Thread: please post your grades here

You can do it as a guess if you dont want people to know your grade, passing or failing please share your grade like this:


Test Date: Sept 18th
Score reported: Oct 11th
Date recieved: Oct 17th

nbme 1 (4 weeks out): 390/190
nbme 2 (2 weeks out): 460/209
nbme 4 (1 week out): 450/206
Kaplan Qbank: overall 62% (last 350 q's 68%)
Usmle CD (two days before): 68%


USMLE STEP ONE SCORE: 215/87

took test on 1/21/09

Score: 242 / 99

Background info: Ross student - terrible GPA, i'm not even sure what it is --- maybe a 2.5?

MCAT: 30 O (didn't really study for it cause my undergrad GPA sucked so much i knew i'd end up in the Caribbean)

Comp from Ross at the end of August - 71 --- which equates to between a 200 and 205

i took a month off from studying at this point --- really stuipd thing to do and started studying again in October.

NBME #1 (6 weeks out) - 77% correct --- didn't buy this one

USMLE free 150 Questions (5 weeks out) - 76% correct (80% through the first 2 blocks, then i got killed on the last block)

NBME #6 (4 weeks out) - 450 (206 step 1 equiv) --- i took this exam in about 2.5 hours total while I was hungover... it was the day after Christmas --- not my best move, but I wanted to get a score report quickly so I could know how I should best used my last 4 weeks of studying

NBME #3 (2 weeks out) - 540 (228 step 1 equiv)

USMLE World average - I started this in about October and ended my subscription about a month before i took the test. My overall average was 55% or so. Later blocks I was getting closer to high 50s or low 60s.

Resources I used:

First Aid - great resource, but not the first thing you should look to as a study guide. The first time I went through the first aid was 4 weeks before my exam. I went through it 2x, wrote in all my own notes. Came up with my own mnemonics when I had trouble remembering anything and wrote them in there. It really should be the central point of studying for the last month or so. But don't try to use it until you understand the concepts first. I loved the embryo section here. Every word in this book is high yield. 80% or so of the questions are from here. Also, i had about 4 questions that came directly from the High Yield Vignettes they chose to remove from the 2009 edition (although most of these were pretty easy, it still was nice to see questions i'd already seen and 100% knew the answer to).

Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple - I can't say enough good things about this book. It's really my favorite book. An extremely easy read. Shouldn't take more than 2 days of hard work to get through it and it really makes concepts that were previously difficult extremely easy. Everyone should read this before they start studying for the Step.

Clinical Micro Made Ridiculously Simple - Best micro resource. Read it cover to cover. It will help you learn all you need for micro. Plus it goes over antibiotics and anti-viral drugs. This along with first aid are all you'll ever need for Micro.

USMLE World - I really loved it. I did terrible on the questions, but it really helped me. It was really frustrating to keep getting scores in the 50s and 60s, but eventually, my failures on that Qbank drove me to study harder. A few things about it --- use tutor mode for Pharm. Do all the pharm questions on tutor mode and keep doing them till you get them all right. And even after that, do them all again. I drilled pharm into my head this way and i found that subject to be really easy after doing what I just said. Pharm should be the easiest points you get on the step. Make sure you don't leave those on the table. Other thing about it is that the software was exactly like the one they use on the actual step. I was really comfortable with the software on the step thanks to this site.

Falcon Online USMLE Review - Worst waste of money in the world for me. I went through almost all the lectures on this thing and it was terrible. Goljan isn't the guy teaching path in the online course, so that sucked. I really liked the Neuro teacher and the guy that taught endocrine path and endocrine phys. Some of the teachers were okay, some were just awful. I didn't like how they spent so many lecture hours on topics that weren't so high yield

Notes from Falcon Online Course - The notes were the best part about the course. Some of them were really good. I particularly liked the Immuno notes. They had great diagrams in many of the sections (particularly in renal path and immuno) which really helped me along the way. The biochem notes were really concise and had more pathways than first aid did. I guess a good textbook would've been just as good, but I did use the notes a little bit and liked it a lot more than the actual online lectures.

Goljan Audio lectures - everyone raves about how good these are, so i'm sure you all already know. I put these on an MP3 player and used to listen to them wherever I could (at the gym, cooking, cleaning, in the car). That was really helpful, cause even if i didn't get every detail while I was listening, it seemed to sink in well enough. I probably passively listented to these 3 times over 4 months

Clinical Neuroanatomy Made ridiculously Simple - too much info for step 1. I think the chapter in the clinical pathophys made ridiculously simple text + First Aid and the neuro chapter in BRS path was more than enough for Neuro.

