Since there's no thread for the 2017 Step 2 CK, I figured I'd go ahead and create one. Happy new year in Step 2 CK land.
USMLE - Official 2017 Step 2 CK Experiences and Scores Thread
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@yrmd I was told that programs will start seeing applications on Oct 1st when schools upload MSPE (not sure how true is that). You are getting 70% in Uworld already, which is good, and your step1 score is good, so 3 weeks dedicated time should be ok...
Take a UWSA exam a few days before August 25th to see where you at. If the score is 235+, take the exam... The consensus is for everyone to submit their application on Sept 15 and update it later if necessary..
Take a UWSA exam a few days before August 25th to see where you at. If the score is 235+, take the exam... The consensus is for everyone to submit their application on Sept 15 and update it later if necessary..
Thank you so so much for your reply!
Well now I only have less than two weeks till CK. I'm going to take a UWSA and see where I'm at. But ok submitting on the 15th is better than waiting then? I just hope my application is not filtered out
it'll only be a week or two delay maximum score would come around 09/20th or so.. I hope it doesn't affect my chances ..
Well now I only have less than two weeks till CK. I'm going to take a UWSA and see where I'm at. But ok submitting on the 15th is better than waiting then? I just hope my application is not filtered out
it'll only be a week or two delay maximum score would come around 09/20th or so.. I hope it doesn't affect my chances ..Hi guys,
I'm an IMG,
I got 211 on step 1
I pass CS
I want to apply this year but its been hard to achieve a good % on the banks
I did Kaplan and got 60-65% average
I'm doing uworld getting 60-70%
I did only one NBME 4 before beginning to study and I got 200
I Already have 4 letter of recommendation
Which test should I take now to see how I'm doing NBME'S or UWSA's because I have friends who say that NBME'S are not accurate!
I would like to apply this year also but seem like I'm applying on October, since I'm not doing awesome as I want.
I'm using UWORLD and FA
What do you recommend??
I'm an IMG,
I got 211 on step 1
I pass CS
I want to apply this year but its been hard to achieve a good % on the banks
I did Kaplan and got 60-65% average
I'm doing uworld getting 60-70%
I did only one NBME 4 before beginning to study and I got 200
I Already have 4 letter of recommendation
Which test should I take now to see how I'm doing NBME'S or UWSA's because I have friends who say that NBME'S are not accurate!
I would like to apply this year also but seem like I'm applying on October, since I'm not doing awesome as I want.
I'm using UWORLD and FA
What do you recommend??
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You have the same resource as mine. You can use UpToDate for occasional supplement. These are pretty much everything you need.
I recommend UWSAs for practice test. It's more educational with explanations, cheaper, and tends to be more predictive than NBME. I personally didn't use NBME for Step 2 CK. Based on others, NBMEs can underestimate a lot, especially NBME 7. UWSA may also underestimate as well, though closer.
Your UW % range seems good. Just make sure you get the core concept, and develop good sense of approaching questions.
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Hi,
I took the exam yesterday. It was an awful experience.
I didn't sleep at all the night before (I barely slept before Step 1 and CS as well. I guess it's just what I do).
The first block was easy and made me feel okay despite fatigue.
2nd and 3rd were ok, 4th so, so.
But, dear God, number 5 was awful. I marked 22/40 questions. The ones I did not mark I wasn't sure either I just thought it was the best answer.
I was pressed on time a lot. In this block, I had 1 minute left for 3 last questions and I just guessed based on a pic and a few words and moved on.
I used Onlinemeded a few times, watched and read it. I knew a lot. I used some stuff from Kaplan and Secrets.
UW - 70% first pass.
I was scared because I didn't do as many questions as I wanted but I still felt like I knew a lot.
The exam killed me. I'm scared I failed and it makes me feel awful.
UWSA 1: 243
UWSA 2: 243 (9 days before the exam).
I know people say they felt bad and scored amazingly, but I know when it went bad. This one was awful. Till 4 pm I felt similar to Step 1 which was, hmm I might do it well! but the last 2 blocks just killed me + I was already very tired.
There is nothing I can do now but wait anyway.
