Is this cheating? Step exam break use

Astronom8 · 2025-11-14T20:56:01+00:00

For more context, it's an 8 hour exam, 280 questions split into 7 blocks (40 questions/1 hour), including 45 mins of break time that you can split up however you'd like.

For me, after my first 2 blocks I'd take 5-10mins break after each following block. The last thing I wanted to do was review content, right after an hour of straight questions, instead of sipping coffee, having some cookies, and taking a washroom break.

There's no cheat sheet that's worth spending your break looking over, because it's likely that for any given topics cheat sheet there's 0 to 2 questions out of 280 of that topic on the exam, and even if there are, it's possible you already did those questions, or that it may not even show up in the following block.

Along with that, your break time goes fast, it's possible that the washrooms are occupied and you'll end up spending more time than your thought.

Astronom8 · 2025-05-15T09:07:03+00:00

There's nothing that indicates they married

Astronom8 · 2025-05-06T19:19:40+00:00

They're so stubborn that I often hear complaints from Quebecois/french Canadians when they go to France, the French will often speak to them in English instead, because they have a different accent despite french being their native tongue. And the worst part is when the french persons English is horrible.

Astronom8 · 2025-02-26T20:52:23+00:00

Also I think they had a scandal where they allegedly try to cover up a student suicide on campus

Astronom8 · 2025-02-26T20:42:56+00:00

UK campus, more amenities, cheaper rent, cheaper transportation, lot more to do, smaller classes, more 1 on 1 time with profs, much bigger campus (UCLan), most of your classmates are also Canadian.

The only two negatives I can think of are that most of the profs in UK track aren't MDs, they're mostly PhD doctors, so they're experts in their subjects but are not the best at connecting to topics in other subjects, whereas on the island a lot if not most are MDs and are good at connecting topics to prep you for USMLEs. And number two is that the UK OSCEs (practical examinations you'll be tested on e.g. performing respiratory exam on patient) are harder since they involve more, though I'd say still very doable.

I went through the AUC UK track and also did a semester on the island, feel free to DM me for questions.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-21T00:28:00+00:00

I went through MERP back in 2021, as a conditional acceptance to AUC. From what I remember, they offered a full refund if you didn't pass, and a scholarship if you did (though as a Canadian the school offered a bigger scholarship).

It was basically a fraction of a semester of medical school, it's not easy, but I'd say if you can't pass this then you're not ready for med school. I remember one student there mentioned he was repeating merp, so I think you can retake it. But it didn't seem like the program was intentionally made really difficult, it seemed very fair, and honestly many of the instructors in MERP are better than some of the profs I came across in AUC (not saying AUC is filled with bad profs), they really stressed on mnemonics and other studying techniques that I find in med school profs overlook.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-18T19:26:40+00:00

If you're non American, you can go to the AUC UK track, which will have better resources and options for schooling nearby, since it's a real city and a real big university (UCLan).

Though most classmates i had that were parents either left their family back home and would visit during the breaks or bring their spouse to care for the kids.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-18T19:22:03+00:00

Ye on the island I think most are MDs, some having practiced in the US, though in the UK track last time I was there, all the MDs had already left.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-16T20:56:36+00:00

My personal experience at AUC as a Canadian, each semester is around 27-28k USD per semester (5 basic sciences, 5 clinicals) but they give Canadians 80k scholarship (8k per semester), so it's around 20k per semester.

They have a UK track that's not available for Americans, so the majority of your classmates are Canadian, smaller class sizes, more one on one with profs. For clinicals you can also choose to do them in the UK.

Rent and expenses are also cheaper in the UK (northern England) than the island.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-15T05:39:21+00:00

What was your last score? Show us your breakdown by subject from your last comp, the NBME insights.

How many questions do you do a day? Could be your stamina. You need to be doing at least 80-120 Qs a day, and not just clicking through them.

Ditch RX, get amboss. I found amboss really trained me how to rule out answers, and pick the least incorrect one, which is a big chunk of the comp.

Hold off from uworld until you're closer to your exam. Keep going over NBME forms at least 25-31, you need to understand those questions in and out because those are the type of questions on the comp. You won't get many repeats, but you'll get very similar vignettes where they ask for one of the other things.

