Our Customers have asked for a way to activate their subscription at a later time, so we implemented this into our checkout. You can now activate later with a date up to 90 days out into the future.

Select your future date, and then checkout. You cannot use the subscription until that date, but you are allowed to activate early if you wish. If you wish to activate early, you would simply login with your generated account and type in 'yes' to activating early.

We've updated our CCS Cases Software to better serve the needs of users. Here are some of the changes:

1 - Algorithmic improvements for improved grading for various case scenarios.

2 - Added CCSQB Link to Case Selector Page as some users still unaware this is included in their subscription. This can be turned off in account settings.

3 - By popular request, a button to give case feedback in the case grade page instead of account settings. This can be turned off in account settings.

4 - Added the ability to see the case diagnosis for each case number in Report Card

5 - Added a new report in the Report Card comparing to others for each case taken

6 - Some UI modifications to the case to better align with current testing environment

7 - By popular request, we have added saving case filter settings between logins

8 - Added filter reset button to reset filter settings to default

9 - By popular request, we have added custom time percents (like 10%, 20% 30%) extra time for each case

10 - Made improvements for usability on Tablet/Mobile devices

11 - We added a new case (Case #181).

In light of the upcoming USMLE Step 3 Software Updates, we have updated our CCSQB Question Bank software. Things we have changed:

1 - Added Contrast adjustments and Invert adjustments to images. This can help in certain images.

2 - We added the Button Strike Out Feature where you select the strike out button instead of the previous strike out method of clicking on the answer text. You have the option to turn this off and use the old strike out method if desired.

3 - Added ability to answer questions using the keyboard keys: A, B, C, D, E

4 - Although very minor, we added the ability to move the "Mark Question" flag to where it will be after March 10 if desired. You can turn this off as well if desired.

5 - Changed Next Icons and Question Status to be as the Software Changes will be after March 10, 2026.

6 - Improved Zooming and improved mobile/tablet usage.

7 - Fixed lab values not displaying correctly on mobile/tablet.

8 - Other minor bug fixes.

We have completed CCSQB - a USMLE Step 3 Question Bank with 5200+ Questions. We hope that this can help you have a comprehensive study material to prepare for the USMLE Step 3 exam.

CCSQB is included in your subscription. We hope that you like it. It took the team a lot of work to put together.

The USMLE Announced early February that they will be updating the Multiple Choice Software. These changes will go into effect for Step 3 only starting March 10, 2026. The changes are fairly minor. The changes include:

1 - Flag question icon has been moved inside the question

2 - Next Buttons are now arrows instead of Triangles

3 - Question Status like 1/50 is now between the Next Buttons

4 - Ability to answer a question by using keyboard hotkeys A, B, C, D, E instead of the mouse

5 - A button strike out which appears next to each answer choice that you can select to strike out that answer.

6 - Image Invert and Image Contrast bar to adjust images presented on the exam.

7 - Changes to icons

8 - Other minor changes of selecting text inside a menu instead of selecting an icon.

The CCS Application will be the same as before the software update.

Dear valued users,

As we close out 2025 and prepare for the new year, we want to be transparent with you about upcoming changes to our pricing structure for CCS Cases, effective January 1, 2026.

Why Are Prices Increasing?

Like many businesses, we’ve faced steadily rising operational costs over the past year. These include:

• Higher expenses for content development and expert review
• Increased server and technology infrastructure costs to maintain performance and reliability
• Ongoing investments in platform improvements and security

These factors have made it necessary to adjust our prices to ensure we can continue delivering the high-quality resources you rely on for your exam preparation.

New Pricing Structure (Effective 2026)

Here are the updated prices for CCS Cases access:

• 1 Day - $70
• 3 Days - $75
• 1 Week - $80
• 2 Weeks - $85
• 1 Month - $90
• 2 Months - $95
• 3 Months - $100
• 6 Months - $110

While prices are rising to reflect increased costs, we’re committed to delivering significantly more value than ever before. Your subscription now includes:

• Increased number of interactive CCS cases - More practice opportunities to build confidence and mastery
• Additional platform improvements and new features - Enhanced user experience, faster performance, and better navigation
• Full access to CCSQB - Our comprehensive question bank with over 4,600 high-yield questions
• Step 3 Flashcards - Thousands of targeted flashcards to reinforce key concepts for Step 3 success

These additions represent a substantial expansion of the resources available to you — at price points that still offer excellent value compared to the enhanced content library.

Thank You for Your Continued Trust

We understand that any price increase can be difficult, and we don’t make these changes lightly. Our goal remains the same: to provide the most effective, up-to-date, and comprehensive preparation tools to help you succeed on your exams.

We’re grateful for your support and feedback, which help us continually improve the platform. If you have questions about the new pricing or features, our support team is always here to help.

Here’s to a successful 2026.

—The CCS Cases Team

We have been working a Step 3 Qbank for some time now. We are up to 1900 questions and slowly adding more until we reach our goal of about 5000 questions. This is still in beta, so we might have some minor issues. CCSQB will remain in beta until we reach our goal of 5000 questions, so likely will be in beta for 6-9 more months (middle of 2026). CCSQB is included with your CCSCases subscription and can either be accessed directly at qb.ccscases.com or through you Account Settings inside CCS Cases.

We hope you like it! You can access it here!

CCS Cards is merging with CCSQB. We don't want to 3 separate services, so we have merged CCS Cards with CCSQB. You can access it now through CCSQB (qb.ccscases.com) and clicking "Flashcards" at the side menu. As operating systems continue to make Progressive Web Apps(PWA) more difficult to install, we decided to just integrate it with CCSQB which will eliminate a lot of technical issues and frustration. We will not be migrating user data from cards.ccscases.com to CCSQB as they the data is stored quite differently. However, we will leave cards.ccscases.com available for another 6-9 months allowing users to migrate over and then eventually shut cards.ccscases.com down in favor of CCSQB.

The functionality is essentially same with some improvements. We hope you enjoy them.

Our fellow IMGs are required to pass the OET Medicine prior to the beginning of their residency. There have been some frustration with studying for OET, particularly for the Writing and Speaking portion of the exam which would require you to write essays and involve other people to grade and role play. Now with the use of AI, the users can study by themselves.

• We have 10 full practice tests with Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking Sections.
• Can study in the most common accents seen in the exam (British, Australian, Irish, American).
• Feedback for all sections after completion

Try it out at OccEnglish here. We hope this is helpful in your OET studies!

We've passed over 3.4 million first case attempts! This does not count any repeated cases completed.

This means that we do not count any customers who repeat a case (so if a customer does case #10 one hundred times, we would count that as just one attempt towards case #10).

Thanks for everyone's support to make this a thriving community of learning.

This is a common question that we get. Typically, the student is running out of time and does not have time to complete all of the 170 cases and wishes to just look at the answer sheet to get as much information as they can prior to their USMLE exam date. Although this is not recommended, we do offer a way to look at the grading sheet without coming the case. The way to do this is to go to your account settings and turn on "Enable Answer Peeking" which looks like this:

Once this is enabled, on the list cases interface under the options, you will see an option called "Peek at answers."

If you click on this, you will be taken to the grading sheet. You will be assigned a low grade for the exam and this first attempt will not be counted in the first attempt average.

We recommend that you complete all of the cases, but we do have this option available as was a frequently requested feature.

Thanks for reading.

A blue order will look something like this:

Some people will e-mail us upset that they ordered this order, and it is marked as blue. Blue simply means that this is an optional order. It is designed as an informational order to draw attention to the fact that this order would be abnormal but would not be required. Other circumstances, it can draw attention to the order that it could be a good idea to order it, but would not be required. This is purely informational. It will be marked as blue on the order sheet whether you order it or not and will not affect your grade.

Green means that you got the correct order or did not order an contraindicated order and red means you did not order an indicated order or ordered a contraindicated order.

We received a request to add this feature. This feature shows the last completion grade of each case instead of the average completion grade.

The default is to list the Average Grade for that specific case which would look like this:

So notice in case #1, the user has an average grade of 23.68% for all of the attempts on case #1. If the user would just like to report the last grade attempt on case #1, you can go to your account settings and turn on "Show Last Completion Grade."

Then if you go back to the case selector menu. You will see that it changed the column to "Last Completion Grade" which means this is the grade of the last attempt on case #1.

We hope that everyone enjoys this new feature and hopes that it will be helpful in your studies!

We've been getting a lot of questions about the Clock typically phrased in a accusatory way. We can assure you that the clock feature has been well tested. We will go through some common questions and answers.

Question: Why does my case end early even though it's a 20 minute case?

Answer: We've written a lot about this in the past. We will reiterate this again. This is not a bug when the case ends early and is part of the USMLE and how the real program works. Each case has a set virtual time limit and if you go past that set virtual time limit, the case will end. If you don't believe us, open a 20 minute case and do nothing, and we guarantee you that the case will end at 20 minutes.

Question: How do you know how long the set virtual time limit is?

Answer: You do not know the virtual time limit. Emergency cases are typically very short (like 30 minutes) while outpatient cases can be as long as months.

Question: Sometimes I order a test that takes days to get back, and I never get the result back from that test.

Answer: Yes, this can happen. If you order a test that takes 1 week to come back and the case ends after 2 days, you will never get that test result back. You might want to think about a different test with a shorter return window.

Question: What is the difference between virtual time and real time?

Answer: Real time is how long the case has been going on in real-time; meaning since you started the case. This will be either 10 minutes or 20 minutes as the time limit in real time. Virtual time is the pretend time in the case where you advance the clock. You can advance the clock seconds, minutes, hours, or days. Most of your thinking should be in virtual time. The real time's function is to end the case if you go over your time limit for that case (either 10 min or 20 min).

Question: So, I can end a 20 minute case in 1 real minute?

Answer: Yes, easy. Just start the case and go to the clock immediately and click "Call / See me as needed." Advance the clock until the case ends. This would be an excellent way to fail that case in record timing. We recommend that you take a look at our Videos at the bottom of our Screen-Shots page and view the video about the clock feature.

We've passed over 2.6 million first case attempts. This is a lot of first case attempts. This means that we do not count any customers who repeat a case (so if a customer does case #1 fifty times, we would count that as just one attempt towards case #1).

Thanks for everyone's support to make this a thriving community of learning.

We continue to grow our case simulator SimBank. We now have 168 cases that go through the most commonly seen cases on the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). We are currently working on 3 more cases which will bring the total up 171 cases. We will continue to add more cases so that our program will be as up-to-date as possible.

