Sunday, February 25, 2018

My experience taking USMLE Step 1: 256


Hi all. I wanted to share my experience studying for USMLE step 1. This information will be helpful if you're a first year or second year medical student. Step 1 is 7 hours long with a 1 hour break for 8 hours to complete 280 questions.

Here's what you'll need.

  1. UWorld for USMLE Step 1 : link
  2. First Aid for Step 1 : link
Some other things you may want to consider:
  1. Sketchy Micro is an excellent resource for microbiology.
  2. DIT is super helpful if you need a structured course to get through First Aid.
    1. DIT's biostatistics section is super helpful if you can borrow from a friend.
  3. NBME Practice Exams
    1. Clinical Mastery Series which are practice Step 1s : link
    2. Yearly "free 150" practice questions from USMLE: link
USMLE Step 1 Breakdown
  • 55-65% is Medical Knowledge/Scientific Concepts
  • 20-30% Patient Care: Diagnosis
    • This includes H&P, lab, diagnosis and prognosis/outcome 
  • 7-12% Patient Care Management
    • Health management/prevention
    • Pharmacotherapy
  • 2-5% Communication/Professionalism
  • 4-8% practice-based learning

For the NBME practice exams. I would do as much as possible. Historically, some people have had repeat questions from NBME 18/17 or the Free 130 released each year located here under sample items: Using these 130 + a paid 4 block exam will help simulate the stamina needed for test day. If you wish to do the 7 block a couple of times let me know. They reuse a fraction of questions each year so we have to go back a couple of years to find a “unique” test. No key to any of this so I recommend meeting up with people to talk about stuff and make sure you get the content down.

Six Months before the exam  = 185


Two Month before Exam 223

Pre-Dedicated NBME 18 score = 230. This was a really tough exam. Definitely the hardest out of the ones that were available to me at the time. Did decent but not where I wanted to score. 


UWSA1 = 248. This test has some great experimental questions that make you really think about the data. Definitely similar to exam day.
NBME16 = 249. This was a good exam. Good microbiology questions.

UWSA2 = 258


NBME17 = 254, two days before exam.


MyReport.pdf





















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