My USMLE Step 1 Score !!!

I have been waiting all morning and the mail has finally arrived. I sort through the mail, palms sweaty, heart pounding, knees weak, sensing that today is the day. Amidst the pile of credit card bills, junk mail, and magazines...there it is! This is what I've been waiting for...the much anticipated envelope from none other than the ECFMG! I run through several scenarios in my mind. I've failed. No I haven't. I actually studied for this exam. Failing was never an option. I started this process working towards a 99, and I feel as though I have a legitimate chance at achieving this goal. I turn the envelope over and over with my shaking, sweating hands, attemping to muster the fortitude to open it. Ok, it's time. The moment of truth has arrived. Usually, I would open my mail with a blunt letter opener, but this time, I opt to do away with my normal mail opening ritual in favour of a more animalistic approach. I tear the envelope open with all the vigor of a child opening presents on Christmas morning. Inside, I find a rather unimpressive piece of paper, my future printed casually yet firmly on it. This is my golden ticket and the ECFMG is my Willy Wonka. And there it is. My score. Gasp! I rub my eyes. Is this for real or am I hallucinating? Am I holding the page upside-down? Is Elvis still alive? Nope! It's real!


The summer of hard work has paid off.
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99 / 248!

WOOOO-HOOOO!

Post-Exam Musings VIII

The mail has come and yet there lacks a certain envelope containing my score from the ECFMG. I thought today was my day. That's a mega boo-urns.

Anatomy: With the exception of the odd MRI, these were really easy. Just remember the major nerves and what happens when they are injured. No need to memorize every page of Moore. It's mostly clinical anatomy, so take advantage of the history given. There are clues everywhere.

Question length: Believe it or not, there were some really long questions. Like 7-10 lines in some cases. Thankfully, there were a bunch of 1 liners to balance things out. Without these, I surely would have run out of time on most of the blocks.

My score is coming tomorrow. I know it.

Post-Exam Musings VII

Ok, my friend, who wrote on the same day as me, got his score today. He passed. Nothing spectacular but he doesn't want to do anything competitive anyways.

Timing(2): Going to the test center early paid off. I actually got there an hour early and was able to start 45 minutes early which was nice.

Neuro: I feel as though there was a disproportionate amount of neuro questions on my exam. Not that I wasn't prepared for it, but I would have appreciated a wider spread of questions. The questions were pretty reasonable, and some of the questions that included pictures could actually be deduced simply from the history alone.

Physio: These were pretty easy. Lots of hormones and questions asking what would happen to compound A given situation B.

Post-Exam Musings VI

Where the hell is my score? I called ECFMG and they told me the letter was mailed on September 15. How can it possibly take this long for a letter to go from the USA to, hmmm, where I live. Where do I live anyways? This is getting really annoying. Most of my friends now have their scores, and, so far, everyone has passed.

Timing: I took a break after almost every block. For some reason, I had to pee during the entire exam. I had a swig of coffee just to get me going in the morning, and, combined with a bit of pre-exam anxiety, the perfect storm for pee formation was created. As I've mentioned before, Kaplan random blocks of 50 took me less than 30 minutes, most of the time. On the real exam, I found I went a lot slower, and had less than 10 minutes remaining on every block. Some blocks, I only had 4-6 minutes remaining at the end. Given my liberal question check-marking strategy, this was some cause for concern -- getting through 15 marked questions in 4 minutes was something of a task. The actual process of going pee took several steps -- signing out, running down the hall, flashing my passport and signing back in. Even though there were over 15 people writing Step1 or 2 at the same time, I never encountered any queues during the sign-on process (save the initial process at the start of the exam)

Where the hell is my score?

Post-Exam Musings V

Holy crap! I just remembered I actually had a question on Digeorge syndrome! I couldn't believe it. I almost started laughing during the exam when I saw it.

Talking to some friends recently, I discovered that I completed my exam relatively unscathed. Two people either had complete or partial mouse failures during the exam! For the price we're paying, you would think they could buy some resonably new equipment.

First Aid: everything on the exam is NOT in First Aid. However, if you just want to pass the exam, FA will have everything you need, just not everything you want. But as the philosopher Jagger once said...

Why can't ECFMG just provide our scores online??? It's been over a month now and nothing from ECFMG yet. Starting to get anxious now...

Post-Exam Musings IV

How similar was Kaplan to the real thing. Hmmm, lets see. Overall, I think the real thing was harder than Kaplan. I think the real thing tended to make you think a little harder, and after a while, Kaplan really does repeat lots of questions/concepts. There weren't any really rare diseases on my Step 1 exam, but Kaplan had a fair bit of esoterica which I don't think was relevant for me.

Goljan: Ok fine, the dude know's what he's talking about, but when he says stuff like "this is definitely on the exam", it's more than likely not. I didn't have a single question that he talked about. Also, all of those high-yield lists are mostly low-yield. No buzzwords on my exam at all.

It's almost time for my scores to arrive. Won't be long now!

Post-Exam Musings III

Did I mention there was hardly any pathology and pharmacology on my exam? Well, there you have it. It's unfortunate because these were my best subjects at school, and also my best subjects in Kaplan. Oh well...can't win them all.

Behavioral Science: based on the questions I saw, I regret even studying for this subject. The questions were all situations which you really can't study for. Use common sense and perhaps think about spending more time on your weaker subjects.

Biochemistry: lots of biochem on my exam! I didn't really mind because I did actually spend a good amount of time reviewing it. You can work almost all of these out if you know the major pathways.

Post-Exam Musings II

The horror! The horror! I stay up at night something thinking about random questions that I encountered on Step 1. At this point, I’m sure about 15 questions that I answered incorrectly. The list keeps growing and it’s making me agitated. It’s been 2 weeks now and I expect to see my score in a few more weeks.

What else? There were lots of photos on my exam. Most were pretty good quality. The problem was, sometimes the location of the arrows were ambiguous. For example, are they pointing to the blob, or the space above the blob? It’s an important distinction, and I had some trouble deducing what they were pointing getting at.

Math: Very little math. I was expecting more, and maybe even wanted a bit more, but I think there were less than 5 questions on my exam that involved numbers.

Dry erase board: Make sure this thing is clean before you walk in! Mine had some semi-permanent marks on it and it was annoying.

Lunch: Scope out the place before exam day and decide where you want to eat. Find a quiet corner away from the freaks studying at lunch.