What does the March 2015 USMLE.org bulletin mean?
by Christopher Cimino, MD, FACMI
Vice President, Kaplan Medical
What does it mean when the USMLE® reduces the number of questions on their Step 1 exam from 322 to 308?
The short answer is: more time per question, right?
Yes, but there’s more. What people really want to know is what’s really going on, but the USMLE organization isn’t offering an explanation. We know the 322 questions are composed of some questions that cover the stated topics in roughly the stated proportions as described in the USMLE Bulletin. We also know that there are a few questions that aren’t counted toward the score. These un-scored questions are new items that are being tested to determine if they are good enough to be used in future USMLE exams. Our best guess is that when these 14 questions are removed in May 2015, the new exam will be in roughly the same proportion as the original exam.
So, this means that examinees should study in the same proportion as always.
The other implication is that each question is now worth more towards the score. But consider that the USMLE and National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME®) are very careful about creating a statistically valid test. There’s a lot at stake after all. If these organizations wanted to be thorough then the exam would ask every possible question one needs to know to show mastery of basic science knowledge necessary as preparation for learning clinical science. The exam would be many hundreds of question longer. That isn’t realistic. Instead, the USMLE has determined that by administering a subset of those questions they get a score that is a statistically valid prediction of how that student would do if they were asked all possible questions. This is much more realistic and gets to nearly the same result.
Students testing before or after May 2015 will not need to adjust their study habits based off the new test plan because the proportions will remain the same.
To learn more about how you can prep smarter for the USMLE Step 1, please request an appointment with a Kaplan medical advisor today!