Passed QE! (483)
Got my QE1 result yesterday and scored a 483. I found Reddit pretty helpful when I was preparing, especially because it was hard to figure out what resources were actually worth using, so I thought I’d do a quick write-up.
Background:
CSA studying medicine in the UK. I had already written Step 1 and Step 2 before QE1, so I definitely had a pretty solid medicine base going into it.
Prep:
I mainly used ACE Qbank. I ended up doing all of the bank and was usually scoring somewhere in the high 70s to low 80s. I also did the MCC practice exams closer to the actual exam.
My MCC practice scores were around 81 to 85%.
Towards the end, I focused a lot more on the Canadian-specific stuff rather than trying to relearn medicine. Screening guidelines, ethics, public health, preventive care, consent/capacity, and the random Canadian guideline differences were probably the highest yield things to review.
I tried QbankMD briefly as well in the last two weeks and it was actually pretty helpful and got me some points on the exam, but ACE was definitely my main qbank.
Exam day:
Honestly walked out having no idea how I did. There were definitely some weird questions and quite a few where I was between two answers. I also remembered a bunch of questions afterwards that I knew I had gotten wrong, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on how you feel coming out of it.
Result: 483
Biggest advice:
If you already have a strong clinical knowledge base, I don’t think you need to go crazy with resources. Get used to the MCC style, know the Canadian screening/prevention guidelines, and spend time on ethics. The MCC practice material was probably the most useful thing for understanding how they actually ask questions.
Also, don’t panic if the real exam feels harder or weirder than the practice exams. I definitely did not walk out thinking I had scored anywhere near this.
Happy to answer any questions about the exam/prep!