If you'd like to try out demo of CCSCases, you can do so here.

Thanks for reading.

A Common concern that we receive from our customers is that they feel that certain orders are not being registered in the grading section. It typically is an e-mail like: "I ordered X and it's marking me that I did not order it. Your program needs to be fixed."

We investigate every concern. However, 99% of the time, the issue is either education or understanding how the program works, and the program is working as it should. Here are the most common reasons why customers feel that orders are not being registered.

#1 - The wrong order is entered. Many orders sound similar. For example, in case 66, the antibiotic Pyrazinamide. We have many people order Pyrimethamine instead of Pyrazinamide and feel that they were unjustly marked off. We go through their log and then discover that they ordered Pyrimethamine.

#2 - Some cases require multiple orders to receive credit. In the grading feedback, it will tell you if multiple orders are required to receive credit. This is typically true for antibiotics when multiple antibiotics are required for credit. Again, case 66 is a good example where the case requires Rifampin, Pyrazinamide, Ethambutol AND Isoniazid. Notice in the grading that multiple orders with be separated by an AND such as this:

#3 - The order is cancelled accidentally. Some people will order many order all at once like this:

Some will order as many orders at 10 at once. Each order must be verified. Some customers will accidentally hit the cancel button during the verification process which will make the order disappear like it was never ordered because it wasn't. The order will not show up in your log.

#4 - Some will order a harmful or incorrect order which is marked off which will show up red on the grading sheet. Typically we will receive an email saying, I have the log and a screenshot showing that I definitely ordered this medication, and it is marking me off and showing that it is red. An example that comes up is case 62, the patient is not to receive antiepileptics. Many users will order an antiepileptic such as Depakote, then tell us that they ordered it correctly and got marked off. We reply that they correctly got marked off for ordering something that should have been avoided. In the grading, it says "Should have avoided" and then lists the things that should NOT have been ordered.

#5 - Looking at the wrong feedback date. Another common occurrence happens when a user repeats a case, lets say case 62. They did the case on June 2, 2021 and then repeated the case on October 27, 2022. If they were reviewing the case results, some will accidentally click on a different test date and then get upset that their orders were not registering. For example, lets say that in the June 2, 2021 test date that the physical exam: Abdomen was NOT ordered but that the October 27, 2022 test date that it WAS ordered. The user could click on the June 2, 2021 date and assume that it is showing the October 27, 2022 date and think that the program did not register the Physical Exam: Abdomen. For the old grading UI, the grading date is on the left here:

For the new UI, it is under the button "View Previous Completions."

#6 - Ordering labs orders that different by sample type only. Another common issue is that users will sometimes order a urine lab order instead of a serum lab order. For example, a user could order a bacterial culture, urine instead of a bacterial culture, serum. These are two different orders.

#7 - Ordering a location change instead of using the Location Button. The USMLE and our program contain orders like "Move patient" which the result will come up "To change the location of the patient, please us the Change Location Button." The user will not read the popup and just click okay and then say that they changed the patient location which was not being registered.

#8 - Ordering medication groups. Some users will also order entire medication groups like "Corticosteroids" or "ART" or "B-blocker" or "Antacid". The program will come back with "To order a medication, please type the specific generic or trade name." Again, users will not read the popup and then get upset that they missed points for not ordering the correct medication.

These are the most common reasons users feel that their orders are not being registered. This software is well tested. We have over 1,500,000 first case attempts, so a lot of people have taken these cases! We do make mistakes, but we hope that you will try to verify first that one of these common issues does not match your concern. If you still feel that it is not registering, then email us again, and we will take a look at your log.

What is a negative patient update?

We get this question a lot from users who are not familiar with how the CCS test works. A negative patient update is when a pop-up will appear essentially saying that the patient is doing/feeling worse. This is an example:

A positive patient update essentially says that the patient is improving or doing better. This is an example:

The general rule of thumb is that if you get a positive patient update, then you are doing the correct treatment, and if you are not giving the correct treatment, then you will get a patient update. There are some instances that the patient will give a negative patient update even though you are giving the correct treatment and correct management. There are also times where a positive patient update will appear even though you are doing incorrect treatment or incorrect management. However, the majority of the cases, this rule is true.

If you are too "slow" in treatment or management, then you will get a negative patient update. Just like in the real test, you will lose points if you get negative patient updates for not giving treatment soon enough. "Slow" is in quotes because users think in real time meaning they have to rush and go through the case real fast. This is not what is meant. This is "slow" in the virtual time, not real time. You advance the clock manually which advances virtual time. See our post on how the clock works if you still have questions about real vs virtual time.

We are proud to introduce a new feature/service of CCSCases.com which we are calling CCS Cards. CCS Cards is a flashcard app that is a collection of 3000 bite sized facts formatted in flashcards that will help with both the multiple choice and CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3.

We've worked hard to make it a good experience and have used some great technology. Here is a list of features:

• This is a progressive web app (PWA). It does not require any permissions to run unlike most apps downloaded from an app store
• There are over 3000 bite sized USMLE Step 3 flashcards.
• Designed for use on a phone or tablet (but also works on a desktop)
• Progress is synced between devices
• You only need to download the flashcards once to a particular device (you might need to redownload if there are updates to the flashcards)
• You can install the app on your phone like a normal app. For Android, you click your browser options and then "Install App". For iOS, you click share icon and then "Add to Home Screen."
• If you don't want to install on your phone, you can just login to cards.ccscases.com each time. You should not have to download the flashcards again unless you've deleted your cache or are using incognito/private browser (which disables cache saving).
• You can use the flashcards offline (all progress with be synced to our servers after you are back online). We require that you sync at least once every 2-3 days
• You can use the standard study mode or spaced learning where you review flashcards you missed more frequently than flashcards you get correct
• Ability to favorite a flashcard
• Ability to change color of the App
• Dark Mode ability
• Tap to flip / Swipe up to mark correct / Swipe down to mark incorrect / Swipe left to go to next flashcard / Swipe right to go to previous flashcard
• Can study by category if desired
• Comes free with a CCSCases.com subscription.

Note: this feature is not available on a demo account.

We hope you try it out. You can try it out here. You login to the site by using the same login/password that you use on app.ccscases.com. The technology is different, so when you login, it will create a new account for the flashcards, so if you change your password on app.ccscases.com, it will not automatically change on cards.ccscases.com.

You can take a look at the video of CCS Cards here.

Please take a look at our video walking through features of our new Modern Case Selection and Case Grading located here

You can also see this video on the Screen Shots page.

We spent a lot of time making over the new case selection. We know that it was a little utilitarian and vanilla, so we wanted to jazz it up a bit. You can now have a visually pleasing way to select which case you would like to study.

You can sort the cases by Category, Case number, Time Limit, Completed, Review Later, High Yield. We have also added another feature called "Tags" where you can filter for cases by a number of different options like symptoms, diagnosis, gender, and age.

We have added the ability to hide specific cases that you decide to hide, and the ability to hide all completed cases or all Incomplete cases.

We have added the feature to "Peek" at answers for those who do not have time to go through every case prior to their exam.

If you want to go back to the simple vanilla list of cases, this is fine. The new case selection is an opt-in, so if you don't want to change, you don't have to. Change is hard. We get it. You can try when you are ready.

If you would like to trial our demo, you can do so here. Thanks for reading. We will be releasing a video about all of the new features here.

We have passed 1,000,000 unique case attempts! This is a big milestone for us. Unique attempt simply means that it is the first time a user has studied the case. Repeat case attempts are not counted. We thank everyone for their support. We hope to celebrate the 2 million mark.

If you would like to try our demo CCS Cases, you can do so here.

Happy studying!

We continue to expand our case simulator SimBank. We now have 157 cases that go through the most commonly seen cases on the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). We have more cases to add. We have 8 more cases currently in the pipeline, and may add more in the future. We want CCSCases.com to be the most up-to-date when it comes to preparation for the USMLE.

We also are improving the experience before you get to the case selection. We are working on making it more visually pleasing and easier to sort and select the cases that you would like to study. We will release another post about this and will release a video explaining all of the new features when this is released.

If you'd like to try out demo of CCSCases, you can do so here.

Thanks for reading.

We are introducing a new simulator for Canadian and other international students studying for the MCCQE Part 1 (Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination Part 1) exam. This covers the most commonly seen multi-part clinical decision making (CDM) cases that will be seen on the MCCQE Part 1 exam. You can view the site at ccdmcases.com or here.

We released a video here about the changes that have been made to counseling patients on the USMLE Step 3 CCS Portion. It's 2.5 minutes and a quick watch which should help educate you on the new expectations in regards to counseling patients.

Report Card Feature

We have added a new feature that we think everyone will enjoy: the report card. Since we have first released our online/web version of CCS Cases, we have had about 400,000 unique case attempts (meaning the first time a user has attempted a case - we do not keep track of repeat case attempts as we feel this information is less valuable). Just to be clear, this data is anonymous. We delete everyone's case data 2 months after their subscription expires. We have received many concerned users asking how they are doing compared to their peers. We have compiled a list of data points that will help those compare how they are doing in their CCS preparation.

The first chart shows each first case attempt and compares this to the average user's first case attempt. You can select and deselect different case categories (Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, OB/GY, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Emergency Medicine). You can scroll through all of your completed cases.

The next graph is a list of your worse cases and list of your best cases. It also shows you which case category that you are struggling with the most.

The next graph is a comparison of your First Attempt for a case and your best attempt for a case.

The next graph is your case averages for a specific category (Peds, Neurology, Emergency Medicine, OB/GYN, Psychiatry, Internal Medicine).

We then has a calculator to suggest how many cases you should study a day before your test day. You enter your Exam date. It may already be filled in which is just your subscription end date. You can change it to give more accurate results.

The last chart is a graph of your daily case averages over time, and your improvement per attempt and per day.

We hope that these data points and charts will be helpful for our students. It took a lot of work to compile them together and present them in a meaningful way.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy!

We have received quite a few people requesting that we create a case simulator for the COMLEX level 3 CDM Case portion. After some hard work, we have created https://cdmcases.com.

Our DO students/residents now can study for the COMLEX Level 3 Clinical Decision Making (CDM) portion of the COMLEX with 100+ cases (more to come).

Check it out!

