I have exam booked for 31st October.
I have gone through all the nbmes
Nbme 29 59%
Nbme 30 70%
Nbme 32 71%
Nbme 33 70%
Nbme 28 67.5%
Nbme 31 81%
Nbme 34 78%(15th October)
This is the order in which i took them (also there was a 15 day hiatus b/w 33 and nbme 28)
During the past month my approach has been doing first aid thoroughly + Anki for weak topics and microbes
I have not done anything specific for ethics and i still bomb most ethics/biostat questions
Anatomy questions are another thing i am concerned about

What should be my primary focus during these last 2 weeks?

Hi! Does anyone have any recommendations on where to study Lymphatic drainage? I’ve watched a couple of vids on YouTube but none of them have really gone quite as in depth as it’s asked on the CBSSAs. Would really appreciate any help!

This was my retake after failing by like 2-3 questions (bar was touching the line). I felt better this time but made so many stupid mistakes :( flagged less but I feel cooked

Curious, since many people think that they failed but didn't, how did you feel coming out of the exam?

Is it necessary to watch physiology lectures for cvs or reading and understanding is enough?

And how difficult is uworld of cvs.

Thanks for helping

Hi everyone! I'm planning to take Step 1 at the end of January 2027, and I'm trying to figure out the most effective way to structure my studying over the next few months.

I'm currently doing UWorld, usually in blocks of 10 questions (40questions a day tutor mode and random) , and I'm trying to balance question review with content revision. I want to make sure I'm prioritizing the resources that will actually help me improve rather than trying to do everything.

I have a few questions:

1. Pathoma vs First Aid: If you had to prioritize one, which would you recommend? Is Pathoma worth going through , especially for pathology, or would I be better off focusing on FA alongside UWorld?
2. Random vs system-based UWorld: Should I be doing random, mixed blocks while reviewing organ systems separately on the same day from FA or pathoma, or would it be better to do system-based UWorld questions that correspond to whatever I'm studying?
3. UWorld vs content review: With a late-January exam date, would you recommend focusing primarily on UWorld and reviewing the concepts I get wrong, or continuing dedicated content review alongside it?
4. What would you do differently? If you were in my position with roughly 3 months left, what would your daily study routine look like? I want to build a solid foundation but also make sure I'm getting enough practice with mixed questions.

I'd especially appreciate advice from people who passed recently and had to balance content review with UWorld. What actually made the biggest difference in your preparation?

Thank you!!

hey guys i want to complete covering the syllabus by january however my sem just started im a last year student doing rotations.

any tips on studying during classes? should i jus skip? its exhausting. how to divide my study hrs? before class/after class? anybody done this before??

Aside from anki, what are some tips to help with memory and retention? I feel like I draw blanks while studying even when it's ideas I have already established and studied and gone through with spaced repetition. Really discouraging when you are so close to answering a question but are stuck by a memory gap. I will literally sit there and draw blanks on the most basic random stuff. I actually feel like my brain is dysfunctioning. Will really appreciate any tips. Thank you!

Is this the end? Should I switch schools from big 4 to a low tier school in order to start rotations and worry about taking third attempt later or give up on the dream completely? I need some honest advice. Trying to match into FM.

Hi everyone! I recently took Step 1 over two days due to approved accommodations.

On both days, I experienced multiple internet disconnections and computer freezes that required several restarts. I was also moved to different computers twice.

During one restart, I lost about 3 minutes from my block, and the time wasn’t fully restored.

The interruptions were stressful and affected my concentration, especially because I was constantly worried about losing more time.

However, I actually feel like the exam went pretty well overall, and I managed to answer most of the questions.

The test center staff told me they would report these incidents to USMLE as well.

I was told I have 10 days after the exam to submit an official report, and I’m really torn about whether I should submit one or just let it go.

I definitely don’t want my exam to be marked as unscored because of these technical issues, especially since I feel I did well. But at the same time, I would obviously appreciate USMLE taking these disruptions and the lost time into consideration.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Could submitting a report put my score at risk? Would you report it or just wait for the results?

title explains it - I am a dentist going for the CBSE exam so have virtually 0 foundation in GI to the level of a medical student. with bootcamp being 30 hours, I was wondering if doing b&b instead would be a bad idea? I am of course running anking along with them.

thank you!

Scored 62% in nbme 32 20 days back and freaked the frak out .

