Alhamdulillah I finally got my score and
This is my Step 1 experience
Exam on 27th March 2019
Result on 17th April 2019
Target score 240+
Actual score 250
Total study time 15 months (almost 5 months interrupted no study) average 4 hours per day (very slow and bad time management with 8-4 Job)
Dedicated study time 2 months (12-14 hours per day)
All assessment online and in this order
NBME 13 (8 weeks out) 221
NBME 15 (6 weeks out) 236 (24 mistakes)
NBME 16 (4 weeks out) 240 (22 mistakes)
NBME 17 (2 weeks out) 240 (20 mistakes)
UWSA 1 (8 days out) 260 (29 mistakes)
UWSA 2 (5 days out) 254 (27 mistakes)
NBME 18 (2 days out) 252 (18 mistakes)
Study material:
-First Aid (4 runs total)
-Uworld (started very late so I ran out of time and had 290 unused questions)
-Kaplan videos and books for almost all subjects (kaplan was phenomenal in my opinion in Immunology by Dr kim and Biochem by Dr turco, anatomy not so much, physio and pharm were fair)
-Micro from sketchy (Highly recommended for great recall)
-Pathology from pathoma (Highly recommended after other basics as it had great integration)
Things I think I did right:
-studied subjects with first aid hand in hand. eg. I would study anatomy from kaplan then go over anatomy from every chapter in First aid.
-I would recommend to add uworld to that as well so eg. (anatomy from kaplan or whatever source, then anatomy from first aid, then anatomy from uworld) and annotate uworld in FA (VERY IMPORTANT)
-took 2 months off from work for my dedicated study
-Did 7 block uworld timed with strict environment for food and breaks as to simulate exactly how the exam will be and noting where my focus falters and how I fair and how my break distribution is …etc)
Things I think I did wrong:
-Wasted so much time with kaplan as I repeated it multiple times (DONT DO THIS) once for concepts to be clear is more than enough then HAMMER first aid and uworld in.
-had interrupted times with no study which slowed me down immensely (set a dedicated time plan and just do it)
-Used assessments extremely late (last 3 only used for score prediction and for the questions rather than actual areas to improve cause they were less than a week before my exam)
use assessments not too early so that you have nothing to predict with and not too late so you don’t have time to improve on weak areas.
During the exam felt a bit overwhelmed during the first block as I was thinking “this is IT the end of what I prepared for all this time” but tried to keep my composure and stay focused and muscle through.
After the exam I honestly felt like I sh*t the bed and that I did awful. Recalled a few silly easy questions I got wrong, few more I wasn’t sure about and kept contemplating how badly I would score (completely normal to feel just stay busy and keep your mind off of it and just wait for those 3 weeks to pass and get your score)
Trust your Preparation
Sorry if this was too long of a read
good luck to all of you in achieving what you want
Glad to answer any questions