About me: IMG, graduated in 2010. I am at the end of urology residency program outside the US/Canada and about to start a fellowship program in the US. Step 1 in 2009, Step 2 in 2010 (double 99). Fluent in English.

Studied for Step 3 about 2.5 months, with a full time job including sleepless on-calls and 2 kids.
First 3 weeks only read FA, and then completed UW qbank. While preparing for the exam, I took untimed 40 q blocks and averaged 66% which was more or less consistent throughout the study period. Although blocks were untimed I was pretty much OK on most blocks. Scored 217 (64%) on self assessment test (form 1 only) 10 days prior to exam.

First day of the exam was very hard. Lots of basic science questions based on clinical scenarios which were very similar to Step 1 questions. In each block there were 2-3 statistics and 1-2 ethics questions and I think UW does a good job in preparing for that (no need to get the biostatistics review in my opinion). Questions were in general a bit longer and more complicated than UW qbank, and adding to that the stress of the exam I found myself struggling with time. I missed about 1-2 questions in each block because of that. About half the blocks contained 2 drug-ad questions. These were too long and I decided not to waste my time which was already short. Finished day 1 feeling horrible.
Day 2 was next day and was much better. Questions dealt with clinical issues and less basic science, which made me feel more comfortable. Time management was a bit better than day 1. CCS part was reasonable with abuot half the cases being very similar to UW. I felt that UW did a good job in preparing me for that part of the exam. Nearly all cases ended early than expected, I guess because I managed the cases properly (or I either made a horrible mistake). The good thing about a case ending early (by the CCS software) is that unused time is added to the overall break time. So feel free to use nearly all break time between MCQ blocks and expect more break time in CCS part.

Waited 4 week for the results. Real deal 233. To my surprise, my performance was slightly better on day 1 than day 2. My perfprmance on CCS was a little better than borderline.
In retrospect, I should have started studying with the qbank, not wasting time on reading only FA, and use MTB instead. In my opinion, MTB is superior to FA in preparing for Step 3 and the ideal way would be to start with qbank while simultaneously reading high yield book chapters.

Overall, I feel that having passed the exam so many years after graduation and not dealing with internal medicine on a daily basis, makes it a not-so-hard exam after all. Considering that the vast majority of exam takers are full time residents, it is absolutely possible.
One last thing- unlike Step 1 and 2, I could not find a lot of data regarding UW performance correlation to real exam score. Please share your experience.
Good luck to all of you.
edited by on 1/19/2018
edited by on 1/19/2018

Thank you very much for posting your experience , really appreciate you taking time for that. And yea Congrats on the great result . You earned it

This was really helpful. Thank you

Congrats! That's a great score! Thank you for posting. Good luck for your fellowship!

thank you for sharing your experience

congrats for your score.Thanks for sharing your experience

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, congratulations for your great score

THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE..