Official 2011 USMLE Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[ProtossCarrier]

Hello everyone. I am a second year who will write the exam in June 2011. Meanwhile let this be a good thread where everyone share their study progress and recent trend of the exam.

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[maryjane85]

Hi I took my exam on the 27th too, so just wanted to ask you are you freaking out as I am. I mean I felt pretty confident when I came out of the exam center but now I am having doubts. I am trying not to think about the exam questions too much.

Yes I completely agree. I wasn't having many dreams abouty it but starting like 3 nights ago it seems to be all I dream about! Mainly nightmares about taking the exam again. haha I should start a thead where people share the crazy dreams they have about the exam. anyways yeah I felt confident initially but anxiety level significantly higher now. Every once in a while I'll remember a question I wasn't sure about and I look the answer up to see if I got it correct lol. Anyways do you iknow what time they usually email the results out? I'm 12 hours ahead of US time at the moment with very touch and go internet service so I'm trying to figure out what time I should start checking the results. The power shuts off here around 10-10:30PM so hopefully they will email results by 10:30AM U.S. time.....otherwise I might have an anxiety attack if I cant check until morning haha.

 

[drbluedevil401]

How long was the kaplan course? Did you take it simultaneously with school?

nope i am an img

 

[Doc176]

Yes I completely agree. I wasn't having many dreams abouty it but starting like 3 nights ago it seems to be all I dream about! Mainly nightmares about taking the exam again. haha I should start a thead where people share the crazy dreams they have about the exam. anyways yeah I felt confident initially but anxiety level significantly higher now. Every once in a while I'll remember a question I wasn't sure about and I look the answer up to see if I got it correct lol. Anyways do you iknow what time they usually email the results out? I'm 12 hours ahead of US time at the moment with very touch and go internet service so I'm trying to figure out what time I should start checking the results. The power shuts off here around 10-10:30PM so hopefully they will email results by 10:30AM U.S. time.....otherwise I might have an anxiety attack if I cant check until morning haha.

talk about crazy I dreamt that I am late for the exam and when I finally reach the test center they say that you are too late and now you cant take the exam ever again and they are all laughing ......

I am also 9 hours ahead of the US time I have been searching for the exact time when the score is posted.Someone at a forum said they post it by 12 PM US time but I couldn't find any specific info.

 

[drbluedevil401]

How long was the kaplan course? Did you take it simultaneously with school?

the kaplan course was 7 weeks.

 

[maryjane85]

Any news yet? I've got nothing from my end.

 

[Doc176]

Any news yet? I've got nothing from my end.

Nope nothing yet....... hey do let me know if you get your score........ been waiting for the last hour or so...............

 

[maryjane85]

Yeah same to you, will post on here asap after I get my score. Unless its so low I'm embarassed, in that case I'll PM you haha.

 

[512TA]

Need some advice please.

UWSA Form 1 (today): scored 232 (560)


UW q bank cumulative: 71% (i have 750 questions remaining)

my exam is on 22nd march.
i have been reading FA. What else should i do to at least raise my score to 245+

I am now planning to read physiology from kaplan and go through pictures in RR path 3rd edition (not reading book)
Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[Doc176]

Got my score 258/99. oh my God i'm so happy

 

[512TA]

Got my score 258/99. oh my God i'm so happy

that is so awesome!!
congrats...

 

[maryjane85]

thats awesome congrats on the 258. Still nothing on my end. what. the. ****......do scores all come out at the same time each day?

 

[Doc176]

that is so awesome!!
congrats...

Thanks 512TA. I guess NBME did predict my score very well

 

[Doc176]

thats awesome congrats on the 258. Still nothing on my end. what. the. ****......do scores all come out at the same time each day?

Thanks
I have no idea may be we are in different testing regions so maybe yours will be posted later in the day.

 

[512TA]

Thanks 512TA. I guess NBME did predict my score very well

what should i do to at least try nearing your score??

 

[dude1344]

what should i do to at least try nearing your score??

