Stepora Blog · UWorld

UWorld Second Pass: Incorrects Only or Redo Everything?

Published 27 October 2026 · Stepora

You finished the bank. The question every student asks next: do I start again from question one, or just re-do the ones I got wrong? The answer is boring, and it saves you weeks: incorrects only. A full reset feels thorough. In practice it mostly re-tests questions you already know, inflates your percentage with memory, and eats the hours your NBMEs and weak-system drills need.

Why repeat percentages lie

A question you have seen before is a different question. You remember the answer, or the explanation, or just the shape of the vignette — and the correct option lights up before you have reasoned anything. That is recognition, not knowledge. A second-pass percentage therefore measures how well you remember the bank, not how well you know the medicine, and it cannot be compared with a first-pass number at all.

This is the same trap as the percentage-to-score charts: a number that looks precise and means nothing. Your first-pass percentage, done timed and random, told you something real about coverage and application. Your second-pass percentage, on questions you have already read, tells you that you have a memory. It says nothing about your exam readiness — and it must never be used to move an exam date. That vote belongs to NBMEs alone: two recent forms at about 69–70% correct (EPC) is the green light, with 64% EPC tracking about a 92% pass chance and 68% about 97%.

There is a second cost to a full reset: boredom. Grinding through thousands of questions you already know drains the motivation the hard final weeks need. An incorrects-only pass stays hard — every question in it is one that beat you once.

The incorrects-only pass, done properly

"Incorrects only" is not "skim your misses." Done properly it is a full second curriculum, built from exactly the questions that found your gaps:

1. Build the set from incorrects plus flagged questions. Include the ones you got right but guessed on or flagged — a lucky guess is a miss that hasn't happened yet.
2. Run it timed and random, in 40-question blocks. The same conditions as a real exam block. Tutor mode or system-wise sorting turns the second pass back into a reading exercise.
3. Review every explanation again — including the ones you now get right. For every question, write the one-sentence rule it tested.
4. Bucket every new miss the same five ways: knowledge gap, misread, reasoning error, second-guess, timing. A question missed twice in the same bucket is a pattern, not bad luck — it owns next week's drill time.
5. Anything missed twice goes on a re-test list. Re-test it a week later, on its own.

The time math: what a reset actually costs

The bank holds about 3,700 questions. A full reset at the dedicated pace of 80–120 reviewed questions a day is roughly a month of full-time work — and a 40-question block costs 2.5–3.5 hours, an hour to sit plus 1.5–2.5 hours of review. An incorrects-only pass costs a fraction of that: whatever your first-pass average was, your incorrects are roughly the complement of it, so a student who averaged in the 60s redoes about a third of the bank, not all of it.

That saved month is not free time. It is the time your prep actually needs: fresh questions if any remain, NBME forms on their 7–14-day cadence, weak-system drills, and the Free 120 at 3–7 days out as a dress rehearsal. A reset spends that month re-reading questions you already answered correctly.

When a fresh bank beats a reset

Redoing the whole bank is clearly the wrong move when you have finished both the bank and your incorrects and weeks remain. At that point the best next questions are fresh ones from another bank. A new question tests transfer — applying the rule to a vignette you have never read. A seen question tests recall. The exam is all transfer, so your remaining weeks should be too.

The one case where a reset is defensible

A reset earns its keep in exactly two situations. First, a long gap: a retake or a return after months away, where the first pass has genuinely faded from memory. If you open a question and cannot recall the answer or the explanation, it is testing you again — and a reset becomes a legitimate second first pass. Second, a first pass done in the wrong conditions: if your whole first pass was untimed tutor-mode study while learning the material, you never sat a timed, random block. A timed, random pass over the bank is then new testing, not repetition — but do it timed and random from question one.

Outside those two cases, a reset is comfort disguised as diligence. The rising percentage feels like progress; the NBMEs will not agree.

Where the second pass goes in the week

Incorrects blocks sit in the same slots question blocks always occupied: 2–3 blocks a day in dedicated (80–120 questions), one block on a workday, more on days off. What the second pass must never do is displace an NBME. Forms 28–34 at $62 each, every 7–14 days, in standard timed conditions, with the last full NBME at least 7 days before the exam — no question block, first pass or second, outranks that cadence.

Put it together and the shape of a finished bank is simple: one complete, fully reviewed first pass; an incorrects-only second pass in timed, random blocks; fresh questions when both are done; NBMEs on schedule throughout. Build the schedule that holds all four with the USMLE schedule maker, or see the day laid out in the Step 1 study schedule. And if your block percentages are confusing you, here is what they actually mean.