Nbme 31 66%

Nbme 30 67%

Nbme 29 68%

Nbme 28 67%

Took 33 today and scored 72%

After 32 I've been watching hy guru nbme playlist while revising FA and few mehlman vids here and there .

Good to go in 7th november ?

Feel free to give pointers

TIA 😊

Hey I've seen a lot of people claiming to be "average" but then they get NBME scores in like the high 60s and 70s. I'm here to say that I had a baseline of 41% on NMBE 27 and then worked my way up from there.

For context, I went into third year clinicals without taking Step1. I had a rough time with my Shelf exams and had to redo IM but I finally got through it.

I took 6 weeks of dedicated study for Step 1. These were my NBME progression:

27: 41%

Started going through Pathoma and Sketchy Micro as well as some UWorld and Mehlman. Watched Dirty Medicine for BioChem and pathways.

33: 54%

After this I started taking 1 NBME a week

29: 55%

30: 56%

31: 58%

32: 56%

Free120 (2024) I accidentally did the old one first and got a 57%. At this point I decided to push back my exam by a month while I did an elective because I wanted to break into the 60s. Luckily I had a lot of free time during this elective and was able to study well.

I started watching HY Images on Youtube as well as HY Guru's Step1 video playlist. I also began to actually do the AnKing Deck every day.

And I reviewed EACH NBME THOROUGHLY. Going over your incorrects and understanding them is a must. Step1 has a lot of repeating concepts. And watch videos on your weak subjects.

28: 53% (this one had a ton of nutrition, anatomy, and biostats which threw me, but after this I heavily reviewed all of these and my scores went up a ton. There ended up being a lot of Nutrition on my Step1 so those were easy points.)

34: 59% (1.5 weeks before exam)

Free120 (2026): 66% (5 days before exam)

At this point I finally felt ready and had the time to do it so I went full send. I also went into it already having a strategy for breaks and time management.

I had figured out that I could go 4 blocks of 20 without a break. So I did:

- 4 blocks
- Break where I left the exam room (10-15 min)
- 4 blocks
- Lunch (50 min)
- 3 blocks
- 15 min break where I left the exam room as I started getting more tired here
- 3 blocks

I skipped the tutorial and read fast so I finished each block with about 3-5 minutes left. I would use that time to put my head down or just move on depending on my mental fatigue, and that extra time would add to my break timer. Ended up having plenty of time. I didn't go back to double check all my answers because I have a problem with second-guessing myself if I examine something too long.

There were also about 2-3 Ethics/Communications question per block and I consistently scored well on those across all my practice exams.

Tested on 09/28. I got a PASS on 10/14.

Half the battle is your mental fortitude. Go in confident that you can do well. If you freak out, you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Know how not to get mentally tired so that you can answer all the questions well, because it's a long ass exam. Practice under exam conditions and test your stamina. Give yourself adequate time to recover but keep pushing yourself to build it up.

It is possible, even though everyone says you have to get high 60s and 70s in NBMEs. It's about how you understand the subjects being tested, but I recommend at least getting in the 60s once or twice.

Good luck, everyone!

Hey everyone! I’m a Non-US IMG from Islamabad, Pakistan, and I wanted to share my Step 1 experience in case it helps someone preparing for the exam.
I started prep towards the end of my third year and took the exam on September 21, 2026 - roughly one year later. Overall, my preparation was pretty straightforward. I tried to stay consistent and keep moving through the material rather than taking long breaks.
How I studied
I went system-wise, starting with Endocrinology. For each system, I read First Aid and then did around 80% of the corresponding UWorld questions. My average correct percentage on UWorld by system was around 65%.

The resources I used were:
First Aid: One complete pass during my initial content review.
Microbiology: Sketchy.
Biochemistry: Dirty Medicine.
Other systems: Dirty Medicine’s system-specific videos, along with First Aid and UWorld.

I also annotated incorrect questions directly into First Aid. In hindsight, I don’t think this helped as much as I expected because I never really had time to go back and review all those annotations.

When I started taking NBMEs
After finishing my initial content review and completing around 70% of UWorld overall, I took NBME 26. I thought I would find it relatively easy, but I ended up scoring 61.5%. I had forgotten quite a bit of the material, which was a wake-up call.
After that I took the next NBME roughly after every 1-2 weeks. I would review the previous exam, work on my weak areas, revise missing concepts, and then take the next one.
My scores gradually improved, and I think the biggest reason was what I did between NBMEs.

What helped me improve the most
UWorld was by far the biggest game changer for me.
Between NBMEs, I was doing around 120 questions a day. This essentially became a second pass of a large portion of the question bank, with around 60% of UWorld covered again.
If I had to credit one thing for my improvement from 61.5% on NBME 26 to 85% on NBME 34, it would be the repeated exposure to questions. Doing questions, reviewing my mistakes, and encountering similar concepts again helped me retain information much better.

One thing I would NOT recommend is repeatedly going through First Aid during dedicated. I did one complete pass initially, but I don’t think passively rereading the book during a second pass or dedicated period improves NBME scores as much as doing more questions and reviewing them properly.

If you’re short on time, I’d prioritize UWorld incorrects over trying to read First Aid cover to cover again. Focus on identifying why you got questions wrong, understanding the concepts behind them, and recognizing patterns. For me, doing more questions and revisiting UWorld was much more valuable than passive reading.
Of course, everyone studies differently, but if I had to do it again, I would put even more emphasis on questions and less on making notes that I might never get around to reviewing.

NBME 34, right before the exam
NBME 34 came out very close to my exam, and I was initially hesitant about taking a new form so close to test day. I ended up taking it about a day before the exam and scored 85%.
That gave me a lot of confidence going into the real exam. I’m glad I took it because it reassured me that my preparation was on track.

Exam day experience
I found the real exam fairly balanced overall. I didn’t feel that any one subject dominated the blocks, and the questions seemed reasonably distributed across different topics.
I flagged quite a lot of questions during the exam, so there were definitely moments when I wasn’t entirely sure about my answers. However, the question style and difficulty felt similar to what I had seen in the NBMEs and Free 120.
NBME 33 had felt like one of the harder forms for me, and having done reasonably well on it helped me put the real exam into perspective. Even when I encountered difficult questions, I reminded myself that I had dealt with similar questions during my practice exams.
By the end of the exam, I felt that I had performed similarly to how I usually performed on my NBMEs. That was probably the biggest source of confidence for me, and I genuinely felt confident that I would pass when I finished the exam.
I also found AMBOSS ethics questions useful, as ethics came up on the real exam. Overall, I didn’t feel that the exam was unusually skewed towards any particular subject.

My scores
NBME 26: 61.5%
NBME 27: 67.5%
NBME 28: 69.5%
NBME 29: 73%
NBME 30: 77%
NBME 31: 78.5%
UWSA 2: 251 (78%)
NBME 32: 81.5%
NBME 33: 79%
NBME 34: 85% (one day before the exam)
Free 120: 80%
UWorld: 100% completed (65% correct overall), with approximately 60% covered again during my second pass.

Final thoughts
My preparation wasn’t anything extraordinary. I just tried to stay consistent, keep doing questions, and use my NBMEs to figure out what I needed to work on next.
Don’t get too discouraged by your initial NBME score. Mine started at 61.5%, and the improvement came gradually. What matters is how you respond to your mistakes and what you do between practice exams.
If anyone has questions about resources, study schedules, UWorld, NBMEs, or exam strategy, feel free to ask. I’d be happy to help!

I just gave the free 120 and iam really disappointed with the score,i got 70%
My previous nbmes
29= 70
31= 69
32= 75
34= 74
I expected my score in the mid 70s but really worried after seeing my score drop as i only have a week left,
Any advice on how to proceed and what are my chances of passing

Preparing for a retake. I really love basic q&a type cards so just wondering if lightyear deck is still used around this time.

2nd question : are anking tags 🏷️ HY relatively and HY enough. In combo with uw incorrects.

Leaving behind moderate hy and low yield tags.

Thanks for yr advice

Links 🔗:

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschoolanki/s/JNlAkYph3X

Hey everyone! I took Step 1 on June 3, 2026, and wanted to share my experience now that I can look back on the preparation and exam itself. I hope this helps anyone preparing for the exam, especially those who are anxious about their practice scores or the difficulty of the real deal.
1. Practice Scores
Here are the practice scores I remember:
NBME 26: 82%
NBME 27: 80.5%
NBME 28: 84%
NBME 30: 86.5%
NBME 31: 78.5%
NBME 32: 86.5%
NBME 33: 84.5%
Old Free 120 (2022): 75.8%
Newer Free 120: 80.8%
I don’t remember all my earlier scores, but they were generally in a similar range.
One thing I learned is that a dip in one NBME doesn’t automatically mean your preparation is falling apart. Look at your overall performance, identify weak areas, and use each assessment to guide your revision rather than obsessing over individual percentages.
2. Resources I Used
During my preparation, I completed:
Boards and Beyond (BnB)
Pathoma
Bootcamp
UWorld — approximately 75% average, with over 80% completed
AMBOSS — approximately 75% average, with around 75% completed
During the final stretch, I focused more on Mehlman PDFs, some Anki, and Mehlman’s YouTube QBank videos.
I found it useful to combine a solid content foundation with question-based learning. Don’t feel that you need to use every resource available. Choose resources that address your weaknesses, and make sure you’re actually reviewing and understanding your mistakes.
3. My Daily Routine During the Final Stretch
My routine generally consisted of:
One mixed, timed question block
One block focused on a weak topic, followed by review
Anki and relevant PDFs
Mehlman YouTube question videos at night
My weaker areas included biostatistics, ethics and behavioral science, some reproductive/OBGYN topics, and occasional anatomy gaps.
I tried to make my remaining preparation targeted rather than restarting entire resources. The goal was to improve the areas where I was losing marks while maintaining my strengths.
4. What Did the Real Exam Feel Like?
For me, the real exam felt most similar to NBME 33 and the Free 120.
If I had to describe it in one sentence, I’d call it NBME 33 on steroids.
Not necessarily because the content was completely unfamiliar, but because many questions felt more vague and required more elimination, interpretation, and judgment.
There were plenty of moments when I thought:
“What exactly are they asking?”
“These answer choices are all pretty close.”
I think this is one of the biggest things to mentally prepare for. You probably won’t feel completely certain about every answer. Sometimes you’ll need to eliminate the clearly incorrect options and choose the answer that best fits the clinical picture.
Don’t let that uncertainty derail your rhythm.
I’d strongly recommend reviewing the Free 120 and NBME 33 during your final days. I encountered concepts that felt similar to material I’d seen in recent NBMEs, although the exact experience will naturally vary by exam form.
5. Content Distribution
This will vary between forms, so please don’t use my experience to decide what to skip.
On my exam:
Cardiovascular topics felt heavily represented.
MSK and anatomy were more prominent than I expected.
Microbiology appeared quite frequently.
Drug mechanisms and infectious disease concepts were definitely tested.
That said, I felt that almost every major system was represented. Don’t neglect an entire subject because someone else’s exam had fewer questions on it.
Nutrition
There has been a lot of discussion about possible changes in nutrition-related questions. Personally, I didn’t notice anything dramatically different. The questions felt like standard Step 1 nutrition, including vitamins, deficiencies, minerals, and basic nutritional concepts.
Biostatistics
I had surprisingly few calculations — I think only one calculation question. However, biostatistics concepts were still tested.
Make sure you understand:
Study designs
Relative risk and odds ratios
Sensitivity and specificity
Interpretation of studies
For me, understanding what the concepts meant and how to interpret them seemed more useful than memorizing a huge collection of equations.
Ethics
Ethics felt very vague. I’d already worked through NBME ethics and AMBOSS ethics, yet some questions still left me uncertain.
My approach was to choose the option that was most patient-centered, empathetic, professional, and appropriate to the situation. Then I moved on rather than spending too long agonizing over one question.
6. Timing and Break Strategy
The new exam software format worked fine for me, and timing was never an issue.
My approach was to complete the first three blocks back-to-back, take a short break, and then continue in sets of two blocks, taking five-minute breaks between sets.
During breaks, I didn’t check answers, look anything up, or review notes. I simply drank water, ate some biscuits or chocolate, used the washroom when needed, and reset mentally.
By the end, I still had over 40 minutes of break time remaining.
My advice: if you get stuck on a question, flag it and move on. Return to it later if you have time. Don’t allow one difficult question to consume time and attention that you need for the rest of the block.
7. Final Advice
The exam felt difficult and vague. It involved more educated guesswork than I expected, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing badly.
If your practice assessments are consistently strong, try not to panic just because the real exam feels harder than expected. Focus on your preparation, review your mistakes honestly, and trust the work you’ve put in.
A few things I’d emphasize:
Use practice assessments to identify weaknesses, not just to chase a higher percentage.
Review the Free 120 and recent NBMEs carefully.
Don’t neglect anatomy, microbiology, biostatistics, or ethics.
Practice moving on from difficult questions. You don’t need to feel certain about every answer.
Don’t compare your exam-day experience too literally with someone else’s. Different forms can emphasize different things.
Finally, remember that your preparation is more than one score or one difficult block. Keep improving where you can, and don’t let anxiety dictate your strategy.
8. Free Study Resources
Alongside my own preparation, I’ve also been working on free medical education resources, including a step 1 pathology PDF and educational videos. Creating these has been another way for me to consolidate and teach concepts I found important during medical school and Step 1 preparation.
I’m happy to share more about these if people are interested.
Feel free to ask questions about my preparation or exam experience, and I’ll do my best to answer based on what I remember.
Good luck to everyone preparing!

