It feels great to come back to this forum. It’s really strange that no one
has added their exam experiences till date in spite of getting good scores. And
I also apologize for the delay in writing my
USMLE Step
1 Exam Experience too. I will keep it very short. If there are specific
queries I’ll be happy to answer them. I’m afraid I’ll write a long epic due to
my habit of writing too much.
PREPARATION
I’ve written all my preparation details in
USMLE Step 1 Preparation
log/diary thread. Preparation time was almost 1.5 months on and off and
intensive for 1 month. In my last month of prep (after I stopped writing on prep
log thread) I did my usmlerx qbank and score 72% mean score with range of 52%
initially to 80% in last days. I also went through few blocks of Kaplan Qbank
but did not like that much. I concentrated more on my
First Aid for the USMLE
Step 1 with lot of additions in it.
EXAM
Reached
Prometric a bit late but that made no difference as the staff and procedure
was smooth and people were co operative. I was very anxious till the day of exam
(sometimes felt very inadequate in prep) but as soon as I saw the first
question, I got relaxed (although I did not know the answer). I skipped the
tutorial as it’s the same as in the CD by
ECFMG. It fetched me extra
15 minutes break time.
All the blocks were of moderate difficulty and most were step 2 –3 answers (e.g.
a question described
achondroplasia in stem and asked for reason for this disorder - FGF3 was
answer given). Surprisingly I did not get many long questions. Most of them were
4-5 lines long. Lots of pictures and slides and CT/MRI were there. But there
should not be anything to worry as I could identify most of the disorders from
the stem itself.
Neuro-anatomy was tested heavily in context with pathology/physiology or lesions
and I would recommend chapter 1, 2 and 3 from
High Yield Neuroanatomy
for these questions. There were repetition of concepts in the questions and in
many questions they asked the same questions but asked the different ask of the
topic. Renal and Endocrines were hot favourite for my exam as I had expected
from the experiences of students on other forums. Overall
Pathology,
Physiology and
Pharmacology
constituted bulk of my exam. Almost all of the
Behavioural
science questions were based on ethics chapter and physician patient
relationship chapter of Kaplan (First Aid is inadequate for these).
High Yield Cell Molecular
Biology would be a good investment of time to understand the concepts
rapidly in a day or so as it was tested too (mostly lab techniques).
For rest all I found First
Aid for the USMLE Step 1 adequate to answer most of the questions. There
were questions which I thought were from other universe but they were hardly 5-6
in each block and I marked anything I wanted considering them to be the dummy
questions but there is no way to find if they were real questions.
ABOUT BREAKS
I had to take a break after every block and I was patting my back for skipping
the tutorial and adding 15 minutes for some large break for meals.
Unfortunately, every break consumed 8-9 min (yes no matter even if you don’t do
anything special during that time). It really takes time to check out, sign the
paper, visit washroom, drink water, eat a chocolate very fast, come back, sign
paper again, and go to the seat, ENTER THE LOOONG PASSWORD ON THE ORANGE CARD.
In 6 breaks all my break time was utilized and I never got time to have a lavish
15 min break. So know this very well while planning your breaks.
Suggestions I would firmly make (although I haven’t got my score)
BOOKS
Guys you need only 3 books to do really well on this exam
1. First Aid for the USMLE
Step 1 (recent 2006 edition) - bible for step1 prep
2. BRS Pathology
3. BRS Physiology
Also skim through first 3 chapters of
High Yield Neuroanatomy,
tables of ethics and physician patient relationships from Kaplan,
High Yield Cell Molecular
Biology.
I could answer most of the questions from first aid and almost ALL GRAPHS were
from First Aid.
Know well renal system physiology and endocrines.
Do questions, questions and questions. Although I did not practice questions
much I’d have done it if given some more time. I didn't find usmlerx / Kaplan
similar to the real exam but they were good to get some orientation. Especially
Kaplan is hopeless in questions but good in few explanations (I dint do much of
it though). I did not do NBME
forms but heard that these are very close to the real exam. I have no experience
with UW for step1.
DURING EXAM
Take break after every block. If you take break during block its irregular
behaviour (even if you only visit washroom). Take some quick food with you,
preferably energy drink and chocolates for high carbohydrate diet. Be calm and
don’t mark too many questions as you hardly get time to review them. If you
don’t know the answer to few questions, its fine, mark something and go ahead.
This is it for now… it is not that hard but not very easy too. It all depends on
your performance on the big day and presence of mind. They never test very
eccentric fundas so always try to focus on answers that are commonly tested.
I hope this will help at least few of you for planning your study and exam. I
will post again if I remember anything significant which I did not mention in
this post.
All the best!
Note: Originally posted by usmle1doc at
http://www.rxpgonline.com/threads28408.html . If you found this exam
experience helpful, then please keep the RxPG community spirit alive by
contributing your exam experience in
USMLE Step 1 forum as well.
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