Got my score report 253/99

[drarnab]

Hi guys, I just got my score report (253/99) and thought I'd post a thank you note for all the members and staff of this wonderful forum. You’ve been really great and have kept me going through hard times.


My prep stats:
Kaplan original 2011 – I am a member of the Delhi center.
First AID
Levinsons microbiology * love this book – I killed micro.
Katzungs Pharma review thanks @docsasmit for suggesting this.
Goljan – did NOT read except for my weak areas from NBME- then also too much time, I answered a full 3 questions which were only in Goljan ( ya I counted :P )

My score stats

UWorld – 71 pct
NBME 3 – 236 (3m before)
NBME 6 – 242 (2m before)
NBME 7 – 244 (1m before)
Free 150 – 87% (great correlator actually, don’t underestimate this )

I was too stressed on 18th night before exam : I POSTPONED it at 3 AM – BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE
I felt horrible afterward and felt I wasn't mentally tough enough to take this test.

I didn’t TOUCH my books till the 23rd, the day before my rescheduled date. I revised FA and the night before had a glass of French wine, an etizolam (partial agonist BZD with short half life) , and talked to my first sweetheart .. either of em or the combination did the trick and could sleep 6 hrs – so thanks to them all

Finally, cheers and may you guys rock in what you do. May god bless u.

[sheena]

amazing score.......

congratulations

[appu]

congrats!! go parrdy

[warriodoc]

congrats my friend. Indeed Job well done

[doctorsmonsters]

wow!!!! great score! now I know I need to get a sweetheart, the pill and french wine along with all the study.
congrats!!!!

[Mondoshawan]

Congratulations!!

[medico.in]

Originally Posted by drarnab

Hi guys, I just got my score report (253/99) and thought I'd post a thank you note for all the members and staff of this wonderful forum. You’ve been really great and have kept me going through hard times.


My prep stats:
Kaplan original 2011 – I am a member of the Delhi center.
First AID
Levinsons microbiology * love this book – I killed micro.
Katzungs Pharma review thanks @docsasmit for suggesting this.
Goljan – did NOT read except for my weak areas from NBME- then also too much time, I answered a full 3 questions which were only in Goljan ( ya I counted :P )

My score stats

UWorld – 71 pct
NBME 3 – 236 (3m before)
NBME 6 – 242 (2m before)
NBME 7 – 244 (1m before)
Free 150 – 87% (great correlator actually, don’t underestimate this )

I was too stressed on 18th night before exam : I POSTPONED it at 3 AM – BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE
I felt horrible afterward and felt I wasn't mentally tough enough to take this test.

I didn’t TOUCH my books till the 23rd, the day before my rescheduled date. I revised FA and the night before had a glass of French wine, an etizolam (partial agonist BZD with short half life) , and talked to my first sweetheart .. either of em or the combination did the trick and could sleep 6 hrs – so thanks to them all

Finally, cheers and may you guys rock in what you do. May god bless u.

wat is free 150 from where did u get them?

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by medico.in

wat is free 150 from where did u get them?

these are the usmle orientation materials from the website for free, in fact u can do older years also.

[pnreddy]

congratulations...woohoo party tym 4 u..!!

[noone_123i]

Hi Drarnab, Congrats, that is an amazing score! Good for you...Party away! Well, when you get a chance from all the partying, can you please help me out by answering the following questions (my test is coming up soon and really need your help).

First of all, can you please tell me what did you do for last a few days before exam (study FA, did uworld, etc.)?

I was wondering if you can please tell me some detail about the exam questions...for example:

1. The length of the questions (longer the uworld questions or same)?
2. Difficulty of the questions (more difficult than nbmes...especially nbme 7)? Which nbme form would you say had the most similar difficulty as the real exam?
3. Would you say that nbme 7 had similar difficulty and style as the real exam?
4. Were there any repeated questions on your exam from the nmbe forms? If so, how many and which forms?
5. how many audio/visual and pics did you get? What you recommend to study for the pics and where to listen to the audios?
6. Enough time to finish the questions? So, if I finish nbme 7 on time or with some time to spare will I be in similar time zone on the real exam (of course I understand that anxiety of the real exam may take away a few minutes)

And anything else that you can remember about the questions...it would really help me... I am very scared about how the real questions will be in format and difficulty?

