USMLE Step 1 Questions Distribution - Percentage of each Subject

90086 Views 29 Replies 20 Participants Last post by Vinl, Jul 2, 2017

StepTaker

Discussion Starter · Sep 4, 2009 (Edited)

2

What percentage anatomy, physiology, pathology, biochemistry, etc questions in USMLE Step 1?

Examining Kaplan qbank, USMLERx, USMLE CD, NBME Form 1 and making out the subject percentages in each and then averaging the results came up with the following table;
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Or this pie chart

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See also;
http://www.usmle-forums.com/usmle-s...6-usmle-step-2-ck-questions-distribution.html

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indian

· #2 · Sep 4, 2009

They always tell me that Pathology is so important but after looking at your pie chart now I can really understand why we should master and not only rely on Kaplan

charlie

· #3 · Sep 21, 2009

can we rely on this for the exam? or is it just a guess? isnt there an official distribution available somewhere? that would be nice.

anyhow you guys think kaplan is not enough on pathology?

StepTaker

Discussion Starter · #4 · Sep 21, 2009

charlie said:
can we rely on this for the exam? or is it just a guess? isnt there an official distribution available somewhere? that would be nice.

anyhow you guys think kaplan is not enough on pathology?

I've been trying to find an official documentation of the question percentages and could not find one. That's why I examined those qbanks. However, I believe that USMLE CD and NBME are kind of "official" real samples of the real exam and these percentage should be correct.

Having said that, don't forget there are significant variations in allocating a certain question to a specific discipline. More and more questions are now going "multi-system" and it's impossible to say whether this question should count toward physiology, or biochemistry for example.

More over, the categorization of your study materials may differ from provider to another. For example, what a specific First Aid topic included in anatomy may be seen in the pathology book of Kaplan. So those of course complicates the calculation.

In general, you can rely on the above chart to get a sense of the weight of each discipline, like for example it might be argued that you can pass the exam without reading the behavioral sciences or you will master a significant percentage of exam questions if you master patho and physion ...etc

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charlie

· #5 · Sep 21, 2009

you see, i got something like 70% on the qbank on random mixed questions, however some are known so you cannot be totally confident about the number. but still I have some weak spots on microbiology, biochemistry and stuff and wonder if it will be enough to take the exam. however according to the chart the share for micro and biochem seems rather slim.

regards

indian

· #6 · Sep 23, 2009

In my exam there was more than 5% behavior and biostat
so I think it varies from exam to exam and from student to student

indian

· #7 · Sep 26, 2009

This USMLE website page
http://www.usmle.org/General_Information/bulletin/2008/content.html

has all the various weight percentages that you need and no need for the time you wasted calculating these ratios!

StepTaker

Discussion Starter · #8 · Sep 26, 2009 (Edited)

abusmle said:
This USMLE website page
http://www.usmle.org/General_Information/bulletin/2008/content.html

has all the various weight percentages that you need and no need for the time you wasted calculating these ratios!

That page does not tell the percentages of each subject
It just gives a general outline of the content
Perhaps the only good info in it is that therapeutics constitutes 15-25% of the content (note that therapeutics does not mean only pharmacology but rather it means any treatment info for any abnormal process, such information can be found in pathology, microbiology, biochemistry, etc virtually all subjects contain therapeutic info) so yet again the percentages that I came up with still prove useful for step 1 preparation.

Reactions: 1

khanar

· #9 · Nov 9, 2009

Do you have any idea about the systems distribution
I mean what percentage cardiovascular, respiratory, ..etc

StepTaker

Discussion Starter · #10 · Nov 9, 2009

473-syndrome said:
Do you have any idea about the systems distribution
I mean what percentage cardiovascular, respiratory, ..etc

Unfortunately, No, I did not measure the systems distribution

wahaha007

· #11 · Apr 6, 2010

Hi,Steptaker, what about for Step 2CK ?

StepTaker

Discussion Starter · #12 · Apr 6, 2010

CK distribution is obvious

wahaha007 said:
Hi,Steptaker, what about for Step 2CK ?

I did not work out the percentages for the CK exam. I was thinking it's pretty obvious that Internal Medicine makes the biggest chunk followed by pediatrics followed by the other three (obgyn, psych/stats/ethics, and surgery).

However, since you asked I may put a similar thread for the CK distribution.

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ath.pantelis

· #13 · Apr 6, 2010

In my humble opinion, despite any ambitious & well-intentioned efforts, it is eventually difficult to estimate the "percentage" of each system or subject, even if these efforts are based on statistical correlations & regression analyses. The reason is that, in their majority, the questions of the actual exam concern interdisciplinary concepts. What is more, sometimes it is not easy to tell apart which different concepts or domains a question integrates.

Reactions: 1

StepTaker

Discussion Starter · #14 · Apr 6, 2010

ath.pantelis said:
In my humble opinion, despite any ambitious & well-intentioned efforts, it is eventually difficult to estimate the "percentage" of each system or subject, even if these efforts are based on statistical correlations & regression analyses. The reason is that, in their majority, the questions of the actual exam concern interdisciplinary concepts. What is more, sometimes it is not easy to tell apart which different concepts or domains a question integrates.

I totally agree with you and this is what I explained in this post above

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drcuddles

· #15 · Jul 27, 2011

General principles or organ system

Which one has higher percentage of the questions in step 1: pure general principles or organ systems questions?

I am worried about the general principles (ie: part in FA and Kaplan) since my uni followed PBL system and starting year 1 we went into organ system directly, we only spent 2months on few shallow basics. I am really worried about pure basics of biochem, micro, & immunology !!!

drnirajmavani

· #16 · Jul 29, 2011

can you post the recent 2011 que distributions....dis one is like 2 yrs old...thanx

shafff111

· #17 · Sep 20, 2011

one of my colleagues who gave step 1 in 2006 told me in his exam there were 70% pathology questions and only 5% biochem and pharmacology

DNA 105

· #18 · Feb 1, 2012

Pathophysiology?

Heya mates,
So what exactly does "Pathophysiology" here imply? I mean isn't that an inter-disciplinary entity?

sukar

· #19 · Feb 5, 2012

Is it still the same?
Becuase I have been hearing from some students Anat is not alot anymore... or Biochem isnt.. Different things from different people who took it.

Reactions: 1

shafff111

· #20 · Apr 27, 2012

patho it is!

sukar said:
Is it still the same?
Becuase I have been hearing from some students Anat is not alot anymore... or Biochem isnt.. Different things from different people who took it.

i gave step 1 on last day of december 2011, yes they dont ask anatomy much, but there were many questions from biochem, just cram the diseases in biochem section of first aid . and i dnt remmber if there were any questions from genetics or cell biology (thou it took me much time preparing them).

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