Official Internal Medicine Shelf Exam Thread

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Took the IM shelf today. Felt brutally difficult, much more so than the practice exams. Hoping for a generous scale. Gonna have a few beers tonight. On to OB/gyn..

Just wanted to follow up on this. The scale must have been insanely generous. That exam felt BRUTAL.

Raw 91 (99th percentile)

Did ~750 Uworld questions on tutor mode
Got through roughly 2/3 of SU2M (skipped derm, neuro, ambulatory, and renal).
Watched online med ed videos x2 (once before starting rotation, once during), read the OME notes as well
Read Thaler's EKG book (highly recommend this book)
Read about patients on UpToDate and Medscape.
Paid attention during morning report and noon conference (seriously you can pick up lots of little tidbits if you pay attention).

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[t5Nitro]

Just wanted to follow up on this. The scale must have been insanely generous. That exam felt BRUTAL.

Raw 91 (99th percentile)

Did ~750 Uworld questions on tutor mode
Got through roughly 2/3 of SU2M (skipped derm, neuro, ambulatory, and renal).
Watched online med ed videos x2 (once before starting rotation, once during), read the OME notes as well
Read Thaler's EKG book (highly recommend this book)
Read about patients on UpToDate and Medscape.
Paid attention during morning report and noon conference (seriously you can pick up lots of little tidbits if you pay attention).

How long was your rotation? This is so much to do in 4 weeks. If you had to choose between OME and SUTM, which would you choose? I'm expecting to have only ~400-500 UW questions complete by my test.

 

[cellsaver]

Paid attention during morning report and noon conference (seriously you can pick up lots of little tidbits if you pay attention).

Imagine that!

Congrats on your awesome score! Considering the work you invested, it is unlikely a scale had anything to do with your great result

Inspiring. Thanks for sharing

 

[doyouhaveaflag]

How long was your rotation? This is so much to do in 4 weeks. If you had to choose between OME and SUTM, which would you choose? I'm expecting to have only ~400-500 UW questions complete by my test.

Depends on whether you learn better from videos/diagrams vs reading and whether you have good foundational knowledge from studying for step 1. I didn't use SUTM. I used OME (among other things) and found it to be helpful and an excellent overview, but it doesn't have the level of detail you need if your foundation isn't there.

I found the shelf to have a lot of material I never came across while studying for IM but that I knew from my step 1 study. Ended up with a 95 raw (this was last October). However, consensus seems to be that SUTM is the go-to resource.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

How long was your rotation? This is so much to do in 4 weeks. If you had to choose between OME and SUTM, which would you choose? I'm expecting to have only ~400-500 UW questions complete by my test.

We had 8 weeks. I don't know how you learn best, but if it were me in your shoes, I would just forego the other stuff and just focus on uworld. Literally all you need is uworld. If I was gonna add another source, I would do OME. Its very simple at outlining what you need to know as far as best next step, but it is very superficial. I found SU2M to be helpful for doing a quick overview of stuff that I'd never encountered before, but it didn't really stick very well. So I would skip that if I only had 4 weeks left.

Imagine that!

Congrats on your awesome score! Considering the work you invested, it is unlikely a scale had anything to do with your great result

Inspiring. Thanks for sharing

Thanks for your kind words. And yeah, a lot of students complain about having to go to morning report/noon conference, but I found that as long as you pay attention and at the very least jot down a few topics that you're unfamiliar with so that you can read about them later, it can help you learn a lot.

 

[AthleteDoc7]

We had 8 weeks. I don't know how you learn best, but if it were me in your shoes, I would just forego the other stuff and just focus on uworld. Literally all you need is uworld. If I was gonna add another source, I would do OME. Its very simple at outlining what you need to know as far as best next step, but it is very superficial. I found SU2M to be helpful for doing a quick overview of stuff that I'd never encountered before, but it didn't really stick very well. So I would skip that if I only had 4 weeks left.


