01-21-2009, 08:24 AM
I got my score last week, but I was away and didn't have time to post. I was very surprised to see 99/242. After the exam I wasn't sure I will pass and I was hoping to get over 90... but never thought I would get 99. My experience: old-old grad (1998), doing research in US, working full time. I studied 2-3 hours daily, with some interruptions, for more than 1 year. It took me few months to figure out how to study for USMLE - basically to realize that there is no point in studying a subject exhaustively from 20 different books, and that Kaplan is enough. I read kaplan twice, but even after the second reading there were many things I didn't know. I did path and biochem from Goljan RR, and I listened to the Goljan lectures over and over in my car on my way to and from work. By the end of it, I probably had listened those lectures at least 6-7 times.
I did FA twice. My scores:
UW subject-wise (67%) - but not all of it, just some quwstions here and there,
Rx 61% (timed, unused, mixed subjects),
NBME CD 72%
NBME 6 on line 440 (204) 3 months before the exam. After that, i re-read kaplan and FA, which I guess put my exam score in the 99 range.
I thought the exam was easier than NBME and UW, and I thought that this is going to hurt my score, because people say the exam is scored against other test takers, so easy questions are scored somehow less than hard questions. However, how hard a question is has more to do with your knowledge - if you know the answer, then it's an easy q, if you don't know it than it seems hard. I marked about 3-4 qs per block, especially the ones with calculations, which I did at the end of the block. The qs that I had no idea what they are asking I just guessed and moved on without even marking them.
I will answer qs if anyone asks. Good luck to you all and hope to see you all in the Step 2 forum! All in all, I think this exam is doable, just keep studying. I know people say you have to do all qs in UW, which is not a bad thing, but my feeling is that you don't have to to all of them. You just need to know concepts and it doens't matter if you learn them in Kaplan or UW. You also need to be able to do qs, so use the qs banks to learn how to read them fast and how to look for clues. The qs on the exam give you multiple clues in the stem so you could get the right answer if you know just one clue out of the 4-5 that they give you. They are not tricky questions, so don't look for hidden meaning and don't read too much into the q. The most obvious answer is the right one!
I did FA twice. My scores:
UW subject-wise (67%) - but not all of it, just some quwstions here and there,
Rx 61% (timed, unused, mixed subjects),
NBME CD 72%
NBME 6 on line 440 (204) 3 months before the exam. After that, i re-read kaplan and FA, which I guess put my exam score in the 99 range.
I thought the exam was easier than NBME and UW, and I thought that this is going to hurt my score, because people say the exam is scored against other test takers, so easy questions are scored somehow less than hard questions. However, how hard a question is has more to do with your knowledge - if you know the answer, then it's an easy q, if you don't know it than it seems hard. I marked about 3-4 qs per block, especially the ones with calculations, which I did at the end of the block. The qs that I had no idea what they are asking I just guessed and moved on without even marking them.
I will answer qs if anyone asks. Good luck to you all and hope to see you all in the Step 2 forum! All in all, I think this exam is doable, just keep studying. I know people say you have to do all qs in UW, which is not a bad thing, but my feeling is that you don't have to to all of them. You just need to know concepts and it doens't matter if you learn them in Kaplan or UW. You also need to be able to do qs, so use the qs banks to learn how to read them fast and how to look for clues. The qs on the exam give you multiple clues in the stem so you could get the right answer if you know just one clue out of the 4-5 that they give you. They are not tricky questions, so don't look for hidden meaning and don't read too much into the q. The most obvious answer is the right one!
u deserve it