I may try bribing IBM to implant a Watson microchip into my brain stored with Robbins, FA, Goljan, and UWorld knowledge.

 

[512TA]

I may try bribing IBM to implant a Watson microchip into my brain stored with Robbins, FA, Goljan, and UWorld knowledge.

 

[drbluedevil401]

watson wont think for you, its not super-ai, just regular ai( it will feed you factual information which will confuse you even more), i doubt it would help your score.

 

[maryjane85]

eeee!!! so excited 269/99. so effing happy right now. and I like the fact my score has 69 in it, cause I'm pretty inappropriate.

 

[512TA]

eeee!!! so excited 269/99. so effing happy right now. and I like the fact my score has 69 in it, cause I'm pretty inappropriate.

you are exceptional.
i do not know how to congratulate you.
looking back at you exam progress report, you did deserve this score.
enjoy....

 

[Doc176]

eeee!!! so excited 269/99. so effing happy right now. and I like the fact my score has 69 in it, cause I'm pretty inappropriate.

congrats on the really great score.

 

[Doc176]

what should i do to at least try nearing your score??

well do lots and lots of questions. but I would ask maryjane85 pretty awesome score han!

 

[Slade]

Wow! congrats to you both!

 

[whatsupdoc7]

Amazing scores! Congrats guys!!

 

[nomadicDOC]

great scores guys, congrats

 

[Rollo]

Need some advice please.

UWSA Form 1 (today): scored 232 (560)


UW q bank cumulative: 71% (i have 750 questions remaining)

my exam is on 22nd march.
i have been reading FA. What else should i do to at least raise my score to 245+

I am now planning to read physiology from kaplan and go through pictures in RR path 3rd edition (not reading book)
Any advice will be appreciated.

I'm curious, why don't you read RR path? Surely, this should help bump your scores up a bit.

 

[TheLoneWolf]

Congratulations on the scores Doc176 and maryjane85.

 

[RySerr21]

eeee!!! so excited 269/99. so effing happy right now. and I like the fact my score has 69 in it, cause I'm pretty inappropriate.

your secret to acing step 1 wouldn't involve maryjane, would it?

 

[Savannah]

eeee!!! so excited 269/99. so effing happy right now. and I like the fact my score has 69 in it, cause I'm pretty inappropriate.

Congrats! Go celebrate!

Question...if I took my test on a Tuesday, would I expect my score on the Wednesday two or three weeks later?

 

[Doc176]

Thanks Guys and best of luck to you all

 

[maryjane85]

Ok so here is my advice for step: My usmle score was 269/99. Main advice is DO MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF QUESTIONS!! Not once did I read/study goljan rapid review, goljan audio or BRS physiology. I spent the vast majority of my time doing questions. I know its hard to tell on forums which people are just geniuses but let me tell you I am NOT one of those people. In terms of intrinsic IQ/memorization skills I am very average for a medical student. I have to study much harder to get the same grades as those "genius" people in my med school class.'​

Refer to my previous posts for what I was scoring on NBME's, uworld percentage etc. ​

More Hx-I have had about a year of clinical experience before taking the step.Yes it helped a little bit. When I first started clinics I studied my ass off
but still performed very average on shelf exams (70's range). But my last clinic (medicine) I switched to a new system where I only did questions to study and I did NO reading whatsoever-only questions. My shelf score for medicine=99. So, I continued this method for step and as you can see it paid off immensely.

No only do questions, but whenever you miss a question or learn something from a question write it down on a separate sheet of paper. This is SO important and valuable and high yield-because later on you can read over these notes (write maybe a sentence max for each question short notes-they add up quickly) and remember what you learned from a question a month or two ago.