Thanks for your kind words. And yeah, a lot of students complain about having to go to morning report/noon conference, but I found that as long as you pay attention and at the very least jot down a few topics that you're unfamiliar with so that you can read about them later, it can help you learn a lot.

Congrats on an awesome score man! Just to clarify, I take this shelf in literally 8 days and I think all I'm going to get through is a full pass of UWorld (plus the Emma Holliday IM video and very little OME). I did well on step 1 and hoping that helps. Is Uworld alone enough to honor in your opinion?

 

[turica]

Hey everyone,

So I just don't understand the whole scoring lol..

Do you actually get a raw score? i.e. 55/110 = 50%?? Or do they give you a scaled score.. so 50% becomes 60%

Also, my school's handbook says I have to get 78% to honor the exam.. But like from the NBME website, it doesn't seem like they give a proper raw score?

Also.. Is it true that pretty much most the internal med exams are mean 70 with sd 8? (kinda like step 1 with mean 228 and sd 21)

 

[AthleteDoc7]

Hey everyone,

So I just don't understand the whole scoring lol..

Do you actually get a raw score? i.e. 55/110 = 50%?? Or do they give you a scaled score.. so 50% becomes 60%

Also, my school's handbook says I have to get 78% to honor the exam.. But like from the NBME website, it doesn't seem like they give a proper raw score?

Also.. Is it true that pretty much most the internal med exams are mean 70 with sd 8? (kinda like step 1 with mean 228 and sd 21)

i'm wondering this too. are these exams curved in some way? a raw 78% sounds damn near impossible for me as it's my first shelf. scary

 

[jpwsurf21]

Hey everyone,

So I just don't understand the whole scoring lol..

Do you actually get a raw score? i.e. 55/110 = 50%?? Or do they give you a scaled score.. so 50% becomes 60%

Also, my school's handbook says I have to get 78% to honor the exam.. But like from the NBME website, it doesn't seem like they give a proper raw score?

Also.. Is it true that pretty much most the internal med exams are mean 70 with sd 8? (kinda like step 1 with mean 228 and sd 21)

i'm wondering this too. are these exams curved in some way? a raw 78% sounds damn near impossible for me as it's my first shelf. scary

The way it was explained to me was that the 2 digit "scaled" score you get back is not the raw score but similar - its basically saying "given how you did with this particular block of questions from our master q-bank (since each persons' exam is different), you would have gotten a total of x% correct of all of our questions" and then your school then correlates that to a certain percentile that you scored within - and that can be further broken down by the time of year you took it since you'll likely do better later in the year with certain exams after having taken others (i.e taking FM after having done IM, OB, and peds).

So for example, you can get 20 wrong out of 110 (82% correct) but if you had a harder or easier set of questions, that may translate up to an 87 (or down to 76) scaled score and then that correlates to 93rd Percentile overall and 96th percentile for the same time period (earlier blocks → higher percentiles). Obviously those numbers are just made up but that's the general idea. For the purpose of clerkship grading, my school goes by Percentile and takes the higher of the 2 (overall vs same time period)

 

[turica]

The way it was explained to me was that the 2 digit "scaled" score you get back is not the raw score but similar - its basically saying "given how you did with this particular block of questions from our master q-bank (since each persons' exam is different), you would have gotten a total of x% correct of all of our questions" and then your school then correlates that to a certain percentile that you scored within - and that can be further broken down by the time of year you took it since you'll likely do better later in the year with certain exams after having taken others (i.e taking FM after having done IM, OB, and peds).

So for example, you can get 20 wrong out of 110 (82% correct) but if you had a harder or easier set of questions, that may translate up to an 87 (or down to 76) scaled score and then that correlates to 93rd Percentile overall and 96th percentile for the same time period (earlier blocks → higher percentiles). Obviously those numbers are just made up but that's the general idea. For the purpose of clerkship grading, my school goes by Percentile and takes the higher of the 2 (overall vs same time period)

Thanks! That still kinda sucks.. lol still kinda scary

Has anyone done the online nbme forms? And when you finish it, does it give you an actual raw score or the scaled score..? And has anyone come across any raw to scaled conversions on the online nbme forms?

