Received my passing score for Step 1 yesterday with 187/76. For me, this is such a relief being that I didn’t make it the first go around with a 184/74. I know this forum is varied and there are a lot of people reporting scores of 99% and the likes but I’m obviously not one of those stories. I can say, however, that I’m so happy that I have a passing score and feel like it’s a dream come true to finally have one of the biggest obstacles of a medical career behind me.

I come from a background where I never really did well in high school and standardized exams have always been my bugaboo. I did, however, work in the emergency room for 4+ years with over half of that time in level 1 trauma centers so I’ve learned a lot in the area of clinical medicine and hands on work. Honestly, you could drop me in an ER at this very moment and I feel I could almost perform up to the standards of some MDs just from on the job experience. With that being said it’s no surprise that the basic science portion of medicine is my absolute least favorite and having a presence in the hospital, in front of patients, is my true comfort zone.

What I did to prepare for Step is nothing short of hard work. Combining all the time since my last 5th semester class I can say for a fact that I’ve done Kaplan at least 3 full times (once live lecture and the rest videos), PASS videos at least 3 full times, and Goljan audio at least 4 full times. As far as qbanks go, I’ve done USMLE World 2 full times with an average of close to 50%, Kaplan qbank two times, and UsmleRx one full time. Both with around 50% as well.

One thing that I feel that helped me on the last exam is that before the exam I wrote out a little reference card with all the straight recall items that I had problems with such as a few of those physio formulas (that we’ll never have to use from recall in real life since we have computers), some of the biostats formulas, labeled areas of the antibody, etc. I kept this in my locker and would review it after each block during my break then when I would go back into the secure area, I would have a brain dump and write as much as I could remember on my dry erase sheet before I started my next block. Believe it or not, this helped me land at least 4 or 5 questions on the exam which could have been the reason I passed this time.

Honestly, I really felt that I knew my stuff for both exams and only a little more prepared for the second one. I even studied with a partner from my school that honored all classes and rocked out on the Kaplan exam. We did questions and it seemed we were close in our percentages toward the latter part of our studies so I will say that I KNOW I have a lot more knowledge than is reflected in a 187/76. With that being said, I feel it’s obvious that this exam is more than just having to retain tons of information that’s almost un human but it’s about knowing the test and the tricks they pull. Personally, I feel it’s a shame that not only do you have to know this much information for one exam but you also have to be able to get into the test writers mind and decipher his or her trickery all within 60 seconds per question.

Though I have a lower score I truly am thankful for this being behind me now and thank you for all of the help these forum members have provided. Also, congratulations for all of you who have passed! For those of you that haven’t, I can honestly say that you CAN do it! Believe me, if I can pass this exam ANYONE can!

On to clinical and Step 2!!!

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May the Force be with you...