There are many different strategies out there for preparing for the USMLE Step 3. Our advice, although biased, is fairly simple. For the multiple choice part of the test, you choose the Qbank of your choice and study for that portion, and for the CCS portion of the test, you use CCSCases.com and study with 140 different cases that are most likely to be seen on the exam. The formula for success on the CCS portion is to practice, practice, and practice with actual cases on a real simulation, not just reading books. The software takes some getting used to, so it is imperative that you become very familiar with the software so that it doesn't impede your performance on test day.

Some people fail the CCS portion simply because they don't understand how to use the software! It's incredible that they don't take the time to learn how to use the software before the test, but then they spend hundreds of hours studying for the multiple choice portion of the test. A lot of people do not understand how to submit an order, confirm an order, move a patient to the correct location, and a lot of people don't understand how to ADVANCE THE CLOCK! These strategies are essential for preparing for the USMLE Step 3.

We have had many, many articles and even a video on how to advance the clock, and this is still the most common mistake. The concept of real time and virtual time blows their mind. However, once you've done 20 cases, it makes sense, and this will not be an issue for you on test day. With that out of the way, you can focus on the content and how to diagnose and treat cases, so you can do great on test day.

We recommend that you try out our free 2 cases located here. Try them out.

There has been some counseling changes on the USMLE Step 3 CCS Portion. It used to be that you could just order at the end of the simulation "counsel patient" and then the program would return "patient counseled." This was a routine part of most people strategy, that the USMLE has decided to change how counseling works. Now, you can't just say "counsel patient." You have to now counsel for something specific. For example, you can't just say counsel patient...the followup question would be "for what?" So, it would be counsel patient to avoid eating gluten. This would be an appropriate counsel or counsel patient about medication compliance.

These are the types of counseling that will now be required on the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test. This will go against the routine that people have become accustomed to, but the program will no longer accept just a generic "counsel patient" anymore.

We hope that this is helpful. If you would like to try out our case simulation you can do 2 free cases by going here. Thanks for reading.

Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) were missing from the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases order database for a long time. Users rejoice! The DOAC have been added to the order database on the USMLE Step 3 CCS Portion, so we have also added this as well. There will be more ways to anticoagulant those virtual patients than ever before!

This is a small change, but this was frequent asked why we did not include the DOAC, and the answer was because it wasn't included in the real test. So now that it is, we have included this in our database as well.

If you would like to test our product for free, you can try 2 free cases located here.

This year has been a record year of inflation. Costs are rising. Our electricity costs have increased. Our labor expenses have increased. Our tax burden to our employees have increased. This has occurred over the last 6-9 months. Unfortunately, this puts us in the position that we are in need to slightly raise our prices to meet the increased cost burden. We will raise our prices by $5 for our online/web version, and $10 to the desktop version.

In October 2021, the following rates will be:

1 month subscription - $70

3 month subscription - $80

6 month subscription - $90

12 month subscription (limit to 3 attempts per case) - $95

6 month desktop version - $105 (we are in the process of discontinuing the desktop version).

New Feature Added to the Online/Web Version

Many times we get users who start studying for the USMLE Step 3 Portion and ask us which cases of the 140 should they study a week before the test. These customers can't study all 140 cases and want to know which cases would be the highest yield which mean which cases would be most likely to appear on the test (though all of the cases have a chance of appearing on the real test, but some cases appear more often than others). 

We have implemented this feature as a voting system that the users can use. If you feel that a particular case is High Yield (meaning it has a high chance of ending up on the test), you mark the case as high yield in the grading portion of the case. Each customer gets 1 vote per case. So if case #12 has 200 votes, this means 200 different customers felt that this case was High Yield. 

This is a quick and dirty way for someone who is studying last minute to hit the cases that the community feel are the highest yield. The safe way would be to study all 140 cases. Is it possible that the community could be incorrect as to which cases are High Yield and which are not? Yes, of course. We recommend that you study all of the cases, but this is just another feature that our users can use at their discretion. 

We did a major backend update to our website at CCSCases.com. Backend means all of the things running in the background. It looks the same, but all the pieces are different in the background. You will find that the website is much, much faster. This was the goal. We enhanced our security to make the security even stronger than before.

We did make some adjustments to our checkout options. We previously offered Stripe, Paypal, and Amazon Pay as options to pay. Amazon pay has led to quite a bit of problems, as people will purchase with their Amazon account and have an old email that they do not have access to (Amazon will only send us the email registered in their Amazon Account). This has caused quite a bit of support from our end. Due to this issue, we will be ending our Amazon Pay option.

Thanks for your continued support. There has been a lot of changes this year which shows that we are growing!

We have gotten reports that there have been lags/slow downs/delays on the real test during the CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3 at certain testing centers in the United States. This is an unfortunate event, and there is not much that can be done about this. It is the luck of the draw whether a testing site’s Internet connection to the USMLE servers are fast that day or if there is a lag. It tends to be testing site specific, though if the USMLE servers are slow that particular day, all of the Prometric sites would be slow as well. Meaning that if the Prometric Internet is slow, it is test site specific, but if USMLE servers are slow, then it would not be site specific. 

We have also received reports that there can be extra lag time when making the real software do a search for an order. For example, if you were to type in the partial name of an order such as “hydro” instead of “Hydrochlorothiazide” then this would take additional time to return the list of possible options matching “hydro.” Other than hoping for a good day where there isn’t a delay or lag on the test, if you are very concerned about the lag time / delay on the real test affecting your performance, we recommend that you practice with a lag on the test to get used to it. We have this option available to slow down the program and intentionally lag / delay results after each interaction. 

You can try out our lag time / delay feature in our program for free with the link below. 

If you’d like to try out our program, you can download two free cases here.

Hope this information is helpful. Thanks for reading and happy studying on your test.

How Does The Time and Clock Work On Your Program?

This may seem like a simple thing to the veteran CCS Students out there, but for the newly studying CCS students, learning the clock can take some time. The key students need to learn is that there are two types of clocks on the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test: virtual time and real time. You mainly deal with virtual time. Real time is the amount of time that you are given to finish a case (either 10 min or 20 min). The only thing you need to worry about is to not run out of time. 

Virtual time is the time you tell the program to advance in the simulation (“not real time”). You could advance the simulation 10 years if you wanted (but the simulation would end before you got there). 

Here is a brief explanation of advancing the clock (same as the real test):

The “On” option: This will advance the clock by giving an exact time you’d like to advance the clock to. If it’s Day 1 @9:00 and you want to advance the clock 30 min, then you would put Day 1 - Hour 9 - 30 min such as shown in the picture above. We feel that this is a confusing way to advance the time and recommend that you use the “In” or “With next available result” option. 

The “In” option: For this option, you simply put in how many days, hours, or minutes you’d like to advance the clock. If you wanted to advance 30 min, you just put 30 into the minute column. When you click “OK”, the virtual time will advance 30 min. If the time is Day 1 @9:00, the virtual time will advance to Day 1 @ 9:30am

The “With next available result” option: This is probably the most commonly used method to advance the clock. This will advance the clock depending on what is currently pending on your order sheet. This will advance the clock to the order with the earliest report time. For example, if you have ordered 3 different orders: CBC - > report time in 30 min, LFTs -> report time in 60 min, and Pulse Ox -> report time in 1 min; it will advance the clock 1 min. If you had only the CBC and LFTs ordered, then it would advance the clock 30 min. If you have no orders on the order sheet, this will advance the clock to the next patient update. The only thing you have to be careful about on the real test is that if you have nothing on the order sheet or an order that you don’t realize the next report time is a day later. For example, if you had a report time of Day 2 @ 10:00 and it’s Day 1@9:30. You might mistakenly think that it’s only 30 min away, but if you advance the clock, it will advance the clock 24 hours and 30 minutes! Oops. This would likely cause you to lose a lot of points on the real test day, so be careful about that!

The “Call / see me as needed” option: This essentially will advance the clock until the case will end. You only do this if you are done ordering everything and have nothing further to do. If you have more to do with the patient, do not use this! 

We hope that this brief overview was helpful. The best way to practice this is with real simulation cases with a real program. You can try out our program by downloading the trial version here with 2 free cases. 

Thanks for reading. 

How to End a Case When You Are Finished on the CCS Portion of Step 3:

Many people ask why cases will end early which was a discussion in prior posts. We also get the question on how to end the case when you are finished, but there is still time left on the clock. The answer is fairly simple: Just go to the Clock which is named “Obtain Results or See Patient Later” and click “Call / see me as needed.” This will advance the clock to the end of the case. If you have pending results it will show the results and ask if you would like to stop the clock, but if you continue to say, “no” in about 2 or 3 checks, the case will go to the 2 minute warning, and you can then click “exit case.”

Just a quick reminder: On the real test day, this is the same for how to end a case early. You must be sure that you are completely done with the case. Once the case is ended, you cannot go back and make any changes. If you’ve advanced to the 2 minutes warning, you cannot advance the virtual clock. You can order future studies that can be used for preventive measures. You can also counsel with the patient and practice good bed-side manner. 

If you’d like to try out our program, you can download two free cases here. 

Learning how to master the USMLE Step 3 CCS (commonly misspelled as USMLE Step 3 CSS) is an important piece of being able to pass/excel in the Step 3 exam. As the CCS Cases portion on the exam is roughly 25% of your total grade for the 2 day test, this is not a portion of the test that you should ignore as this can be the difference between passing and failing and having to retake a 2-day test. 

There are some good resources out there that can be helpful and provide good information for managing clinical cases. However, if you have not practiced using a real-time simulator, then you may struggle on test day learning to navigate the software and to understand how it works. The USMLE provides 6 cases for you to study, but most find this insufficient amount of material to be able to master the USMLE Step 3 CCS. Many people are unaware of the nuances of the program such as: how to order; how to advance time; patient updates; ordering a physical exam; importance of preventative care; the meaning of when the case ends before the maximum allowable time, and more.

You can read about these things, but until you actually practice on real software, it is likely that you will not fully understand how the program works, and you definitely do not want to try to “figure it out” during test day. You are already strapped for time, so learning how to navigate the software should be the least of your problems. In addition to helping learn how the real test day works, the program will also teach you good clinical skills on how to diagnose and treat 101 different clinical scenarios which will prepare you for test day.

Try our program out by clicking here and try out two free cases. 

We tried really hard to make the January 1, 2021 deadline. We were working 80 hour weeks, but we keep getting caught up in adding new features. “What if we added this to the program…” is to blame for the delayed release. On paper it sounded easy, but the features turned out to be more complex than anticipated. One of the new features that can be blamed for the delay in release is the save incomplete cases and restore incomplete cases feature. For example, if you exit a case in the middle because you got interrupted or you accidentally refreshed the browser or whatever, your progress will be saved, and you have the option to start where you left off).  