Thanks

 

[LaffferCurves]

They give you a score specific to the nbme forms that means nothing, a total number correct out of 50, and a score conversion that is supposed to be an approximate score for the actual shelf.

 

[LaffferCurves]

I read this thread a lot when I was getting ready for my shelf, so I figured I should contribute as well.

Medicine is 8 weeks at my school. It was my second rotation after Peds.
Resources used: All of Uworld plus marked and 75% of Step up to Medicine (mixture of passive and active reading)

Uworld percentage: 75%
NBME form 3: 87
Real deal: 90 (total equated percent correct score)

 

[AthleteDoc7]

I read this thread a lot when I was getting ready for my shelf, so I figured I should contribute as well.

Medicine is 8 weeks at my school. It was my second rotation after Peds.
Resources used: All of Uworld plus marked and 75% of Step up to Medicine (mixture of passive and active reading)

Uworld percentage: 75%
NBME form 3: 87
Real deal: 90 (total equated percent correct score)

question... how'd you feel you did coming out of this shelf?

 

[Paris1995]

Can anyone help me?
Any one know about torento notes?is it helpful?
Any other vids than emma holliday and onlinemeded?
And what does ome stand for?

 

[World's Tallest Doctor]

Does anyone else that did well on the shelf just get annihilated on UW Medicine questions? Been getting like an average of 50% or lower each time... been doing questions for like a week but this is brutal.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Does anyone else that did well on the shelf just get annihilated on UW Medicine questions? Been getting like an average of 50% or lower each time... been doing questions for like a week but this is brutal.

yeah in the first week or two I averaged like 45% and was thinking wtf. Eventually got my cumulative up to like 75% and got 99th percentile on the shelf. There is definitely a learning curve to UW for step 2 but once you figure it out, the questions are easy.

 

[World's Tallest Doctor]

yeah in the first week or two I averaged like 45% and was thinking wtf. Eventually got my cumulative up to like 75% and got 99th percentile on the shelf. There is definitely a learning curve to UW for step 2 but once you figure it out, the questions are easy.

Thank you. I am just flabbergasted compared to Step1 UW. But as they say don't use it as an assessment... but still confidence is always nice. Thanks for that little boost. Cheers.

 

[DrTacosMD]

Subject exam scaled score: 91
Practice tests: NBME 1 - 90, 3 weeks out
NBME 2 - 81, 2 weeks out
NBME 3 - 87, 1 week out

I did all of the Uworld IM questions excluding 100 Neuro Qs since my school has a separate neuro rotation.

Read all of SUTM 1x, then reread it 2x skipping the neuro section since I was gonna have neuro in a few weeks anyways.

Watched the OME Internal med videos 2x.

Our school gives us quizzes in certain subjects each week based on IM essentials questions for that subject so I did probably 80% of the IM Essentials questions by the end of the rotation.

I read through the Dubin EKG Book just for my own edification but it’s not necessary for the IM shelf.

My IM Rotation was 10 weeks, 6 weeks inpatient, 3 weeks outpatient, 1 week for our clinical exam and shelf exam.

For this rotation, I strongly recommend you research the clinical rotation sites ahead of time and try to choose sites that have nicer hours so you can have more time to study. I felt that this rotation required a ton of studying but it’s worth it because if you do well it will help both for getting honors and step 2CK according to what the MS4s have told me.

 

[Staco]

Is there a consensus of any audio to listen to to study for this shelf?

I'm starting my internal rotation soon with a fairly long commute.

 

[Jesus1]

Is there a consensus of any audio to listen to to study for this shelf?

I'm starting my internal rotation soon with a fairly long commute.

Onlinemeded?

 

[Staco]

Onlinemeded?

that's what I was leaning to if there was no other recommendations.

