USMLE Step 3 experience
Hi all! This group has been of great help during my step 3 prep over the last few months. I was mostly a silent observer, but learned a lot from the discussions in the group. As I stated in a previous post, my step 1 and step 2 scores have not been that great, but I still decided to take a chance with step 3.
Prep time: 5 months (May to September). I was working part time, but I was never able to study more than 5-6 hrs a day on a good day.
Resources used: Uworld for step 3 ( Qbank + bio stats review + CCS), Ccs cases . com, Crush CCS (before day 2) and my own notes from step 2 CK prep, Randy Neil biostats video on youtube (3-4 videos 3 weeks before exam and 1 review video the night before exam), First Aid for Step 1 (pharmac, microbiology, pathology and automomic drugs)
Timeline: Started with Ccs cases . com to get used to the software and learn what these cases are about. I did 50 cases at that time and stopped. I think that gave a good idea about what kind of cases I can expect on the exam. After that I did uworld biostats and then went on to qbank. I solved the qbank once and then reviewed half of my wrong before resetting it, but I was bored of qbank so started the uworld ccs cases. I only did the interactive cases fully and just read few of the practice cases which I felt were very important. Around a month before I actually took the test I also reviewed my own own notes from CK and I felt like it really helped me remember all those concepts I had started to forget since the time I took CK and that helped me gain back confidence when I took my last assessment (UWSA2). I reviewed step 1 stuff only in the last 10 days.
NBME 5: 370 (2 months before)
UWSA 1: 207 (1.5 months before)
NBME 4 : 370 (3 weeks before)
UWSA 2: 215 (10 days before)
Free 120: 75% (3 days before)
Day 1 : I got to the test centre an hour before the exam to beat the rush of signing in. Thankfully it was a saturday and was not as busy. As soon as I got to my spot, even before I entered exam code, I wrote down ALL the important biostats formulas. There is one Randy Neil video in which he goes which ones those are and I wrote all of those plus 2-3 more that I felt were important and of course the 2 x 2 tables. I felt all that prep made me do really well on my biostats section and frankly I think that might be what helped me get a half decent score. I felt the questions were exactly what I was expecting them to be like. There was a lot of step 1 content, but I think the majority of it (60% or more) is still CK/step 3 style questions. The ethics and behaviour science questions are the worst. They seem simple, but you feel like you are still guessing on almost all of them. I always left the drug ads for the end of the block. Even in the drug ad questions I did the mathematical questions first and not the interpretation questions, as those take up a lot of time. Coming out of the centre I felt good and if I end up failing, it will not be because of day 1.
Day 2: I had 10 days between day 1 and day 2. I finished the remaining 50 cases from Ccs cases . com in the first 3 days. But after that I was sick of the software. I tried to read the practice cases from uworld but even that felt like a lot of information. Especially the discussions at the end of the cases. I decided to review the qbank for a day or 2 for a change and did about 250 questions in 2 days. I still had 3-4 days to go before exam and that’s when I picked up crush CCS. Crush CCS felt much more manageable and did not go into too much details, which was good as a review. On the day of exam I felt the questions were more or less a mix of nbme and uworld style questions. Lots of patient encounter style questions and prognosis questions as well. I felt like I did okay in the questions.
CCS though was nerve wrecking for me. The first case looked simple enough, but then when the patient wasn’t improving it made me nervous. I eventually figured out and managed it, but only after 2 negative updates. That first case just threw me off. There were only about 4-5 cases in which I did not end up getting any negative updates and finished early. I had 1 negative update in 3 cases. 2-3 negative updated in rest and 1 case I still did not know what was going on. When I got done with the last case I just stared at my screen thinking what just happened. When I was signing out I saw there were 5-6 more people who took step 3 that day and all had left before me. I could tell they were already doing residency at the university close to where I live and felt stupid to have taken the test.
I had to take a mini vacation just to clear my head after day 2. But a day or 2 before the result the flashbacks started again and I was prepared for the worst.
But praise be to God, I checked my score tuesday night and saw that amazing 4 letter word, PASS.
Actual score 225.
I hope this helps all those who were asking me to write my experience. I am caught up in completing my ERAS applications, but I will try to answer questions a day or 2 more.