Just looking for someone who is on the same boat as me .. stressed done with exams and don’t know what to do.. img with zero usce.. need someone to talk to .. going through some life problems as well ..
Hi guys when is the last date to take OET for ECFMG pathway certification?
Hey all . I had my OET speaking at home scheduled for today but due to technical difficulties I was late to the session. And my proctor said we won’t be able to continue the session and rebook my exam . I am soo demotivated and sad . I have my other sub tests on Thursday . Scared this might happen again. Need help pleaseeee
So I just wanted to share my experience passing Step 1 with relatively low NBME scores, because on Reddit you rarely see stories like this. A lot of people will tell you that if you’re not consistently scoring above 70 or sometimes even above 60 you should delay your exam.
I studied for this exam for about a year, but it was very on and off. I only had around 3 months of actual dedicated study time, and even that wasn’t a “perfect” dedicated period. I never properly finished First Aid, never used Mehlman PDFs, and didn’t really watch content videos. The main thing I used was UWorld and NBMEs.
I completed around 76% of UWorld with a 59% average, and I didn’t even finish the biostatistics section. Other than that, I mainly focused on NBMEs.
My scores were:
- NBME 26 (baseline, around 7 months before exam): 47%
- NBME 31 (2 months later): 57%
- NBME 32 (during dedicated): 64%
- NBME 33: 64%
- NBME 30 (1 week before exam): 56%
NBME 30 honestly destroyed my confidence. I felt like it was the hardest form, and I had no idea why my score dropped so badly. I started panicking after that and began reviewing NBME concepts more carefully. That’s when I realized that the NBMEs often test the exact same concepts repeatedly, just in different ways.
Two days before my exam, I ended up doing NBME 29 because I was panicking. I never scored above 70 on any NBME, and I also got only 60% on the new Free 120.
At that point, I just decided to take the exam.
Honestly, one of the biggest things that helped me during the real exam was staying calm, getting proper sleep, and using my breaks wisely. I think people underestimate how important that is. If you go into the exam flustered, sleep-deprived, anxious, and mentally exhausted, it honestly doesn’t matter how high your practice scores are your performance can still crash.
I also think taking this exam as an IMG is very different from taking it as a current medical student. For me, the exam felt extremely clinical and heavily focused on clinical correlations and high-yield concepts. It did not feel like random low-yield memorization where they ask obscure associations for the sake of it.
Because of that, I think whether “low” NBME scores are enough really depends on your foundation. If your basic sciences and clinical knowledge are weak, then yes you probably should aim for much higher NBME scores before sitting the exam. But if you already have a solid medical foundation and decent clinical reasoning, I personally don’t think you necessarily need extremely high NBME scores to pass.
I also think test anxiety matters a lot. If you’re someone who generally performs similarly under pressure and doesn’t panic badly during exams, then simply passing the NBMEs may honestly be enough.
For reference, I never scored above 60% on the new Free 120 either I got exactly 60%.
The real exam felt most similar to NBME 32 and NBME 33 to me. It was very doable. Personally, I thought NBME 30 and the Free 120 were much harder than the actual exam. The real exam had question lengths similar to Free 120, but overall it felt more straightforward.
Counted a lot of gimme questions wrong … omgggggg
Feeling so dumb
Tested yesterday