The other feature was selecting and ordering multiple orders in the order menu. We also had to refine features like High Yield (to be a voting system for which cases is most liked by students - in the future when enough customers have voted, the ability to sort and group by High Yield will be available). We also were busy adding new cases (4 cases were added - we went ahead and released them to the Desktop version early).

Enough excuses. We apologize for some customers who have been patiently awaiting for the online version. You can try it out free by signing up for our demo here.

We hope you like it. It took a lot of work!

What Kind of Doctor Am I on the Step 3 CCS Portion of the exam?

This is a common source of confusion about the role of the person your are “pretending” to be as the treating physician on the Step 3 portion of the CCS Cases. The answer is that you are a primary care physician “generalist.” You can treat the patient in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. You are responsible for the ordering of tests, imaging studies, diagnostic procedures, changing of clinical locations, monitoring the patient over simulated time, preparatory patient care (i.e. getting IV fluids, blood type and cross, antibiotics prior to surgery), and addressing health maintenance issues.

If you order a procedure that you are not trained for (i.e. brain surgery), the medical staff will either assist you or take primary responsibility for implementing your request. Therefore, you should not be shy about ordering surgical procedures or specialized interventions that a normal primary care provider would never do as long as it is indicated for the case.

If you’d like to try out our program, you can download two free cases here. 

If I meet a patient in the Emergency Room, and it’s not emergent, can I just refer the patient to their PCP?

The answer to this question is No!!! This may come as a shock to everyone, but the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases portion of the exam is not real life. While coming to the ER with high cholesterol is typically not treated in an emergency room setting, if someone comes to emergency room, you treat EVERYTHING YOU CAN FIND! You are the generalist and once you meet this patient, you do everything for them in all types of settings including emergency room, inpatient, ICU, and office settings. This is not realistic, but knowing the Krebs cycle is not used very much in clinical practice and is fairly useless in real life, but it’s frequently tested on the USMLE (Not on Step 3, but you get the point we’re making).

If you don’t believe us, here’s a quote taken directly from the USMLE website: “In the generalist role, you must manage your patient in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Sometimes this may involve management in more than one location—initially caring for a patient in the emergency department, admitting the patient to the hospital, and discharging and following the patient in the outpatient setting.” The reference is located here.

So, to summarize, if you can find it, you treat it. It’s important to get consults for specialist if needed, but if it’s a problem that can be managed by a typical generalist, then for the sake of your grade, treat every problem and do not assume that “they will follow-up with their PCP.” YOU are their PCP!

We hope that it is helpful. If you feel you need more practice on the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases portion of the exam, you can try out our two free practice cases here. 

This is a direct quote taken from the USMLE referenced here. The full quote is as follows:

“For Step 3, your performance on the case simulations will affect your Step 3 score and could affect whether you pass or fail. The proportional contribution of the score on the case simulations is no greater than the amount of time you are given to complete the case simulations.” 

This seems like an obvious statement, “yeah, if you fail CCS, you could fail the entire step 3 exam.” However, it states that the CCS portion of the test is graded in proportion to the rest of the test by the amount of time given for the CCS Portion. So lets do some math here:

Day #1 - 6 x 60 min blocks of MCQ = 360 min.

Day #2 - Total is approx 9 hours (9 hrs x 60 min = 540 min). 6 x 45 min blocks of MCQ = 270 min. There is a 5 min tutorial at the beginning and a 7 min tutorial for CCS cases and 45 min of breaks. 540 total time - 270 MCQ - 12 min tutorials - 45 min breaks = 213 min. We will round down to 210 min as it says “the second day is approximately 9 hours.” So total test time (not including breaks/tutorials) for both days is 840 min. The percentage that your grade if proportional to the other days from CCS Cases is 210/840 = 25% of your grade. So, we can estimate that the CCS Cases is 25% of your total grade for the entire Step 3 test. 25% is a significant portion of your grade, so you should be prepared for this.

Reading and studying CCS will not be sufficient. Even excellent students who are very knowledgeable can get tripped up if they are not familiar with how the program operates and how the program works in advancing time and getting results. The only effective way to prepare for the CCS portion of the test is to practice with real cases. We of course are biased in saying that since we offer 140 real cases that you can study. You can download 2 free cases to try out our program here.

In Dec 2019, the USMLE announced that it has changed the minimum passing score again from 196 to 198 for the USMLE Step 3 exam effective as of January 1, 2020. In Dec 11, 2015, the USMLE changed the minimum passing score from 190 to 196. The reasons that are given for the change is that residency directors are seeing the USMLE Step 3 as a pass/fail exam, so apparently, the USMLE is feeling that it should raise the minimum passing grade. Other things were mentioned that justified the change such as “trends in examinee performance” and “precision of pass/fail classifications.” It might be that too many people were scoring higher, so they wanted to adjust the grading downward. There has been discussions to make the USMLE Step 3 Pass/Fail completely, but then again, these discussions have been going on for years and years.

Therefore, there is less leeway to “get by” on the multiple choice portion of the test and neglect the step 3 simulation part the exam. It is getting more and more important to be prepared for both sections. We are of course biased in our recommendations that you use our program to study for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test. You can try out our trial version and download it here:

It does seem that there seems to be a grade creep over the years. The minimum score has increased by 8 points over the last 5 years, So, we might be doing a similar post in 2025 saying that the minimum passing grade has increased to 200. We recommend that you keep your testing skills sharp and not even get close to the not-passing rate. This is an obvious statement, but many students either get too overconfident or are too busy with residency duties that they do not prepare adequately for Step 3. This can be very embarrassing if you fail, and now there are 2 points less in your padding for passing. Study hard!

Our old 404 page has changed with our new updates. Click here to go to our home page.

We have posted about this before, but we continue to receive e-mails about this question: What happened to the final diagnosis window? The official USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases program has removed this window. It was never graded, and it created a lot of angst with students about whether they got the right diagnosis or not, thinking that this would be the majority of their grade. In actuality, it was never graded at all. This was never a secret as they stated this from the beginning, but many students felt that it was a very important part of the program and put a lot of emphasis on this. 

In order to avoid confusion about what is and isn’t graded, the official test has removed this window. That means that you will not free-hand text the diagnosis into a pop-up window anymore. When you click “Exit case” or the allotted time runs out, then the case will end. We feel that this is a good thing to avoid confusion. To be consistent, we have also removed the final diagnosis input window, so if you are using our newer versions, you will see that this has been removed. If you are using an older version, you will still see this pop-up, but if you don’t want to bother to upgrade, you can just leave it blank, and it still will not affect your grade as this was never graded at all.

Other things that we predict that will change in the future is the consult pop-up “reasons for consultations” which are also not graded. This is likely to be eliminated in the future as well. We will keep you posted if this does eventually get eliminated.

If you would like to try our program or upgrade your current program, you can go to our download page located here.

Thanks for reading.

A common comment that we receive (sometimes more of an accusation) goes something like this: “Hey! I moved the patient to the ER, and I got marked off that I didn’t move the patient to the ER, so your program isn’t working right, and this is outrageous! You have offended me, my family, and my ancestors!”

What we have to explain is that on the test and our program, you will be graded on the timing of your orders. By timing, we mean that you order the correct diagnosis tests and treatments within a reasonable time. If you wait too long, you will be marked off. It’s kind of like “too little too late.” For example, lets say someone has a raging bacterial infection. You wait until the patient is on the brink of death, and THEN you start the correct antibiotic. Obviously, this isn’t good medication care, and you would be marked off for this.

In our program (and the real test), if you move a patient to the correct location (ICU, inpatient unit, ER, etc), but your timing was too slow (meaning that the patient has worsened before you moved the patient to the correct location), you will get marked off for providing slow care. Usually, the penalty isn’t a harsh one for being too slow unless the case is an emergency situation in which time is of the essence. If you are slow in these cases, you will likely not pass the case.

So, it’s okay! The entire program is designed to help you intervene with the correct diagnostic tests and procedures in the appropriate amount of time so that you will perform well on the test. Just learn from the feedback and improve your performance on the next case practices.

Happy practicing! You can practice 2 free cases located here. If you like what you see, you can purchase the full program that includes 140 cases.

Thanks for reading.

Over the years, we have had many customers express their desire to have CCSCases.com available on a more wide array of devices. We have been working hard over the last six months and are pleased to announce our new online version, now in beta-testing. This will be part of a subscription model, and the user will be able to use the program on pretty much most modern devices. It will work on chrome books, iPads (iOS 11+), iPhones (iOS 11+), Android phones/devices, Linux, Windows, Mac computers. Pretty much any device with a modern browser. Browsers that have been tested that work well are Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox. 

We have done extensive testing, and the program should work well, but we would like to do a couple months of beta-testing (pre-release testing) with our customers who would like to participate. Those who are eligible to participate, you can e-mail us at info@ccscases.com, and we can set you up with an account. 

Eligible customers to participate in the beta-testing (free):

1. Recent customer within the last 3 months

2. Has a home internet (not business) to test. The beta version will be limited to test on their home internet ip address.

3. Willing to give us feedback and report if they come across any issues.

4. Customer located in the United States.

Thanks for reading!

The USMLE publishes annual data about the passing rate of each test per year. Those who go to US/Canadian School and are taking the test for the first time have a 97% average pass rate. US/Canadian School candidates who are repeating the USMLE Step 3 test have a 73% pass rate overall.

Those who go to non-US/Canadian Schools have a 88-90% pass rate for 1st time takers. Those who are taking the test again have a 59-60% pass rate.

From these overall pass rates, you can see that it is important to pass the USMLE Step 3 on the first try. It’s true that you may say that the repeat pass rate is so poor because it is measuring those who are poor performers and will continue to struggle with standardized tests. While this is true, we feel that the psychological impact of failing a test for the first time can decrease future performance.

We recommend that students take the USMLE Step 3 seriously and study to avoid having to retake the test which can lead to further issues. A big part of the USMLE Step 3 is the CCS Portion of the test. The best way to prepare for the USMLE is to actually practice simulated cases which will be similar to what you will see on test day.

We recommend that you try our free 2 cases located here, so you can see how the step 3 CCS cases will be presented on test day and what you will be required to know and how your performance will be measured.