Now yes you should still go through first aid because this is the most high yield of any source. But go through it fast-limit yourself to ONE WEEK going through first aid. No you are not going to learn even 50% of it in that week but you will learn a little bit and reinforce and learn more by doing questions. I used goljan/brs only to look up things I was unsure about from questions I did-I repeat-use these only as a reference! Question banks (except for uworld) are notorious for having errors so if you aren't sure about something yes look it up in goljan/first aid/brs or Wikipedia (my personal favorite).
After the first week of going through first aid my advice is the following: do 200 questions a day. This is very doable and you will still have time to write
short notes for the questions you do. I would do the following question banks in this order


1st: UsmleRx-an easier question bank, has some errors but relatively fewish compared to other qbanks. In the explanation for the question it has the first aid page image to view. Good for learning more from first aid


2nd: Kaplan. Also fewish errors compared to other banks. Questions more picky but overall a good qbank.


3rd: robbins rapid review qbank. Would recommend purchasing online subscription so you can go back and do the questions you missed. DON'T purchase subscription to usmleconsult. This qbank is SO INCREDIBLY ERROR FILLED. I started doing this qbank and got frustrated after 1 day because of the incorrect questions and massive amounts of errors. I don't care that goljan approved it, he has obviously never done a single question from this bank. It is a horrible question bank I repeat don't waste your money. If anything your score will decrease by doing these questions because the answers are incorrect and the explanations are WRONG.


4th: Uworld. Do this one last so it is fresh. MARK the questions you got right but only because you guessed or weren't really sure about the answer. Go back and do these in addition to the ones you missed.


While doing qbanks do ALL of the nbme's, the free 150 as well as the two uworld assessments. In the beginning I did these tests every two weeks. Towards the end I did a couple of week including two full length test simulations


Ok that is my advice. Not saying this will work for everyone, but for me as a student who has a hard time memorizing information this is finally the system that worked for me. As you can tell I'm not one of those superstars that has always done amazing on shelf exams etc that test knowledge. (if anyone wants to know my MCAT score was 34). After doing average on shelf exams I took a risk and changed the way I study and it has paid off. Please let me know if you have any questions about this method-but I think many people would benefit from studying this way.


Seriously almost every question I had on my actual exam I felt like I had encountered a question testing similar concepts before. I had very few WTF questions but had I not done so many questions I would have had many many more WTF questions. A theme I saw on usmle forums is people who
were scoring around 270ish all did at least 3 or 4 question banks-not just
uworld.


Good luck to everyone!

 

[Rollo]

Great advice, maryjane.

This is a question for everyone:

I'm about to start studying in a week or so and my exam date isn't until end of May. I was wondering if it would make sense to take a practice exam now to see where I am at.

Or if I should go through First Aid, RR once and THEN take the practice exam? But that could take a week or two, especially if I'm going to sit there and understand the material.

 

[Fuzuli]

3rd: robbins rapid review qbank. Would recommend purchasing online subscription so you can go back and do the questions you missed. DON’T purchase subscription to usmleconsult. This qbank is SO INCREDIBLY ERROR FILLED. I started doing this qbank and got frustrated after 1 day because of the incorrect questions and massive amounts of errors. I don’t care that goljan approved it, he has obviously never done a single question from this bank. It is a horrible question bank I repeat don’t waste your money. If anything your score will decrease by doing these questions because the answers are incorrect and the explanations are WRONG.

Thanks for the input. I was planning on subscribing to usmleconsult, but after doing the free Goljan questions and your input, I won't.

Can you compare the online Robbins qbank with the Review of Pathology? Are the questions different?

 

[512TA]

Ok so here is my advice for step: My usmle score was 269/99. Main advice is DO MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF QUESTIONS!! Not once did I read/study goljan rapid review, goljan audio or BRS physiology. I spent the vast majority of my time doing questions. I know its hard to tell on forums which people are just geniuses but let me tell you I am NOT one of those people. In terms of intrinsic IQ/memorization skills I am very average for a medical student. I have to study much harder to get the same grades as those “genius” people in my med school class.'​

Refer to my previous posts for what I was scoring on NBME's, uworld percentage etc. ​

More Hx-I have had about a year of clinical experience before taking the step.Yes it helped a little bit. When I first started clinics I studied my ass off
but still performed very average on shelf exams (70’s range). But my last clinic (medicine) I switched to a new system where I only did questions to study and I did NO reading whatsoever-only questions. My shelf score for medicine=99. So, I continued this method for step and as you can see it paid off immensely.