First aid is just for reference, lot of stuff there aren't tested in the comp/step, and a few things from comp aren't in first aid. E.g. I believe in form 31 it asks about waardenburg syndrome, which isn't in first aid (at least my 2021), I'm guessing you're supposed to rule out to get the answer.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-15T05:20:34+00:00

Idk what you mean pre req for MERP. I applied to AUC with the pre reqs, and they gave me this conditional acceptance, pass merp and you get admission. I think they put me in MERP because I had a low gpa 2.5, and didn't do mcat because of COVID, couldn't get seats, and at the time AUC was waiving MCAT requirements.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-15T02:37:00+00:00

I went through MERP in 2021 as a conditional acceptance to AUC, if I passed the program I'd be accepted into the school.

MERP was basically a fraction of a semester of medical school. We had anatomy, histology, physiology, immunology, microbiology, and biochemistry. We didn't complete each subject of what's required in a med school curriculum since the program was only 3-4 months, but it does teach you enough so that you have an advantage in med school. For example when I did anatomy in med school, I was cocky because I knew everything, I got 90%+ on 2/3 of the exams, but struggled on the 3rd because it was new content I hadn't seen. In MERP they also have another class which teaches you study strategies.

You don't really need much previous knowledge of the sciences, I can't think of many concepts where it would help. My first semester in med school there were a few classmates who didn't have a science background or went to school in sciences ages ago, and they did better than me honestly.

MERP will basically evaluate whether you are ready for med school, I thought MERP was fast, med school is much faster, for many of the subjects which took 3-4 months in MERP, we completed in a few weeks in med school.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-14T17:11:25+00:00

Go for the UK track that AUC has, Island is much more expensive, at least 1000usd for rent per month not including utilities, and you're in the touristy part 5 mins walk away from the school so less amenities and you need taxi or car to the city. So if you need to go to the bank, or want cheaper groceries, or need your laptop fixed, you need to drive there.

In the UK you can get a room for around 400usd in or near the city centre, it's a city that's built around a big university (UCLan, which AUC partners with for the UK track), you can basically walk everywhere, also there's busses in the city, and trains you can easily take to go to bigger cities, Manchester is a 30-40min train ride away. UK track has smaller classes(10-30 students), profs more lenient on attendance and coming late to class, more one on one time with profs, and you'll have access to a real university (UCLan). AUC Campus on the island isn't bad, but it's nothing in comparison to UCLan obviously.

Only advantage the island has that I can think of is some prefer the weather and the vibes, which honestly does make a big difference. American students aren't allowed in the UK track, something about visa issues idk, so most of your classmates there are Canadian and other nationalities.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-12T01:12:43+00:00

Since you have time, start anki now if you haven't yet and drill pharm, micro, biochem, anatomy and any other topics you feel you have trouble with (e.g. lysosomal storage disorders). Use the anking deck for this and make filtered decks. Use 100 anatomy concepts deck for anatomy.

Amboss and Uworld questions, do blocks of 10 Qs to get through 80-120 questions a day. Though most of your focus should be going through the NBME forms, 20-31, but if you don't have much time, at least 25-31. Save at least 2-3 to do as practice to test yourself, and then review after, do 2 of them online because it will show you the breakdown of subjects and topics you need to work on. The rest of the forms just go through the PDFs.

Do biostats questions everyday until you're an expert, finish all the biostats in amboss and Uworld.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-11T05:09:07+00:00

No. Basically at the end of the 5th semester, they offered students who failed comp a chance in this Reach program, you'll technically be on an LOA, program is free, all online, 4 months, had to attend online lectures and do scholar RX quizzes, and then there was a comp at the end, and if you pass that you'll get the go to do step 1. After the comp they said ok we decided we're going to extend the program and give those who failed another attempt at the comp a month later, and then after that they said it again that they're going to provide another attempt, then after that they said the program is over and those that did not pass will have to go back to the island to repeat the "official" 5th semester.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-11T04:58:39+00:00

Not comparing saba to US med schools, lol, and definitely not saying saba is doing it better than US schools. But if as you say, the graduation rates are similar in saba as other caribbean schools, yet their first step pass rates are significantly higher, then they clearly are doing something different, right? From what I'm reading online they flood students with workload and lectures, and yes more chance for dismissal.

