USMLE world Self-Assessment Exam accuracy???

[EMH]

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I feel a little bipolar in the last two weeks. I took a couple practice tests that my school offers as part of a step 2 longitudinal elective (month off👍) and scored comfortably around 40th percentile without studying. But the questions were very dated and I thought that score was suspect so I took the USMLE world Self Assessment. Scored a 118 😱😕.

So in a panic I move my date and start hitting the USMLE World qbank hard and a couple hundred questions in I'm scoring in the 86th percentile (70%) on world. I'm hoping I can calm down and suspect that the SA is meant to score you lower so you go ahead and buy their qbank. Can anyone shed some light on this and possibly calm me down.

(I did search through old posts but they're all a year old)

 

[hot sauce]

I believe the self-assessment is thought to be reasonably accurate (I am still waiting for my score to come back).

That's a huge difference. I mean 118 is like 0-1 percentile to rise from that to 86th percentile is hard to understand. It is really hard to imagine how the same person could jump that much.

Did you not finish the practice exam? Something must have gone really wrong on the practice exam and it would be good to be able to identify what that was so it doesn't happen on the real thing. Did you review the questions you missed and figure out why you missed them?

 

[Gute]

uwsa was "easier" for me than the qbank itself. I had about a 5-10% incr in my % correct between the two. I took the self-assessment after I finished world so I don't know if that had any impact.

nothing that we tell you will qwell your fears. you should buy an nbme practice test and see how you do.

 

[EMH]

I believe the self-assessment is thought to be reasonably accurate (I am still waiting for my score to come back).

That's a huge difference. I mean 118 is like 0-1 percentile to rise from that to 86th percentile is hard to understand. It is really hard to imagine how the same person could jump that much.

Did you not finish the practice exam? Something must have gone really wrong on the practice exam and it would be good to be able to identify what that was so it doesn't happen on the real thing. Did you review the questions you missed and figure out why you missed them?

The only difference is I've been doing the qbank untimed. I'd hate to think that it is making that much difference. Will try another practice test and see how it turns out.

And yes after reviewing the questions I determined on most of the ones I missed: "well, duh obviously" I think I just had to get back in to the standardized test way of thinking.

 

[bigtymer]

hey i just wrote step 2 today ill post my uworld stats and everything once the scores come in but i just want to say that for real the exam is a lot like Uworld some questions are a bit trickier but the majority of questions are a lot EASIER and more straightforward so I would recommend sticking to UWorld as youre #1 source read and reread all the answers that you dont know its nice to get good averages at Uworld and do timed random blocks but focus on what you got wrong and WHY you did and why you couldnt eliminate the other answers and then do the UWSA i dunno if the scoring is comparable to the exam but definitely if you can perform well on UWSA you should expect that same degree of difficulty on the real thing

 

[EMH]

hey i just wrote step 2 today ill post my uworld stats and everything once the scores come in but i just want to say that for real the exam is a lot like Uworld some questions are a bit trickier but the majority of questions are a lot EASIER and more straightforward so I would recommend sticking to UWorld as youre #1 source read and reread all the answers that you dont know its nice to get good averages at Uworld and do timed random blocks but focus on what you got wrong and WHY you did and why you couldnt eliminate the other answers and then do the UWSA i dunno if the scoring is comparable to the exam but definitely if you can perform well on UWSA you should expect that same degree of difficulty on the real thing

Thanks guys for the help, my exam is Wed and I seem to be scoring right in the middle of the bell curve consistently now which is fine for me on this one. Will post results later.

 

[Entirecropslost]

Yea, took SA recently and got 226, I haven't officially started studying yet but I have been casually preparing doing world questions. UWSA for step 1 I got a 236 week b4 the real deal and then a 241 on step1. I seriously doubt the accuracy of this thing. I know it's hard to tell, but it would be really unlikely for my score to go down that much especially with how little a lot of people study for this thing and still get a score similar to their step1. Oh well, it's motivation for me to get my butt in gear.

 

[pablodiablo]

All within 1 week I got:

215 on the UWSA

239 and 241 on 2 NBME tests

I'm clearly hoping the latter is more accurate

 

[Entirecropslost]

yea I think UW needs to work on their bell curve

 

[jackieMD2007]

I got destroyed on the UWSA: 210ish
Took the NBME: 238ish
Real deal: 240ish

I did my questions half and half in terms of timing and tutor mode.
When I did tutor mode it was really so I could read through and see more questions.
Sounds like you're doing fine on UWorld, % wise. Push forward.

 

[Lamotrigine]

my 2 cents 254 step 2 UWSA -> real thing 258

NBME over estimated me
NBME 4 266

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Remember that the anecdotal scores you see here suffer from reporting bias. People with low scores will tend not to post them, and those with higher scores will.

 

[GuzzyRon]

Remember that the anecdotal scores you see here suffer from reporting bias. People with low scores will tend not to post them, and those with higher scores will.

I was thinking this, too. Either way, I think the OP should calm down but keep working very hard until he/she takes the exam.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

My USMLE World Practice Step 2 CK exam score was 213. My real score, after a month of studying after the practice was 223. I felt like I learned a lot more after studying, but still got a mediocre score in the end. A lot of it has to do with how well you take multiple-choice exams as well as your knowledge base.

However, my USMLE World Practice exam score for Step 1 was 212, and my real score was 195.

Course I'm an outlier, I'm 40 years old, not 20-something.

 

[EMH]

Thanks for the help. I got my score this week and finished with a 217. I was satisfied with that.