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!!
 
USMLE Step 1 taken June 14

NBME 6 days out 254
NBME 11 14 days out pre-World 240
Usmle world SA Form 1 2 weeks out 255
USMLE World SA Form 2 6 days out 265
USMLE world average 76% (90% done random, timed tutor)
Kaplan average (74% done before World, before NBME 11 but after NBME 6)

USMLE Top Secrets by Brown and Brown (Crucial!!!!!!)
Goljan (heavily) Rapir Review Path, including questions using code on inside cover (crucial!!!!)
Goljan Biochem (done lightly)
First Aid, Done very lightly (I don't subscribe to using this!)

Real deal checked today: 265.

wrong forum guy
 
I was wondering if some of you can give me your opinion on how accurate the UW SA and NBME exams are. I took the UW SA about 4 days prior to my exam and scored a 237, then took the NBME 2 days prior and scored a 267. On test day I hit the wall the second half and honestly don't know how it went. Even with taking the practice exams I didn't know how I did until the I saw the predicted scores.

Now, studying for the COMLEX2, I see some dumb mistakes I made on the USMLE. Sucks, since it was topics I thought I knew fairly well. But, I guess that's how it goes!

Let me know your correlation with your actual scores. The 30 point jump in 2 days seems a little suspect. Kinda scared to see my actual score. Thanks!
 
I was wondering if some of you can give me your opinion on how accurate the UW SA and NBME exams are. I took the UW SA about 4 days prior to my exam and scored a 237, then took the NBME 2 days prior and scored a 267. On test day I hit the wall the second half and honestly don't know how it went. Even with taking the practice exams I didn't know how I did until the I saw the predicted scores.

Now, studying for the COMLEX2, I see some dumb mistakes I made on the USMLE. Sucks, since it was topics I thought I knew fairly well. But, I guess that's how it goes!

Let me know your correlation with your actual scores. The 30 point jump in 2 days seems a little suspect. Kinda scared to see my actual score. Thanks!
Its all over the place. I took NBME 4 and got a 232. A few days later I took UWSA and got 255. I think part of it, and this goes for the exam too, is whether or not you're having a good day.
 
Does anyone else experience this in UWorld: If you just read the question for what it's worth, answer it, you can get it right. But if you TRY to think about the answer, "Oh I think that ...." then wham you get it wrong?

🙂 Every time I try to be "smart" I end up looking stupid!
 
Same thing happened to me. Took USWA and got a 227, then took nbme 4 one month later and got a 270. I did not use Uworld as my primary source, I just used it as a qbank and got an overall 71% cumulative first pass, random timed blocks. When doing UWSA questions, I felt they were a lot tougher than NBME questions, which are much more straightforward. I take the test in two weeks, but I can pretty much say that if you scored in the 267 range, you are gonna do really well, for sure above 240!! At least, that is what I tell myself lol.😀


Now the NMBEs were right on target for me for step 1. Last nmbe was 234, and I got a 235 on the real thing.
 
Does anyone else experience this in UWorld: If you just read the question for what it's worth, answer it, you can get it right. But if you TRY to think about the answer, "Oh I think that ...." then wham you get it wrong?

🙂 Every time I try to be "smart" I end up looking stupid!
guilty as charged
 
Does anyone else experience this in UWorld: If you just read the question for what it's worth, answer it, you can get it right. But if you TRY to think about the answer, "Oh I think that ...." then wham you get it wrong?

🙂 Every time I try to be "smart" I end up looking stupid!

Haha, I actually agree. When I pre-decide to rush through a block, I end up doing better.

But I must add: the answer choices need to be read carefully. Sometimes there is a cheap trick in the way the choices are worded.
 
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does anyone know what percentage right you need for a 240 ? 250?

i got 83% right on a practice nbme test and got a 232

is this similar to the real test?
 
does anyone know what percentage right you need for a 240 ? 250?

i got 83% right on a practice nbme test and got a 232

is this similar to the real test?