There was nothing I hadn't read. The material was known and nothing weird showed up but the questions were just worded awfully, answers were IDENTICAL and they all were possible.
Ob/Gyn was the worst on my exam and I actually knew it well.
The wait begins :/
I took the exam yesterday. It was an awful experience.
I didn't sleep at all the night before (I barely slept before Step 1 and CS as well. I guess it's just what I do).
The first block was easy and made me feel okay despite fatigue.
2nd and 3rd were ok, 4th so, so.
But, dear God, number 5 was awful. I marked 22/40 questions. The ones I did not mark I wasn't sure either I just thought it was the best answer.
I was pressed on time a lot. In this block, I had 1 minute left for 3 last questions and I just guessed based on a pic and a few words and moved on.
I used Onlinemeded a few times, watched and read it. I knew a lot. I used some stuff from Kaplan and Secrets.
UW - 70% first pass.
I was scared because I didn't do as many questions as I wanted but I still felt like I knew a lot.
The exam killed me. I'm scared I failed and it makes me feel awful.
UWSA 1: 243
UWSA 2: 243 (9 days before the exam).
I know people say they felt bad and scored amazingly, but I know when it went bad. This one was awful. Till 4 pm I felt similar to Step 1 which was, hmm I might do it well! but the last 2 blocks just killed me + I was already very tired.
There is nothing I can do now but wait anyway.
There was nothing I hadn't read. The material was known and nothing weird showed up but the questions were just worded awfully, answers were IDENTICAL and they all were possible.
Ob/Gyn was the worst on my exam and I actually knew it well.
The wait begins :/
Hi Joanna! I took it this Monday 14th and my exact same feeling. As I quote my friends "No one ever walks out of the Step 2 CK happy". I have a UWSA2 of 251 and hopefully will be a good predictor for both of us. We are on the same boat together and hopefully we will receive good news on September 6th. Cheer up, we are done!! I will post on this forum once I have my score and I want to thank all of the writers because it helped me so much while preparing!
All the best!
I will post on this forum once I have my score and I want to thank all of the writers because it helped me so much while preparing! All the best!
Hi, my advise would be to just review uworld for both biostats and OBG. I didn't get as many biostats questions in my ck compared to step 1. Also the questions were simple and the uworld was sufficient to answer them (except for the one abstract which was lengthy and tough because of the lack of time). Don't stress yourself when you have exam in less than a week. You will be fine. Good luck.
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I haven't taken step2 yet, but I am studying for it now... I think Ob is just repetition or memorization (whatever you want to call it) and if you do a quick review of endocrine physio, Gyn questions won't trip you... I can't give advice about biostats because I am not good at it either.
The steroids synthesis pathways is a must know for Gyn!
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Online med ed videos. Seriously some of their best content is in biostats. OBGYN is amazing too, but a lot longer obviously. Different lecturer for biostats but she does an amazing job and gets the foundation down. For obgyn, cherry pick your weak points if possible. Trouble with gyn cancers? Watch the gyn cancer videos. Then you can add on top with other resources like UWorld. Ethics is tougher and OME doesn't have a section for that. Good luck!
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Hi, I was wondering are the Medquest videos good? Or shall I stick with DIT?
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We're all going to need to start a support group with t-shirts waiting on CK scores during this delay 
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The wait is unbearable. I regret not taking the test 10 days earlier.
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Yeah I feel way worse for you guys. Mine was the 24th so I'm only 4 Wednesdays out but you guys have really had to suffer the wait. Brutal.
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Lol. I'm glad I waited to take it until last week. If I had taken that MONSTER of an "exam" without the consensus here on SDN regarding the post- July 4th Step 2 CK changes, I would have been in much worse mental shape.
That exam was nothing like the shelf exams or the NBME's. But knowing that it seems most people felt blindsided by the style and content of the updated CK exam gave me instant peace and a large amount of humor regarding the thing. I even have classmates who have taken their CS recently in other cities, and the wisdom around the country for recent Step 2 CK takers seems to be "wut?" We're all in the same boat, which means we'll all be okay.
I've come to reference this new upgraded Step 2 CK exam as "Step 2.5". I don't know where Step 2 went, but that thing wasn't it.
