSA but this felt much more difficult. Anyways we will see September 25th.

With how high your practice scores were I really thought you would've felt better about the exam. Did you feel UW covered enough of your exam?
 
I was an early August taker and also did not feel strong. Did this happen last year? I'm looking for a correlation with the adjustments to the question bank pool but am not sure.
 
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So I'm kinda worried...taking the test on Wed. Average UWorld scores around 70% (2nd time around but don't remember alot of the questions since I did them during the year). My lowest sections are OB/GYN, electrolytes, Biostats. Any advice to get a better grasp of those concepts??
 
So I'm kinda worried...taking the test on Wed. Average UWorld scores around 70% (2nd time around but don't remember alot of the questions since I did them during the year). My lowest sections are OB/GYN, electrolytes, Biostats. Any advice to get a better grasp of those concepts??

ob/gyn is pretty vast.

Electrolytes are easy to master.
Know what makes Na, K, Ca, and Mg high or low. Symptoms? EKG changes? Management? Know what addisonian/low cortisol does to Na and K. Then understand the opposite.
Know which drugs screw with electrolytes (i.e. bactrim can cause high potassium).
When does thiamine matter?

If you know the above you are good on >85% of electrolyte questions.
 
Finished uworld on thursday, went to reset it this AM and can't because I haven't had a subscription for 6 months continuously.

Has anyone had any luck contacting them for a manual reset on their side? Any workarounds here?
 
Thanks for the help! And I totally didn't know that bactrim had an effect on electrolytes lol...thanks for that. Do you know if there is a good resource that lists the electrolyte effects of the medications. And as for OB/GYN I guess Im just gonna review it in SUS2 and secrets...do you think thats enough?

My goal is not too high ~230. Will be happy with that! Any other advice about the beast (AKA test lol)? I'm kinda in freak out mode currently! lol Thanks 🙂
 
Took the exam on Aug 5th, I thought it was fair/doable. I know i made some dumb mistakes, and there were some *wtf* questions, but overall i didn't think it was that bad.

Step 1: 250

NBME 6: 227 (baseline, few days after starting to study)
NBME 2: 246 (3 weeks out)
NBME 4: 248 (2 weeks out, got kinda lazy that week)
UWSA: 253 (1 week out)

I'd say my exam was most closely related to UWSA, had some tricky biostats stuff i thought, simple calculations, but getting the information for the calculations was a bit tricky because of the way the study was conducted or how the information was presented.

Studying: UW, MTB2, Secrets, Step up to medicine. Glanced over kaplan notes for obgyn, and a few sections in First Aid CK, but that's about it.

Will post once scores are released, hopefully the Sept 25th thing was just a precautionary statement, I am hoping scores come out sooner, but oh well...
 
I took it this Thursday and did not feel good about it at all. It was very long and frequently I was choosing at random between two choices that seemed equally plausible to me. I thought I was doing okay before taking the test (Step 1 254, UWorld 80%, UWSA 259 one week out), then I got completely owned. To be honest, I'm not sure what else I could have done to prepare. None of the resources I used were helpful in answering many of the clinical decision making questions. I felt like UWorld did not have enough questions to prepare me for this. I also go to a school without shelf exams, so I may have been at a disadvantage in that regard? I seriously don't know. Will post when I get my score.
 
Just wanted to put my plug in to NMS Medicine Casebook. I am using it for studying in addition to MTB 2 + 3 combo, SUTM, Step II secrets, Uworld, in addition to using Uwise for Ob/Gyn (which i thought was NOT helpful at all, surprisingly), Pret-test peds (was ok helpful in getting some strange yet ubiquitous peds subjects), and Lange Q&A for psycy (i thought was very helpful). Nevertheless i think the most helpful of all those in doing Uworld questions is NMS Casebook (its amazing!). It's case by case and has flow and helps you remember algorithms better. It also gives you some esoteric facts that you think are not important but apparently well-known in medicine. I haven't taken the exam yet but I can say that is is better than all of these books (in terms of medicine anyway).

Another thing about SUTM is that it has a lot of information (which is great) but all of it is superfluous (**** you would never forget/already know/irrelevant). For how much information it has it is still missing a lot of stuff. I'm thinking of just sticking to MTB 2 as i've already ready SUTM and MTB 2 seems to be a lot more relevant.

Case and point: i think NMS Casebook should be added to the arsenal for studying step ii.
 
Thanks! I will def review those before...you think uworld + secrets is enough or go more thorough into it (ex: case files). OB is def one of my worse topic.

Depends what you mean by uworld.

If you take notes and read the entire explanation for each question it is enough. If you are just reading the ones you missed then you are missing out on a lot of info.

Secrets is by no mean enough. And honestly is the weakest part of secrets. I didn't like that chapter and secrets was my bible for step 2. However, the gyn chapter was good.

Secrets isn't the silver bullet I thought it was going to be. It is concise and will get you points but is by no mean comprehensive.
 
