sachida
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 626
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I did exam yesterday.
Many of new members in the forum may not know about me but just taking exam by itself was major acheivement for me.
I did step 1 in May 05 (got 93). After that series of unfortunate events and fortunate events (arrival of baby) made it extremely difficult to get on with step 2. With full time job, new junior faculty position and other responsibilites I dont know how many times I made time table that I could not sustain. Getting 2 hrs of studying everyday was too difficult.
Finally, i took 3 weeks off, prepared full time and took exam yesterday.
I was in for a real shock. Exam sounded really really difficult. Question stems were very long (compared to USMLE test practice material and even NBME form 1 & 2), poorly worded and confusing. Atleast 60-70% questions had >10 choices. After narrowing them to 2-3, I had to re-read the question to actually guestimate the answer. and that meant I almost always ran out of time, had not time to go back to my marked questions.
My first block itself was so difficult that at the end I missed actually reading a question and just clicked blindly on answer. I had >15 questions each block that I was very unsure. In practice test, I was having 5-8 minutes spared for each block, in real exam none were avaiable.
I knew from step 1 that atleast 2 blocks are significantly difficult than others. And unfortunately my first two blocks were the same. It felt like I went into a fight with mike tyson and got punched in face in the first minute. From that point on, it become fight of survival not domination. I went into rest room, washed my face and kept telling myself that I can do this. Second block was not much different. It started getting little easier as time went by, in contrast to my step 1. Last two blocks went fast, complete contrast to step 1 too.
At the end, I think I messed up quite a bit, I jus hope I had decent enough performance to move on with my life.
For material, my exam was very different from others have reported. Medicine was not even 40%, pediatrics and ob-gyn were very very prominent. lots of question on MVA, infertility. There were plenty of zebras too.
My advice, take usmle world seriously and work your behind off, if you want to do well.
And please dont forget to pray for me.
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Past is a history. Tomorrow is a mystery. What you have today is gift of God- that is why it is called present. Enjoy it...
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| drms
Forum Guru
Topics: 14
Posts: 947
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Hi sachida 
Congratulations for doing your exam
And thanks for sharing your experience & your advice
Please dont worry many people find it soo difficult though still they get a good score i hope u will too
Its time to rest & relax
I wish to CONGRATULATE u soon for a good score
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| dr_puma
Forum Guru
Topics: 40
Posts: 542
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Hi Take it easy im sure u did well !!!!how do i know?ok i can read minds .....via computer screens
kidding but it feels that way if u r very keen on a got result.......i mean 99 or something
people usually underestimate how well they did.
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| sachida
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 626
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thanks drms and dr_puma for your support. I think, I am very disappointed because I had high hopes. I was doing reasonably well on nbme I did offline, I think I got around 8 wrong in each block. But in real exam, it just sounded really difficult.
I dont want to scare people with my experience, and I am not suggesting exam is not fare. I just want to point out that make sure you read well, work hard and again really think how you will be tested in exam.
My suggestion would be group questions and diseases. For example, one should prepare all differential of headache, rash, abdominal pain and think it though, that is what exam forces us to do. And I think I was confused a lot because I was not prepared for it.
good luck to all, I will just try to live through the agony of three weeks of waiting.
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Past is a history. Tomorrow is a mystery. What you have today is gift of God- that is why it is called present. Enjoy it...
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| Ivonne
Find a way or make one
Topics: 58
Posts: 1,654
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Hi Sachida,
I am glad to know that you are done with this exam. Everyone has mixed feelings after the test, don't worry it is part of the post exam syndrome. Try to focus on the match application now and keep your mind busy.
The best of luck for a great score!
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"Believe you can and you're half way there."
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| vikramsarva
Forum Newbie
Topics: 3
Posts: 15
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hi sachida hope u will get the score you wanted. goodluck.thanks for sharing your experience and advice.
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| slw33
Forum Newbie
Topics: 4
Posts: 9
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i took the exam aug 1 and am feeling similar. sachida, hoe did you do on the practice tests or nbme.people keep telling me to go by that.
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| USMLEGladiator
2009 & still in race
Topics: 135
Posts: 509
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hi sachida. i know u from step1 days. my situation similar to u. yet to give ck . keep up da high spirits. u will do well.
is it useful to focus on management qs? how were qs like---management oriented or daignosis oriented? approx. % age?
gud luck
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| sachida
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 626
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slw33, i did not do online NBME. I did 2007 material sample test and had 40, 36, 41 correct on 3 blocks.
For nbme offline I did about 2 random blocks from and I had about 40 correct on each of them. (atleast based on answer keys generated by people)
UW I would put myself average 60% on first attempt
so I dont have any firm idea where I belonged. But for sure, exam was much more tougher to me and I missed many simple questions because I was struggling with time and getting confused in my head.
good to see you usmlegladiator, I hope whatever demons you are facing, you can overcome and make headway. because medicine is true calling for me and God given destiny and I am incomplete unless I am practicing medicine. For your questions regarding management, I will be honest, its cloud in my head about real questions or percentage of them in exam. But there were plenty mainly in psychiatry where they asked to choose pharmacological agent best suited for the patient.
In medicine also they had some unique pt situations, that ofcourse I can not reveal but they asked to choose drug for management of chronic disorders in them.
I would say overall diagnosis was almost 40% for all diciplines. management may be 15% and next step for40% of them. I had none like best dianostic step in the situation.
