UWorld is freakin hard!

[12thMan]

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So I started looking at UWorld a few classes before basic science finished and I took 4 blocks of questions getting between 35-41%. Wasn't freaked out at the time cuz I thought "oh well, I still haven't covered a lot of Path, and I haven't reviewed anything at all."

Well now I'm done with all the courses, still haven't started reviewing much, but my % aren't any better. So I did a cursory review of biochem (minus genetics, vitamins, and disease), selected 15 random and unused biochem questions and only got 7 of them right, ie 46%. Is it that the things I left out are pretty high yield?

Also, UWorld seems a lot easier when you read the answer explanation (duh) but when you first see a question, sometimes I have no clue what connection or concept they are trying to make.

Is this normal? Or do I need to study a whole lot more to start doing better. And for the record, I'm not expecting to be getting 80% ever, and is that even a first time score or do people end up going over it more than once and start getting 70-80%?

 

[235009]

So I started looking at UWorld a few classes before basic science finished and I took 4 blocks of questions getting between 35-41%. Wasn't freaked out at the time cuz I thought "oh well, I still haven't covered a lot of Path, and I haven't reviewed anything at all."

Well now I'm done with all the courses, still haven't started reviewing much, but my % aren't any better. So I did a cursory review of biochem (minus genetics, vitamins, and disease), selected 15 random and unused biochem questions and only got 7 of them right, ie 46%. Is it that the things I left out are pretty high yield?

Also, UWorld seems a lot easier when you read the answer explanation (duh) but when you first see a question, sometimes I have no clue what connection or concept they are trying to make.

Is this normal? Or do I need to study a whole lot more to start doing better. And for the record, I'm not expecting to be getting 80% ever, and is that even a first time score or do people end up going over it more than once and start getting 70-80%?

guessing you're a first year in which case you shouldn't worry about it at all. stop doing uworld because it is a waste of time. things start to click during second year. you learn the style of nbme questions and you start knowing enough to be able to answer 2nd and 3rd order questions.

when people say they are getting 70-80% correct they do mean on the first pass. you too will be getting 65%+ correct when it comes time to study for the boards. don't get ahead of yourself

 

[12thMan]

guessing you're a first year in which case you shouldn't worry about it at all. stop doing uworld because it is a waste of time. things start to click during second year. you learn the style of nbme questions and you start knowing enough to be able to answer 2nd and 3rd order questions.

when people say they are getting 70-80% correct they do mean on the first pass. you too will be getting 65%+ correct when it comes time to study for the boards. don't get ahead of yourself

I'm done with all of the basic science classes...so, unfortunately, I'm not a first year...hence, the worries.

my question is this:

i've done all 138 free questions on the NBME website - very straight forward 1st or 2nd order questions. I've done one block of NBME form 6 i think it was. It was tougher, but the same type of questions. I know on that block i got a 72% without even reviewing anything.

Now I've noticed that UW the questions are usually 3rd order (a few 2nd order, hardly any 1st order), the question stems are much shorter than NBME's, and yet my percentage is about 30 pts lower (40s instead of high 60s, low 70s).

Is the NBME totally misleading as to the difficulty of the actual Step 1? Or is UW overly challenging?

 

[deleted245139]

you're getting ahead of yourself... it's a good thing to be ahead of the game, and its admirable, but you have the cart before the horse...
you haven't done systems yet. systems IS medicine. the basic sciences serve only to provide you a basis with which to understand the pathology and pharmacology and the interrelation of the systems. THIS is medicine, and this comes with a lot of hard work in your second year. if you like, buy FA and have the binding removed. With each system, annotate into FA and review the pertinent basic sciences to further your understanding. UWorld is worthless for you right now, and you're much better served learning the material, and THEN applying it. GL!

 

[Gullain Barre]

It sounds like you just need to get used to the questions- a matter of test-taking. It's hard, but you'll eventually learn what they're asking for and the associations that you need to be making. How long do you have until you take the boards?

 

[12thMan]

It sounds like you just need to get used to the questions- a matter of test-taking. It's hard, but you'll eventually learn what they're asking for and the associations that you need to be making. How long do you have until you take the boards?

I'm in the Caribbean - and so we have to take the NBME in 22 days. I'm just going to review path, micro, phram, and biochem, wing the rest.

I need 65% on the NBME to get certified to sit for the Step 1 - 65% is supposed to be equal to the minimum passing Step 1 score (188)- and so far I've been above that on the free sample NBME (68%) and the one block of NBME 6 I've looked at (72%). So if the real NBME is like that, I should be fine since that was weeks ago with zero review.

If the NBME is like UW, then I'm in staring into a gun barrel.

But thanks for your words of hope.