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It's hyperbole. The test is probably extremely similar if not indiscernible from how's it always been. Step 1 "changed" last year too. No one would have noticed if they didn't change the numbers of questions per block.
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I took the exam 7/10 and found it to be relatively straight forward. To be fair, it was tough, but I think that UWorld and general 3rd year shelf exam study is adequate to understand the vast majority of concepts. While I don't know how the new question pool altered the general feel of the exam, I agree with @jw3600's assessment that it's probably indiscernible.
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Of course! Remember that the outcomes are all relative. You're not being compared against any standard but the one that ends up being created after everyone takes the test. Whether the average score is average after missing 60, 80 or 100 questions is all relative. There is no reason to doubt the "fairness" if you put in the work. The exam will feel different, sound different, be more convoluted, have on average much longer vignettes and will make time more of an issue than what has been the case before on the shelf exams and practice exams. They modified the exam to enough of an extent that they needed a 9 week score delay starting July 4th and ending on September 6th (when the average is usually 3 weeks) to accurately produce the scores for the examinees during this time. While I know they change something every year, I don't believe the score delay is this long usually even after changes. That should tell you something. If the examinee isn't aware of this beforehand (like I sure wasn't), then that person may feel somewhat shocked during the exam and then end up leaving the exam feeling emotionally torn and tempted to believe their performance is in jeopardy. This is what my commentary was about above. Someone who knows this beforehand may be emotionally more prepared. At the end of the day, medicine is medicine. It's not like they can come up with new diseases just for a test. But the exam WILL demand more from you and demand different things from you than you will have been used to so far. And there is no way to prepare for that aspect of it.
Knowing you'll get sucker-punched many times and in many different ways during this exam, I think, would be enormously helpful for most people about to go into it. Otherwise, the student ends up being at risk of feeling self-doubt during the exam upon getting rocked by some of these questions. Furthermore, many questions seem strategically written and placed not necessarily to test your knowledge but to test your stability and therefore consistency. These exams are not just about content. If they were, too many medical students would ace them. The exams are written also with the strategy to see what you can handle in terms of stress and pressure. I don't think it's fair to do that, but there are only so many ways to stratify a bunch of very smart people taking an exam, and content knowledge is only so helpful in doing that. Work hard. Trust yourself deeply. Be proud of yourself before, during and after the exam. Do your best to grapple with the challenge, knowing it's not supposed to be easy. Most importantly, laugh at some of the ridiculous stuff that's asked.
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We're all going to need to start a support group with t-shirts waiting on CK scores during this delay
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I don't know how you guys are doing this.
I took it a few days ago and already can't deal with it.
My exam was awful, so it makes it even worse lol. I literally wrote down 209 questions, I've been so obsessed.
I know CK is not about % etc but do you think 70-80% is a safe % to pass? Just wondering.
It's so annoying that I went down from 243 on UWSA to praying for a pass
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haha, i wrote down about 160 qs after my exam. of those 70 or so I was confident about, 16 or so I know I missed, and the rest were 50/50. So, if you think you got 70%+ correct on the 200 qs you remembered, then you are in a much better shape than I am. My UWSA's were 253/247 and I'm really really hoping I got an average score. I would be so ecstatic if I get an average score.I don't know how you guys are doing this.
I took it a few days ago and already can't deal with it.
My exam was awful, so it makes it even worse lol. I literally wrote down 209 questions, I've been so obsessed.
I know CK is not about % etc but do you think 70-80% is a safe % to pass? Just wondering.
It's so annoying that I went down from 243 on UWSA to praying for a pass
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I'd say I'm very similar % wise. I got crazy AF and started calculating possible percentages and stuff. Don't recommend it to anyone. I swear I'm gonna diagnose myself with something. I'm acting like a whacko. But yeah, the CK will do that to you.
You guys should get +10 points just for waiting so long. Just saying.
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I honestly couldn't remember more than a handful of questions after the exam and this wasn't because they were easy by any means. I just didn't sit down and try to purposefully read through any notes to jog my memory of questions I had. Chances are if I did remember a question, I wouldn't remember which answer I finally decided on, especially since so many of them were me guessing between 2 solid answers. My brain was fried so I'm just hoping for the best.