USMLE Step 1 Made Ridiculously Simple - awful book --- okay for last minute review, but not worth it at all

BRS Path - One of my favorite books. I pretty much read it cover to cover. It was one of the last things I studied and really helped cement my path knowledge. Everyone should read this (note, i didn't use Goljan's path book, so i can't say which one is better, but i can say that I really liked the BRS)

Clinical Physio Made Ridiculously Simple - not good for this test. Too long, not high yield enough. Some nice schematic drawings in here that i really liked. wouldn't bother with it though

Step Up to USMLE Step 1 - very good book. Comprehensive review of everything (but it lacks quite a bit in terms of pharm, biochem. It doesn't really go into behavioral or micro at all). It does however do a great systems based review of embryo, path, physiology, pathophys. It ties it together and teaches concepts better than the first aid (this book taught me the difference between Cholecystitis and Cholangitis). If i had to pick between this and the first aid though, i'd take the first aid hands down. If you have time, it's a great book to go through.

Robbins and Contran Atlas of Pathology - I liked it a lot. It might have been huge overkill for Step 1, but it's a great book to have, and the pictures have good descriptions. Often with subjects I was struggling to remember, I'd browse through the pictures and read the descriptions and things would stick better. Not something to read cover to cover, but it is something to read.

Robbins Review of Pathology - must have book. It's just a bunch of questions with good explanations. I loved it. Must've done questions from at least 18 chapters of questions from here of the 30 chapters. I remember at least 6 questions on my step 1 that were almost verbatim from this book.

PASS Program notes - terrible. lots of errors. Don't use them under any circumstances.

Goljan High yield 100 or any of his other notes - I didn't like them. I know people that really liked them. The info within was solid, but too dense for me. I didn't retain reading from here.

Lange Pharmacology Flash Cards - didn't like these at all. I used my own handmade flash cards and liked them a lot more. Also, UWorld on tutor mode + First Aid was more than enough for Pharm

How you know you're ready to pass the test: about 50-60% of the questions you have on a practice test are easy to you (the types where you barely have to read the questions and you already know the answer).

How you know you're ready to do really well on the test: You're reading through a text and you start finding errors in it. about a week before the test, I was finding about 1 error per chapter in every book I was reading.

Thanks Blaze. Yo, I hope you dont mind me asking a few questions:
1.When did you begin doing world questions? During your studies or after you read everything at least once? Im debating whether to start world now or after Ive read the books Ive set aside.
2. This is long. I already read biochem and Im almost done reading CMMRS. man, its been 10 long days! I feel overwhelmed with the volume of info that Ive stuffed in so far. How did you do it? Should I just focus on reading the book (CMMRS), getting through everything once and then worry about the details later on as I do questions. For example.. today I read CMMRS virus section (around 90-100 total pgs) and tomorrow, I plan to do protozoa, but if you probably ask me tomorrow about viruses, I'd forgotten 2/3 of what I read. I guess my question is, when you where reading everything, was your main focus just getting through all the reads at least once then, going back and focusing on the detail like whether influenza was single, double strand, RNA, DNA, helical, segmented, on segmented,iscaehdral etc etc etc. Wow, thats a long question dude, sorry about that
3. Out of all your sources that you used, except first aid, which was the most helpful? world qbank?
4. Did you take notes from the qbank or did you just repeat questions till you felt you had a firm grasp of the concepts? Did you do random questions or by subject?
Yo, I know this was super long and I appreciate any advice. Nice score, good luck and thanks

Originally Posted by Agraphia

1.When did you begin doing world questions? During your studies or after you read everything at least once? Im debating whether to start world now or after Ive read the books Ive set aside.

I started Uworld questions the minute i started to sit down studying for the step... that's the main reason my QBank averages are so low for UWorld. I took the step mid-late January, but stopped doing questions about 1 month prior to that.

It never hurts to do questions and long as you read the explanations you'll learn something.

2. This is long. I already read biochem and Im almost done reading CMMRS. man, its been 10 long days! I feel overwhelmed with the volume of info that Ive stuffed in so far. How did you do it? Should I just focus on reading the book (CMMRS), getting through everything once and then worry about the details later on as I do questions. For example.. today I read CMMRS virus section (around 90-100 total pgs) and tomorrow, I plan to do protozoa, but if you probably ask me tomorrow about viruses, I'd forgotten 2/3 of what I read. I guess my question is, when you where reading everything, was your main focus just getting through all the reads at least once then, going back and focusing on the detail like whether influenza was single, double strand, RNA, DNA, helical, segmented, on segmented,iscaehdral etc etc etc. Wow, thats a long question dude, sorry about that

Short answer is the book has more info then you're going to need for Step 1. What you need for step 1 is condensed into First Aid. So read it just for the sake of learning as much as you can.

Long answer - The way I used the book was as a background reading book. What I mean by that is I'd read it whenever I was bored with studying everything else. If I was just sick of watching online lectures or sick of doing practice questions, I'd read that book. I got a nice overview of all bacteria. I kept in mind the fact that I won't need to know all the little details within the book, but I did try to retain as much as possible. After you read this book, reading the first aid micro section will be a lot easier.

