BSCE 2 Results are here......

[restlesseye]

according to the department which administers this exam this class in vinnies which is toted to be the "smartest" this university has ever seen may not be the case.

out of 328 students taking the exam 104 people did not pass. the cutoff used was 53%.

[emt036]

ouch.

[jaywalk81]

double ouch. that doesnt look good. but the grade doesnt go into ur transcript right?

[restlesseye]

double ouch. that doesnt look good. but the grade doesnt go into ur transcript right?

no, it doesnt show up on your transcript but it can keep you from taking Step 1.

here is my theory. i think a lot of people in our class have GPA's above 2.5 and hence "blew off" the BSCE 2.

i wonder if the hurricane had anything to do with it? yup must be the hurricane....

[f1drvr]

well i dont konw if anyone else noticed this, but a large number of students were just below the passing score. I noticed on the exam, many rheumatology questions, cancer drug questions(a whole matching section in fact), etc. Pathophys and Pharm questions that were only covered in the 2 weeks going into the BSCE 2 and not previously tested. There were at the least 10 quesitons from those two weeks on there, which i thought was pretty unfair, if not unfair, it wasnt very nice anyway. The people who it really matters to pass the test I would think wouldnt have studied these areas at all but studied more of earlier subjects and I think that could have pushed many of them over the edge. I dont know if it is common practice to include new material questions or not but i would be willing to bet it played a factor for several.

[restlesseye]

yeah you are right. i totally forgot about the questions which were not even taught yet. many questions i recognize from exams in the last two years were on this bsce and were also of a "vague" variety with no real medical basis or scientific merit.

also seems like that nutrition question that the nutrition prof threw out for our exam turned up on the bsce (cancer and fruit etc...)

i feel bad for those who really needed this exam to move on.

all the folks i talked to seemed to do better on the external questions than the internal questions.

[cuevasso]

Book 2 definitely saved my butt. All that first year embryo and histo crap in Book 1 definitely kicked me in the groin.

I don't know how anyone could have studied for that though. It seems to me that even though you may have been studying for Step 1, BSCE II asks much more trivial mundane detailed stuff that you wouldn't have even studied if you actually tried to study for it. Therefore, I'm glad that I did blow it off and spent my time in GND until Sunday night for ol' times sake because I don't think that I could have done any better.

[stephew]

according to the department which administers this exam this class in vinnies which is toted to be the "smartest" this university has ever seen may not be the case.

out of 328 students taking the exam 104 people did not pass. the cutoff used was 53%.yea, EVERY term is told their the "smartest". By now the current classes should be bloody geniuses; why didnt they get into harvard MD/PhD program then? why did the usmle rates drop after 2000? please. Why they do this is beyond me. I honestly wonder if they believe this. I mean sgu has always had bright people, most are quite competant and there is always a sprinkling of dingdongs. LIke every US med school Ive seen by the way.

THe BSCE, unless its changed, will automatically fail a proportion of the class;that's how it's set. thus to get on with the usmle you need to either pass the bsce 2 or have a perticular GPA. so i suspect you get the same fail rate by definition every year. check it out.

[f1drvr]

The difference with this term is that when they presented to us the statistics, they said that this was the worst failure rate in a long time, and that reasons for the rate could not be found. So i guess a third of the class is more than usual.

Ive heard that we are a smart class as well. But i think its been unanimously from students in our class, if thats any indication, like everything else people in our class say, it must be true. Some professors have told us following tests that we have done well as a class, etc. Seems like that kind of thing goes to ppl's heads.

[MBA-MD]

I say they eliminate the the BSCE 1 and then just set a flat % requirement for the BSCE 2 before they certify you for the USMLE (regardless of your GPA). Before they do that though, though should eliminate all Internal questions from the exam and use something like the Shelf Exams as the basis of the questions. That way you know they are nationally tested and qualified questions.

[stephew]

Ive heard that we are a smart class as well. But i think its been unanimously from students in our class, if thats any indication, like everything else people in our class say, it must be true. Some professors have told us following tests that we have done well as a class, etc. Seems like that kind of thing goes to ppl's heads.honestly EVERY class is told they're the smartest. here's the thing: we're all at the bottom of the med ed totum pole being an IMG; I find it rather disgusting that studnet glom onto this concept. nothing is more ridiculous looking than a bunch of IMGs arguing who is the best. in fact it argues the other point of view. A little modesty and just a demonstration of ability is the best approach.