Hey everyone, I've been a lurker from early this year and am so grateful to everyone here for their amazing advice. I'm in my third year of medical school in my country. I gave my step 1 on the 19th August and I got my score yesterday.
I was so thrilled to find out that I got a 269!!!
I am over the moon about this. I'm still in shock and often keep checking my score report to make sure I wasn't mistaken.
My preparation for step was not very organised at all. after my second year finals, I started preparation with an intention to study for 6 months alongside my clinics, but more often than not, I couldn't work in even an hour of usmle prep. So ultimately I suppose I did it in about 3 to 4 months. I used my summer break for most of my studying and gave the exam a little after that.
I used almost the same materials as everyone else here, but was very patchy. I would say one advantage I had was that my school insisted that we read Big Robbins for Path, and Guyton and Ganong for Physiology. I realize these are all really huge and detailed to get through and I definitely do not recommend them (nor did I use them) during actual usmle prep. But the foundation they gave me in my first two years of med school was solid. Our Anatomy course was also really detailed, so though so much of it is really volatile, a few concepts still remained that I could use during the exam.
During the 4 months I studied, I used the following resources
Physio - BRS
Path - goljan, Pathoma videos (these were amazing! Kept me from getting bored)
Pharma - Katzung review. (Very concise and great for MOAs of drugs)
Beh Sci and Biostats: This was not part of our syllabus for the first two years, I solely relied on the Kaplan videos by Prof Daugherty and BRS Beh Sci
Micro: made ridiculously simple (good, easy read before jumping into firstaid and questions)
Anat: I didn't know what to read here. I used the Kaplan videos again for gross, Neuroanat made clinically simple, and Firstaid for the rest
Biochem: Only firstaid. I was afraid about not having read anything else, but Firstaid is excellent!
I went through first aid only once completely, After that I mainly referenced it while doing questions
Qbanks: I started using them right from the beginning of prep and I think this helped me immensely. I would read and then do Uworld Q of that topic and write down the new stuff I learnt into first aid. I did U world 1.7 times, (didn't get time to complete second pass) first pass- 83%
I did Kaplan q on random and this was good in trying to simulate tests. Kaplan isn't that great on info, but it gets the tiny stuff you tend to miss.
NBMEs :
5 about 230 in the beginning of prep 4months before the exam
7 about 250 (somewhere in the middle of prep)
13
online 258 (after one complete read through, 1 month before test day)
12 - offline 188/200 (a week before)
15 - 192/200 (a week before)
11 - 190/200 (2 days before)
132 fred - 97%
The actual test day was nightmarish. I couldn't sleep from nerves and ultimately got only 2 hours of really light sleep.
The test itself felt horrible. I suppose the lack of sleep compounded the issue! I took the first three blocks in a stretch which, in hindsight, I felt was a stupid thing to do considering I was tired. I'd advise a short break between each block.
There were a lot of questions where I could narrow it down to two options and then tear my hair out trying to pick one. Only my last block felt remotely similar to an NBME, the others were crazily hard to get through with so many bizarre questions. After my NBME scores, I'd been hoping for a 260+ but walking out of the test, I was sure I'd missed it massively.
Right now, with the result out, I'm ecstatic! Your NBMEs truly are predictive, though I recommend doing them online if you can.
The exam is hard and I suppose they want us to feel ambiguous about it. But hard work, clear concepts and a tonne of questions to practice definitely pay off.
Everyone on SDN is awesome and I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this forum. Congrats to everyone else who has gotten their scores so far! And Good luck to those yet to take the exam!
Hopefully we'll both do great! How are you going to check your scores? I'm not sure if I should wait for my rotation lunch break to check or just step out for a sec and see them on my phone.