The NBME scale is wack. I took NBME 4 a week before my test on got a 232 which was around 31 questions or so wrong. That is an average about 8 wrong per 46 question block, and if you were hitting that average on UWORLD, you're predicted score would not be a 232 on a self assessment. Obviously different question banks so scales are not meant to match. Thought I did well on NBME 4 and was disappointed when it spat out a 232. 72% overall for UWORLD, 100% completed on first pass on random mode. Scored a 265 on the the actual test, which again was 1 week later. Guess I am another example of how Step 2 NBME's are not predictive of actual performance, and glad I only spent money on 1 test 😀
 
Congrats on the awesome score. Can anyone comment on the length of question stems on the real thing compared to uworld and nbme's?

real thing's in 6 days :xf::luck:

The NBME scale is wack. I took NBME 4 a week before my test on got a 232 which was around 31 questions or so wrong. That is an average about 8 wrong per 46 question block, and if you were hitting that average on UWORLD, you're predicted score would not be a 232 on a self assessment. Obviously different question banks so scales are not meant to match. Thought I did well on NBME 4 and was disappointed when it spat out a 232. 72% overall for UWORLD, 100% completed on first pass on random mode. Scored a 265 on the the actual test, which again was 1 week later. Guess I am another example of how Step 2 NBME's are not predictive of actual performance, and glad I only spent money on 1 test 😀
 
The NBME scale is wack. I took NBME 4 a week before my test on got a 232 which was around 31 questions or so wrong. That is an average about 8 wrong per 46 question block, and if you were hitting that average on UWORLD, you're predicted score would not be a 232 on a self assessment. Obviously different question banks so scales are not meant to match. Thought I did well on NBME 4 and was disappointed when it spat out a 232. 72% overall for UWORLD, 100% completed on first pass on random mode. Scored a 265 on the the actual test, which again was 1 week later. Guess I am another example of how Step 2 NBME's are not predictive of actual performance, and glad I only spent money on 1 test 😀

Awesome job, did you take the UWSA practice test? How did you feel the test was in comparison to UW bank and the general breakdown in subjects?
 
Awesome job, did you take the UWSA practice test? How did you feel the test was in comparison to UW bank and the general breakdown in subjects?

I never got to the UWSA practice test. Instead, I spent the final week or so going over marked questions and reading to solidify facts/concepts. The actual exam in general is a bit harder than NBME's and a little easier than UWORLD questions. That is my assessment and some others on here may disagree. UWORLD is awesome prep--if you focus on reading explanations, this will greatly expand your knowledge base past what you can learn in some of the prep books out there such as First Aid, Secrets, or Step up to Step 2. There obviously is a decent amount of medicine, with peds and obgyn the next most represented topics. Lots of questions about dementia from what I remember.

In response to stem length, questions can be long and in general are probably longer than UWORLD and NBME's, but there is often lots of useless info in the stem so reading the vitals, last two lines of the question and the answer choices may help if you have time issues
 
UWorld %: 78%
UWorld Practice Test 4 days before: 255
Resources: First Aid for CK, UWorld
Study Time: Off and on for 2.5 months. Took a 14 day vacation in there, only did one question set per night. Was also on a research block, so was doing work for that during the days and trying to study at night.

Step 1: 253
Step 2 CK: 262

It's pretty doable. I thought the test was as hard or a little harder than UWorld, but overall very similar. The question stems are VERY LONG... almost too long. I really never found myself pressed for time and was just more annoyed at how long the question stems were. I also didn't know it was 8 sections when I first walked in, so I was a little unprepared. Oh well, turned out for the best.

My best advice: keep it simple. You don't need anything else but UWorld really.
 
My best advice: keep it simple. You don't need anything else but UWorld really.

Thank you for sharing your experience and advice.

