Took Step 1 on May 19, and I finally got the P! Alhamdulillah. 🤍

Here's my experience in case it helps someone.

Resources I used:

UWorld (100%)

All Mehlman PDFs

Mehlman Video QBank

NBMEs

I did NOT use First Aid.

My NBME scores:

NBME 25 – 75%

NBME 26 – 73%

NBME 27 – 71%

NBME 28 – 77%

NBME 29 – 77%

NBME 30 – 80%

NBME 31 – 81%

NBME 32 – 85%

NBME 33 – 80%

Free 120 – 84%

During my dedicated period, I was honestly scared because I hadn't used First Aid. I kept reading comments saying things like, "First Aid is a must" or "You can't pass without it." It really got into my head.

I even tried to start reading it during my last month of preparation, but I couldn't get through it. In the end, I decided to trust the resources that had already gotten me this far instead of changing everything at the last minute.

Exam day experience:

The first block felt surprisingly easy. I actually thought, "Why does everyone freak out about this? It's so much easier than I expected."

Then I started the second block... and I understood exactly why people freak out. 😅

The exam was a mix. Some questions were really long, others were short. The wording was often very vague, and personally, I found the actual Step 1 exam harder than the NBMEs. The NBMEs felt much more straightforward.

Time management wasn't an issue for me. I finished the exam with about 30 minutes left overall.

When I walked out of the testing center, I honestly felt like it was doable and that I'd probably pass.

But once I got home, things changed.

Over the next few days, I kept remembering questions, looking them up, and realizing I had gotten them wrong. By the end, I had counted around 30–35 mistakes, and that completely destroyed my confidence.

Eventually, I forced myself to stop checking answers because it was only making my anxiety worse. I convinced myself that I had failed.

Whenever I started panicking, I'd go on Reddit and read posts from people who were convinced they had failed but ended up passing. Those posts honestly helped me stay sane while waiting for my result.

And

Alhamdulillah, I passed.

All praise belongs to Allah. This is completely His blessing.

If you're in the waiting period and you're convinced you've failed, you're not alone. The post-exam anxiety is very real, and remembering mistakes doesn't mean you failed.

If anyone has any questions, I'm more than happy to help however I can.

May Allah grant everyone reading this a Pass. Ameen. ❤️

I called them and asked if the holiday is going to affect this week results, they said: if we’re supposed to get results tmrw acc to our timeline we will be getting it tmrw and they will email us. All the best ig

Is it coming out tomorrow for mid June & onwards? Anyone got any update or anything?

so i did NBME 25 for trial before starting to see where my baseline is and without any prep i got 42% but that was months ago, i just graduated but now i have time to prep so please do guide me on how to prep for passing step 1

I am keeping first aid, uworld and pathoma as my only resource.

I am using chatgpt to make anki for all the uworld quesitons so my active recalling it covered via anki

SO NOW

can someone guide me on how to frame my studying schedule so i can finish uworld solve all NBME's and give the exam in december and pass.

and i will be giving the exam in Dubai

Ugh i need some clarity, does anyone has any idea?

Can someone call and ask if we are getting this or no 😣😣😣 tired of waiting!!!!

I created a free duolingo style app for learning drugs.

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Click on the link and start playing.

https://medphin.vercel.app/

Passed Step 1 as a below average student with low NBMEs/Self assessments. Performed average or below average in most classes. Had relatively low NBMEs/Self assessments. 36,39,52,55,54,65,66 (NBMEs/Self Assessments: 30, Uworld assessment 1, 31,32, 29, 33, New free 120). The scores I listed are in order of when I took them. Yeah I know, it's a bit random.

I am a very conceptual type learner and stuggled with most of medical school because of the fast pace giving little time for a deeper understanding. Barely passing through all my classes.

Was given 2 months of dedicated study time by my school. My study strategy was very simple in the beginning. Read First Aid, Uworld 40-60 new questions daily and 40-60 mixed old questions, Sketchy for Micro. Repeated Uworld incorrects, with an overall completion at the end reaching 84%.

Slowly increased bit by bit ,but a little concerned with the 54 on NBME 29. Was hoping for steady growth, but instead hit a wall 20 days out from the exam.

Added Pathoma and Dirty Medicine (Biochem mainly) to my study schedule to review high yields. Finally saw a large jump to 65 on NBME 33 one week out before the exam.

Took the Free 120 2 days out from the exam and scored a 66. I took the new version, with the 30 minute blocks which was different from all the NBMEs/self assessments I took.

I felt the Free 120 was much more difficult than the other self assessments, especially with a change in the time format, but I scored the highest because it did not give me enough time to second guess myself, so it may have actually helped to put me under steeper time pressure.

Felt eerily calm a day before the exam and during the exam which was strange because I have a history of test anxiety for standardized exams (SATs and MCAT). Maybe because our school offered us proctored test environments for our practice exams to try to simulate the real test. That helped me alot for the real thing. Felt comfortable the whole way through.

