My Experience

[Asclepius1]

HI all,
I gave my exam on the the 19th of feb'05.got my score I did a semi-decent 230/93.
I read kaplan notes and first aid and also went thru the goljan audio lectures.
read for bout 5-6 mths close to 6-7 hrs a day in the last month.
kaplan q bank scores varied b/w 70-80%
usmle cd- 43, 37, 45
I got pulled back by musculoskeletal system and behavioural sciences.
regardless I wud like to ask the more experienced people as to where I stand in the scheme of things.someone told me that 6 out of 10 people get 99 percentile.is that so?if it is then its pretty hard for me I suppose.

[Niptuck1]

no, that's a biostats question right there. you would not have a normal gaussian curve if 6/10 people had a 99%. it would be bimodal, or skewed. the usmle keeps a pretty good gaussian curve on the steps. the average is 85-90 i think. the 99% overall are the exceptions. true that US students will have a much higher ratio of 99% than IMGs in general. but a 93% is nothing to be ashamed of, it's a competitive score.

[Priya2025]

wcb22 Thank YOU! Great response, the curve would be negatively skewed(going by the TAIL of the curve!) The mean is pulled up and the median is the middle #. Excellent correlation and extrapolation! Also a lot of people are just NOT reliable sources of information. Reliability means consistency! :!: