Study guides & score explainers

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Guides on reading your NBME and UWorld results, score conversion explainers, and study-planning notes for Step 1 and Step 2 CK.

Exam decisions2026/07/24

Your Practice Score Is Below Target. Postpone or Sit?

Turn the decision into arithmetic. Work out how many extra correct answers your gap represents on the form you actually sat, then weigh the constraints no calculator can see.

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Study strategy2026/07/23

Second Pass of UWorld, or Only Your Incorrects?

A capacity-and-diagnosis framework for deciding how to spend the questions you have left, including why neither option gives you a clean read on whether it worked.

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Comparison2026/07/21

Your UWorld Percentage Is Not a Three-Digit Score

Why no honest calculator converts a question-bank average into a USMLE score, demonstrated with this site's own percent-based models, where the same 70% correct produces estimates 38 points apart.

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Comparison2026/07/20

UWSA 2 or the Free 120: Which Should Be Your Last Practice Exam?

A comparison of what the two instruments can actually measure in your final week, based on how each one converts to a three-digit estimate — including the ceilings and corrections built into both models.

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Score interpretation2026/07/18

What a Pass Probability on a Practice Score Actually Means

The percentage beside your estimate is a function of the estimated score, not a count of students who passed. Here is exactly how it is calculated on this site, and how much weight it deserves.

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Score interpretation2026/07/16

Why Your NBME Scores Jump Around Between Forms

Two practice forms taken a week apart can disagree by several points without your knowledge changing at all. Here is how much of that gap comes from the form itself, and which number to act on.

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