Question: When you say you don't need anything else but UWorld, do you feel like most questions on Step 2CK were covered by UWorld? In form of a concept or actual information?
 
For the people breaking 240 and 250, how many questions per block are you having difficulty with? When some of you 250'ers say the test was hard, is that like 10 total questions you thought were hard and are sticking out to you, or are you actually having difficulty with like 10 questions per block?
 
Thank you for sharing your experience and advice.

Question: When you say you don't need anything else but UWorld, do you feel like most questions on Step 2CK were covered by UWorld? In form of a concept or actual information?

I'm curious about this too.. please answer. Thanks... b/c I am planning on using UWORLD religiously and hoping that will be sufficient along with a bit of FA. Thanks
 
Hey everyone,

Last week advise request. 🙂

I took NBME 2 yesterday and did pretty decently with a 242. Although it was an improvement over my last NBME (4), it's still about 10 points below my Step 1 score so I'm trying to figure out what I can do in this last week to get myself back up there.

My current plan is to read through Secrets in the next 2 days and maybe do the UWSA about 3-4 day out after which I will probably read up some of the high-yield / crammable material like Step Up to Medicine margins, CV, Biostats, etc. Does this seem like a reasonable approach? I know these are pretty decent scores I've been getting, and although I would be ecstatic to out-do my Step 1 performance, I certainly don't want to do worse than I did on Step 1. I don't know if I should be hitting the really high-yield material, a lot of which feels like review, or if I should be looking for those nuggets of information that will make the difference between 245 and 255?

(Also, regarding NBME 2 - for some reason, I completely bombed the Ob/Gyn section, even though I did very well on Ob/Gyn in NBME 4 and on my UW tests... I improved between NBME 4 --> NBME 2 in virtually every category except this one. Has anyone else noticed this? Could it be that a mere 3-4 questions that maybe I guessed on poorly would've put me at my target score?)
 
The NBME scale is wack. I took NBME 4 a week before my test on got a 232 which was around 31 questions or so wrong. That is an average about 8 wrong per 46 question block, and if you were hitting that average on UWORLD, you're predicted score would not be a 232 on a self assessment. Obviously different question banks so scales are not meant to match. Thought I did well on NBME 4 and was disappointed when it spat out a 232. 72% overall for UWORLD, 100% completed on first pass on random mode. Scored a 265 on the the actual test, which again was 1 week later. Guess I am another example of how Step 2 NBME's are not predictive of actual performance, and glad I only spent money on 1 test 😀

Congratulations on a great score. Can you share what resources you used for your CK prep? Thanks.
 
Thank you for sharing your experience and advice.

Question: When you say you don't need anything else but UWorld, do you feel like most questions on Step 2CK were covered by UWorld? In form of a concept or actual information?

So UWorld has about 2400 questions. This is not enough to cover everything in CK. However, I do think the question style and material were very similar. Even if a specific concept wasn't covered in UWorld, a similar question or concept was covered that would at least get you thinking along the same lines. Therefore, when you encounter that question on the actual test, you should be able to reason it out for yourself.

So just getting advice from people who took it before me, they all said the test was easy and I didn't need to worry about it. But my actual test I thought it was tough. I had at least 10 questions per section that I was unsure about, but could reasonably rule in 5 questions into the right answer. The other 5 I either had no f'ing idea what they were asking or could only eliminate down to 3 answer choices and had to guess. Maybe I thought it was "tough" since I went into it thinking it would be easy.
 
Congratulations on a great score. Can you share what resources you used for your CK prep? Thanks.

First Aid, Step Up Medicine, Secrets, some compiled notes from 3rd yr resources including snippets of case files for peds and obgyn. Spent lots of time on UWORLD explanations, which is the general consensus best prep method.
 