No only do questions, but whenever you miss a question or learn something from a question write it down on a separate sheet of paper. This is SO important and valuable and high yield-because later on you can read over these notes (write maybe a sentence max for each question short notes-they add up quickly) and remember what you learned from a question a month or two ago.


Now yes you should still go through first aid because this is the most high yield of any source. But go through it fast-limit yourself to ONE WEEK going through first aid. No you are not going to learn even 50% of it in that week but you will learn a little bit and reinforce and learn more by doing questions. I used goljan/brs only to look up things I was unsure about from questions I did-I repeat-use these only as a reference! Question banks (except for uworld) are notorious for having errors so if you aren’t sure about something yes look it up in goljan/first aid/brs or Wikipedia (my personal favorite).
After the first week of going through first aid my advice is the following: do 200 questions a day. This is very doable and you will still have time to write
short notes for the questions you do. I would do the following question banks in this order


1st: UsmleRx-an easier question bank, has some errors but relatively fewish compared to other qbanks. In the explanation for the question it has the first aid page image to view. Good for learning more from first aid


2nd: Kaplan. Also fewish errors compared to other banks. Questions more picky but overall a good qbank.


3rd: robbins rapid review qbank. Would recommend purchasing online subscription so you can go back and do the questions you missed. DON’T purchase subscription to usmleconsult. This qbank is SO INCREDIBLY ERROR FILLED. I started doing this qbank and got frustrated after 1 day because of the incorrect questions and massive amounts of errors. I don’t care that goljan approved it, he has obviously never done a single question from this bank. It is a horrible question bank I repeat don’t waste your money. If anything your score will decrease by doing these questions because the answers are incorrect and the explanations are WRONG.


4th: Uworld. Do this one last so it is fresh. MARK the questions you got right but only because you guessed or weren’t really sure about the answer. Go back and do these in addition to the ones you missed.


While doing qbanks do ALL of the nbme’s, the free 150 as well as the two uworld assessments. In the beginning I did these tests every two weeks. Towards the end I did a couple of week including two full length test simulations


Ok that is my advice. Not saying this will work for everyone, but for me as a student who has a hard time memorizing information this is finally the system that worked for me. As you can tell I’m not one of those superstars that has always done amazing on shelf exams etc that test knowledge. (if anyone wants to know my MCAT score was 34). After doing average on shelf exams I took a risk and changed the way I study and it has paid off. Please let me know if you have any questions about this method-but I think many people would benefit from studying this way.


Seriously almost every question I had on my actual exam I felt like I had encountered a question testing similar concepts before. I had very few WTF questions but had I not done so many questions I would have had many many more WTF questions. A theme I saw on usmle forums is people who
were scoring around 270ish all did at least 3 or 4 question banks-not just
uworld.


Good luck to everyone!

Now that is why i am not bothering myself with RR.
However the only q bank i am doing is UW. I think what i can do is to go over UW 1.5x. i will finish UW once by the end of this month.
As maryjane has stated that do all wrongs and the ones that were ticked correct by luck-- i am going to stick to that advice.
This may help me bump up my score.

 

[dangit]

Thanks for the input. I was planning on subscribing to usmleconsult, but after doing the free Goljan questions and your input, I won't.

Can you compare the online Robbins qbank with the Review of Pathology? Are the questions different?

so do you think the free Goljan questions in the Rapid Review Pathology is not worth it?

 

[Fuzuli]

so do you think the free Goljan questions in the Rapid Review Pathology is not worth it?

They're OK, despite the mistakes I've mentioned above. Since it comes freely with Goljan, you mostly likely already have it. I treated them similarly to the end of chapter questions in Kaplan lecture notes.