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My last 2 blocks were awful. I remember some questions mostly because they were so tough I needed to read some of them 3 times.
This is why I ran out of time and had 30 seconds left for 3-4 last questions in a 7th block.
As you said, I remember many questions but not the answers because I was stuck between 2 or 3.
I was also exhausted since it was my 7th hour and I hadn't slept the night before.
I was told so many times that Step 2 CK was way easier than Step 1 and honestly, I felt okay after Step 1. I knew I passed and passed well. This one - no clue.
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how are medstudies videos for ck?are they helpful>
No. Don't worry. Feeling terrible does not mean you're going to fail.I don't know how you guys are doing this.
I took it a few days ago and already can't deal with it.
My exam was awful, so it makes it even worse lol. I literally wrote down 209 questions, I've been so obsessed.
I know CK is not about % etc but do you think 70-80% is a safe % to pass? Just wondering.
It's so annoying that I went down from 243 on UWSA to praying for a pass
I felt really terrible after exam, and I'm only confident for about ~50% questions.
The exams are way harder than NBME 4,6,7, UWorld qbank, and UWSA1.
I ended up getting 26x.
Remember, the scores are calculated in comparison to other students. When you feel bad, other students are also feeling bad.
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I've been high and drunk since I took mine back on July 14th....
Test in 5 days.. took NBME4 and UWSA1, only have time for 1 more if I want to finish all uworld questions on time.
UWSA2+free 150 vs NBME7+free 150 ? Heard some terrible things about nbme 7 but if I'm going to learn from it more than uwsa2 I'll take it.
UWSA2+free 150 vs NBME7+free 150 ? Heard some terrible things about nbme 7 but if I'm going to learn from it more than uwsa2 I'll take it.
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If you want to learn then take UWSA2. NBMEs seem to have little predictive value these days and at least with UWSA you'll get great explanations. Keep doing questions and you'll do fine.
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Hi, please don't take nbme 7 when you have exam in 5 days. Go for uwsa2. I took uwsa1 and scored a 269, and gave nbme7, 5 days later and scored a 245. It shook my confidence and preparation very much, as I had exam in ten days. So I will advise against it.
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Even though they may have little predictive value i would do NBME 7 and free 150 as I had several similar questions come up on my exam. Don't worry the score as its not predictive. Just learn from questions you get wrong.
Also my perspective has always been to prioritize practice exams written by the people who actually write the real exam , meaning NBME not Uworld.
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I feel like the only one here who wouldn't care if it was a 1 month wait or a 6 month wait. Maybe due to me not wanting a competitive specialty, but it helps to pick up hobbies, play video games, not study (4th year rocks), do things outside the home with people who don't talk about tests/medicine.
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No
You are not alone
I share the same feelings , live your life .
Its a test , not the end of the world ~
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Nah, it makes no difference to me when I get it. I think that probably a lot of people on here don't care but just don't feel very vocal about it.
I actually didn't even check my step 1 score last year until a couple days after it was released. I felt like ignorance was bliss.
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I agree the wait is not really bothering me but probably because I'm on an away rotation and realize how unimportant a step 2ck score is compared to people actually liking you lol
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My life motto. Seriously much happier that way.
Ok now I'm confused. I'm really freaking out. I have 4 days left to this exam.
1) I can either take nbme 7 some are saying that's better since it's written by test writers
2) UWSA 2 some say this is better since there's good explanations to learn from
3) no more assessments. Focus on biostat questions, uworld wrongs, and review obgyn MTB or secrets since that's where I'm losing most points
So basically more assessments or more focusing on weak subjects these last 4 days. What do you guys think?
1) I can either take nbme 7 some are saying that's better since it's written by test writers
2) UWSA 2 some say this is better since there's good explanations to learn from
3) no more assessments. Focus on biostat questions, uworld wrongs, and review obgyn MTB or secrets since that's where I'm losing most points
So basically more assessments or more focusing on weak subjects these last 4 days. What do you guys think?