Only issue is I only have the free account, so loading it on my 4G phone might be an issue in some locations.
Was wondering if there was an internal medicine version of something like surgery's pestana.

 

[siliso]

The more qs you get wrong on the first pass, the more you’re getting for your money. If you aced it on the first pass then good for you but you probably didn’t even need the resource, so keep all in perspective.

 

[SCCBCCAK]

Real deal: 92 (around 99th percentile)
NBMEs: 82,82,84, 90
Used Uworld, FC qbanks (some), rx, ACP, Step up (this will will scare everyone, but every word in it is amazing, though you do not need to remember everything to do well, but if you do... damn)

 

[chromuffin]

Averaging like 70% on uworld medicine questions. Using it as a study tool, not an assessment. Can I expect a decent score (i.e >60th percentile) if I mainly focus on UWorld with SU2M as a supplement for weak areas?

 

[DivineInterventionPod]

Made a bunch of free, high yield, relatively comprehensive review videos for the different clerkships with slides (medicine, psych, surgery, peds, and OBGYN). Thoughts/feedback welcome. The medicine reviews span 4 episodes but are very comprehensive to the NBME shelf. The website is www.divineinterventionpodcasts.com

 

[OUMED2K16]

Just here to add another data point. Feel free to ask any further questions about my prep.

NBME 1 (1.5 weeks out)- 87
NBME 4 (1 week out)- 96
NBME 3 (5 days out)- 87
NBME 2 (day before)- 87
Real Deal- 94

Our IM rotation is 8 weeks. Over the first 3.5 weeks I read all of SUTM and took notes on it. Over the last half of the rotation I did uworld and did detailed review of all questions, taking notes in a big word document that I later reviewed. Also marked questions (missed and correct) liberally and reviewed marked questions at the end of the rotation.

Uworld is really the key to doing well on this test. Reading SUTM before uworld helped me learn my weak areas and zone in on the questions I didn't do great on or didn't understand the underlying concepts of very well. I would recommend it to anybody on the rotation, but it's a really dense/dry book and tough to get through. It did help me with the shelf and a lot of pimp questions though. Near the end of the uworld questions I started doing sets of 40 timed. I think that's what really helped me on the real deal. I've done questions for other shelf exams and just did tutor mode. I always felt rushed on the shelf for those exams and timing is a huge key to the exam and to doing well. I finished the IM shelf with 45 minutes to go and that's after doing all the questions and reviewing maybe 20-25 marked questions at the end. The exam really felt pretty easy and timing was no issue.

NBME exams were great for timing and question style. I really reviewed questions I missed and figured out why I missed them. Most NBME questions are simple but trip you up on wording and tricky ways of asking stuff. I would say they're great if you have time at the end of the rotation.

This was definitely my best shelf exam, but I had to do quite a bit of weekend and evening studying with clerkship responsibilities during the day.

TL;DR: SUTM and Uworld are the only resources you need. NBME is nice for question style/timing

 

[OurDeadGrass]

Just here to add another data point. Feel free to ask any further questions about my prep.

NBME 1 (1.5 weeks out)- 87
NBME 4 (1 week out)- 96
NBME 3 (5 days out)- 87
NBME 2 (day before)- 87
Real Deal- 94

Our IM rotation is 8 weeks. Over the first 3.5 weeks I read all of SUTM and took notes on it. Over the last half of the rotation I did uworld and did detailed review of all questions, taking notes in a big word document that I later reviewed. Also marked questions (missed and correct) liberally and reviewed marked questions at the end of the rotation.

Uworld is really the key to doing well on this test. Reading SUTM before uworld helped me learn my weak areas and zone in on the questions I didn't do great on or didn't understand the underlying concepts of very well. I would recommend it to anybody on the rotation, but it's a really dense/dry book and tough to get through. It did help me with the shelf and a lot of pimp questions though. Near the end of the uworld questions I started doing sets of 40 timed. I think that's what really helped me on the real deal. I've done questions for other shelf exams and just did tutor mode. I always felt rushed on the shelf for those exams and timing is a huge key to the exam and to doing well. I finished the IM shelf with 45 minutes to go and that's after doing all the questions and reviewing maybe 20-25 marked questions at the end. The exam really felt pretty easy and timing was no issue.

