UWorld starting percentage

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Hokie06

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I started doing UWorld questions last week and completed 150 questions so far averaging 57-63% correct. is this a good percentage to begin with? My goal is a 250-260. what is the most important thing I can do to bring it up to 75%? I recently started reading goljan (first pass) along with listening to his audio here and there and reading first aid. Also I'm finding it very difficult to review and learn from the questions because the explanations are very in depth so it is taking me a while to digest and learn from them. I'm averaging roughly 5 hours to review 30 questions... is this normal? Can anyone suggest an efficient way of going through them? Thanks!
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im annotating the explanation into first aid and trying to "memorize" the concept or pathway that is listed. how long should it normally be taking me to go review 30 questions? Can you suggest a better way to approach them? Thanks for your help!
 
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The average thrown around here was ~2 hours max for a block (46-50q). I was around that mark. Anything longer is just too time consuming to be worthwhile.

I just annotated the end bullet point of the explanation, forgot exactly what they called it. Often it was already in FA. Don't waste time adding things already there just worded otherwise. Just add stuff blatantly missing. (Congenital Long QT syndromes come to mind). Also know it is much less time consuming to just flag those questions that are of particularly challenging material and review later on computer than to annotate things into FA.
 
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thank you so much for your help. I completely forgot about the option to flag it so you can return to it later, i'll definitely start making more use of that. do you think reading goljan and first aid is enough to raise my percentage to ~75%?
 
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Fixating on percentages is something I never got into. Use NBME exams for assessment and UW for learning. The value is in the material and how it is tested rather than your score prediction.

Goljan and FA are solid resources. Knowing a few resources really well is much better than knowing multiple ones superficially.
 
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yes it's good to try to get a good % in uw but don't get too hung up on it. it's a learning device so use it as such
 
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I tend to spend 1.5-2 hours for 25-35 questions. I CAN go faster if I want, but I'm usually trying to take a more active approach than just reading the answers.

When I get to full independent review time I will cut down the time a bit.

My averages are around that range usually. Every now and then I will have complete outliers in either direction. (I had a 30% today which threw me off, but I wasn't really thinking and the day before I had a 90% for the same amount of questions)
 
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Hokie06 said:
I started doing UWorld questions last week and completed 150 questions so far averaging 57-63% correct. is this a good percentage to begin with? My goal is a 250-260. what is the most important thing I can do to bring it up to 75%? I recently started reading goljan (first pass) along with listening to his audio here and there and reading first aid. Also I'm finding it very difficult to review and learn from the questions because the explanations are very in depth so it is taking me a while to digest and learn from them. I'm averaging roughly 5 hours to review 30 questions... is this normal? Can anyone suggest an efficient way of going through them? Thanks!
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My first few blocks were 60-70%. My last few were 85-100%. Final avg was 78%. Step I was 256. Goljan is great (both audio and book). I spent 3 hours to review and annotate each block of 48Q's (So total time spent to do and learn was 4 hours per block). I copied drawings/figures/charts even if it was already in FA (this became active learning for me, and made the info easier to remember).
 
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Bowser Koopa said:
My first few blocks were 60-70%. My last few were 85-100%. Final avg was 78%. Step I was 256. Goljan is great (both audio and book). I spent 3 hours to review and annotate each block of 48Q's (So total time spent to do and learn was 4 hours per block). I copied drawings/figures/charts even if it was already in FA (this became active learning for me, and made the info easier to remember).
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Did you study before starting to score 60-70%?
 
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wow thats pretty good haha looks like i got a lot of work to do. im doing random untimed 30q/day and have been ranging about 55%. its weird because I eliminate and i constantly find myself guessing between 2 choices. how do you manage to review all those question and annotate and learn at the same time? I guess I shouldn't be spending more than 2 hours to review a mix of 30 questions. are you going through all the wrong choices too? can you guide me how you're doing this? I'm actually amazed you are able to go through so many questions and annotate/study at the same time. maybe im just slow in general lol
 
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Bowser Koopa said:
My first few blocks were 60-70%. My last few were 85-100%. Final avg was 78%. Step I was 256. Goljan is great (both audio and book). I spent 3 hours to review and annotate each block of 48Q's (So total time spent to do and learn was 4 hours per block). I copied drawings/figures/charts even if it was already in FA (this became active learning for me, and made the info easier to remember).
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How much time in total did you spend studying for Step I?
 
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Decicco said:
Did you study before starting to score 60-70%?
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I had finished one round of FA, goljan book + audio, and about 50% of kaplan qbank...all in about 2 weeks. So I guess what you can take from this is: 1) i was still learning a lot of material through uworld, and 2) i was getting better at thinking/applying the info that is required to answer step 1 questions.
 
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Hokie06 said:
wow thats pretty good haha looks like i got a lot of work to do. im doing random untimed 30q/day and have been ranging about 55%. its weird because I eliminate and i constantly find myself guessing between 2 choices. how do you manage to review all those question and annotate and learn at the same time? I guess I shouldn't be spending more than 2 hours to review a mix of 30 questions. are you going through all the wrong choices too? can you guide me how you're doing this? I'm actually amazed you are able to go through so many questions and annotate/study at the same time. maybe im just slow in general lol
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My only advice is do not go faster than you need. Really try to understand the background information as they do test some really thorough understanding on the NBME questions. So what I am trying to say is that everyone has different speeds of learning For example, if I am already well versed in the block, it can take me less than an hour to shotgun through the 46 questions but if I am still learning material it can take me as long as 5 hours to finish a block, but I am just really taking my time to review the entire concept of what was asked in the question, not just the pertinent data to answer it.
 
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Instead of annotating FA with the info I got wrong, I'm just making a separate word document (I have two computers in front of me, one with the Uworld explanation and a laptop to annotate on) with all the info I don't know, along with the question. Is this not as efficient as annotating in FA?
 
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Hokie06 said:
I started doing UWorld questions last week and completed 150 questions so far averaging 57-63% correct. is this a good percentage to begin with? My goal is a 250-260. what is the most important thing I can do to bring it up to 75%? I recently started reading goljan (first pass) along with listening to his audio here and there and reading first aid. Also I'm finding it very difficult to review and learn from the questions because the explanations are very in depth so it is taking me a while to digest and learn from them. I'm averaging roughly 5 hours to review 30 questions... is this normal? Can anyone suggest an efficient way of going through them? Thanks!
Click to expand...

That's not a bad starting percentage...Your score will increase as you keep going over FA and doing more questions. I personally haven't started doing uworld questions yet (the goal is to start on the 2nd!) but if it makes you feel better, most of my friends' starting percentages were btw 40-60%. So you should be okay.
All the best and happy 2013!
 
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BP87 said:
That's not a bad starting percentage...Your score will increase as you keep going over FA and doing more questions. I personally haven't started doing uworld questions yet (the goal is to start on the 2nd!) but if it makes you feel better, most of my friends' starting percentages were btw 40-60%. So you should be okay.
All the best and happy 2013!
Click to expand...

You do realize this post is from 2011, don't you? This person has probably sat the USMLE a long time ago.
 
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