Ultimately, they shouldn't take precedence above UWorld, Kaplan or Review of Pathology.

 

[whatsupdoc7]

Great advice, maryjane.

This is a question for everyone:

I'm about to start studying in a week or so and my exam date isn't until end of May. I was wondering if it would make sense to take a practice exam now to see where I am at.

Or if I should go through First Aid, RR once and THEN take the practice exam? But that could take a week or two, especially if I'm going to sit there and understand the material.

I think you should take a practice exam first, because when you start going through the material you can focus a little more on topics that you were weak in to help raise your score.

 

[dangit]

They're OK, despite the mistakes I've mentioned above. Since it comes freely with Goljan, you mostly likely already have it. I treated them similarly to the end of chapter questions in Kaplan lecture notes.

Ultimately, they shouldn't take precedence above UWorld, Kaplan or Review of Pathology.

do you know if the robin's review of pathology (Q Book):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1XTNGGE9PCNFZN1VP1NB

is the same as robin's pathology Q Bank:
http://www.usmleconsult.com/other-products/other-products.cfm

 

[dangit]

Okay, so I just called the customer service and they said the questions for the Robbins QBook is different from the Robbins Qbank. So that's good. More questions. Also, if you're not happy with you it, they'll refund you. Sounds good to me. I'm going to try it out in a few days and will let you know if it's worth it. THanks!

 

[Slade]

I think you should take a practice exam first, because when you start going through the material you can focus a little more on topics that you were weak in to help raise your score.

I agree with this. I think it's best to have an idea of where you are starting from, and see how studying specific resources is increasing your score in each subject. That way, you can tweak your studying strategies to make sure no subject gets left behind.
I am starting in a week also, so to us both Rollo!

 

[Fuzuli]

Okay, so I just called the customer service and they said the questions for the Robbins QBook is different from the Robbins Qbank. So that's good. More questions. Also, if you're not happy with you it, they'll refund you. Sounds good to me. I'm going to try it out in a few days and will let you know if it's worth it. THanks!

Thanks for finding this out.

 

[ar2388]

Congratulations on the scores Doc176 and maryjane85.

agreed!! congrats guys!!

 

[Rollo]

I agree with this. I think it's best to have an idea of where you are starting from, and see how studying specific resources is increasing your score in each subject. That way, you can tweak your studying strategies to make sure no subject gets left behind.
I am starting in a week also, so to us both Rollo!

Which practice test are you thinking about taking?

Good luck to you too!!

 

[Slade]

Which practice test are you thinking about taking?

Good luck to you too!!

Our school is giving us a voucher for one of the NBME forms, 6 I think. I wanted to keep that one for later, but hey, if it's free I'll take it. What about you?

 

[maryjane85]

Now that is why i am not bothering myself with RR.
However the only q bank i am doing is UW. I think what i can do is to go over UW 1.5x. i will finish UW once by the end of this month.
As maryjane has stated that do all wrongs and the ones that were ticked correct by luck-- i am going to stick to that advice.
This may help me bump up my score.

Yes dont bother with rapid review. I never read/studied rapid review, BRS or goljan audio and I got a 269.

But I would recommend going through the pictures in goljan and covering up the caption and try to guess what the pictures is.

 

[fahimaz7]

Yes dont bother with rapid review. I never read/studied rapid review, BRS or goljan audio and I got a 269.

But I would recommend going through the pictures in goljan and covering up the caption and try to guess what the pictures is.

So don't do the Qbank from studentconsult from RRPATH? Which online qbank are you talking about then? I have a hardcopy of "Robbins and Cotran Review of Pathology", but I can't seem to find the online one that you are talking about.

 

[Rollo]

Our school is giving us a voucher for one of the NBME forms, 6 I think. I wanted to keep that one for later, but hey, if it's free I'll take it. What about you?

Hmm, I don't know because there are 3 COMLEX practice exams available. I'm debating whether to take a comlex or usmle practice exam to take....and I'll probably take one of the older ones like form 3 or 4.

