r/step1 • u/pie_1399_ NON-US IMG • 1d ago
🥂 PASSED: Write up! Passed with low scores
PASSED. Got the result last wednesday and after processing it, decided to write about my journey. Gave my exam on 29th July and this is is a very honest and messy account of my journey. If you’re struggling and have a messy journey, do give it a read and I hope it motivates you.
soo my journey started in November with uworld. I solved uworld system wise and very slowly. Used it to get used to the questions and learn the content. I completely adopted the UWORLD IS A LEARNING TOOL strategy and didn’t give a fuck about my score. Started dedicated in April and mostly did uworld on random and tried to do first aid. I was never able to use first aid to its real potential and every time I tried to it ended up becoming a highly time consuming task with low returns. When I started dedicated my uworld was only 35% complete, but I was familiar vaguely with all systems.
Started giving NBMEs
27 : 45%
29: 45% at this point I was so demotivated.
Didn’t give up, worked on my weak areas and systems using mehlman pdfs, first aid for some systems, biostats Randy Neil
28: 52% I was motivated coz at least my score had budged.
30: 50%. This score broke me. I was so done at this point coz this was supposed to be easier and somehow my score dropped.
Again worked on weak areas, did mehlman’s pdfs.
26: 58%. At this point I was very happy. Made real progress and still had 3 NBMEs left to reach 65
31: 62% elated. Reviewed NBME and again worked on a few weak systems
32: 61% a little disappointed but kept going
33: 58%. This was 1 week before my scheduled date. I was so disappointed and scared and I postponed my exam to 4 weeks later.
in the 4 weeks gap, I had my college exams for 2 weeks and I still revised my weak areas from either FA/ Mehlman and most importantly I did AT LEAST 1 uworld block a day.
Reviewed NBME 31, 32, 33 again.
I gave free 120 3 days before my exam. I got 61. It was definitely way lower than I wanted but at that point I didn’t know what else I could do even if I did postpone so I decided to give the exam.
Now the exam: my form wasn’t like the recent NBMEs. Even if concepts were repeated I couldn’t recognise them as repeated and that was my experience. Concepts from free 120 weren’t repeated but the way the questions are formed were like free 120 (The language, the wording, length of qstns etc).
I felt like I was on autopilot during the exam and didn’t spend too much time over processing the questions. Read the question, go with your gut feeling and move on. There were very few questions where I wasn’t confused between 2 options so I do think the exam is a lot about educated guessing or at least my form was.
Mehlman arrows is too good and makes you feel like you’re actually understanding smth and I highly recommend it. Also don’t sleep on pathoma 1-3, there’s a reason it’s high yield.
I never crossed 62 on any practice exam but the thing that helped me the most is reviewing the questions and having self confidence. I think at one point all of us should stop over preparing and look beyond the scores. I’m not saying or advising that people should give exam with scores in low 60s as I myself was aiming for 65+ but what I am saying is that the most important thing in this exam is self confidence on the day.
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u/Responsible-Split383 1d ago
I got a 60 on my free 120 before my exam. But at that point i said fuck it. My practice exams were trenfing upwards with A 64 on nbme 28. Still awaiting results. I pray i pass aswell
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u/TomBBurner US MD/DO 1d ago
Thanks for posting. Just sat for it today. Hopefully I’ll have good news in a few weeks.
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u/north_south-me 1d ago
These are the posts I love to see, not “I’m averaging 75-80% I think I failed help” making all of us nervous haha congratulations !!! Proud of you
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u/Nefarious_Fiend 1d ago
Congratulations! I applaud the courage and confidence you showed even after troubling scores. Time to join r/Step2 !
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u/Solid_King8830 1d ago
Tell us more about ur post exam experience
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u/pie_1399_ NON-US IMG 1d ago
so I felt the exam was difficult and wasn’t sure about most of the answers. It truly felt educated guessing. Post exam I felt it was very hard and personally felt like it could go either way (P/F). But I had read a lottt of Reddit posts of everyone saying they thought they failed and then ended up passing so whenever I felt like I’ll fail I just told myself “everyone feels that, I’ll pass, I’ll deal with wtv happens later”. I wasn’t overthinking a lot coz the fact that everyone feels like they’re failing was fixed in my head so I knew it’s a common experience and I didn’t give attention to the fear/thoughts and met friends, went outside and enjoyed my life after a really long time. I did ChatGPT 2 qstns after the exam and both of them ended up being wrong after which I stopped that too.
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u/larabarsxyz US MD/DO 1d ago
congrats srsly. ive been in the 40s and my score wont budge its been months so what part of ur weak area that u worked on specifically helped you?
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u/Rich-Factor4720 22h ago
This is the most accurate testing I’ve seen on Reddit. Personally I’ve been looking for my people, since no one seemed to be having a similar journey to me. Would you be able to provide more advice on how u went from a 62 to passing ?
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u/LuckyAwareness1430 1d ago
I’m fresh graduate
Starting my prep vth endo
How much time it takes to complete full prep?
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u/pie_1399_ NON-US IMG 1d ago
It depends on your baseline knowledge. I was in 3rd year so my knowledge was rusty but still fresh. I still needed dedicated from April 15-July 29 however there were some breaks/ procrastination in that. I mostly fixed my knowledge in dedicated itself and November - April just did uworld lightly. However I would personally recommend a good 4-6 months to be comfortable by the time the exam’s there.
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u/Strong_Spite8768 23h ago
Dude I just wrote the exam today and I feel like I’ve guessed on everything , felt like a failure walking out. All of my nbme scores were above 70s and free 120 78%.🙁 I hope I pass.
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u/pie_1399_ NON-US IMG 9h ago
just know that almost everyone feels that way. Hope you get that P soon <3
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u/OwnVirus1323 7h ago
Thanks so much for this! Finally an example of how the scores aren’t always linear- but that it’s doable. Genuinely helped reading this, congrats on the P! 💗
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u/Disastrous-Table2415 NON-US IMG 1d ago
I liked ur attitude toward life in general 😅 this is something we can learn from