Whatcha think...

[fahimaz7]

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Found out our NBME scores for the Physio and Biochem tests. 76th and 86th%tile's.

Obviously I need to bring up my physio, but I hear that a lot of the material was actually pathophysiology, which we haven't covered pathology yet.

 

[Mr hawkings]

Found out our NBME scores for the Physio and Biochem tests. 78th and 86th%tile's.

Obviously I need to bring up my physio, but I hear that a lot of the material was actually pathophysiology, which we haven't covered pathology yet.

You did better than 78% of the test takers in the whole country. pretty damn good if you ask me. I'd be willing to bet that you got way more than 78% of the questions right.

 

[thesauce]

Found out our NBME scores for the Physio and Biochem tests. 78th and 86th%tile's.

Obviously I need to bring up my physio, but I hear that a lot of the material was actually pathophysiology, which we haven't covered pathology yet.

How did you calculate your percentile? What was your NBME scaled score?

 

[Mr hawkings]

How did you calculate your percentile? What was your NBME scaled score?

For those 2, they report a percentile score. I actually dont think i got a scaled score back for biochem

 

[thesauce]

They used to report a two digit score with an average of 70 and a STD Dev of 7. Everyone thought it was a percentile, but it wasn't. Have they actually started reporting percentiles? Just wondering.

 

[Mr hawkings]

They used to report a two digit score with an average of 70 and a STD Dev of 7. Everyone thought it was a percentile, but it wasn't. Have they actually started reporting percentiles? Just wondering.

They are for some. I got a percentile score back for phys and biochem which is different from the 3 digit score i've had for the other ones. For anatomy, they gave us both the 3 and 2 digit scores.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Found out our NBME scores for the Physio and Biochem tests. 78th and 86th%tile's.

Obviously I need to bring up my physio

A 78th percentile score obviously needs bringing up? I would imagine the 78% of unbelievably educated people you beat - plus a huge percentage of the 22 you didn't - would disagree. What planet are you living on?

They used to report a two digit score with an average of 70 and a STD Dev of 7. Everyone thought it was a percentile, but it wasn't. Have they actually started reporting percentiles? Just wondering.

As far as I'm aware, that is still the case for the clinical shelf exams. The pre-clinical subject exams are scored on a scale from 0-1000 with 500 the average and 100 the SD.

 

[thesauce]

I think we're talking about 3 different things here. At the school's descretion, NBME will report (to them) either a 3 digit score on a scale of 200-800 (with 500 as the mean and std dev of 100) or a 2 digit score (with 70 as the mean and a std dev of 7-8). This is true of both basic science and clinical subject exams.

As far as I know, the NBME does not report percentiles. I can see no reason for your school to report a percentile to you either. You would have to calculate the percentile yourself using the avg and std dev.

OP: If the school is using those scores (78 and 86, as you quoted) in the calculation of your grade for the course, it is definitely not a percentile. Because if a student scored average, their score would be 50% and they would be well into the failing category.

If 78 and 86 are your 2-digit scores, the actual percentiles are much higher than you think. 78 would be ~85th percentile and 86 would be ~95th percentile.

Good job either way!

 

[abmd]

a quick question related to this. do you think it matters if we never take nbme tests? our school doesn't use them. will this affect us?

 

[thesauce]

a quick question related to this. do you think it matters if we never take nbme tests? our school doesn't use them. will this affect us?

I'm not sure what you mean. In what way?

 

[abmd]

sorry i wasn't clear, like will it be bad that we don't have any experience with nbme style questions, come step 1 time?

 

[MilkmanAl]

Just to nit pick, the "3 digit" score really is from 0-1000 (for basic sciences, anyway). We have at least a good 4-5 people score over 800 each time and usually 1-2 below 200. I never knew they reported a 2-digit score to the school, though. That seems a bit redundant.

Taking the pre-clinical NBMEs is definitely nice for seeing how your pacing is and adjusting accordingly, but that's really all it's good for. They aren't good as review since you don't get to see what you missed and why.

 

[thesauce]

Just to nit pick, the "3 digit" score really is from 0-1000 (for basic sciences, anyway). We have at least a good 4-5 people score over 800 each time and usually 1-2 below 200. I never knew they reported a 2-digit score to the school, though. That seems a bit redundant.

Taking the pre-clinical NBMEs is definitely nice for seeing how your pacing is and adjusting accordingly, but that's really all it's good for. They aren't good as review since you don't get to see what you missed and why.

Yes, you're right about the 3 digit score. Well over 99% of test takers score between 200 and 800 though. More than 3 std devs above the mean likely falls outside the diagnostic ability of an exam that only has 120 questions. Just for reference, 800 correlates to a 265+ on Step 1. The reason they do the 2-digit score is so that the school can give meaningful grades. You can't simply put a multiplier on the 3-digit score or you'll end up with an insanely broad range of scores. For instance, if someone scores 1 std dev below the mean (400), their score would be half of the person who scores 800. If you set 800 to 100%, you'd be failing a huge chunk of people. It's just messy, so they report a 2-digit score (if desired).

abmd: you're not missing much. They sell practice step 1 exams on the nbme website (the form exams) that are essentially the same and will get you used to question format. You'll probably want to use these for step 1 prep.

 

[fahimaz7]

Biochem: 590
Phys: 560

Biochem:

Physio:

 

[MediumDef]

I think what people are trying to say is that scoring the top quartile/quintile of medical students is, contrary to popular belief, not an indictment of your intelligence and is in fact a good thing

 

[thesauce]

Biochem: 590
Phys: 560

....

Gotcha. Took those tests 5 years ago. Things have obviously changed.

You did well.