IMG step 1 score revealed! - usmleboss20

[ArchivalUser]

hello,
I'm an IMG and just got my results in last week of august my exam was pretty hard and nothing similar as Uworld or any q bank unlike my friend who got it 80% from u world and got 250+.
no body told me about zanki-not even my friend or shall I call him that?- and I only knew about anki one week before my exam so it was worthless.

I can tell I was extremely hard working and my target goal was 300 though my NBME scores were'nt in that range

I got a flue 1 day before my exam, only NSAIDs got my back and saved me.
I know it's weird to hear a story like this here while everyone talk about how they were heros but the real thing is actually not always like that!

I have experienced kind of depression in my preparation, 4 other student from my school took the exam and scored 250+ and didn't bother themselves to tell me about zanki since they were studying together and I was the unwanted one though I'm the top on my class and a very helpful person.

anyway, after the exam I was crying and praying to pass.

on the 4th wednesday I got my result it's 238

I don't really know if it's considered good or bad for an IMG since my colleagues got higher results and everybody is being attention to them

so do you think I have chances in matching in pediatrics/ child neurology?
and what shall I do to strengthen my application?
any advises for proper studying for step 2?

thanks in advance and please reply!

[ArchivalUser]

Congratulation, it may be lower than your expectations but it is a very good score.
Would you mind sharing your nbme scores please.

[ArchivalUser]

Congratulations,please share what books you read and what is Zanzibar?

[ArchivalUser]

Zanki

[ArchivalUser]

Thank you guys! You made my day...
My preperation period was 5 months of dedicated studying but finished most things in a year.
I subscribed usmle Rx for a year and its biochemistry+psychology+biostat and behavioral videos are amazing especially psychology I only understood it and master it with those videos.

I subscribed uworld 2 months before my exam for 2 months , I finished first pass in one month but I was in kind of rash so didn’t read the whole explanation part which is wrong so I had to go back in the next month but I couldn’t finish everything. You have to flag all the questions when you practice at first if you’re planning to do it again “no body told me that so I spent hours going back and flagging ”. Zanki is actually a free version of deck of anki there someone so helpful who shared it to save others time so my colleagues said that it helped them memorizing FA and Uworld as their own names its about 20000 flash cards they did 200 new everyday and200 old ones they said it takes around 2 hours.
I used kaplan books with videos(kaplan biochem and micro-immune and pharma and biostat videos are amazing the old version 2010, also physiology esp cardio and resp the Indian professor is superb!!) except for patho I used pathoma+goljan{some chapters }+ goljan audios 2 days before the exam[GI,resp,cardio,gyne,renal,neuro,hepatic ]. For anatomy moore greys and brs anatomy.
I passed over FA 3 time once in a year 2nd in 3 months and 3rd in 5 week.
I was organized and flexible I had lots of breaks a total of one week scattered.
Nbme19: 236
Nbme13: 230
Nbme15: 207
Nbme16: 225
Nbme17: 232
Uwsa1: 243
Nbme18: 225
Uwsa2: 234
I did it in that order and I cheated in Nbme 19+13 ...

Thats it and please if you can help me strengthen my application for pediatrics this would be nice!

[ArchivalUser]

Thank you for the feedback.
There is a chart given on page 13 in FA 2018 for the median scores by speciality for those who matched in the previous year. 238 is a very safe score to get into pediatrics. You already have done well on step 1, just do well on step 2 as well and you are good to go. Best of luck.