Just took UWSA and got a 232. Took NBME form 3 two weeks ago and scored a 220, but I hear that this form is made to ruin people's confidence. Reeeeallllly wanted to hit or break a 240 on this exam, but my UWSA is making me think this may not be possible........ any thoughts?
 
whats up guys? I apologize for the long post upfront. I have the CK scheduled for tomorrow and Im stuck between postponing or writing the damn thing and getting it over with. I started WORLD at the beginning of 3rd year and averaged a 55% 1st run through by subject, then started a second run through in jan 2011 and scored a 65% overall... after my last rotation in June I started WORLD a third time and have an average of 75% after the first 1000 qs on timed random mode... I dont feel like I remember the answers but I do feel like I remember the scenerios ( trauma, elevated JVD, decreased breathe sounds, hyperresonence =pneumothorx etc)... before I started studying on june 16th, I took an NBME to see whats up and scored a 190... this was after an 8 hr work day so I shrugged it off... over the past three weeks, I have taken UWSA #1 and scored a 210, then NBME #3 and scored a 207, NBME 4 207 and NBME 3 yesterday and scored 209... Im deflated! Here is the weird thing... my strengths and weaknesses are ALL OVER the place... on one test I will have stars above average on 3 or 4 subject and stars below average on others and then on the NBME the next week, its the complete reverse, and Ill have stars above average on my weak areas of the previous NBME and stars below average on my strong areas of the last week... wtf?? Its been like that for every self assesment Ive taken... high above average in neuro, endo, cards etc and then below average on those same areas the next week... its almost as if its the luck of the draw and I do very well depending on some sort of type of questions I get for that particular exam.... and the weird thing thats killing me is that throughout all this fluctuation, my score stays the same! anyone have the same experience? Should I postpone or go for it? ANY ADVICE is much appreciated guys. thanks and take care
 
whats up guys? I apologize for the long post upfront. I have the CK scheduled for tomorrow and Im stuck between postponing or writing the damn thing and getting it over with. I started WORLD at the beginning of 3rd year and averaged a 55% 1st run through by subject, then started a second run through in jan 2011 and scored a 65% overall... after my last rotation in June I started WORLD a third time and have an average of 75% after the first 1000 qs on timed random mode... I dont feel like I remember the answers but I do feel like I remember the scenerios ( trauma, elevated JVD, decreased breathe sounds, hyperresonence =pneumothorx etc)... before I started studying on june 16th, I took an NBME to see whats up and scored a 190... this was after an 8 hr work day so I shrugged it off... over the past three weeks, I have taken UWSA #1 and scored a 210, then NBME #3 and scored a 207, NBME 4 207 and NBME 3 yesterday and scored 209... Im deflated! Here is the weird thing... my strengths and weaknesses are ALL OVER the place... on one test I will have stars above average on 3 or 4 subject and stars below average on others and then on the NBME the next week, its the complete reverse, and Ill have stars above average on my weak areas of the previous NBME and stars below average on my strong areas of the last week... wtf?? Its been like that for every self assesment Ive taken... high above average in neuro, endo, cards etc and then below average on those same areas the next week... its almost as if its the luck of the draw and I do very well depending on some sort of type of questions I get for that particular exam.... and the weird thing thats killing me is that throughout all this fluctuation, my score stays the same! anyone have the same experience? Should I postpone or go for it? ANY ADVICE is much appreciated guys. thanks and take care

If you did well enough on 1 step to match into what you want then you may want to consider putting off step 2 for awhile and continuing to study. It doesn't seem like you're going to fail, but definitely a Fail going into interviews won't help you. That being said, most places require you to pass step 2 for residency to start, so you'll have to pass it this winter, regardless.

A wide variation in subjects you're doing well in suggests that you might be trying to 'pattern recognize' different groups of pathology. Step 2 will often throw a pattern that suggests disease A, with one subtle distinction which should point you towards disease B. I found it useful to make little decision making algorithms for commonly confused diseases (for example, Dementia, Hypotension after trauma, 3rd trimester bleeding, bullous diseases) to help elucidate these subtle points.

Best wishes to you!!
 