I would ask you to go over some murmur hearing practice and may be access to webpath to go over all ct pictures. Once I got were purely awful and short in descriptions so not sure how can you address that.
good luck
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Past is a history. Tomorrow is a mystery. What you have today is gift of God- that is why it is called present. Enjoy it...
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| sachida
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 626
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I just wanted to know where in oasis or iwa the result shows up? or do you get in email?
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Past is a history. Tomorrow is a mystery. What you have today is gift of God- that is why it is called present. Enjoy it...
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| falcon
Forum Guru
Topics: 27
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Hi, sachida
Yes u will get e-mail also. U can find ur score on OASIS in the section of " score reporting", this will be on the left sided column in the 3rd place from above. Just click that u will find a pdf icon , then click this with control on ur heart and here is ur score.
GL
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| falcon
Forum Guru
Topics: 27
Posts: 478
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ur score reporting time is exactly 10.00 AM eastern time of USA, on wednesday
GL
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| sachida
Forum Guru
Topics: 62
Posts: 626
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very nervous for the results. I went to oasis and clicked on the score reporting.
There it says that I did not take step 2. (I had earlier registered last year and did not do the exam) So I am not sure why that information is not updated.
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Past is a history. Tomorrow is a mystery. What you have today is gift of God- that is why it is called present. Enjoy it...
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| HGPRTase
Forum Senior
Topics: 7
Posts: 101
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"For material, my exam was very different from others have reported. Medicine was not even 40%, pediatrics and ob-gyn were very very prominent. lots of question on MVA, infertility. There were plenty of zebras too. "
hi sachida, what are "zebras"? sorry, i don't know if it's some medical parlance i'm unaware of! please enlighten me. thanks 
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| SORAN
Forum Newbie
Topics: 2
Posts: 26
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HGPRTase
When you hear hoofs pounding ,you think HORSES not ZEBRAS
it means think of common interpretation (a horse) and not a rare one(zebra)
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| bioguy
Forum Guru
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Sachida, did you get your score?
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| nightflight1945
banned
Topics: 32
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sachida wrote:
I was in for a real shock. Exam sounded really really difficult. Question stems were very long (compared to USMLE test practice material and even NBME form 1 & 2), poorly worded and confusing. Atleast 60-70% questions had >10 choices. After narrowing them to 2-3, I had to re-read the question to actually guestimate the answer. and that meant I almost always ran out of time, had not time to go back to my marked questions.
You're exagerating the case . >10 choices for more than 70% of questions ??? For many clinical scenarios we don't even have more than 10 DDs to put down in the choices ! even if they put , most of them can be ruled out in the first look.
sachida wrote:
My first block itself was so difficult that at the end I missed actually reading a question and just clicked blindly on answer. I had >15 questions each block that I was very unsure. In practice test, I was having 5-8 minutes spared for each block, in real exam none were avaiable.
I knew from step 1 that atleast 2 blocks are significantly difficult than others. And unfortunately my first two blocks were the same. It felt like I went into a fight with mike tyson and got punched in face in the first minute. From that point on, it become fight of survival not domination. I went into rest room, washed my face and kept telling myself that I can do this. Second block was not much different. It started getting little easier as time went by, in contrast to my step 1. Last two blocks went fast, complete contrast to step 1 too.
Please do not make any rumors , Who says there is always 2 or more difficult blocks in the real exam.
sachida wrote:
At the end, I think I messed up quite a bit, I jus hope I had decent enough performance to move on with my life.
For material, my exam was very different from others have reported. Medicine was not even 40%, pediatrics and ob-gyn were very very prominent. lots of question on MVA, infertility. There were plenty of zebras too.
Completely false , Medicine less than 40% , not at all.It is your bias .
There is plenty of zebras in the exam , I don't believe it ,. Do not relate your weakness in preparation or lack of knowledge to zebras or test problems . This exam is a standard one with little zebras in it . yes I admit that there are zebras , but very few that doesnot have any effect on the final score.
Do not try to scare or frighten the others just because you did not do well in the exam . I have taken both steps and I say that both are really fair and just with little zebras.
BTW , it is a standardized exam , so it means that the level of difficulty is relatively the same for all , the number of zebras are the same for all and .... .
Be aware that some poor guys out there who are going to start their preparation , read this forum.Just putting some hopeless , frightening statements here to justify your lack of preparation or to rationalize your weakness is not fair at all .BE HONEST
Edited by nightflight1945 on 09/10/08 - 08:13 AM
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| HGPRTase
Forum Senior
Topics: 7
Posts: 101
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thanks soran. sorry, i'm not a native english speaker. 
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| akm
Forum Elite
Topics: 17
Posts: 234
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Sorry nightflight, but I think all the examples that you provided were in fact honest. Even though the test is standardized, everyone's test is a little different...those people were being honest in what they felt about their exam!....even my friends often found one block was harder than another block....its all relative to the exam taker....so relax.
Thanks everyone for posting theu experiences...and keep doing so! My exam is coming up
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| akm
Forum Elite
Topics: 17
Posts: 234
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Sorry nightflight, but I think all the examples that you provided were in fact honest. Even though the test is standardized, everyone's test is a little different...those people were being honest in what they felt about their exam!....even my friends often found one block was harder than another block....its all relative to the exam taker....so relax.
Thanks everyone for posting their experiences...and keep doing so! My exam is coming up
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