 

[12thMan]

you're getting ahead of yourself... it's a good thing to be ahead of the game, and its admirable, but you have the cart before the horse...
you haven't done systems yet. systems IS medicine. the basic sciences serve only to provide you a basis with which to understand the pathology and pharmacology and the interrelation of the systems. THIS is medicine, and this comes with a lot of hard work in your second year. if you like, buy FA and have the binding removed. With each system, annotate into FA and review the pertinent basic sciences to further your understanding. UWorld is worthless for you right now, and you're much better served learning the material, and THEN applying it. GL!

I'm in the Caribbean. We study each individual subject (path, pharm, physio) seperately and within a subject its system-based (CV, resp, endocrine/repro, etc) but its not like how most US schools have it in an integrated fashion.

I'm worried because I'm done with "basic sciences" ie the portion before clincials, yet UW is proving difficult to integrate.

 

[deleted245139]

ahhh... no worries then. UWorld is notoriously difficult, and overshoots the difficulty of the real deal. you have plenty of time, just search the forum for some study tips (there are many lol) and work your ass off. GL!

 

[235009]

I'm in the Caribbean - and so we have to take the NBME in 22 days. I'm just going to review path, micro, phram, and biochem, wing the rest.

I need 65% on the NBME to get certified to sit for the Step 1 - 65% is supposed to be equal to the minimum passing Step 1 score (188)- and so far I've been above that on the free sample NBME (68%) and the one block of NBME 6 I've looked at (72%). So if the real NBME is like that, I should be fine since that was weeks ago with zero review.

If the NBME is like UW, then I'm in staring into a gun barrel.

But thanks for your words of hope.

sorry to sound negative but you're lulling yourself into a false sense of security and you sound like you aren't taking this as seriously as you should be. getting certified to take step 1 at a carib school is (from what i understand) as important, if not more important, than passing step 1 on the first try is to US MD students. you have plenty of time to study correctly for this NBME. There are plenty of excellent suggestions for studying for step 1 that you should do.

You need to at least get through all of FA and half of UWorld before you take the NBME. Use Kaplan videos and Goljan to help with weak areas. Don't worry about your % correct in UWorld. Do the questions in tutor mode or timed tutor mode and learn from the questions. In terms of % correct on the free questions and NBME 6: these are both meaningless and do not correlate the way you would like them to. I suggest you take a full NBME self-assessment (all four sections of a recent one like #11) tomorrow ....make sure you pay the extra 10 bucks for the detailed score report and see where you REALLY stand. That way you can do some targeted studying.

 

[DoctorDermis]

.

 

[septoplasty]

I thought i'd give my 2 cents (pre-exam):

UW Is difficult, read my other threads about low scoring % and such, I think your sample size is terribly small (should worry more when you're 50% through UW to even begin to gauge your cumulative).

For Example:

My UW in first 5 blocks: Hovered around 40%

Last 20 Blocks its been almost 60%

(Yea, modest according to SDN standards, but that's what UW officially states is the median)

Although as skinMD stated, take a complete NBME (4 blocks) after 1/2 of UW & FA. I did this before completing 20% o UW and got a terrible score on form 6 so it made me prematurely freak out.

Hope that helps!

 

[poorracerkid]

My ending UW score was 51% and I rocked Step. UW is harder than the real test but that's a good thing!!!

 

[235009]

I thought i'd give my 2 cents (pre-exam):

UW Is difficult, read my other threads about low scoring % and such, I think your sample size is terribly small (should worry more when you're 50% through UW to even begin to gauge your cumulative).

For Example:

My UW in first 5 blocks: Hovered around 40%

Last 20 Blocks its been almost 60%

(Yea, modest according to SDN standards, but that's what UW officially states is the median)

Although as skinMD stated, take a complete NBME (4 blocks) after 1/2 of UW & FA. I did this before completing 20% o UW and got a terrible score on form 6 so it made me prematurely freak out.

Hope that helps!

I said do a complete NBME now to get an idea of where you stand!

My ending UW score was 51% and I rocked Step. UW is harder than the real test but that's a good thing!!!

UWorld score means very little as long as you are learning from the questions (i.e. reading the explanations pretty thoroughly).

 

[septoplasty]

You need to at least get through all of FA and half of UWorld before you take the NBME. Use Kaplan videos and Goljan to help with weak areas. Don't worry about your % correct in UWorld. Do the questions in tutor mode or timed tutor mode and learn from the questions. In terms of % correct on the free questions and NBME 6: these are both meaningless and do not correlate the way you would like them to. I suggest you take a full NBME self-assessment (all four sections of a recent one like #11) tomorrow ....make sure you pay the extra 10 bucks for the detailed score report and see where you REALLY stand. That way you can do some targeted studying.

That's what I meant! 😛

 

[235009]

That's what I meant! 😛

oh "NBME" there refers to his school-administered NBME 🙂