If you did well enough on 1 step to match into what you want then you may want to consider putting off step 2 for awhile and continuing to study. It doesn't seem like you're going to fail, but definitely a Fail going into interviews won't help you. That being said, most places require you to pass step 2 for residency to start, so you'll have to pass it this winter, regardless.

A wide variation in subjects you're doing well in suggests that you might be trying to 'pattern recognize' different groups of pathology. Step 2 will often throw a pattern that suggests disease A, with one subtle distinction which should point you towards disease B. I found it useful to make little decision making algorithms for commonly confused diseases (for example, Dementia, Hypotension after trauma, 3rd trimester bleeding, bullous diseases) to help elucidate these subtle points.

Best wishes to you!!

thanks for the response man. I made a 210 on step 1.. go figure. anyways, the problem is that I'm currently enrolled in a med school (its LCME accredited) in puerto rico and our advisors keep telling us that because of this, its better to have both step 1 and 2 when applying for the match this year... I know that I'm going to pass, thats not even any of my worries... Im just afraid of scoring below my 210 step 1 and messing up any chances during match time.. Im going into PM&R so I think my step 1 is decent enough for this specialty. I was under the impression that when I apply through ERAS, I have the option to not disclose my step 2 score if lets say I end up scoring a little lower than my step 1... is that an option? another thing is that I have a good friend who just took CK and he score a 210 on NBME 4 a week before the exam then got a 227 on the real deal... im preying this happens to me. oh well, it is what it is. f%%k it, i think im going to write the damn thing
 
thanks for the response man. I made a 210 on step 1.. go figure. anyways, the problem is that I'm currently enrolled in a med school (its LCME accredited) in puerto rico and our advisors keep telling us that because of this, its better to have both step 1 and 2 when applying for the match this year... I know that I'm going to pass, thats not even any of my worries... Im just afraid of scoring below my 210 step 1 and messing up any chances during match time.. Im going into PM&R so I think my step 1 is decent enough for this specialty. I was under the impression that when I apply through ERAS, I have the option to not disclose my step 2 score if lets say I end up scoring a little lower than my step 1... is that an option? another thing is that I have a good friend who just took CK and he score a 210 on NBME 4 a week before the exam then got a 227 on the real deal... im preying this happens to me. oh well, it is what it is. f%%k it, i think im going to write the damn thing


Nice. Kill it!

You have the option of not disclosing if it's after a certain date - although I can't remember what that is off-hand..
 
thanks for the response man. I made a 210 on step 1.. go figure. anyways, the problem is that I'm currently enrolled in a med school (its LCME accredited) in puerto rico and our advisors keep telling us that because of this, its better to have both step 1 and 2 when applying for the match this year... I know that I'm going to pass, thats not even any of my worries... Im just afraid of scoring below my 210 step 1 and messing up any chances during match time.. Im going into PM&R so I think my step 1 is decent enough for this specialty. I was under the impression that when I apply through ERAS, I have the option to not disclose my step 2 score if lets say I end up scoring a little lower than my step 1... is that an option? another thing is that I have a good friend who just took CK and he score a 210 on NBME 4 a week before the exam then got a 227 on the real deal... im preying this happens to me. oh well, it is what it is. f%%k it, i think im going to write the damn thing

Best of luck to you, dude. If you decide to delay at the last minute, you might want to spend 2-3 weeks doing DIT. If you go through that course hardcore and then take the test (doing UW the whole time too), I'm pretty sure you will hit 230.
 
I feel like no one ever posts less-than-predicted scores up probably because of embarrassment, but I don't care. This thread is to help others, and not stroke your ego.

UW (100% complete, timed, random)- 67%
UWSA- 247 (one week out)
did not take an NBME

Real thing-225/98 (average 230)

Moral of the story: too many variables in place for UWorld to accurately predict how you will do on the real thing in all cases. However, I do not regret using it as my primary studying tool. I'm very disappointed with my result, but I have concluded that I'm not great at these standardized tests. I hope I'm laughing about this in 5 years when I'm an ER attending but everything happens for a reason. Good luck to everybody.
 
