I was scoring in the high 70s on my question blocks before I went into the test and ended up with at 257. Obviously, however, the more you do, the better prepared you will be for the exam.Īs far as how your QBank score correlates with your final score, UWorld questions tend to be a little harder than the actual test. In my opinion, if you really study the answer explanations provided by USMLE world, you’ll be able to master the concepts covered by the USMLE exam without having to do all of the questions. I spent a lot of time answering questions and reviewing them closer to my test, but only got through about half of the QBank. I also purchased two practice tests, but only ended up doing one of them. So, I would recommend buying the QBank for the amount of time you have committed solely to your USMLE review (probably 2-3 months). I thought that I would have time to start doing questions before classes ended, but I didn’t. In retrospect, I would have purchased a shorter subscription. I purchased a 6 month subscription to the USMLE World QBank. This made the QBank a very efficient study tool. I learned five or six important concepts tested on Step 1 from one question and its explanation. They give detailed explanations of why the right answer is right and why the wrong answers are wrong. When I came to the test, I felt as though I was just taking another set of questions from USMLE World.Īlso, the explanations of questions are great. The thing that impressed me most about USMLE World was how similar the questions on the QBank were to those on the actual exam. There’s always the debate about whether Kaplan or USMLE World is the better question bank. I needed to spend plenty of time studying, especially since my first practice test was a 208. That way I wouldn’t be kept out of any specialty based on my score. I wasn’t too sure going into the test, so I set a goal of 245. If you’re not sure what you want to do, you’ll want to score as high as possible. If you know what specialty you want, you’ll have a good target for your score.
Probably the best resource for what you need to do to match into particular specialties can be found here, the NRMP’s report on “ Charting Outcomes in the Match.” It goes into volunteer, research, and other activities as well as Step 1 scores for matched applicants in different specialties. The most competitive specialties have average scores of around 240. So, before you start studying, set your goal. You might be scared by this score, but that’s good encouragement to study. To determine where you are, you need to take a practice test. In my opinion, before you start really preparing for Step 1, you should have two things clearly in mind: where you are with your score and where you want to be.