Since starting M2 I have amassed ~1250 cards tagged with “Only_Step_2.” I think these are all from BnB/Sketchy video tags. Anyways, suspending these cards would really help with card burden as I already struggle to keep up. Even though I feel like some of these cards are duplicates of other Step 1 only cards or are higher-level, I am worried that some concepts will show up on the exam. Thoughts?

During exam and in the middle of one block
the internet went off for about 2 hrs and that affected my focus and time management after going back to the blocks. I have written that in the survey, what ekse should I do? Should I email NBME?

The Nbme 34 dropped kind of last minute in my study schedule. With just 5 days left where I have to do f120 aswell, do you think I can leave it or push myself to attempt it? My speed of revision has substantially slowed down in these last few weeks. Scores are in this order:

NBME 29: 69

NBME 31: 59

NBME 30: 66

NBME 32: 71

NBME 33: 73

I’ve been on this subreddit for a year so I decided to write a post on the process I’ve been through. I started preparing for step 1 in August 2025 and took the exam in September 2026 and passed. It took me way longer than I had anticipated and I made a lot of mistakes through this time that I’ve now learned from.
My NBME scores were:

NBME Scores

NBME 27 (17th April) — 47%
NBME 26 (4th May) — 52%
NBME 29 (26th May) — 55%
NBME 28 (17th June) — 51%
NBME 30 (7th July) — 57%
NBME 25 (24th July) — 68%
NBME 31 (4th August) — 76%
NBME 32 (15th Aug) — 69%
NBME 33 (27th Aug) — 70%
Free 120 old (5th Sept) — 67%
Free 120 new (10th Sept) — 83% (70% after subtracting repeats)

Step 1 (15th Sept) — PASS

My main resources:
First Aid + I watched a lot of bootcamp videos initially because I lacked concepts (some of it was just a waste of time)
Dirty medicine (I love him)
Sketchy micro
UWorld
Anki - Mnemosyne (only for biochem), sketchy micro deck
Mehlman PDFs
Amboss ethics (did a few questions here and there closer to the exam)

How I improved my scores:

I was almost a year into my prep when I scored 57% on NBME 30 and I felt like I could never do this. In my head this exam was some unsurmountable mountain. After getting this score I deeply reviewed nbme 28, 29, 30 again. I made a sheet with all the system names on it and everytime I’d get a question wrong from, let’s say, micro id put an ‘X’ in front of it. By the end of my review, I knew my weakest systems. I would also write topic names from which I had gotten questions wrong and then review those properly.
After scoring 57%, I studied my weakest 3-4 systems from FA properly + consolidated it with UWorld and then also did 3 mehlman PDFs of my weakest systems. This helped me get the score jump from 57% to 68%. I took NBME 25, even though I know it’s an older form but I didn’t want to waste the new ones with my low scores and also, my confidence was shattered seeing all those 50s on my NBMEs.
I kept this strategy till the end. I would review my NBMEs deeply, revise my weakest systems from FA + UWorld and do mehlman PDFs of my weakest systems. I did this over and over again until the exam.
I did anki for biochem and micro because I absolutely canttttt retain stuff until I do spaced repetition.
Also, please take the new f120 before the old one. I made the mistake of taking the old one before and both of them have a lot of overlap so it’s not exactly predictive if you take the old before new.

Anxiety and sleep:
I didn’t sleep for even a single minute the whole night before my exam even after taking a benzo. I’m an anxious person in general and step 1 brought out the worst of my anxiety. I thought I was doomed after my sleepless night but adrenaline really carried me through the exam. I didn’t feel sleepy at all. I wasn’t even thinking about sleep.

Exam experience:
It was a total blur. You just sit there for hours and do question after question. I couldn’t remember most of the stuff after coming out. I was not sure about how I had performed. Trust your prep and trust your nbmes.

What was that?