Okay.
You’ve finally studied your heart out.
You’ve accepted that you will never be ready to fully take this exam but you are going to anyways.
Exam day has finally arrived.
Boards and dedicated are stressful. Ask any medical student! But there are some things that can help calm you down or help you familiarize yourself with for test day. Whether that be step 1 or level 1, there are few things to keep in mind and a few things to be prepared for.
Step 1:
The test in total looks something like this:
- 15 minute beginning tutorial
- 7 blocks total of questions. Each block is 40 questions and you have a max of 1 hour per block.
- 45 minutes of break time for the day.
When you arrive to Prometric, step 1 usually requires a piece of paper for you to print and bring with you. There is an ID # that they will have you write on your sheet of scratch paper. You will need this ID # to log into the exam every single time you come back from a break. Don’t bother memorizing this #. It will be written there for you.
Uworld is set up very similarly to step 1. It has the running questions on the sidebar, the same blue bar up top and gray background. It has the forward and backward buttons, calculator button, and labs. It also has a timer (although if I remember correctly the timer is on the bottom of the real exam). There are a few extra buttons on Uworld that are not on Step 1, but if you are someone who is anxious about navigating the exam on test day, look at Uworld set up to get an idea.
Then you have the check-in (which is very similar to the MCAT). You sign your name, they wand you, they fingerprint you, they time stamp your in and out, take a photo of you, and ask to see your empty pockets, up your sleeves, etc. For mine, we eliminated the fingerprint and wanding because of COVID. We also didn’t sign in/out for every break, but we did sign in at the start and end of the exam. You will have a locker which you can access during your breaks.
So after going through check-in you are sat in your assigned seat. I brought foam earplugs because I had a feeling some nervous ticks of other test takers would be loud; and my goodness were there some loud and annoying ones.
You login with that ID # and click that you are you and blah blah and then you start at the home screen.
For step, you decide how many blocks you do at a time and when to take your breaks. If you finish early on any testing block, they recycle that time into your break time. After an hour passes for each block, you have to submit that block of questions and move on. You get no more time for that particular block.
So you can choose to do the 15 minute tutorial or have this time recycled into your break time. I chose to quickly go through it to see if there were any additional functions that I was unaware of that differed from Uworld. I ended up with about 10 minutes extra.
I’m really annoyed that there isn’t a good screenshot of how that main test screen looks. This would have saved me a lot of anxiety as I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Below is my “attempt” at what I remember for how it looks.
As the exam continues on, the timing will change. Again, if you do not use the full allotted time for each section it will recycle and add to your break time. Below is how I ended up taking my exam:
I used the rollover time to add to my break times so I could take more of a breather. It was a long day of testing and I needed the time to reset. Plus, I knew I had extra time so I wasn’t pressed to keep watching my phone for the time on my break. I could just enjoy my break, eat, look up something if I wanted to, stretch, or just enjoy the sunshine.
During your breaks (at least at my site) you were allowed to use the restroom, get into your locker, go outside the building, get in your car, etc. They had only asked us to not go near crowds of people. Most of us if we went outside either sat on the sidewalk right out front of the building or sat in our cars in the parking lot. Others just stayed in the building.
At the end of the day we signed our name out, got a print out that was notarized, and we were done!
Level 1:
Okay, the set up for this exam is a bit different. I tested at the same Prometric site a few days later, so the process of getting into the exam was the same, and the rules were basically the same about breaks. The only difference is there was no ID # to log into with and I didn’t need a printed out sheet of paper with me.
This exam has LESS freedom to decide how you want to test. The exam is longer and more rigid in the schedule compared to step 1. Here is the following break down:
- 10-15 minute tutorial
- 2 blocks of 50 questions
- 10 minute break
- 2 blocks of 50 questions
- 40 minute break
- 2 blocks of 50 questions
- 10 minute break
- 2 blocks of 50 questions
- Survey
The timing is set up into two 4 hour blocks. This means that you get a 4 hour block before lunch and a 4 hour block after lunch. Within that 4 hours, it is recommended that you try to complete each block within an hour. But unlike step 1, the clock doesn’t stop ticking. This means that you need to constantly be watching your time. At around 1 hour you should be hitting submit for your block and moving on to the next one. What this does mean, is if you finish a block early, it rolls into the next testing block (as long as it is within either the first or second 4 hour block). You do not get any extra break time however.
So that means let say the following happens:
| block 1 | 1 hour |
|---|---|
| block 2 | 1 hour |
| block 3 | 50 minutes |
| block 4 | 70 minutes |
| End of first half of exam | no time rolls over after submitting block 4 |
Once you submit a block you cannot go back. If you take more than the allotted time for your 10 minute break, it will pull from your overall 4 hours of testing time (or whatever is left).
After lunch you repeat the same process. You need to watch your time and try to submit each block within an hour. If you finish quicker, again that time will roll over for other blocks, but not be added to any break time.
Truelearn is a very similar set up to the exam interface on the level 1. Again, there are a few less buttons, but overall the set up and how you work it is pretty much the same. It looks the same as well.
Hope that was helpful! Cheers.
