help! fail exam experience,needs advise!!

[candycarol]

:confused:hi everybody..

my step 1 was 60 in 2 digit score, read kaplan note for quick view and kaplan qbank and first aid for 4 month...finally failed 154/60
after a yr, 1 decide to take step2 first due to very disapointed on step 1, then step 2 i used first aid and usmleword for 4 month (55%), nbme 200(4 month prior to exam), i thought i can pass step 2 for sure after my exam, but god make a joke to me again, same score 154/60...:mad:........

is that the problem due to i did not read kaplan note in prepare step 2?
any one can suggest what can i do now? my classmates suggest me to do all and understands basic science for prepare step 1 first...

should i start to read step 1 or step 2(because i just finish step 2 its still fresh) ?
how can i prepare my exam for just "pass" in short time??

thank for u guys opinion

[candycarol]

how can i efficiently study for short time and workful in preparing step 1 and step2 ??

[Ross09]

First off CandyCarol I am really sorry to hear the bad news.

Quick question....when you say NBME 200...is that conversion or the real NBME score out of 800. (i am sorry to ask this, i am sure it's the first...but ur score is really low as compared to NBME. People usually get like 5-10 points below their NBME. NOT 46 points. How many NBME's did you do before you took the real thing? and which NBME was it that you got this 200 in.

Again, i am really sorry to hear about your score. We will really appreciate if you can please help out future STEP 1 taker or people who're waiting for their results.

[candycarol]

its 200/800 on nbme, and i known that was bad, do u have any suggestion?
thank u.

[NYC27]

I am really sorry to hear about your experience. But maybe you are tackling too many things at once. Stick to passing Step 1 first since you will need to understand basic sciences for step 2. I am guessing english is not your first language. If that is the case, work on mastering what you are really good at. Take an NBME and find out. Read a lot of ethics scenarios. My exam was covered with them. Most of the questions on my exam were soooo long. So I suggest you do your questions timed. Learn to read at a faster pace. If you finished USMLE world than I would do another question bank like usmle rx. Everytime I got a question wrong, I looked it up in first aid and wrote some notes in it. A few weeks before I took step, I had notes all over the margins which really helped. You may have to re-teach yourself a few subjects. For me, it was physio. I did kaplan physio and BRS physio. Definitely do something different than what you are doing. Maybe you need to change the setting you study in. If you usually studied at home, try going to the library. Definitely do all the NBMEs. I hope this helps and i wish you the best of luck. Hang in there.

[candycarol]

hi, NYC27
thanks for ur suggestion but actually i had practice of my reading and there is no problems with reading those long question at exam for me, and my UW score of 55, which is practice on Timed and Unused mode.
now i am confusing that eventhough i start to re-study my step 1 but should i listening the video or just concentrating on read myself? which will be more quick and more helpful?
thanks for ur suggestion, its help me a lot!:)

[rhmtascp]

I don't want to sound discouraging, but you should have never taken the test with an NBME of 200. By far the best predictor of your actual score are the NBMEs, no matter how you score on UW of Kaplan.

I think you have to start form scratch and pretend all that you'll be learning is brand new, that way you can more effectively get into the USMLE mindset. And I disagree that you should master the material you're good at; that will never give you a high score. To get high scores, you have to face the topics you hate, the topics you were never good at. That's what's gonna give you the better score.

...and don't give up; step 1 is very doable. At the end of the day, they're testing basic concepts, which every good doctor must understand.

[IMG SURVIVOR]

I'm very sorry to hear that. Is very dificult to study well and at the same time have job:confused:
You must dedicate time everydat to at least read and review something.

I strongly recommend you to o over tommy concepts, try to do at last 100 per day , you will learn alot from it, get the basic and confusing parts more clear.

I agree only with what I'm quoting.

I think you have to start form scratch and pretend all that you'll be learning is brand new, that way you can more effectively get into the USMLE mindset. And I disagree that you should master the material you're good at; that will never give you a high score. To get high scores, you have to face the topics you hate, the topics you were never good at. That's what's gonna give you the better score.

...and don't give up; step 1 is very doable. At the end of the day, they're testing basic concepts, which every good doctor must understand.

If you think I can be of any help please pm me.
I will try to help you with the best of my abilities.
GOD bless

[candycarol]

thanks for everybody here for supporting me...
and here has a lot of great suggestion that i never tried before!
i will keep going on!
thanks again!