Thread: shelf exam?

hello, i'm an incoming 1st semester in jan so i'm basically clueless about everything... w/ that said... can someone tell me what's a shelf exam? it seems like a big deal to score well in these. are they supposed to be mock Step 1 exams??

thanks!

Originally Posted by aye5882

hello, i'm an incoming 1st semester in jan so i'm basically clueless about everything... w/ that said... can someone tell me what's a shelf exam? it seems like a big deal to score well in these. are they supposed to be mock Step 1 exams??

thanks!

Shelf exams are given at the end of 2nd, 3rd and 4th seemster. In 2nd semester you will take the shelfs for Biochem, Histo, Neuro, Anatomy and Physio. At the end of 4th you will take the shelfs for Micro, Pharm, ICM, Path, and you will also take the comp. At the end of 3rd you will take the shelf for Behavioral. The shelfs are exams written by NBME. They are supposed to contain retired USMLE style questions. Some of the questions seem to be written this way while others are simply one liners. Most of them are around 125 questions long. Up to now the shelfs have been 15% of your grade for the course. However I am on the old curiculum so I am not sure if that changed for the new curiculum. If you want to see some sample questions you can go to the NBME website and they have a section where you can see like 3-4 practice questions for each subject. I hope this answers your questions.

wow.... thanks for such a fast response...

do you know if these exams are universal?? like, do US med school students take them also?... so we can gauge how we are doing against them??

US Medical schools give Shelf exams. In fact I believe that many US Medical schools giveShelf exams in Clinical Rotations also. If anyone knows for sure please let me know.

Originally Posted by singer

US Medical schools give Shelf exams. In fact I believe that many US Medical schools giveShelf exams in Clinical Rotations also. If anyone knows for sure please let me know.

Yes, US medical schools do use the shelf exams. In fact at various schools the shelf exams are used as a final exam for the course instead of having an internally written exam. Singer is correct in saying that shelf exams are also given during rotations.

so how do ross students fare against us med school students on the shelf exams?

and is there any correlation b/w how you do on the shelves versus the real step 1?

Say a Shelf score (raw) was 500. That calculates to a 71% according to the NBME. The Average for the class was 458.3.

What does all that mean? 500 out of what?

Hi does anyone have any good resources for thr ICM sHelf exams

Your 3rd and 4th semester classes are the best resource.

-M

Originally Posted by baz

Hi does anyone have any good resources for thr ICM sHelf exams

Originally Posted by Pepe22

Yes, US medical schools do use the shelf exams. In fact at various schools the shelf exams are used as a final exam for the course instead of having an internally written exam. Singer is correct in saying that shelf exams are also given during rotations.

As of my group-EVERYONE at Queens hosp. doing OB/GYN had to take the OB/GYN shelf (yes, there is one and it suprized us too) and 1/3 of our grade depended on the outcome of the test.They told us we would be tested,never specified when and at thursday sign out they said "oh-by the way,before yall turn in yo ID we needsyou to take this.We be e-mailin the grades to you."

Glad I paid attention cause the thing was HARD yo.