My step one experience...

[Ella]

I was asked to make this a new post instead of having it in the "Good luck" thread....so here it is again.

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So I’m done the exam. Wow is all I can say. I’m sorry for not posting earlier but I needed this weekend to just recover. My body simply crashed after the exam!

Well here are my thoughts on the content of the material tested:

• I was scared about getting a lot of CTs/MRIs etc….but I got maybe 20 questions like that. And it was pretty much either you knew it or didn’t.
• Anatomy – Brachial plexus lesions, innervations of the hand, cranial nerves and the tracts, anal and bladder sphincter innervations….pretty much the standard things that I had expected.
• Histo/Embryo – There was actually a lot of histo. At least more than I had expected there too be. Most of these questions were with histo slides. Not as much embryo. Actually….I only remember like 2 embryo questions.
• Biochem/genetics – lots of questions from this section. These questions had the flow charts and had answer choices labeled in the flow chart diagrams. The genetics questions were nothing like the ones I practiced. A lot of clinical experiments and trials….a lot of molecular biochem…
• Physio – surprisingly, there was not much pure physio questions…there were some…but not as many as I thought there would be. There was more patho-physio questions. I would say that the patho-physio questions fell in two categories…either they were “you know it or don’t” type….or it was being asked in a clinical experimental fashion – similar to the molecular bio questions.
• Pharm – A lot of pharm. But here is the thing….all questions banks have pure pharm questions. Meaning that all the answer choices were pharm related. But a lot of the questions that I got on the actual exam had answer choices that were not related to pharm….For example, a question would be a full paragraph long describing the past medical history with a series of complaints in the patient. And the question would ask what is causing the illness……..and the answer choices would include everything from pysch disorders,….pathology…..and then finally one of the answers would be some drug side effect. And the correct answer is the drug’s side effect. So really they are testing pharm…but if you didn’t catch on….you might have never known it was a pharm question!!
• Pysch/Ethics – WOW. Those ethics questions are HARD! There were some there 4 out of the 7 answer choices were in my opinion correct! So it was very tricky. I thought they would be easy points….but nope…They are tough and there were like 5 in each block. They are nothing like Kaplan or UW ethics questions!
• Biostats – Simple. Either you know the calculation or didn’t. I forgot one equation that I needed so I was kicking myself over it.
• Pathology – Well what can I say about path?! Tough but fair I think. Like I felt that there is just so much to know with path that you can’t possibly know everything. And I would get a question where I knew exactly where the answer was in my notes…but couldn’t remember it. I would be able to narrow these questions down to 2…and then just guess. The path questions were really heavy on the nit-picky details.
• Micro/Immuno – The immuno questions were ok….kind of like UW questions. I thought the micro ones were tough. There were no questions with “keywords’ that would give away the answer. There were a lot of micro pics on my exam. Both slides and clinical gross pictures.

Here are a few miscellaneous things I can say about the exam:

• A lot of clinical experiments type questions
• A lot of Drug X is this and Drug Y is this type of questions
• A lot of details tested.
• I had no physio calculations. The only calculations I had was for genetics which I purely guessed on, and then biostats.
• 50% of the answer choices were A – E…..and the remaining 50% of the answer choices were A - N
• I saw NO repeated questions from NBME.

Finally, a few things about actually taking the exam:

• I never had a problem with time when I was doing questions at home. But on the exam, my first block I was VERY rushed. I know I lost a lot of points on my first block because of time. Maybe because I was very nervous and had to clam down…..but after that the rest of the blocks I would finish with about 5 mins left. So just because you can do 50 questions in less than 60 mins at home….on exam day it’s totally different.

• I took a break after each block for 5 mins. Then after block 4 I took a longer break. And after block 6 I took the longest break. I washed my face with cold water after each block just to get a jolt.

• It’s a test of endurance. You really work on a sub-conscience level by the time you hit block 4. Last min cramming information does NOT come back to you. It’s very much what you know subconsciously at that point.

• I did 20 questions in the morning before I left the house. This got my mind warmed up and the gears turning. But I did 20 old questions (not new ones) so that I wouldn’t panic if I didn’t know the answer. I highly recommend this. Just doing those 20 old questions for 15 mins in the morning helped me a lot.

• The day before the exam I didn’t study at all. I wanted to. Trust me, I came back to this forum and read so much about other ppl having a lot of neuro in the exam. And I was so scared. So I really wanted to open up my books….but I didn’t. Lets hope it was the best decisions.

