USMLE step 1 experience - score 243

Usmle step 1 experience ..

Assessments (serially)

Nbme 13 :25 mistakes (offline ,2.5 months before exam)

Nbme 15 : 246 (online, 45 days before)

Uwsa1 : 247 (38 days before )

Nbme 16 : 240 (online,31 days before )

Nbme 17 : 13 mistakes ( offline ,24 days before)

Nbme 18 : 250 ( online ,15 days before )

Nbme 19 : 25 mistakes , offline.12 days before 

Free 120 : 88 percent (10 days before)

Uwsa 2 : 258 (9 days before )

Usmle step 1 score : 243..

I am happy with my score .i expected more ..but I am happy ..

My exam was in 28th january and my wedding was in 1st february..i was under immense pressure during my study period.I have many health related problems. hypertension for 1 year..i take medicines regularly for this , asthma since childhood ,dns chronic sinusitis (operated once)and many more ..so if I can get a 243 ..then any medical student can do it I believe.

my main score was lower than uwsa 2 and nbme 18 ,which people say are the moost predictive..the reasons are 

-my exam was difficult and different than the assessments ..few questions were easy and concepts were directly from uw and nbme 17 and 18..but there were many new concepts in each block.spent like 2-3 minutes for em...1st block was the hardest .took whole 60 minutes to finish it ..and I couldn’t review any of the questions in any block.

- I got pharyngitis and tonsillitis with fever 3 days before the exam and couldn’t study at all ..just prayed to get well before the exam ..the only positive thing was , I was able to sleep the night before..

Study materials:

Kaplan all books except patho

Kaplan classroom videos 2014 for biochem(this is gold,dr turco is love), pharma (only general pharma, neuro and cardio), behavioral , physio (general physio ,cardio ,respiratory and acid base disorders) ,neuroanatomy 

pAthoma with videos..very good ..

100 cases of ethics by conrad fischer

30 dirty usmle questions for ethics from utube

Study period : 7 months 

Yog : 2017 may..finished internship in june 2018 .took 3 weeks gap from study which i had to .it slowed me down ..try not to take any long break in your preparation.

I studied 10-12 hours a day ..some days even more and some day less than 8 hours..in our country basic science and paraclinical are way different than usmle ..so it took aalmost 3 months for me to capture the concepts ..

Did kaplan with videos with pathoma and first read of fa in first 2.5 months 

Then started uworld online .first pass took 2 months .78%

Then did 2nd read of fa and took nbme 13 ..

Uworld 2nd round (timed and random) took 1 month [80 questions per day] :94 %

Then read fa 3 times with 2019 new additions (didn’t get any questions from them) and tried to do nbmes 1 week apart upto exam.

Kaplan books and videos : read once but biochem , resp and cardio physio twice

Pathoma :twice

Fa: 5 times ..but I recommend at least 7 times read of fa

Exam was mainly concept based and some questions were straight from memorization. I had a question about cyt p450 subdivisions ,answered it with my eyes closed🤪 .i was good in metabolism but got only one question from it and it was an experimental question..i am sure I got it wrong😅 ..

Some advice : 

>study biostat and epidem ..i got many questions from them ..got 3 questions from confidence interval

>Got 1 angiogram pic ..lateral chest xray pic ,brain cut section...i guess you guys should go through uworld pics at least twice .and ct/mri pics from kaplan

>study genetics and molecular biolgy cleverly..got many questions from them

>youtube all heart sounds ..i got 2 ..

> skip tutorial (its similar to free 120) and take 5-7 minutes break after each block .

>try to keep calm during the exam ..its an 8 hour long exam ..getting a low score doesnt mean ure a weaker student than others ..usmle is a game of perseverence ..keep faith in yourself ,cause u know u studied hard..u can do it ..

.ill try to answer any further questions in the comment sections ...thanks everyone.