The CCS Portion is on day 2 of the 2 day test. The second day will consist of:

Step 3 Section 

Multiple Choice Tutorial - 5 minutes (Optional)

Block 1 - Multiple Choice - 45 minutes (30 MCQ)

Block 2 - Multiple Choice - 45 minutes (30 MCQ)

Block 3 - Multiple Choice - 45 minutes (30 MCQ)

Block 4 - Multiple Choice - 45 minutes (30 MCQ)

Block 5 - Multiple Choice - 45 minutes (30 MCQ)

Block 6 - Multiple Choice - 45 minutes (30 MCQ)

CCS Tutorial - 7 minutes (Optional)

5 x 10 min cases* - 50 minutes

8 x 20 min cases* - 160 minutes

Break time - 45 min

---------------------------------------------

Total Time - 537 min (approx 9 hrs)

*Note that the 10 min and 20 min cases are mixed together. You will not have 5 x 10 min cases and 8 x 20 min cases. There is a total of 13 total cases that you will see. It is also possible depending on the day to have a different mix of 10 min and 20 min cases, but the above breakdown is a possible scenario. The 45 min break time will be interspersed throughout the entire 9 hour day. You of course can finish early if you do not utilize all the available time given.

For those looking just for a short answer, you have 3 hours 30 min total time allotted just to complete the CCS Cases. You may not use the entire time (some cases will finish earlier than the allotted time if you have completed them successfully).

Our program has a good mix of 10 min and 20 min cases to practice from. You can try two cases for free here. Check us out.

This is a common question. There are 20,000+ orders on the USMLE Step 3 CCS cases portion of the exam. This means essentially that there are infinite combinations of orders that can be done for each test. However, one thing that can trip people up is that there are many different ways of ordering the same thing. For example, you can order a CMP by typing in one of the following: CMP; or metabolic panel 14; or panel 14; or comprehensive metabolic profile; or Chem 14; etc.

So, there are a number of ways to order the exact same thing. When you finish ordering it, it will come up on your order sheet as the same order. For example, if you order CMP, the order will come up on your order sheet as “Comprehensive metabolic profile.” If you order Chem 14, it will also come up on your order sheet as “Comprehensive metabolic profile.” So, all roads lead to Rome here.

In the test there are about 2400 unique orders meaning that the rest of the 20,000+ are orders that are “duplicate” as described above. This is convenient because there are many ways to skin a cat and people know the same thing by different names. This allows different backgrounds and training to get the same order.

Some programs that help you prepare for the CCS portion of the test do not have all the different order combinations. They only have the “unique” orders; some don’t even have all the different unique orders. This means that you will have to learn how to order something in the practice version which may or may not even be on the real test.

Our program contains all the 20,000+ orders that you will see on the real test. This way you will be able to get used to having the ability to order different tests/treatments the same way as it will appears on test day and not having to worry about learning one way for practicing and then trying to remember to do it differently on test day.

If you’d like to try out our program, you can download 2 free cases here.

Below is an image of the order sheet:



We receive questions on how to effectively study for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the exam. We have a 140 case USMLE Step 3 Course that will have you prepared to effectively diagnose and treat all the most commonly seen cases on the CCS Portion of the test. This is the most effective USMLE Step 3 Course because you actually practice real cases instead of just reading about cases and how to do it.

Our case simulator is nearly identical to the real test, so that you can study and become accustomed to the exact software that you will be using on test day. This way you can focus on doing the correct diagnostic testing, correct physical exam, and correct treatment and not having to worry about how the software works or what to expect on test day.

Our customers have told us that this was a major relief because using the software is not that intuitive. It definitely takes practice to get used to how the software works, so we recommend that you try our program and see two free cases on exactly how the software will work to help you prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases portion of the exam.

You will notice that when you try out program that it has all the orders that you will see on the real test, it has the flow of the program that you will see on the real test and it has the same layout and format that you will see on the real test. This is a real advantage to get used to how it will work on test day.

We recommend that you try out our program and download it here (For PC/MAC). There is no obligation; try it and see how you like it. You can also check out our customer feedback at the homepage of our website.

Why Does Your Program Have Health Maintenance as Part of the Grading System?

A frequent question that we get is why we include health maintenance as part of our grading system? Examples include: counseling (smoking cessation, safe sex, medication compliance), screening (pap smears, colonoscopy screenings), vaccines.

We get the “No one else is doing this, so you must be doing it wrong.” We have received other criticism saying that we “overly-emphasize” this topic. Just because we include this does not mean that we emphasize this to be extremely important. On our grading system, typically this would account for a very small portion of the grading for the case (like 5% of the total grade). Could you do fine on the test without doing these things? Yes. You would be fine. The most important is the physical exam, diagnostic labs, and treatment. Does the USMLE include this as part of grading on the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test? Yes, see below.

Why do we include this? Because the USMLE says that it should be addressed. From the USMLE in what is graded on the CCS portion under the “What are my responsibilities? heading” : “Addressing health maintenance issues. Note: The nature of each case dictates whether or not health maintenance issues are relevant within the simulated time frame.” Health maintenance issues is defined by the USMLE as: “common screening tests for conditions amenable to prevention or detection in an asymptomatic patient or population and selection of appropriate preventive agent or technique (eg. contraception, vaccines, vitamins).” This also includes: “Education of patients on screening, health maintenance, self care.”

So, we feel that it is important to include as you may pick up some extra points on the cases which could have a small but meaningful impact on your final score.

Having said this, we know that this is a small portion of your grade. If you are in crunch time and have limited time to study. The most high yield would be to study the diagnosis tests and treatment with the most cases as you can. The health maintenance would be the cherry on top. The most bang for your buck would be with the “meat” of the CCS Portion which is to diagnose and treat. You can view all of the this on the USMLE website located here. 

If you would like to try out our program, you can try 2 free cases located here. 

Thanks for reading.

At ccscases.com, we have thousands of tips for the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases portion of the test. Our program has 140 cases of the most commonly seen cases which goes through all of the tips to do well on test day. This includes appropriate diagnostic orders, appropriate treatment, timing tips, tips on where to move the patient, and tips on preventative care and bedside manner things to do to maximize your score on the CCS portion of the test.

You will also receive tips on differential diagnosis and a case summary. You will also receive tips on whether certain orders were appropriate or too invasive for the case as well as receiving tips for appropriate sequencing in the case.

All of these things are included in the grading section when you have completed the test, so you get feedback on the things that you did well and things that you could do in the future to improve your score.This includes all the tips that you will need to do well on test day. With our case simulation program, you can do each case as many times as you would like.

There is no limit. You will receive feedback after each attempt on a particular case, so that you can monitor your progress. The program also offers tips on ways to practice in case there is a lag or slow-down on the real test day. You can practice doing cases with different time limits or no time limit at all if that is your preference. So, in summary there are many tips on the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases that will help you out on test day, so we recommend that you try our program out for free.

You can try out our program before you decide to purchase. You can download the trial version here.

Thanks for reading.

This window may have looked familiar. At the end of the case, if you ended the case prior to the case running out of time, this window would pop-up (it would pop-up on the real exam as well). You would enter the diagnosis of what you felt that the patient had. This window has never been graded. We always felt that it was confusing that you would enter data which is never looked at or graded at all.

A lot of students would focus unnecessarily on getting the correctly worded diagnosis entered into this window which was never graded. We have been saying for years that it was never graded, but still unnecessary attention was focused on this.

The USMLE has removed this window from the real test, so you will no longer enter any information into a window. When you hit the “End Case” button at the end of the case, then it will go to the break window and allow you to move on to the next case.

In order to be consistent, we also have removed the final diagnosis window in our program. The best way to prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS cases is to practice in real simulation software. You can try out 2 free cases here.

Thanks for reading.

In our previous posts, the CCS Reporting gave you a performance report independent of your multiple choice performance. Meaning, you will receive feedback on how you did the CCS Grading report with a confidence interval in the “Lower Performance” “Borderline Performance” and “Higher performance.” The USMLE has changed the way your CCS performance is reported. Now instead of giving you an independent performance on how you did on the CCS portion of the test, it will tell you how you did compared to how you did on the multiple choice portion of the test. Therefore, if you did poorly on the multiple choice portion of the test, and you did poorly on the CCS portion of the test, your results would show that your CCS case performance was the “Same” “Relative to your Overall Step 3 Performance.” Your report would look something like this:

This makes it much more difficult to determine how you did on just the CCS Portion of the test, and you will have to make a lot of assumptions based on how you did on the multiple choice portion of the test. In our opinion, this is unfortunate because this is much less helpful in determining one’s performance on the CCS Cases because it does not tell you how you did independent of the multiple choice part of Step 3. We feel that the prior reporting was much more helpful, but this is the way it is now, so we have to get used to the new CCS reporting now.

It’s important to be prepared for the CCS portion of the test, so we recommend that you practice case after case after case so that you will become a master at the CCS portion which is a large percentage of your grade.

You can try our program out free by downloading it here.

We have been getting this question a lot lately. Users have been frequently contacting us thinking there is a bug in the program because their 20 minute case is ending at 8 minutes. No, there is no bug. This is how the real test program works as well. If you do the correct things either in diagnosis or treatment, then the case will end before the allotted 20 minutes. This typically is a good sign if you do the right time. However, if you advance the virtual time too far without doing the correct orders, the case will also end prematurely.

So, it’s okay! Take a deep breath - This is just the way it works. If you want to do an experiment and just let the case sit there without doing anything, you will notice that the case will last a full 20 minutes. This is good preparation for test day, so you don’t get surprised when this happens on test day as this is a frequent occurrence. We’ve written about this before in our blog about cases ending early, but we thought it would be a good thing to re-emphasize.

If you’d like to test out having the case end early, go to our trial page and download our trial version here, and make the diagnosis quickly and treat appropriate, and you will notice that the case ends early. It can take some getting used to, but after doing a dozen cases, you will get the hang of it.

The USMLE just recently announced that testing will be resuming for the USMLE at Prometric sites in the US/Canada on a site-by-site basis. There is likely to be less testing availability due to having to comply with new restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 precautions. Also, a backup from other tests that are also administered by Prometric will also cause finding a date to be more difficult than usual. However, it does appear that getting a firm date to take the USMLE Steps is available now.

There likely will be adjustments and modifications to Prometric to onsite administrative policies such as the check-in process. 

Stay safe and Study Hard!

If you’d like to try out our CCS Case Simulation product first before making a decision, try two free CCS cases located here. 