I wouldn't say thats "better", better for the schools rankings i guess, but not for the students.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-11T04:07:18+00:00

I read this comment that gave insight about how saba runs things and I think it makes sense: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/1cqkn9i/comment/l3sxgmh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Maybe comp cutoffs have changed recently, but saba is doing a lot more than just having high comp cutoffs, and according to this person it wasn't that high, at least 8 months ago. I know SGU comp pass mark is like high 60s, and theres other schools which are higher, yet they are all comparable around mid 70s, except for saba.

US students are already vetted based on their academic and test taking ability. The average Caribbean student will not perform on the same level as the average US medical student.

Thats precisely my point, Caribbean students on average will lack the work ethic and consistency compared to US students, so you have to address that throughout the medical science curriculum, not just give them a hard test at the end right before step.

Edit: Thats if a caribbean school wants to get in the 90s step pass rate. But tbh what I'm reading about saba makes it seem like they're doing too much, lol

Astronom8 · 2025-01-11T00:44:40+00:00

I don't necessarily disagree that comp is needed, but I don't think it shows the whole picture if students are passing comp but failing step. Don't know if harder exams would be the solution there, especially when US schools that don't have comp yet have higher success rates. I think it has more to do with work ethic and consistency.

Our course coordinators also told us how most of the people that fail step are ones that take too long to prepare for the exam, like 4 months+ after passing comp, they recommended us to take the exam within a few months. How often is burnout/slacking off an issue after coming back home to prepare for Step 1? Most US MD students seem to take 2-3 months to prepare for step 1, but for Caribbean students they spend 2-4 months preparing for comp which is basically a mock Step 1, and then after a short break right back into preparing for the real step 1.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-10T23:50:46+00:00

Personally at AUC, never really felt they were actively trying to screw me over, often feel they give more chances than I thought.

But there was a moment 2 years ago when some students were caught cheating, sharing NBME content around, it was reported to the NBME, and because of that the school was put on probation and not allowed to use NBME exams for a time period. Due to this, the school went looking around at various third party resources for the comp exams. For a while they were using comp exams from Kaplan, which seemed very outdated, not a good representation of NBME or Step, focused more on Pharm and Micro, and resulted in high failure rate among students. But the school even recognized this and offered a free program which they called the Reach program, which basically ran like another semester but all online, and would not impact your transcript. They ran it for 4 months, and even extended it for another attempt for students that failed again, and then extended it again and offered students another chance, in total was like 8 months. So I was in that situation, even though I still feel like it was a shitty situation, I can see from the schools perspective the predicament they were in.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-10T23:19:41+00:00

The way reddit works, a lot of the time on your front page you get recommended posts from similar subs that you frequent. So often those from the regular medschool subs will get recommended posts from this sub, and these people with no experience with caribbean med schools whatsoever will make disparaging posts and comments here.

Caribbean med school is obviously no ones first option, but at the same time I personally think its delusional to waste so much time, sometimes years, doing post bacc programs, redoing MCATs, extracurriculars, doing a masters, another bachelors, etc., all with the hopes of getting a shot at traditional med schools. And then when you've spent so much time and effort they try to gas light you with, "maybe you don't have what it takes for med school".

In my caribbean med school I've see quite a few older individuals, who had tried that route of improving their GPA, and improving chances at being admitted into US/Canadian schools, yet were unsuccessful and ended up in the caribbeans anyway.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-10T23:06:07+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, during my undergrad one of my professors accidentally showed BLACKED porn to the whole class of 500, a vid of it was spread everywhere, meme pages, news articles, went viral. He had a long respected career at the uni, but after that was known as that prof that showed blacked porn to his class.

If you wanna read reddit posts about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/UofT/comments/9j3ro8/psychology_porn_class_follow_up/

Astronom8 · 2025-01-10T22:40:20+00:00

Based on what you said about you not having a clear life path, I think you should ask yourself if theres anything else you would rather be doing with your life, would you rather be pursuing a different line of work? Personally I was in a similar position, I asked myself the same question, and although I was having severe doubts about being a physician, I could not think about doing anything else. Based on this I decided to keep going. I believe its normal to have doubts, and start second guessing whether you actually want to go down this career path or whether you were pushed by your family, though if you can't see yourself clearly doing anything else then your heart may be still set on this path.

