[buttercupmd]

Hi guys,

I just finshed taking step 1 and all I can say it was very hard. I was very sleepy the whole day and only half of my brain was awake when i was taking it. I don;t know, i think i will pass but of course everyone wants to ace the test. am not sure about that though.

anyway, am just curious about the new scoring system. my friends years back took the step 1 and the test items were aroung 330 plus. this time it's only 323. i wonder what's the score interval to get 99? so I can exactly estimate if I can make it. what's the lower limit to score for 99?

thanks. please let me know.

 

[Haisook]

First, congratulations on taking the exam regardless of what you did on it.

From what I've been seeing, the minimum 3-digit score that corresponds to 99 has been lowered to as low as around 225. This means the exam has become more difficult, and such a score, which in the recent past correlated to around 95, now correlates to 99. This, I believe, does not mean it's now easier to get 99, because as I said the exam has become tougher in such a way that a person who scored 225 a couple of years ago would have scored less than this if he/she had taken the exam today.

It's almost impossible to predict a score based on these observations. Only NBMEs and/or other self-assessment tools can somewhat predict your score, so if you have utilized such assessment tools before taking the exam, your score will be close to the predicted performance.

I suggest you just forget about all of this, and try to relax until your score report comes out. It's wasted energy trying to predict a score this way.

 

[lee-usmle]

the number of questions does not correlate to the three digit score

anyway, am just curious about the new scoring system. my friends years back took the step 1 and the test items were aroung 330 plus. this time it's only 323. i wonder what's the score interval to get 99? so I can exactly estimate if I can make it. what's the lower limit to score for 99?

If you are thinking along the lines that answering 230 questions out of the the 322 questions to get a score of 230 then you are wrong. Please read this
http://www.usmle-forums.com/general-topics-recommended-threads/452-how-usmle-scores-calculated.html