USMLE Announces Prometric Closures Due to COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

The USMLE just recently announced that all prometric testing centers in the US and Canada will be closed for 30 days starting March 18th due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), so no one will be able to take any USMLE Step tests during this time. Anyone who was scheduled to test a USMLE test during the closure will have to reschedule. If you are taking the test outside of the US/Canada, you will have to go to the Prometric website to see if your specific testing center is closed.

The USMLE also announced that eligibility windows will automatically be extended, so you need not worry if you were pushing the edge of your eligibility window when scheduling for your Step test.

The silver lining from the closures is that you can have more time to study for it! Yeah! If you are studying for Step 3, 25% of your grade is from the CCS Portion of your test. Going through real simulated cases during this time of quarantine will help you be prepared for the CCS portion of Step 3. If you’d like to try out our product first before making a decision, try two free CCS cases located here. 

Stay safe out there! Spend some of you free time studying for the test to take your mind off the chaos going on in the world. 

Thanks for reading.

This question has been asked by some of our users with some confusion (okay and maybe sprinkled with some accusation, condescension, and irritation). We’ve received a few comments that might go like: “How dare you take points away from me! Your software clearly had massive errors and flaws! I will hunt you down CCSCASES!” (maybe this is slightly exaggerated…emphasis on slightly).

Our test (just like the real test) will grade you not only whether you did something, but whether you did it correctly within a certain time frame. So, lets take a fictional example. Lets say a patient comes into your office with severe COPD. He is having difficulty breathing. You decide you’re hungry and want to go eat a sandwich before you see the patient. You go get a sandwich and slowly start eating it. It’s a good sandwich - Come on!

Meanwhile, the patient is dying and turning blue. You finish your sandwich; You get on the phone and call an ambulance and rush the patient to the Emergency Department. The family is livid. “No one was helping us when he was having trouble! You were eating your sandwich!” You reply, “listen, there patient. You were eventually put into the right location, so be grateful!” 

This fictional patient was put into the right location, but it was done too late. If this were in real life, you would be in trouble. If this was done on the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion, you would lose points. If you receive a negative patient update like, “The patient is having more difficulty breathing;” or “The patient is not feeling well,” and you are in the wrong location; you will lose points. So, the solution is to move the patient to the correct location BEFORE the patient worsens, then you won’t lose any points. Continuing with the fictional example, call the ambulance BEFORE you eat your sandwich and get him transferred and treated and THEN eat your sandwich. Timing matters on our program (and on the real test). So, to shorten the question, the reason you are losing points is that you need to be faster about moving the patient to the correct location. 

If you’d like to try out our program, you can download two free cases here. 

Stay safe and Study Hard! Oh, and go eat a sandwich…

USMLE reduces number of allowed attempts for Step 3

The USMLE just recently announced that the allowed number of attempts to pass any Step or Step Component has been reduced from 6 to 4. This means that you have four attempts to pass Step 1; four attempts to pass Step 2 CS; four attempts to pass Step 2 CK; and four attempts to pass Step 3. This will be effective starting January 1, 2021. Most students do not have to worry about this, but some students struggle with standardized exams. It is more important than ever to make sure that you pass each exam the first time if possible. Each Step exam should be taken seriously, particularly Step 3 as many students are too busy in residency to study for Step 3. A common mistake is to think that there clinical experience in residency is enough to pass the exam.

In an ideal world, what you learn in practice would correlate to what is on standardized tests, but this is not the case. Many times you must study what the USMLE deems is important even if you feel that it is not relevant. Studying the CCS Cases portion of Step 3 is very important as it is 25% of your total grade on the Step 3 exam. Doing well on this section can help you raise your score or it can contribute to failing the test if performance on this section is not up to par.

The best way to learn for the CCS portion of the test is to simply practice cases. Practice cases that you will be seeing on test day and using the software that you will be using on test day. Of course, we would recommend using our product to help in your preparation to performing well on the CCS portion of the exam. If you’d like to try out our free 2 cases; you can download it and try it out here.

Thanks for reading.

A common question that we receive is: “What percent correct is considered a passing score on your program?” Essentially, how will my scores on your program translate to a score on the real USMLE Step 3 exam. There is a Pass / Fail cut off for the USMLE Step 3 exam in total. That number is 196 - This includes the multiple choice part of the test. However, there is no “Pass / Fail” cut off for each individual case.

There are 13 CCS cases that you will have to complete on test day. Each case is worth between 2% -2.5% of your total grade.

You don’t pass or fail each case. There isn’t a cut off. Your scores are compiled into a total score and then combined with your multiple choice and given a final numeric value. If you get above a 196, you pass the USMLE Step 3 exam.

Your grade read out will look like this regarding the Step 3 CCS portion of the exam:

If you would like the “xxxxxx” or range of your performance to be on the “Higher Performance,” we’d recommend to attempt to achieve a basic competence of 80% or above on each of the cases. 

Some people come to us and are very upset that they didn’t get 100% passing score on each exam. They say that our program is flawed and that in the real world the treatment they offered is top-notch and they should be allotted 100% because of their expertise in handling the case. We kindly remind them that the CCS Cases program is not real life. There are things that are graded in the program that you would likely not do in real life. Remember, it is likely a computer that is grading your performance (just like our program), so we recommend getting used to it!

Once you are finished and have successfully passed your test, you can go back and practice the way you feel most comfortable, but our product is not designed to train you to practice on real people. Our product is designed for you to pass and do well on the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases! Ideally, it would be one and the same, but realistically, they are two separate skills.

If you’d like to try out our program, click here to download free trial version of our software.

What can you expect on test day for the CCS portion of the test?

Many people are naturally concerned and ask us the question “What can you expect on test day for the CCS portion of the test?” You will be taking your test in a testing center. Typically, each testing center is a carefully monitored room with a bunch of computers divided by cubicles. You will have to empty your pockets and store your things in a locker prior to entering the test room. You can only keep your photo ID in your pocket. You will have to have your finger-print scanned each time you enter and each time you exit the testing room.

You will be given a laminated card with a dry-erase marker and an eraser to allow you to take notes. The room is monitored at all times and there are cameras recording everyone in the room. Big Brother really is watching you during your CCS test day. People have stated that the testing room does vary in temperature and can be either too warm or too hot, so dress accordingly. Test takers have also noted that the quickness of the Internet connection does vary dramatically from testing center to testing center. This can affect your score if you are slowed down by loading delays.

There are 13 cases on the CCS portion of the test. You will be given either 20 minutes of real time or 10 minutes of real time to complete the case. We recommend that you try our software to get used to having time limits on your cases.

If you really want to answer the question of: What can you expect on test day for the CCS portion of the test?, then you should download our free trial of our product. Our program is nearly identical to what you will see on the real test-day. You can download our product here.

Happy studying!

Step 3 Format

A common question that we receive is what is the Step 3 Format? Step 3 is the final USMLE exam required to qualify for an unrestricted medical license. The exam is a two day exam:

Day 1 includes 232 multiple choice questions divided into 6 different blocks of 38 to 39 questions. You are given 60 minutes for each block of test items.

Day 1 will be approximately 7 hours which includes 45 min of break time and an optional 5 min tutorial.

Day 2 is a longer day. This lasts approximately 9 hours. There are another 180 multiple choice questions divided into 6 blocks of 30 questions. You are given 45 min for each block.

After the multiple choice questions, there are 13 case simulations which haws both 10 minute cases and 20 minute cases of “real time.” You have 45 min of break time for this day as well. This is the Step 3 format. The CCS portion will take a significant portion of your time on the second day. Many people do not take the CCS portion seriously and focus mainly on the multiple choice questions. However, this is not recommended as the case simulations are unique in a sense that most people who have never taken Step 3 before are not familiar with the software and what is required and what is being graded.

This is what CCSCases.com specializes in. We help students who are unfamiliar with the test and provide a simulation environment to help prepare them for test day. We give feedback after the cases to give you advice on what you did right and would you could do better to maximize your score on test day. If you would like to try out our case simulation software, please go to our download page here.

As you may have noticed, we got a makeover! We redesigned our site to update the look and make things easier and simpler. As typical for technology updates, it didn’t go as smooth as we would have liked. If you had any trouble with our site over the last two days, we apologize, but all the issues should have been resolved.

We hope you like the new look. Happy Holidays!

Everyone knows that the USMLE Step 3 consists of two parts: the multiple choice question section and the CCS (Computer-based case simulation). The CCS test is difficult to study for because it’s essentially an open book; there is no multiple choice. You need to logically think through each case and decide which tests to order and which treatment to administer. It can especially be challenging for foreign medical graduates (FMG). The issue with our competitors is that they do not offer interactive feedback on what was done right and what was done incorrectly. Our USMLE Step 3 CCS computer simulator offers interactive feedback after each case and tells you what you should do and should not do. It will help you prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the exam.

Better than the other USMLE Step 3 Products

There are hundreds of other USMLE Step 3 products that state that they can help you prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the exam. However, our product is one of the only ones that is an interactive computer based software that provided grading and has more than just 51 cases. It has 140 cases, all with feedback and grading to help you prepare for the real test.

Try our USMLE Step 3 Product

We offer 2 free fully functional cases to try on your own. You can access these at our Try-It and Downloads page located here. We would welcome your feedback in regarding to this, but we are sure that it will be very helpful in your preparations for the CCS portion of the exam. You can contact us at any time if you have any questions or concerns regarding our products. Our contact information is located here. You can also take a look at our Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ page)

How do I prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS?

Many students struggle with the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test. Preparing for the USMLE Step 3 CCS can be challenging because this is not a multiple choice question. It is like an essay test with a question at the top of a blank piece of paper. This makes preparing for the USMLE Step 3 CCS a difficult proposition for students who are used to just doing multiple choice questions. This is quite the paradigm shift for a lot of students. The most importance piece of advice that can be given for preparing for the USMLE Step 3 CCS is to practice until you are very familiar with the software, very familiar with the format, and very familiar with how to treat the most commonly seen CCS Cases given.

Preparing for the USMLE Step 3 CCS

In order to help those who struggle with the step 3 portion, we have created ccscases.com. This is an interactive software program for the PC or MAC which allows you to practice cases just like in the real test. Many students have found that studying for the CCS with books and written materials is not sufficient to score well on the test day. Practice with actual software that mimics the real test environment, so you can learn to perform at your best on test day. Try our product free before you purchase.

If you would like to try out our product without any strings attached, go to our download page here and download our trial version which shows exactly what you will be getting if you do decide to purchase. If you do decide that you would like to purchase to help you in your ccs studies, you can do so here.