I wouldn't bother reading the last part of CMMRS --- i might read about malaria, but 85% of questions on step are going to be about bacteria or viruses. Another 10% will be about fungi. Probably less than 5% will be about the rest (the other 5% will easily be covered in first aid with that chart they have).

For me, I read that book over the course of about 2 weeks. I read it all the way back in late October / early November. The way i learned viruses was every time I'd see a virus name mentioned in anything I was reading, i'd think in my head is it enveloped or naked, SS or DS, RNA or DNA. That's how most of the questions are.

Do the same thing with fungi, learn whether it's a yeast form, dimorphic, septate, non-septate, etc. All that info is high yield.

I still don't know the first thing about what the different parasites. Hell, i don't even know which organisms fall into hookworms vs. roundworms vs. pinworms.... but i can tell you the mechanism of action of every toxin of every major bacterial pathogen. You need to know every word of the micro section in First Aid. But reading CMMRS first makes learning the stuff in first aid a lot easier.

3. Out of all your sources that you used, except first aid, which was the most helpful? world qbank?

Most helpful was this Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple. I think it is the highest yield book I read. It teaches concepts really well and is an extremely easy read. I don't even know how else to describe it, but i really dumbs things down to the point where they just become easy to understand. It taught me stuff in such a way that it's burned into my mind. It shouldn't take more than 2 days to get through.

One more must have that most people don't use is Robbins Review of Pathology. Don't go through every chapter, only do the chapters where your scores are lowest for path. Do all the questions, and read all the explanations for that chapter. Even if you know the answer to the question, some of the explanations have stuff you may not know.

Other than that, UWorld - especially tutor mode for pharm.

Last thing i'd say was BRS Path + Goljan Lectures

4. Did you take notes from the qbank or did you just repeat questions till you felt you had a firm grasp of the concepts? Did you do random questions or by subject?

I did probably about 3/4s of UWorld questions. I never came close to getting through the whole Q-bank. I did get through 100% of the pharm questions though. someone elseo who posted in this same thread on one of the earlier pages suggested doing pharm on tutor mode. Until that point, I was just doing random questions. I did all the pharm questions again and again until I had a firm grasp on the concepts. But for the rest, i only did unused and random questions.

Any other questions feel free to ask. I got about 4 long weeks till I get my rotations schedule.... good luck to u

damn, I forgot one last question. What did you use for immuno? Thanks for the replies man

Originally Posted by Agraphia

damn, I forgot one last question. What did you use for immuno? Thanks for the replies man

Notes from Falcon + first aid --- falcon notes for this were great. Great diagrams, very simple, concise. I got through the notes in about 3 hours or so. It was more than overkill for the step. I think about every immuno question i had on the step could've been answered from first aid alone. But this gave me a better understanding than what i had before.

Hey Blaze,

I am Ross student too. I just took NBME 1 and got 560/232. Taking exam on March 30. What should i focus on now, first aid? I used kaplan videos and notes to study. I also took USMLE World 1st assessment and got 221 usmle eq on that. Please any advise. Was the exam similar to NBME or not. I am freaking out and feel that i forgot everything. By the way i took NBME 1 on Feb 28, 09. thanks

hi cubmd! good job! what were your study materials? how long did you study? thanks!

I got my score yesterday.
254/99
Didn't read First Aid. Didn't read books. Listened to Kaplan live lectures. Did most of World and most of QBank. Took World Assessment 1 at the outset of my studies and scored 221. Took 3 online NBME's, forms 1, 3, and 4 and scored 238, 234, and 244 respectively. Took World assessment 2 about a week before the exam and scored 256. Did two paper format NBME's and scored 236 and 232. Kaplan full length exam scored 73%. Total number of questions done is estimated at 5700.

My overall advice is to learn the material in your classes. That way there is less to review and the time leading up to the test can be spent refining the details, not learning the basics over again. Do questions, do questions, do questions. Don't just do questions, read the explanations. That's where you can find the details that will show up on your exam. If anybody has any further questions you can PM me.

does anyone know how long it takes to get ur score back? i know usmle.org gives an estimate of 3-4 wks...but i need to know exactly how long (in days) it took for those who have already received their scores! please reply to this...i am studying for step1 and need to use every last bit of time i get before starting my clinicals!!!

Hi Guys,

Just received my scores today and I am totally ecstatic. I had been a frequent visitor of this thread, atleast before I took the step, to predict my would be score. I guess now is my chance to give back.

Test Date: 12/11/2009

Resources Used: Kaplan videos, books and my notes from the basic sciences. NEVER read FIRST AID. It still looks as if brand new.

Questions Bank(s): USMLE world (a great way to learn. as its administrators say do not use this tool to assess your prepardness rather use it as resource to acquire the knowledge u didn't get elsewhere).

UW Cumulative Percentage: 70% (48 question blocks-timed, most blocks towards the end were random as opposed to those in the beginning which were more subject specific (~2-3 subjects per block)).

NBME 7: 640 (estimated step 1 score was 253, three days before the real deal)

Step 1: 252/99

Good luck everyone.