I'm not sure if taking forms 1 and 2 will do any good since they are so old. You would think that the material might be outdated or low-yield in those forms. And not to mention, I doubt that I'll take ALL 7 forms plus the 3 comlex forms. We will see though.

 

[aknz]

Yes dont bother with rapid review. I never read/studied rapid review, BRS or goljan audio and I got a 269.

But I would recommend going through the pictures in goljan and covering up the caption and try to guess what the pictures is.

congratulations for excellent score.

i am an old IMG,studying for step1 for last 4 months,reading goljan,brs for physio and kaplan books,didn't even complete first reading finding it difficult task to go through,i am planning to get above 240,what should i do?? Start solving questions right now or at least complete first reading to go through all the subjects??what you suggest for me?

 

[Slade]

Hmm, I don't know because there are 3 COMLEX practice exams available. I'm debating whether to take a comlex or usmle practice exam to take....and I'll probably take one of the older ones like form 3 or 4.

I'm not sure if taking forms 1 and 2 will do any good since they are so old. You would think that the material might be outdated or low-yield in those forms. And not to mention, I doubt that I'll take ALL 7 forms plus the 3 comlex forms. We will see though.

I'm debating the same thing. I think I might just take 5, 6, 7 +/-4 and the UW SAs in this order:

8 weeks from test: form 6 (with extended feedback)
6 weeks from test: form 4
4 weeks from test: form 5 + UW SA 1
3 weeks from test: 150qs at the testing center (just to familiarize myself with the environment - I did the MCAT twice and improved 9 points! so I think being familiar with the testing center helped reduce my stress some the second time around, that plus the MCATs hinge 90% on luck IMO, but that's another story )
10 days from test: form 7 + UW SA 2


what do you guys think?

 

[angina1]

eeee!!! so excited 269/99. so effing happy right now. and I like the fact my score has 69 in it, cause I'm pretty inappropriate.

Hey Maryjane..congrats on your amazing score! You mentioned that you did tons of questions. What kinds of percentages were you getting on the qbanks? Is it enough to just keep doing questions or do you have to be scoring really well on the practice questions? Thanks!

 

[Random Anesthesiologist]

I cannot believe it's this time already

At my school, we have our final MS2 progressional exam 4/18 and then Path, Micro, and Pharm shelfs on 4/22, 4/25, and 4/29. I'm planning on taking Step 1 sometime around 6/10 - the latest my school will let us take it is 6/17.

I have my 4th progressional exam on March 2 (Wed) and then 2 days of "Spring Break" plus the weekend after to finish annotating to First Aid. I'm going with the "newer" version of the Taus plan, for 2 big reasons: 1, it's pretty structured, and I need that, and 2, it's relatively inexpensive (except test banks) and I am flat broke, for real.

At any rate, I started annotating sometime in January and have a few sections left to get to in early March.

My "official" study will be from (I guess) March 7 - test date (6/10?), giving me about 3 months. I will have 7 weeks completely free once the shelfs are over starting that Sunday (5/1), minus one day per week for clinic and a few rural med activities.

Like I said, I'm following the modified Taus plan, and most books I needed I either had for class or got from the library to annotate. So that's pretty much done.

I plan to use multiple Q-banks, with USMLEworld for the last 4-6 weeks (I can adjust this if it takes me longer/less time to get through other ?'s before then), and to annotate designated notebooks for each qbank with wrong answers/topics to clarify. I liked maryjane's order of qbank use. Also going to use as many NBMEs/practice tests as possible. I hope.

Even though we're stuck with 3 nasty shelfs at the end of MS2, we do have 3-4 dedicated study days per shelf, so that should also help for Step 1. Obviously, I'll be doing subject-specific questions (for the most part) during those study periods.

Overall, I'm shooting for 220. I don't need to be a rockstar, I just want to be competitive for the specialties that interest me (but who wouldn't love a 240?)

Good luck to everyone gearing up for the exam, and maryjane - OMG!