We get a lot of questions about the most effective way of preparing for the USMLE Step 3 CCS exam. They ask us, “What is the best way of preparing for the CCS Portion?” “What do I do to prepare for the CCS portion?” “What is the secret to do well on the CCS Preparation.”

Like most things in life, the best CCS Preparation is practice, practice, practice. Don’t just read about what the best way to treat a COPD exacerbation and memorize that steps; learn from doing. The best CCS Preparation is to actually practice the most common cases that is seen on the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test.

Many students make the fatal mistake of memorizing algorithms and then come to test day and get completely paralyzed when they get on the Primum Software. They get flustered; they don’t know what to do. The best way to prevent this is to become familiar with the software and become confident doing test cases using the software that you will be using on the real test day. This is the best CCS Preparation.

At CCSCases.com, we recommend that you get familiar with our software, take the advise learned from the interactive feedback, and do as many cases as you can before the real test. This can take quite a bit of time which is why we offer an unlimited time to study. If you have any questions, please click on the contact us link on our homepage and send us an email.

We recommend that you download our software and take a look at and try a couple free cases yourself to make up your mind for yourself. You can download it here.

Scoring for The USMLE Step 3 CCS

A common question asked is about the scoring for the USMLE Step 3 CCS. How is the CCS section scored? The USMLE states that the CCS portion will test competency in the following area: Diagnosis which includes History/Physical Exam, Laboratory/Diagnostic studies, Diagnosis, Prognosis/Outcome. It will also test Management which includes Health maintenance/Disease prevention, Pharmacotherapy, Clinical Interventions, and Mixed management. Communication and Professionalism are also tested.

Other things to be considered in the scoring for the USMLE Step 3 CCS:

The timing and sequencing of actions will affect your score. Actions that are potentially harmful will negatively affect your score. The USMLE states: “Seemingly correct management decisions made in a suboptimal or incorrect sequence or after a delay in simulated time may receive little or no credit.”

Normally diet orders and ambulation orders carry “little to no weight in scoring unless they are particularly relevant to the care such as a specific diet order for a patient with diabetes.”

Some cases you are scored based on NOT doing aggressive intervention. You will score high if you do a “wait and see” approach for these cases.

Location is important for scoring. It is important to not elevate to a higher level of care unless this is clinically warranted.

Diagnoses and reasons for consultations will NOT be used in scoring, so do not be overly concerned about this.

All of these scoring for the USMLE Step 3 CCS is built into ccscases.com. We score each case based on the diagnostic orders, treatment, preventative care, location, and sequencing. This helps you get used to the things that you will be asked on test day and how to diagnose and treat commonly seen CCS cases.

You don’t have to take our word for it, you can check it out for yourself. You can download our free demo with 2 fully functional cases here.

Like we’ve said on other posts, the best way to prepare for the step 3 test is not to read about cases, it’s about practicing cases. Our Step 3 CCS Practice program includes 140 cases you can practice with. People learn by doing and not by just reading. To give an analogy, if you’re a basketball player, and you are worried about performing well on a game, do you watch videos of professional athletes playing basketball? Do you read about the best techniques for making free throws? No, you get out there and start shooting the ball.

Our Step 3 CCS Practice program is just that. It’s like shooting the ball for the big game day which is the USMLE Step 3. The program is nearly identical to the real day. Seriously, why practice with a program like Uworld which is different than the real test? This doesn’t make sense. That’s like practicing on a 7 foot basketball hoop, then playing on the real day with a 10 foot basketball hoop. Yes, the practicing on the 7 foot hoop is probably better than nothing, but you need to make serious adjustments on game day.

Try our Step 3 CCS Practice

CCS Cases Step 3 CCS Practice has the entire order set (over 20,000 orders), it has grading, it has feedback, it has cases that you will see on the real day. It is as close to the real practice test than actually taking the test. The beautiful thing about the Step 3 CCS Practice is that you can learn from your mistakes prior to exam day with our grading and feedback. You don’t have to wonder if you performed well like in the Uworld CCS Cases; you’ll be given a percentage score and then the grading breakdown.

Go ahead and take a look and download our Step 3 CCS Practice Material here.

We also recommend taking a look at the practice material for the CCS test here.

The disadvantage of other USMLE Step 3 CCS case study helps is that they don’t give you a step by step approach to the CCS cases. Most study material are books which give a vague idea of what needs to be done, but it doesn’t go through a step by step approach to the CCS cases. Our program does exactly that. It will grade all of your orders and give you suggestions on how to improve your score so that you will be prepared on test day on what to order and how to manage the patient on the CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3.

Here at CCSCases, we are striving to create the ultimate step by step approach to the CCS Cases in which we will show you exactly how to perform well on the real test day. We don’t tell you; we show you. We show you through our grading system which other products do not offer. We are constantly making improvements to our grading system and software so that you have the most up-to-date software to help you master the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the exam. This portion for many students can be the difference between a pass rate and a fail rate which is why we offer our step by step approach to the CCS cases.

We invite to compare our product to the other products on the market. We priced our product so that we could offer a good value to our customer. There are 140 cases.

We recommend that you try our free 2 cases which are fully functional and see if you like our new way of studying for the CCS portion of the exam. Please go to our download page here and download it and check it out for yourself.

MTB USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases

If you’re here, it looks like you are looking to master the boards for the USMLE Step 3 CCS cases portion (of for short just MTB USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases). You can get the MTB (master the boards) book which likely has very important and relevant information about the Step 3 CCS cases portion of the exam. While this can be helpful in studying the material, nothing is quite like actually practicing on real software that mimics the real test so that you can be prepared for test day. No amount of reading is going to prepare you, but practicing 140 cases will help you master the step 3 ccs cases portion of the exam.

I know you maybe a little skeptical at first. Really? Another test prep pitch? Wait now, hear me out… You can download and try it out free without any gimmicks. No logins, no phone numbers, or required anything. Just download it at no obligation and see for yourself if it is something that can help you master the step 3 CCS Cases. If not, then you’ve lost just your time. You can find our download page here.

You will find that thousands of our customers have successfully prepared and done great on their ccs cases portion of the exam. For some test takers, the CCS portion can be a make-or-break between passing Step 3 and failing Step 3. We recommend that you always error on the side of caution and OVER prepare rather than underprepare. We have 140 cases to help you prepare for the Step 3 CCS Cases portion of the exam.

How to Study for the USMLE Step 3

There are a lot of differing opinions on answer the question of how to study for the USMLE Step 3 exam. There are a plethora of materials that you can use from First Aid to UWorld Qbanks, Kaplan, and more. We will let you decide on what options that you feel is the best for the multiple choice portion of the test. We specialize in the CCS portion of the test.

We feel that our product answers the question on how to study for the USMLE Step 3. Our product covers 140 cases that are commonly seen on the USMLE Step 3 test. Each case feels just like the real program. It 20,000 orders that you will see on the real test day, and it operates just like on test day. This way you will not need to keep reminding yourself that “this will be different on test day.”

After each case, you will get feedback on what you did right and what things you could have done better in the case. This will help you in focusing on improving the things that need to be improved to score well on test day. It will also help you to develop that muscle memory to do the common things that most all cases require such as getting commonly ordered labwork like CMP, CBC, etc. It will get you in the rhythm of diagnosis and treatment and preventative care which will improve your performance on the CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3.

We think you will really like it. We ask you to just try it yourself before you make up your mind. You can go to our download page here and try out 2 free cases. No sign ups required; no obligations. You just download and see for yourself.

USMLE Step 3 CCS Mnemonics

CCSCases.com is going to help you crush and pass the USMLE Step 3 a lot more that USMLE Step 3 CCS Mnemonics will! Mnemonics can be helpful, but this will not be a good long term strategy to do well on the test. Just like anything in life, it’s practice, practice, practice. It’s getting that muscle memory or brain memory to reflexively do all the right things without having to focus too hard on doing it.

When you use our program, you will develop that “muscle” memory, so that it will become second nature to you to order the right tests, to do the right treatment, and to do the correct preventive care that will get you a high score. This will be much more helpful to you in the long term for improving your score than USMLE Step 3 CCS Mnemonics. The great thing about our product is that you can try it out for yourself and evaluate it prior to purchasing the program. You can do it right now if you want to. Okay, you do? Well, head on over to our download page located here and you get get going right now. Our trial version has 2 fully functional cases that you can practice on. In our full version, we have 140 cases to practice and become an expert, so that you will crush/kill/ace/smash/insert other verb the USMLE Step 3 CCS cases portion of the exam.

We have thousands of customers. They have succeeded with our product, and we are confident that you will as well if you dedicate to studying the material and practicing. It’s really just practice, practice, practice. Our software comes with grading, so you don’t have to guess on how well you did. You get feedback, so you can improve so that you will not make the same mistakes on test day.

Crush Step 3 CCS

We at ccscases.com do think that Crush Step 3 CCS is a good resource. It has good information on workups for chief complaints. However, no matter how much you study a book, you will not perform well unless you get comfortable and familiar with how the USMLE Step 3 CCS software works. We do not think that doing the 5 practice cases offered on the USMLE website is sufficient preparation to be prepared enough to do well on the test, even if your medical knowledge is solid. There is high anxiety on the test, so if you are not adequately familiar with the software, this could cause serious problems in your performance. Some cases are very short, and some people have complained of the software having lagging times between orders. You do not want to waste time saying “Oh…shoot, what’s that order called again…” Or “Umm…how do I order something?” Or “How do I get the time to go forward?” These are things that a book may explain to you, but like learning a skill, you don’t really understand it until you do it.

Book information such as is found in Crush Step 3 CCS is helpful, but if you really want to crush it, you will need to actually do cases in real software that mimics the real test. At CCSCases.com, we have 140 cases that will effectively teach you how to do well on test day. CCSCases.com includes real software that closely mimics the real test; it includes 20,000 orders just like in the real test; it includes grading and feedback.

We feel that there is no substitute to adequately prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test other than doing cases on real software. We recommend that you give us a shot by going to our download page and downloading a free trial of our CCS Software. You can download it here.

Mapping CCS

Mapping CCS is another product on the market which is marketed to help prepare you for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test. It is not a program. It is an “interactive” pdf. The question is on the real test day, are you going to be using an interactive pdf to take your test or are you going to be using a computer program?

