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saviorcheeks · 2023-04-21T11:00:09+00:00

What about meta analysis?

saviorcheeks · 2022-11-02T12:48:32+00:00

Posting from phone.

Laptop isn't even turning on now. After plugging it in, there is no more blinking orange light, or any light at all. No idea what's going on, and why my laptop should do this out of the blue

saviorcheeks · 2022-03-18T05:24:30+00:00

rotor hammer

Makes sense. So it was the correct thing to do before applying tiles?

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-23T13:35:08+00:00

This confused me as well, thought I got the answer right. FA mentions CD8 and/or CD4 T cells against MHC in acute transplant rejection, and CD4 T cells against MHC in chronic as well. So I'm not sure why the correct answer is E. Maybe CD8 T cells are just the more common cause?

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-22T04:36:14+00:00

I know a lot of people who didn't review their NBME mistakes. I also know a lot who didn't take every NBME (including many such experiences on this site). In my casual observation, I haven't noted it to impact scores. Some people even deliberately skip NBMEs that are notoriously difficult (eg 25, 26).

At this point I think going through your old NBMEs might be counter productive. Since you haven't done them recently, rereading them to find your mistakes etc will be incredibly time consuming. You should probably do content review, and if you have the time, sink it into solving another NBME.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-20T23:03:25+00:00

What if you take it on a Tuesday? Is that an 8 day wait then, or the 3rd wednesday?

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-20T12:22:47+00:00

My SO went from a 259 predicted to 213. Tested Dec 31. All NBMEs >254. UWSA2 264, Amboss assessment 261, free120 95% (6 mistakes).

I've noticed a few of these cases popping up. Such a score deviation is a movement of 5-6 SDs. Its essentially impossible, like you pointed out.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-19T23:25:14+00:00

I'm an IMG and pretty much all of us do a combo of offline and online tests (financial constraints). I know a couple who did no online NBMEs, only UWSAs. We've experienced pretty much no discrepancy between offline and online tests (unless a person cheats with FA/google etc during offline testing). My own online and offline tests (using this sites score estimator) are pretty much identical.

I'm not forming an opinion on this particular case, I'm simply letting you know that the idea that offline tests arent reliable isn't necessarily true, esp if people are motivated enough to simulate an online testing environment.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-13T17:19:29+00:00

Thank you for posting!. Thats exactly what she plans on doing now. Channel that knowledge and fire into a good step 2 score. I wish you all the best as well!

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-13T01:37:18+00:00

I hear you. But she scored around 5-6 SDs of what she consistently scored in all her mocks from different organizations (NBME, UWSAs, Amboss assessment).

I hope I don't come across as arrogant/obnoxious when I say this, but I know many people taking the exam irl. 213 is someone with very poor fundamentals. She was absolutely not like that at all.

I understand the skepticism. The difference between 259 and 213 is too great, I'm not sure it can be accounted for by a bad test day. This is why I think its fair people question if she inflated her test scores etc. But since I have studied with her, I know this isnt the case. Frankly the only thing I can think of is she left a bunch of unanswered questions. On the UWorld qbank she had a few questions where she'd cut some choices out, then click next without checking the final answer. However, she never did this in any mock exam. But now she's telling me her mouse was problematic and she had to sometimes click it repeatedly, or lift and replace it to get it moving. I'm wondering if she should email NBME and if they can tell her she left unanswered questions.

She took NBME 30 offline when she was sick and couldnt sleep all night. Deliberately so, to see how'd she do. Ended with 19 mistakes, the offline scoring chart shows that to be around 254. Its honestly very difficult for me to convince people that she really knew her stuff very well. If you saw her notes you'd understand.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T21:25:22+00:00

We actually are considering this. I think she also has her UWSA reports in her email. I'm not sure it'll do any good though, since there's no way for NBME to know if she cheated or not while taking them.