Again sorry for a lot of questions but I am panicking as I am getting closer to my exam. Thanks again!

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by noone_123i

Hi Drarnab, Congrats, that is an amazing score! Good for you...Party away! Well, when you get a chance from all the partying, can you please help me out by answering the following questions (my test is coming up soon and really need your help).

First of all, can you please tell me what did you do for last a few days before exam (study FA, did uworld, etc.)?

I was wondering if you can please tell me some detail about the exam questions...for example:

1. The length of the questions (longer the uworld questions or same)?
2. Difficulty of the questions (more difficult than nbmes...especially nbme 7)? Which nbme form would you say had the most similar difficulty as the real exam?
3. Would you say that nbme 7 had similar difficulty and style as the real exam?
4. Were there any repeated questions on your exam from the nmbe forms? If so, how many and which forms?
5. how many audio/visual and pics did you get? What you recommend to study for the pics and where to listen to the audios?
6. Enough time to finish the questions? So, if I finish nbme 7 on time or with some time to spare will I be in similar time zone on the real exam (of course I understand that anxiety of the real exam may take away a few minutes)

And anything else that you can remember about the questions...it would really help me... I am very scared about how the real questions will be in format and difficulty?

Again sorry for a lot of questions but I am panicking as I am getting closer to my exam. Thanks again!

No problem Noone_123i , im not much of a party guy (sad) , so lets go over the queries


for the last few days i studied specially marked portions of my first aid where i circled the facts that i did not know.


1. I think the NBME is going back to simpler questions in the older style , there were only a few questions i had which were full page length. Even the large ones will have some really glaring cues after which you will just lazyly skim the para - dont worry.

2. I would say the easy questions are easy and the few hard questions are hard. But, also these hard questions are fair - they sort of let u narrow down choices or have atleast some way for you to intelligently guess.

3. I will say the long page questions were NBME 7 style, the shorter questions were NBME 3 style.

4. Yes probably two- three questions , from usmle freely available material, i dont recall getting something from the NBME though i hear that happens.

5. i got murmurs which i sUCK at ( i got a borderline in CVS even with this three digit score!! lol) consider sounds from www.blaufuss.org. - i got PLENTY of pictures - which were really easy and actually helped me answer.

6. I am a very fast test taker so this answer migt not be of use to you. I finished each block with around 12-18 mins left, then i glanced over to make sure i did pick what i intended to ( i was under some BZD hangover) and then i used 5-6 mins left over to take a break between each block- REALLY helped me concentrate till the end .


and good luck, and get good sleep - you'll do well.

[doctorsmonsters]

Thank you for sharing the site and for replying most of our questions, but one thing, how do you correlate the free 150 score to the actually exam score?

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by doctorsmonsters

Thank you for sharing the site and for replying most of our questions, but one thing, how do you correlate the free 150 score to the actually exam score?

no probs

www.medfriends.org they have a very famous usmle score estimator.

[doctorsmonsters]

how do you find all these wonderful sites?

[noone_123i]

Thank you for your quick reply!

Just one thing...you didn't recommend what to look at for the pictures (Rapid Review, webpath, etc?)...also, the link you gave for the murmurs does NOT work!

[doctorsmonsters]

It does for me, make sure you have flash player installed.

[struggle]

congrats..great score..

[pnreddy]

dear dr.arnab
how much time did u take for your preparation for step1 exam.,

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by doctorsmonsters

It does for me, make sure you have flash player installed.

yes this might be the problem, the site is working fine with me,

and as far as sources of images i like first aid and all the pictures from new goljan its awesome for pics.

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by pnreddy

dear dr.arnab
how much time did u take for your preparation for step1 exam.,

I prepared 4 months X 2-3hrs a day after work, then left my job and prepared 4 more months at 8-10 hrs a day.

[frayarroyo]

You dont use q bank?

Originally Posted by drarnab

Hi guys, I just got my score report (253/99) and thought I'd post a thank you note for all the members and staff of this wonderful forum. You’ve been really great and have kept me going through hard times.