Didn't do anything really special. Didn't do Anki. I have trouble using Anki, maybe I just never learned how to use it properly. I prefer to read First Aid and use ChatGPT to fill in any holes in my understanding to create a conceptual picture. Repeating Uworld questions and rereading First Aid upto 5 times (seems strange but every reading was much faster than the last) in 2 months was my alternative to spaced repetition.

All in all so grateful I passed.

PASSED STEP 1! My Score Progression (49% CBSE → PASS) + Advice for Anyone Struggling

I promised myself that if I passed, I'd come back and post my scores because reading these posts gave me so much hope when I was convinced I wasn't ready.

My Practice Scores

• 4/17: CBSE – 49%
• 4/28: NBME 26 – 51%
• 5/5: NBME 28 – 52%
• 5/9: NBME 27 – 62.5%
• 5/12: NBME 29 – 63%
• 5/19: NBME 30 – 59% (this one crushed my confidence)
• 5/26: NBME 31 – 64%
• 5/29: NBME 32 – 65%
• 5/31: Bootcamp 160Q Self-Assessment – 73%
• 6/4: Free 120 – 64%
• 6/7: NBME 33 – 68%
• 6/10: PASSED STEP 1 🎉

The Biggest Lesson I Learned

One practice exam does not define your readiness.

When I dropped from a 63% on NBME 29 to a 59% on NBME 30, I spiraled. I questioned whether I should postpone, wondered if I'd forgotten everything, and felt like all of my progress had disappeared overnight.

It hadn't.

A week later I scored 64%, then 65%, then 68%, and I passed the real exam.

Practice exams are incredibly useful, but they also have variability. Look at your overall trend, not just your last score.

What Helped Me Improve

• Reviewed every NBME thoroughly and focused on understanding why I missed questions.
• Prioritized weak systems instead of endlessly reviewing material I already knew.
• Used Bootcamp as my primary resource. The videos and question bank made a huge difference for me.
• Did lots of active recall instead of passively rereading notes.
• Trusted the process, even when my confidence was low.

Exam Day

I honestly thought the real exam felt fair. There were definitely questions I had no idea on, but there were also plenty that felt straightforward. It wasn't a test where I knew every answer. it was about staying calm, trusting my preparation, and moving on when I didn't know something.

I walked out feeling uncertain, just like so many people do.

For Anyone Scoring in the Low-to-Mid 60s

Please don't compare yourself to people posting 75s and 80s.

A lot of us pass without perfect practice scores.

If your scores are trending upward and you're consistently demonstrating improvement, don't let one disappointing NBME convince you that you've failed before you've even taken the exam.

You've worked too hard to let one number erase weeks or months of progress.

Good luck to everyone studying—you've got this. I'll be rooting for all of you.

r/TamilpeopleUSMLE

Hii guys... This is a community created newly for the Usmle aspiring Tamil people for resource sharing , discussions about studies both STEP 1 and STEP 2 ,matching discussions,visa related queries and to create a better network among our Tamil students...Current students in USMLE pathway ,students planning for future all are welcomed.

A Free 120 or UWSA drop close to the exam is one of those things that can make people immediately question their entire prep. I get why. When you’re already a few days out, one bad score feels way bigger than it probably should, especially if your recent NBMEs were finally in a range you could live with.

But before turning it into “I forgot everything” or “I have to postpone,” I’d review it a little more clinically. Not emotionally, clinically.

The main question is whether the drop came from knowledge or from performance. Those are very different problems, but people often respond to both the same way: panic-read First Aid, open a bunch of random notes, and try to cram everything at once. That usually makes the anxiety worse because it never tells you what actually happened.

• When you review the test, try sorting the misses into a few categories.
• Was it something you genuinely did not know?
• Was it a concept you knew, but you missed what the question was really asking?
• Was it a 50/50 where you picked the more “test-like” answer instead of the better answer?
• Did you change from right to wrong?
• Did timing pressure make the last part of the block sloppy?

That breakdown matters more than just writing “cardio weak” or “renal weak.”

Sometimes a missed cardio question means you need to review the mechanism. Other times it means you ignored the time course, overvalued one lab, or talked yourself out of the obvious diagnosis because it felt too easy. Those require different fixes.

For true content gaps, the fix is targeted review. Not “redo all of biochem because I’m scared,” but the actual topics that showed up as misses. For 50/50 misses, I think the most useful question is: why did the wrong answer survive? Usually the explanation makes the right answer seem obvious afterward, but the real lesson is figuring out what clue should have made you eliminate the wrong option during the block.

For answer-changing, I’d make a very boring rule: only change if you found a specific detail in the stem that you missed the first time. Not because the answer feels too simple, not because you stared at it too long, and not because anxiety started negotiating with you. For timing issues, the fix is not just “go faster.” It’s practicing how to leave a hard question behind without letting it mess up the next five.