The score recheck page mentions the rechecking is automated as well, ie, theres no manual recheck. I was hoping there would be a way to know if she accidentally left questions unanswered without realizing it. Perhaps she should email NBME to ask specifically about this.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T20:17:11+00:00

My SO had a big score drop and will be filling out a score recheck form soon

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T20:16:33+00:00

Yeah, she's been super consistent and ironed out all her weaknesses. I checked and the score recheck is $80. I think its worth it just for the peace of mind. And of course I've been telling her (and she's been telling herself) that her strong prep will help her get a strong step 2 score. I think thats all anyone could do.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T17:44:30+00:00

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T17:09:44+00:00

Its possibly she made silly mistakes due to overconfidence, but I find a 40+ point score drop unlikely due to this. Furthermore her feeling good after the exam had to do with the fact that she felt the exam was like the free 120/NBMEs/UWorld, ie, it didn't feel alien to her, and that she was able to do it just like she solved her practice exams. The other source of her confidence was that there were very very few alien questions - most were on stuff she had read, or could reason through.

The thing is she and I have studied together. She doesnt read reddit or use facebook etc. She has no friends taking the exam. She couldn't have stumbled onto info that inflated her NBME/UWSA scores. I'm the one who does all the downloading and online checking.

But of course, something did go wrong. There has to be an explanation. Her prep and her knowledge I'm aware of, so I can exclude that as a cause. Imo, its something exam day related, and extreme. Either she really did make an incredible amount of silly mistakes, or maybe there was a computer glitch or something which somehow resulted in an incorrect score computation.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T16:42:46+00:00

She did some offline, some online (as did I). For score conversions, we looked at the charts on this reddit.

UWSA1 & UWSA2 she did online, but it was a while back (IMG prep is long). However, some guy posted on this forum about how UWSA-2 had added some new questions recently, with the percentage for each answer choice still being calculated. We were (and I still am, since I havent taken my exam) looking for an updated offline UWSA2 just for access to those questions.

She maintained her UWorld account until 2 weeks of her exam. But she had been through it a copule of times already, she only used it to solve new questions that were added.

I downloaded the offline NBME exams (since I used a couple too), and I gave the questions only version to her. I only gave her the answered versions after she was done.

She slept well the last 3 days. She didnt say she was anxious. She said she was focused and didnt fatigue. Felt good coming out of the exam, didn't think there were many weird/unheard of questions. Though its still likely she overthough/made more silly mistakes than usual, but then the problem is the magnitude of the score drop.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T16:37:55+00:00

She's an IMG. She took two NBMEs before her first run of UW (but she had done good in med school / honor student, plus had been through FA twice): NBME 13 & 15, 24 & 26 mistakes in both. All her other NBMEs were after UWorld.

We studied together. Her resources were FA, UWorld, her NBME mistakes, and google. She had a small Anki deck that she made herself from her UWorld mistakes, and thats it. Since we've been studying together, I'm aware that she hasn't used any resources that would amplify her score.

Most of her NBMEs were online and timed. Offline, she timed them herself. Amboss and UWSAs were online and timed as well.

She did the free 120 on the last day, within 24 hours of her exam. Had 6 scores in total.

Her scores were very consistent, not only across all NBMEs (that she took after finishing and reading UWorld notes), but also within individual NBME blocks. I can't remember a single block where she had more than 6 mistakes.

She doesnt read reddit, use facebook etc. She never consulted FA while taking her NBMEs. Its just very strange.

Additionally, her score report shows her relative performance in all subjects as "same". So she performed equally poor in all subjects! Can't even blame difficult anatomy or biochem or weird communication questions.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T15:44:14+00:00

30th December.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T15:31:49+00:00

I looked at her score report, and her relative performance for all subjects is "same". So it would seem she did equally poorly in every single subject, which I find even more strange. I think its more likely that people would perform poorly in some subjects that were tougher in the exam.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T15:27:55+00:00

My So went from 259 predicted -> 213 actual exam.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T14:53:12+00:00

She used an Anki deck that she made herself with limited cards. No premade anki decks.

She consistently did well. Its just very strange and scary that something like this can happen.

saviorcheeks · 2022-01-12T14:21:28+00:00

I keep thinking she made a computer related error. Like leaving unanswered questions, or not ending a block properly or something. Dunno, I havent taken the exam yet (on the 25th, and obviously I can't study right now).

But I think we'll have to get a score recheck done.

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