My prep stats:
Kaplan original 2011 – I am a member of the Delhi center.
First AID
Levinsons microbiology * love this book – I killed micro.
Katzungs Pharma review thanks @docsasmit for suggesting this.
Goljan – did NOT read except for my weak areas from NBME- then also too much time, I answered a full 3 questions which were only in Goljan ( ya I counted :P )

My score stats

UWorld – 71 pct
NBME 3 – 236 (3m before)
NBME 6 – 242 (2m before)
NBME 7 – 244 (1m before)
Free 150 – 87% (great correlator actually, don’t underestimate this )

I was too stressed on 18th night before exam : I POSTPONED it at 3 AM – BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE
I felt horrible afterward and felt I wasn't mentally tough enough to take this test.

I didn’t TOUCH my books till the 23rd, the day before my rescheduled date. I revised FA and the night before had a glass of French wine, an etizolam (partial agonist BZD with short half life) , and talked to my first sweetheart .. either of em or the combination did the trick and could sleep 6 hrs – so thanks to them all

Finally, cheers and may you guys rock in what you do. May god bless u.

[drarnab]

ohh sorry yes i did - kaplan qbank - 67% ,and uw - 70% , did uw well.. kaplan left 30%

[Cocochanel]

should we do the questions randomly or subject wise like path, physio ?? which is better

[1128]

congratulations on such a great score...please please answer this question for me...i have been struggling with it for days
if i did kaplan patho along with uw and FA is that safe for patho. please suggest what i should do for patho because i find golijan very difficult to read and i cant retain golijan.....i would really appreciate it if you got back to me...what was your study plan for patho specifically.

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by Cocochanel

should we do the questions randomly or subject wise like path, physio ?? which is better

i think its best to do all mixed for one bank ( the one you take later) . I did subjectwise for my first readings from another bank.

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by 1128

congratulations on such a great score...please please answer this question for me...i have been struggling with it for days
if i did kaplan patho along with uw and FA is that safe for patho. please suggest what i should do for patho because i find golijan very difficult to read and i cant retain golijan.....i would really appreciate it if you got back to me...what was your study plan for patho specifically.

i didnt like goljan... its just a craze, all that info is very well written in kaplan patho+physio+biochem. I think one needs to know the kaplan materials well before they can go ahead and cram the extra points from goljan... hope it helps

[Hitman]

Congratulation for such a good score ...

Hey i am using uw and have kaplan qbank book not online ... and the FA q bank book ...
are these enough ???? do i need to do online kaplan or usmle rx ???
does kaplan online and book have the same qs ????

thanks alot

[drarnab]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Congratulation for such a good score ...

Hey i am using uw and have kaplan qbank book not online ... and the FA q bank book ...
are these enough ???? do i need to do online kaplan or usmle rx ???
does kaplan online and book have the same qs ????

thanks alot

thanks hitman, the kaplan online is different from Qbank - however it is upto you to decide if you have time to manage two full Qbanks.

[Dania79]

Hi folks ,
where can i find all NBME tests for free... dont wanna pay for them....i heard we can find them on the web and download them ..along with their keys...anyone??

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by Dania79

Hi folks ,
where can i find all NBME tests for free... dont wanna pay for them....i heard we can find them on the web and download them ..along with their keys...anyone??

hi dania ,

yes you can download them from filestube or ebook but i would say dont do all offline , cause they are ur best predictors of step 1 score ...

goodluck

[Dania79]

thanks hitman,
actually someone suggested..to get done nbme tests 9, 11, 12 online...as score predictors, and the rest to download from the web... the problem is, i did get the mcq's but donno where to get their keys.....do u have any idea?..
i shall be grateful..

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by Dania79

thanks hitman,
actually someone suggested..to get done nbme tests 9, 11, 12 online...as score predictors, and the rest to download from the web... the problem is, i did get the mcq's but donno where to get their keys.....do u have any idea?..
i shall be grateful..

If you download from filestube or ebook , they generally come with the keys ... or just type answer keys of a particular nbme in ebook you will get them .

goodluck