Gottcha...thanks for the help guys! Wish me luck...taking it on Wed. Kinda nervous since everyone said it was rather difficult. Will post on here after I'm done. I really appreciate the advice though!!
 
Thanks! During the beginning I was putting in ~12 hours (probably only 10 hours of actual productive time)...allowing for ~4 blocks, reviewing those blocks and whatever other reading + flashcards I needed to do. After a couple weeks I got burnt out though and was doing closer to 7-8 hours a day. However, reviewing the blocks got much easier for me as I started to solidify the material more and more. I think that was eating up a lot of time towards the beginning half of my study period. Towards the end I was much more efficient at reviewing blocks.

Hi mybubbles 14, can you elaborate on how you took notes on uworld?When did you start to do the flashcards when you finished or as you went along? What did you do to review the blocks more efficiently? Sorry for all the questions! I am doing almost the exact studying plan and have the exact situation you were in!! Hopefully I have a similar ending, congrats by the way!

I do around "4blocks" but meaning 25-28q each. I find that it takes me all day to do around ~110q with annotating and reading on uptodate/harrisons/or williams ob/gyn sometimes. I can't even review material,other than by doing questions. I am at ~50% done and have around 15pages worth of notes. I am on my last week (3 of3wks) and will be having to do 145q per day to finish the qbank by this time next week. I need to get a technique to finish the daily question quota, but still have a couple of hr each day to review/solidify material. Thank you so much for posting! Gave me some hope and motivation that I can do it too!
 
HAHA well that sucked. Took it today Felt decently prepared going into it but not as well prepared as step 1 and kinda nervous
NBME-2 220 (3 months out)
NBME 4 240( 1 month)
UWSA 252 (2 weeks out)
Felt like I had to guess on at least 1/3-1/2 of the questions. Its all a blur so cant really remember but I remember thinking It wouldn't have mattered how much I had reviewed my materials because I never remember reading some of the stuff i had to guess on. I was rushing through the last 10 questions almost every block and I had to flat out guess on all of the drug adds which were 2-3 questions each(10q total) which really sucked and were really hard! I didn't even understand what it was asking which was a bad sign and the questions pertained to how the study was designed so you had to read the whole article to pretty much get the answer. Wish UWORLD had more of these types of questions to practice on but glad I saved those till the end. Anyway, here's to educated guessing !😳 glad its over but not excited about the feeling coming out of this one compared to step 1. Overall decent distribution of topics didn feel heavy on any one thing. Anyone else think the drug adds were difficult to answer too? Just hope I don't drop more then 15 points from step 1. Why is this exam so long/vague? It is now more of a reading comprehension test then a knowledge based test which sucks for me cuz that was my worst section of the MCAT
 
HAHA well that sucked. Took it today Felt decently prepared going into it but not as well prepared as step 1 and kinda nervous
NBME-2 220 (3 months out)
NBME 4 240( 1 month)
UWSA 252 (2 weeks out)
Felt like I had to guess on at least 1/3-1/2 of the questions. Its all a blur so cant really remember but I remember thinking It wouldn't have mattered how much I had reviewed my materials because I never remember reading some of the stuff i had to guess on. I was rushing through the last 10 questions almost every block and I had to flat out guess on all of the drug adds which were 2-3 questions each(10q total) which really sucked and were really hard! I didn't even understand what it was asking which was a bad sign and the questions pertained to how the study was designed so you had to read the whole article to pretty much get the answer. Wish UWORLD had more of these types of questions to practice on but glad I saved those till the end. Anyway, here's to educated guessing !😳 glad its over but not excited about the feeling coming out of this one compared to step 1. Overall decent distribution of topics didn feel heavy on any one thing. Anyone else think the drug adds were difficult to answer too? Just hope I don't drop more then 15 points from step 1. Why is this exam so long/vague? It is now more of a reading comprehension test then a knowledge based test which sucks for me cuz that was my worst section of the MCAT

Thanks for the response...taking CK Wed lol...any last minute advice?? Gonna just review some biostats tomorrow and review a little and then call it a day. Oh boy, from these posts can def tell its gonna be a longggg day!!
 
Did anyone notice a significant drop in their UWSA score? I scored >260 on multiple NBME's and dropped to 236 on the UWSA today. My exam is in a couple of days and I'm freaking out! Still have NBME 4 to write in the next day or so..
 
Anybody take it on July 26th have their permit link disappear yet? Mine was gone last week but no score but I also ran out of my eligibility period so I think that's why my link was gone, not because of anything else. Just wondering if anyone that took it on the 26th and had a link a day or two ago now noticed their link is gone and that we MAY be getting our score on Wednesday! 🙂
 
Took the exam today. Freaking hard. Harder than Uworld, harder than UWSA. Content 50%IM, 24%Peds, 24% Obgyn, 2% other. HAHAHA. That caught me a bit off guard.
 