Well I can’t think of anything else at this point. All I can do is pray that I passed. They say that the worse you think you did the better you actually do….well I hope that is true. I feel very scared. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the next three weeks of waiting!

My only advice to anyone else preparing for the boards is this:

• DO UW right from the start. Don’t wait till you have “reviewed everything once”
• Do NBME’s periodically throughout your studies and see if you are improving.
• Know the details. The exam does not test the 80% high yield information. They test the 20% detailed information.
• Pray.

Thank you all so much for the encouragement and help…..without this forum I don’t think I would have gotten through the past 4 months of studying. Sorry if this post was long….just thought I’d get it all out before I forgot it!

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to PM me. I will post again when I get my scores…..and let you all know how it went. I am praying I see those red letters. I wanted to get over 200….but now a passing score would be a miracle.

- Ella

[schoolagain]

It has to be a great feeling to be done. I will pray for grace for your while you wait these few weeks. I am positive you did great, your prep scores were good and you went in prepared. That is all you could ask for. Looking back, what would you say you would do different? And what do you think prepared you the most? Any advice would be most welcome as I am in the same boat as you were just a few days ago.
Thank you Ella...and I know you did great

[step1study]

i was really anxiously waiting for you to post your experience (lol). I am sure you did great....GOOD LUCK and let us know the good news in 3 weeks

[stateofequilibrium]

Get some rest, PAAAARTY!

[doctor_dream]

hey ELLA, you took it already...WOW CONGRATS. i used to read your posts before.

You got lots of MOLECULAR AND GENETICS...DAMN. How are these questions? I mean are they doable or totally impossible. Also what about neuro??? Lately, i have been reading that almost everyone is getting bombarded with MOLECULAR/GENETICS and NEURO...wassup with STEP 1 people???why are they doing that...Almost everyone who has posted on valuemd recently is complaining of this???? Also, when you guys write A LOT DOes that mean like 10 questions in every block or like 30 questions every block and the rest are some other discipline.

[MDXRS22]

Thanks for sharing, Ella

[stateofequilibrium]

Originally Posted by doctor_dream

hey ELLA, you took it already...WOW CONGRATS. i used to read your posts before.

You got lots of MOLECULAR AND GENETICS...darn. How are these questions? I mean are they doable or totally impossible. Also what about neuro??? Lately, i have been reading that almost everyone is getting bombarded with MOLECULAR/GENETICS and NEURO...wassup with STEP 1 people???why are they doing that...Almost everyone who has posted on valuemd recently is complaining of this???? Also, when you guys write A LOT DOes that mean like 10 questions in every block or like 30 questions every block and the rest are some other discipline.

Molecular, genetics, and immuno are becoming HUGE apparently. Had tons on my test. BRS Cell bio book is fairly good. Kaplan has almost next to nothing.

[Ella]

Schoolagain - If i could do anything differently it would have been spend more time with Rapid Review (Goljan) and his HY notes. Also I wish I didn't save memorizing stuff to the last few weeks. Lastly, I wish I had spent more time with the smaller courses such as anatomy, neuro (not so small anymore!), and cell bio.

Doctordream - yes there was a lot of neuro and cell bio on the exam. To be honest, all the HY books....ie FA does not cover nearly enough cell bio that is needed for the exam. I recommend you pick up a cell bio/molecular genetics book from basic sciences and learn the material from the text itself. I don't think the UW cell bio concepts are enough at all. Remember, these questions are normally tested in a clinical trial/experiment situation....and I haven't seen any question bank out there that gives you practice questions like that.

I think in general the questions where they describe an experiment or a hypothetical scenario, are hard only due to the time restraint. Like when you start reading it you just sit there wondering what they are even talking about.....but then if you pick apart each sentence the question stem ends up making sense. Once you fig out what they are asking, you can normally narrow down the answer choices. I think if time was not an issue on the exam these types of questions would be a lot easier because you can take your time in understanding what they are asking and work your way through it. But because you are short on time it seems harder as you have to rush through it - and then you end up not understanding the question stem itself. At least that's what I thought.

Not to say I got them right, but I’m sure that if I had a few more mins per question I would have been able to make a better guess at the answer!

[schoolagain]

Ella,
Thank you for answering. As you know the nerves are husge right now. I am less than four weeks out and very stressed. Did you do Kaplan q Bank and USMLE world?
Thank you

[Ella]

No I did not do Kaplan Qbank. Heard it was a waste of time....

I did UW questions ......twice....and sometimes some questions three times. Hope it'll be worth it....still waiting for my scores.