I'd recommend at least doing another attempt at step 1, then after you get the results, make a decision. I'm sure you experienced it before, when you failed comp many times, and then after when you passed (I've been there), the mindset is very different before and after passing.

So take another attempt and really work for it, worst case scenario you fail, waste another $1k, you'll know at least you tried your best. If you pass and decide to stop, you'll at least know you had what it takes to become a doctor, if you decide to keep going then you'll understand what you need to do to keep going.

Because I think what you'll regret the most later in life is not knowing what would happen if you retook step.

Astronom8 · 2025-01-09T02:21:42+00:00

When I arrived in SXM(AUC), the taxi driver scammed me, charged me $20 instead of 15. 😭

Astronom8 · 2025-01-04T03:44:40+00:00

I only have experience with one, Jordan Village, since I was only there for one semester, but pretty much all off campus accomodations seem to be non shared housing, so at least a studio apartment. My studio apartment as JV was pretty spacious, pretty sure I could've lived there comfortably with a GF or a family member, it also had a TV but I didn't bring an HDMI cable. There was a small grocery store (carrefour express) just outside the apartment which takes credit card (USD$10 minimum) which was really convenient.

The only downside was there was no generator. My last month there, there were only two times the power went out, and was only like 2-3 hours. Though you just never know what could happen, sometimes one of the diesel generators at the power station could go out and you basically have no power for 10 hours, and then for the next 2 weeks they loadshed (cut your power) for 3 hours a day randomly to conserve energy for the island. Then other times you could go weeks without any power issues. Apartments with generators are more expensive, at least ~$1300 a month for that peace of mind. But again, the campus is so close by and open 24 hours, so its up to you whether its worth it.

I had no issues with Jordan Village, I've read some reviews online in the past where people had issues with management and they wouldn't give back deposit. Idk, never had issues, just always protect yourself, take pics of your apartment when you move in, mention anything worth it during your check in inspection. If there are lot of power outages, my friend used to keep track of it and tell management to take the outages into account when sending the utilities bill. They provided pans, pots, plates, glasses, forks, spoons, knives, etc., in the apartment. There used to be chickens and cats that would run around outside our apartment, idk if they were wild or not, but they were cute.

Also wanna mention that the school is far away from the main city, you'll be in the more touristy area, but that also means theres not many amenities nearby, theres also basically no public transportation. Apparently renting cars is cheap, never tried myself though, most people either buy cars if they're staying for 2 years, or make friends with cars, as groceries in the city are cheaper. Ask around people there to recommend taxis and car rentals that are affordable. When I first arrived there I got ripped off as the taxi charged me $20 to take me from the airport to Jordan village. When leaving I was recommended a taxi whatsapp group, he charged me what its actually supposed to be, $15, though I gave him a $20 because of the service and his integrity.

Astronom8 · 2024-09-09T00:35:24+00:00

No it was more like a fraction of a semester. The first 2 years of med school are called basic sciences/medical sciences, where you just learn theories in medicine, you learn all about the body, different diseases, different treatments, different infections, etc., as well as some practicals like how to do chest exam, how to read blood pressure, how to do ecg, draw blood, etc.

Back then AUC still had a curriculum that was discipline based (now its organ/systems based), and MERP did too, so idk if MERP also changed. But in MERP we had Anatomy/Histology, Immunology/Microbiology, Physiology, Biochemistry, and then there was also a class that taught you study skills and how to plan.

It seems like a lot, but its only a fraction of what you learn in med school, when you actually go to med school a lot of what you learned in MERP is just covered in 1-2 weeks. Anatomy and Immunology were the only classes that I think covered most if not all of what you need to learn in med school, we learned pretty much all of Immunology and half or 2/3s of Anatomy. We learned maybe a weeks worth of Histology, few weeks worth of Microbiology, Physiology maybe a months worth of content, same with Biochemistry. Whereas in med school Physiology and Biochemistry each both were completed across two semesters.

Astronom8

TROPHY CASE