NBME exams were great for timing and question style. I really reviewed questions I missed and figured out why I missed them. Most NBME questions are simple but trip you up on wording and tricky ways of asking stuff. I would say they're great if you have time at the end of the rotation.

This was definitely my best shelf exam, but I had to do quite a bit of weekend and evening studying with clerkship responsibilities during the day.

TL;DR: SUTM and Uworld are the only resources you need. NBME is nice for question style/timing

Thanks for the write up! What was your UW%?

 

[OUMED2K16]

Thanks for the write up! What was your UW%?

No problem. Started out in the mid-60s but finished in the mid-80s

 

[Lannister]

Any advice for what to do for the last few days before shelf? Finished UWorld this morning and about to finish OME this afternoon. I've taken all four practice NBMEs already. I'm planning on watching the Emma Holliday review on Thursday (shelf is on Friday), but other than that I'm kind of at a loss for what to do for these last three days. And as much as I just want to sit in bed and watch Shameless, I feel like I should probably be studying.

Is it worth it to go through some UWorld incorrects? Never did this for step 1, is this something people do for shelf exams?

 

[summerempress]

I do go through the incorrect Q's if its been a while since I completed them, but if you just finished them I doubt this will be helpful.

 

[salmonellaisafish]

anyone get scores back yet from last fridays test?

 

[idkididk]

So surgery was my first shelf and I got rocked. Zanki + Pestanas + OME + deVirgilios' + UW GI/Pulm/Renal + practice NBMEs didn't really do much for me. Tons of medicine + obgyn questions and ended up with a 72. Now I'm on IM and everyone says that UW is enough. I'm going through OME + Zanki + UW + practice NBMEs but I'm paranoid that this won't be enough because of how surgery went. I really dislike the NBME format and question styles.. My step 1 was 10 points higher than my NBME average. Do you guys any have recommendations on how I can tackle the IM shelf in 5 weeks?

 

[ciestar]

I start my 10 weeks of IM on Monday. I’ve been told the combo of Step Up to Medicine + OME + UWorld is enough?

Any advice?

 

[anonymoosepremed]

I wanted to check back in for this thread and add some data, since I used this during my rotation.

Just finished my IM clerkship last week, scored an 80 raw on the shelf and still don't really get what that score means. Is that 2015 scoring guide from NBME still considered accurate?

The shelf itself felt hard as s&*t to me. I for real thought I failed it. I marked over half the test.

i took NBMEs 2 and 3 the week before the shelf and got a 66 and a 69. Tried to get through all my incorrects on uworld, took 4 a few days before the shelf and got a 79.

8 week clerkship and used pretty much only Uworld throughout. Got through all of it and probably half of my incorrects. But this was also the first clerkship where I didn't have time to make notes on my Uworld questions. I prioritized getting through questions over making notes and reviewing them.

OME made sense when I watched it, but I found that it really didn't stick with me well. I skimmed step up to medicine in the last week for areas I tended to forget, and that helped. Otherwise, I just tried to keep up with my patients and read up on every problem they had. Our daily didactics were also really useful.

 

[anonymoosepremed]

I start my 10 weeks of IM on Monday. I’ve been told the combo of Step Up to Medicine + OME + UWorld is enough?

Any advice?

I think it depends on how much you want to kill the shelf vs/evals. OME seems to help people with a lot of pimp questions. Its a good place to start for an overview. Put UWorld on your phone and try to do a few questions at a time when you have 5-10 minutes of downtime. Seriously, chipping away throughout the day is easier for studying than trying to come home and motivate yourself to do it.