I feel like no one ever posts less-than-predicted scores up probably because of embarrassment, but I don't care. This thread is to help others, and not stroke your ego.

UW (100% complete, timed, random)- 67%
UWSA- 247 (one week out)
did not take an NBME

Real thing-225/98 (average 230)

Moral of the story: too many variables in place for UWorld to accurately predict how you will do on the real thing in all cases. However, I do not regret using it as my primary studying tool. I'm very disappointed with my result, but I have concluded that I'm not great at these standardized tests. I hope I'm laughing about this in 5 years when I'm an ER attending but everything happens for a reason. Good luck to everybody.

Can I ask you what your step 1 was and how long you took to study for step 2? 🙂

Thank you!!
 
I took mine July 2 and have nothing. I wasn't expecting anything until at least next week though.
 
Step 1-227/98

started DIT 2 months out. after finishing DIT, studied hard-core for 4 weeks, but not hard enough i guess.

Little surprised just given how high your UWSA score was. Anything particular that stood out to you as an issue (UWSA too easy once you've done Uworld Qs, real test harder, ect...). Seem to be in a similar boat to yours number wise, only perk is I have 2 more weeks, though a wedding in between. I've only used UW though too.
 
How bad do you have to do to fail? USMLE says step II pass rates are like 94% first try. Does that mean you have to be in the bottom 6% of people to pass? Ie, you have to be almost two standard deviations worse than average to fail?
 
hey whats up. Just wanted to give back what I can. Took the test today. I thought it was very similar to world... In fact I thought it was nothing like the NBMEs. Maybe I just got lucky but I felt like I was taking a bunch of world blocks.
I thought blocks 1-7 were pretty easy considering its the usmle... I kept waiting for one of those wtf blocks I remember getting for step 1 but it wasnt until the 8th block and sure enough i found myself guessing on every question. by the time the 9th block rolled around, I was so dead, I kept having to repeat the question stem because I would forget what the chief complaint. It sucked...

Timing wise was tough too. I must of flagged around 6-8 questions per block but never had time to go back and I think I had to guess on around 7 questions for block 8. My advice is to do world as many times as you can. I wish I had gotten through world a third time... I went through world 2 times throughout the year and then managed to get through 1000 questions a 3rd time during my 3 weeks of studying. My average on world was around a 75% the third time on timed random. Hope this helps
 
Little surprised just given how high your UWSA score was. Anything particular that stood out to you as an issue (UWSA too easy once you've done Uworld Qs, real test harder, ect...). Seem to be in a similar boat to yours number wise, only perk is I have 2 more weeks, though a wedding in between. I've only used UW though too.

I was quite surprised too. I wish I could tell you what exactly happened. I walked in confident, and more excited than nervous. As I was taking the test, it felt identical to doing UWorld blocks. When I was doing the UWorld blocks, most of the time, I didn't know how I was doing while taking them but I consistently got in the 70-75 range in the last two-three weeks. As I was taking the real thing, I felt the same way- I really didn't know. Don't bug out based on my result. I chalk it up to a bad day or that I'm just a poor standardized test taker. One thing I will say is take the previous posts with a grain of salt. Most people posting do so after being proud of their grade. I'm sure there are a number of students that had my experience that just didn't feel like posting. I also used MTB, DIT and SU 2 Step 2 so maybe I shouldve used the time to go over all of my wrong answers. Just keep doing what you're doing (because you're doing well) and let the chips fall as they may.
 
This thread is both scary and comforting.

I have just started studying, and have 5 weeks left. I am scoring at around 50-55%. This excludes psych questions, since I just did psych, and do better on those questions.

People have told me that USMLE World is harder than the actual test. Do you agree?
 
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