HAHA well that sucked. Took it today Felt decently prepared going into it but not as well prepared as step 1 and kinda nervous
NBME-2 220 (3 months out)
NBME 4 240( 1 month)
UWSA 252 (2 weeks out)
Felt like I had to guess on at least 1/3-1/2 of the questions. Its all a blur so cant really remember but I remember thinking It wouldn't have mattered how much I had reviewed my materials because I never remember reading some of the stuff i had to guess on. I was rushing through the last 10 questions almost every block and I had to flat out guess on all of the drug adds which were 2-3 questions each(10q total) which really sucked and were really hard! I didn't even understand what it was asking which was a bad sign and the questions pertained to how the study was designed so you had to read the whole article to pretty much get the answer. Wish UWORLD had more of these types of questions to practice on but glad I saved those till the end. Anyway, here's to educated guessing !😳 glad its over but not excited about the feeling coming out of this one compared to step 1. Overall decent distribution of topics didn feel heavy on any one thing. Anyone else think the drug adds
were difficult to answer too? Just hope I don't drop more then 15 points from step 1. Why is this exam so long/vague? It is now more of a reading comprehension test then a knowledge based test which sucks for me cuz that was my worst section of the MCAT


Took it today as well. This is exactly word for word how I felt. I didnt think the drug questions were hard, they were very time consuming. I ran out of time and had to blindly guess for one set of the drug questions. Other than that it was pretty similar to uworld, just more vague snd more reasoning rather than knowledge was required.
 
Has anyone gotten well below (ie >15 points) what uwsa predicted? Mine was 260 but I def feel as though that over predicted... Felt terrible during actual exam
 
HAHA well that sucked. Took it today Felt decently prepared going into it but not as well prepared as step 1 and kinda nervous
NBME-2 220 (3 months out)
NBME 4 240( 1 month)
UWSA 252 (2 weeks out)
Felt like I had to guess on at least 1/3-1/2 of the questions. Its all a blur so cant really remember but I remember thinking It wouldn't have mattered how much I had reviewed my materials because I never remember reading some of the stuff i had to guess on. I was rushing through the last 10 questions almost every block and I had to flat out guess on all of the drug adds which were 2-3 questions each(10q total) which really sucked and were really hard! I didn't even understand what it was asking which was a bad sign and the questions pertained to how the study was designed so you had to read the whole article to pretty much get the answer. Wish UWORLD had more of these types of questions to practice on but glad I saved those till the end. Anyway, here's to educated guessing !😳 glad its over but not excited about the feeling coming out of this one compared to step 1. Overall decent distribution of topics didn feel heavy on any one thing. Anyone else think the drug adds were difficult to answer too? Just hope I don't drop more then 15 points from step 1. Why is this exam so long/vague? It is now more of a reading comprehension test then a knowledge based test which sucks for me cuz that was my worst section of the MCAT

Took it today as well. This is exactly word for word how I felt. I didnt think the drug questions were hard, they were very time consuming. I ran out of time and had to blindly guess for one set of the drug questions. Other than that it was pretty similar to uworld, just more vague snd more reasoning rather than knowledge was required.

What did you think of Step 1 then? Step 1 last year had a little more reading comp than I expected but it was still 80+% knowledge-based.

Are you exaggerating a bit on how much reading comp it was? Step 2 is still all ~350 vignettes other than the like 10 drugs ads. Vignettes can really only be knowledge-based, right? I mean, you need to know how to critically apply your knowledge but yea? I take my test next week and now you have me worried. :scared:
 
What did you think of Step 1 then? Step 1 last year had a little more reading comp than I expected but it was still 80+% knowledge-based.

Are you exaggerating a bit on how much reading comp it was? Step 2 is still all ~350 vignettes other than the like 10 drugs ads. Vignettes can really only be knowledge-based, right? I mean, you need to know how to critically apply your knowledge but yea? I take my test next week and now you have me worried. :scared:

Dont worry I'm sure you will be fine its not all reading comprehension by any means but the questions stems are longer and require you to get through the BS in the middle quickly and kind of filter it out. I was doing OK in the beginning but then after the drug adds threw me for a loop and then I got flustered and started taking longer on each question and wasnt able to sift as well.
 
Are you exaggerating a bit on how much reading comp it was? Step 2 is still all ~350 vignettes other than the like 10 drugs ads. Vignettes can really only be knowledge-based, right? I mean, you need to know how to critically apply your knowledge but yea? I take my test next week and now you have me worried. :scared:

At the end of the day, of course it is knowledge based. You can't reason without underlying knowledge. What people are saying is that there are more questions where there is extra information to cut through, ambiguous patient presentation, and comparable answers (not in terms of how close they are but how appropriate they seem).
 
Can you guys point out where in UWorld the drug ads are? All in IM? I finished like 75% of UW over 3rd year, reset it and now doing it again but I will probably only have time to finish 80% of it. I want to make sure I do all those drug ad questions. Thanks.
 
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