 

[anonymoosepremed]

So surgery was my first shelf and I got rocked. Zanki + Pestanas + OME + deVirgilios' + UW GI/Pulm/Renal + practice NBMEs didn't really do much for me. Tons of medicine + obgyn questions and ended up with a 72. Now I'm on IM and everyone says that UW is enough. I'm going through OME + Zanki + UW + practice NBMEs but I'm paranoid that this won't be enough because of how surgery went. I really dislike the NBME format and question styles.. My step 1 was 10 points higher than my NBME average. Do you guys any have recommendations on how I can tackle the IM shelf in 5 weeks?

First thing I'd recommend is doing at least one practice NBME a few weeks out from the test. Maybe it's just me, but I found that the NBME questions were way more vague than anything I saw in Uworld or elsewhere. That was especially crappy on the test itself. Best to just get used to their weirdness and suck it up. UWorld will cover the content (for the most part, and make sure to do neuro and psych), but it doesn't reflect the way the NBME actually asks this stuff. Just my opinion.

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

Does anyone know the passing grade for this shelf? Is it 60% or so? 5 weeks out and I'm only getting 40-50% on UW, about 100 Qs in. I'm terrified.

 

[ciestar]

Does anyone know the passing grade for this shelf? Is it 60% or so? 5 weeks out and I'm only getting 40-50% on UW, about 100 Qs in. I'm terrified.

At my school it is 59%. Not sure if this is universal, though.

 

[ciestar]

Legit anxiety over this exam.
Ive done two NBMEs, shelf is Friday.
600 UWorld and completed entire IM Zanki deck.

Not sure how to feel. Both NBME’s were >70% but confidence is NOT there

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

Legit anxiety over this exam.
Ive done two NBMEs, shelf is Friday.
600 UWorld and completed entire IM Zanki deck.

Not sure how to feel. Both NBME’s were >70% but confidence is NOT there

When did you do your NBMEs? I think if you got 70% you should be fine! If it's any consolation, NBMEs were pretty accurate or even under-predictive for my other shelf exams.

 

[ciestar]

When did you do your NBMEs? I think if you got 70% you should be fine! If it's any consolation, NBMEs were pretty accurate or even under-predictive for my other shelf exams.

One a week ago and one today

I dont remember how i did on my psych NBME but i definitely scored a lot lower on the NBME for fm than the actual shelf... but, I did that two weeks before the real deal.

 

[ciestar]

Got a 79 on both NBMEs but only got a 70 on my shelf. Needless to say, I am disappointed (and the HP cutoff is a 72...).

Whatever, gotta keep moving. My advice is to finish UWorld and dont procrastinate like I did.

 

[razza1]

Legit anxiety over this exam.
Ive done two NBMEs, shelf is Friday.
600 UWorld and completed entire IM Zanki deck.

Not sure how to feel. Both NBME’s were >70% but confidence is NOT there

how did it go?

 

[ciestar]

how did it go?

70 :/

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

70 :/

Sorry to hear you missed the cut-off. But at least you passed! How many short answers were there?

 

[ciestar]

Sorry to hear you missed the cut-off. But at least you passed! How many short answers were there?

Im happy to have passed!

There were two

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

Im happy to have passed!

There were two

Ah not too many then. Thanks for the info. Hope you get some time to relax. I took a practice NBME 3 weeks out and got a 69. I'm hoping with 3 weeks and a 10 point buffer, I can pass as well...

 

[razza1]

did any of you have issues with running out of time?

 

[razza1]

Ah not too many then. Thanks for the info. Hope you get some time to relax. I took a practice NBME 3 weeks out and got a 69. I'm hoping with 3 weeks and a 10 point buffer, I can pass as well...

were you able to finish the shelf?
i felt like timing was a big factor

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

were you able to finish the shelf?
i felt like timing was a big factor

I ran out of time on the last question on the practice NBME I took. I didn’t take the shelf yet. Have about 16 more days until I have to. Any last minute tips?