The other thing I’d look at is whether the drop matches your overall trend. If your recent scores have all been unsafe, then yes, that is important information. But if you had multiple passing-range NBMEs and then one ugly Free 120 or UWSA, I would not automatically throw out the whole trend. I’d ask what was different that day: sleep, burnout, time of day, testing environment, rushing, or walking into the test already convinced it was going to decide everything.

A late practice test should give you a repair plan, not an identity crisis. Sometimes the repair plan is content. Sometimes it’s timing. Sometimes it’s being stricter about answer changes. Sometimes it’s realizing that the score dropped because you were taking the test in full panic mode and your process got sloppy.

The goal close to the exam is not to become a completely different student overnight. It’s to reduce the mistakes that are actually costing you points.

For people who had a F120 or UWSA drop close to Step 1, what did it end up being when you reviewed it: real content gaps, timing, 50/50s, changing answers, or panic?

Free120 NBME - 39% (47/120 correct answers)

NBME 31 - 32%

Test is in a few days. I feel terrible.

My fortes are behavioral sciences (especially ethics), psychiatry and genetics. Immunology slightly less, but also relatively good. But those tests barely contained those topics. Although they're all supposed to constitute at least ~30-40% of the exam.

Where do I stand and what can I do to increase my prospects of passing?

Are we expecting THIS week anything!?!!

Received results last week for the 5/29 testing date and am now assessing how to move forward in a study plan. If anyone is in a similar boat or has been in the past and would like to offer any advice or support, that would be greatly appreciated.

Resources used before: UW 100% completion, FA, NBMEs in low 60s

Background: US-IMG required to take Step 1 after M3 completion so have been out of preclinical courses for over 1.5 years. The school requires back to back Step 1 and 2, but that is not the case for me anymore due to this circumstance.

Bonus: I made an excel file for all most HY mock test topics filtered according to systems which helped me to revise most high yield topics system wise to brush up my memory and facts.

Hello everyone i passed a few days back when i thought i wouldn’t thanks to my friend for making me study even when i didn’t want to.
It really helps to have someone who pushes you to study no matter what.
I have always been a procrastinator with history of mental health issues along with ADHD
I decided to be dedicated after January taking a break from step1 prep and managing my 3rd year prof exams in my college and taking vacation of a month cause i got exhausted after CNS.

Went on to study max 6-8 hrs daily dedicatedly although wanted to do more but couldn't
Even when solving Uworld (IMD) i used to plugin my earphones and listen to Harry potter, Lotr, Sitcoms, Anime (lots of) and audiobooks of HP n LOTR
I couldn't study without them always used to feel sleepy then i went on to complete Uworld about 80% with average correct being 60-65% all while listening to movies n tv (not watching)

Atlast i came to do revision. and giving NBME on USMLEFIGHTER
I felt very difficult to concentrate while doing revision being bored to only read but it is the one thing we have to do in last 2 months mugging up all the facts of first aid. (classical music helped a lot)

Started NBME 2 months before exam, giving once weekly and then every five days for last 5 nbmes.

started with 63 on nbme 25 increasing gradually and getting 80 nbme 31 and then 70-75 in nbme 32,33,f120.

The Real Exam
time management is the key i felt almost all question were guesses and i was going with my gut feeling no question came straightforward like i felt it was layered in multiple topics all the symptoms will feel like multiple diagnosis are possible then i felt like an option was most probable and went ahead with it. you wont get time to revisit questions just take your time in a question and proceed with doing in the first attempt itself.

I had to wait one month to get results and felt i was gonna fail because now all the movies n tv i watched will take me down with them but i passed THANK GOD!!

Feeling very down. I need advice.
Some context: exam is scheduled for July 15th. Previous NBMEs: 29 scored 56, 30 scored 63, 31 scored 67. Just took 32 scored a 62…. Extremely bummed about this drop. My goal was to break 70 especially after the 67. What would be your next steps? Any advice or even words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated

Also when do I decide that moving the exam is the best choice?

ik some international students see the date they get their results back on their portal? anyone know with the 6/18 results come back? is it this week or next?

Someone shared a really good HY review doc here recently. I can’t seem to find it anymore, anyone have a link? Or recommendations for condensed review

Hello everyone
My exam is booked on 29 July, i solved uworld Qbank once, and did nbmes 25-29 so far

my scores :
Nbme 25- 66.5
Nbme 26- 81
Nbme 27- 79
Nbme 28- 76
Nbme 29- 78.5

Do you think doing uworld Qs again or atleast uworld incorrects now would add value to me ? (taking in consideration that uworld Qs really humble me and make me doubt my preparation lol)

please give me advice i’d really appreciate it

Best song to remember Maple syrup urine disease thought ill share :)