Obviously the answer is that the CCS portion of the test is a computerized test and not an interactive pdf like in Mapping CCS. This does not mimic the realities of test day. There are a lot of things that this format will not prepare you for. Getting comfortable with the software is extremely important in your test preparation. It simply will not cut it to study from a pdf. At ccscases.com, we offer a fully developed program that mimics the real program that you will see on test day. You will be comfortable with how information is presented to you, how to order orders/medications, how to find important information, how to advance the clock, and how to search for the correct orders that you are looking for. Does the Mapping CCS product have 20,000 orders to choose from? Does the Mapping CCS grade you? Does it give you feedback depending on what you ordered? We are being rhetorical because the answer is no. CCSCases.com offers all of these things from a full set of orders, grading, feedback, clock advancement, and all the features that will be available on the real test on test-day.

We ask that you consider using our interactive computerized program for the PC/Mac. You can try it out free here.

CCS Workshop

Are you looking for a CCS Workshop? Well, look no further, for ccscases.com is actually a workshop. You learn by working real CCS cases; there isn’t a lecture component. You go through each ccs case like you would on the real test day, with all the same orders and the same layout. That way you can learn how to read, process, analyze, and treat the most commonly seen cases for the CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3.

You can compare us to other CCS workshops, and you will find that we offer a great value for your money. For a reasonable fee, you get 140 cases to practice on. We would ask that you try out our CCS Workshop before buying it buy trying out our trial version which you can access here. You can try out two free cases with no obligation. You will find that there is actually grading and feedback which other CCS programs do not offer. It will guide you in things that you missed, things that you could improve on, and preventative care that you could order to maximize your score on test day.

If there is any doubt about our product, go ahead and try it out before you make a decision. We feel that preparing for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test can be done effectively through actually practicing real cases, and this will also maximize your test score and limit the amount of time that you will have to study for the CCS portion of the test. The CCS portion has been estimated to be worth about a 1/3 of your total grade, so it would be wise to not ignore this important part of step 3. We ask that you try out our CCS Workshop to help improve your performance on the CCS case portion of the exam.

There are not many CCS Software products out in the market. As you many already know, there is the FRED software, the Uworld, and CCS Cases CCS Software. There are distinct differences between each one. The FRED software is the same software that you will be using on the test day. It comes with some trial cases, but it doesn’t offer any feedback. It has a maximum number of 5 trial cases. There isn’t much more to it. The Uworld CCS Software comes with 50 cases, there is no feedback, and you will notice that the CCS Software is slow and frustrating. With CCSCases.com’s CCS Software, you will notice that we have 140 cases, interactive real-time feedback and grading, and a smooth and responsive interface.

Compare our CCS Software to Uworld’s

Please compare our product. We ask that you go to our download page and use our product to see for yourself. You will notice a seamless experience compared to the slow version of Uworld’s. We also offer real-time feedback and grading based on your answers. This is not offered the Uworld’s product. You can try 2 cases free before you decided to buy which is a fully functional trial. You can buy early and study as long as you need to master the concepts required to do well on the step 3 CCS test.

There is always the tendency to think that Uworld has the best of everything to prepare for the USMLE Step 3. Granted, their Qbanks are top notch, but the CCS Software preparation is seriously lacking. We know you will agree if you download our product and compare!

Notice our CCS Software has grading that gives you real-time feedback on what you did right and what you did wrong.

Again, give this a shot, and you will see the difference!

How many CCS cases in step 3?

A frequently asked question is how many cases are there in the USMLE Step 3 exam?

The answer is 13 cases. Each case will have an maximum of 10 or 20 minutes of real time (not be to confused with the virtual time which can be weeks). If you are confused about the virtual time versus the real time, try our trial version to get the hang of it. You have to advance the clock to “make things happen” like get test results or administer treatment.

Prior to starting the CCS cases, there is a 7 minute tutorial if you actually choose to participate in that. We recommend that you become so familiar with the CCS cases and software that you do not need to look at the tutorial.

13 cases may not seem like that many, but it can add up. It can get exhausting doing case after case and not get bogged down and make silly mistakes and forget to order certain tests. We recommend that you increase your endurance by practicing doing many cases at once. Practicing doing one case at a time when your mind is fresh is unlikely to simulate the experience that you will have on the real test day.

We have 140 cases to practice from. The cases have time limits of 10 minutes or 20 minutes just like in the real test. If you would like to practice without a time limit, you have the option to do that as well.

We recommend that you try our trial version with 2 free cases before you decide if our product will work for you. You can download it here.

We hoped this answered your question about how many CCS cases in step 3. Take a look at our FAQ for questions about our product.

CCS Review Book

Are you looking for a CCS Review book? Review books can be helpful, but do you think you’re going to get the experience you need operating the software to crush the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the exam? A CCS Review book does not give you 140 cases to practice on with a real-time simulation environment. A book just doesn’t do that.

This is part of the test that many students have never before experienced. It’s new to a lot of people. Looking over a book isn’t going to get you the results that you are looking for.

We recommend that you first try our software for free by going to the download page. Once you download the product, compare how much you learn by doing the free cases versus the review book. We guess that you will learn MUCH more by actually practicing the cases then by reviewing what you should do when someone comes into the ER with chest pain. A book will tell you to do XYZ, but when the time comes for the test; I think a lot of us have panicked and forget exactly what we are supposed to do when the blank white screen is in front of us. It is much easier when you’ve done this a hundred times before, and you can take a deep breath and routinely do what you have practiced over and over before.

Here at ccscases.com, we don’t want to just tell you; we want to show you. So, go ahead and download our free trial version and try out the program yourself. Download it for a PC or Mac here and get started. It’s that simple. Let us know about your experiment. If you get some time, you can send us an e-mail about your experience with our product.

Good luck with your studies!

Step 3 CCS Scoring

One of the most common questions that is asked is about the Step 3 CCS Scoring. How much of the total grade is this worth? Is it worthwhile to put any emphasis on this part of step 3 or should I just ‘wing it?’ There is no official answer from the USMLE, but the general consensus is that the step 3 CCS Scoring is worth about 25-30% of your total grade.

This is quite a bit of your total score and can make or break you depending on how well you have done on the multiple choice part of the test. As you might expect, we here at CCSCases.com feel that you should prepare for the CCS portion of the test.

We feel that we have the best method for helping those prepare and perform well on test-day. We have feedback that you are given with notes on how to improve your performance and what you did correctly.

We’d like you to compare us to our competitors. There are a couple competitors out there who have a simulation program like ours, but at the end of the case, you are left wondering how you did. They might give you a case summary, but most people can’t remember if they ordered such and such an order or not.

We also have 140 cases that you can go through which we feel is a lot of review material. You don’t have to feel pressured to study all of the cases in a short period of time (that is unless your test is next week) because you can study at your own pace if you decide to use us to study for the CCS Portion of Step 3. 

At CCSCases.com, you will receive feedback after each case with what you did correctly and what you could improve on. Before you decide, we’d invite you to try it out without any catches. Click here to try out our program.

Good luck on the test!

Can there be a network lag or slow-down on the real test?

The question “can there be a network lag or slow-down on the real test?” is a common question that we are asked. Many are rightly worried that the real test will have a network lag, slow-down, internet lag which will adversely effect their performance. The sad truth is that the answer to this question is yes. There is a possibility that you can have a network lag, an internet lag, or a slow-down during the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of your test. This has been reported which it occurs during order confirmations. We actually have been criticized that our software was too fast compared to the real test day. The network lag depends on your testing location internet speed and the connection to the NBME which uploads the cases and test.

This is why we offer the feature of “Simulate Network Lag” to help those who are worried about lack of time adversely affecting their performance on test day. You select how much lag time you’d like to practice with, and it will simulate what a network lag would feel like on test day. The default is to have this network lag off. You can select a 1 second, 2 second, 3 second, 4 second, 5 second, or 6 second network lag.

We ask that you download our trial version, and you can try this feature out. You can download the trial version here.

So there you have it; give us feedback on our answer of ” Can there be a network lag or slow-down on the real test?” Take a test drive with our program and let us know what you think.

We get this question a lot: How close is your software to the real test?

The answer is simple: Pretty darn close. If you have used our software, you will not be surprised by how the software works and feels on the real day. There are some minor cosmetic differences, but not enough that would throw you off on the real test day. We try to prepare you as accurately as possible so that you can do well on test day. Some of our customers are afraid of a slower experience than what our program has to offer; we have made a feature called “Simulate Network Lag” that can simulate a slower Internet day during your test. We hope that this does not happen to you, but we have heard stories of this happening with the program loading and responding slowly.

Now in the real test day, you will not receive feedback after each case. You will receive your score and feedback after 3-4 weeks (sometimes more) after you complete the entire 2-day test. On your score-card, you will get feedback from all of the rest of step 3 and for your CCS portion you will get a performance chart that looks like this:

Obviously, you want fewer “xxx” and closer to the “High Performance” as the “xxx” represent your spread, so the more xxxx, the less certain they are about your performance. The less number of xxx, the more certain they are of your performance.

What the question of how close is your software to the real test is really asking us, “I don’t believe you. Are you sure you’re for real?” We understand. It’s okay to be skeptical. This is why you can download our program here and try it out on 2 free cases without having to even give us any information. You can make up your own mind. If you don’t like it, then you don’t need to go any further. If you do, you can enjoy 140 cases to help you prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test.

Update: see a later post. The USMLE has change their reporting of your scores, so it will not look like the above image anymore.

Primum CCS Software

We would like to challenge you to download our Software and compare this to the Primum CCS Software. You will notice that it is nearly identical in how the program will function, the orders that you can use, and how you interact with the program. The Primum CCS Software only offers 6 practice cases. This is insufficent amount of cases needed to practice to well on the USMLE Step 3 CCS cases.

Depending on your strengths and weaknesses, we recommend that you do at least 50-100 practice CCS cases prior to taking the real exam. If you are strapped for time, you can focus your time on cases in which you are not strong in such as Pediatric cases or OBGYN cases. However, we do think that it is important to hone in and do excellent and get all the points available in the cases that you are strong at. Our software will help you do that so that you can score high on test day.

We still recommend that you download and try out the Primum CCS Software. You can download it here at this website here. You can also download our software (click here) which offers 2 free cases and you can compare yourself. If you were to purchase our product, you would get 140 cases to practice and master the CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3 exam.

As we have said in our other posts, the key to success is preparation, and the most effective preparation for the CCS portion of the test is to practice, practice, practice with real tests with an interactive simulator, not reading books! Reading books will just not do, so it’s important to use the Primum CCS Software and to use our CCS Cases software to help you prepare for test day.

High Yield Step 3 Prep

You’re likely in your residency and working hard (trying to keep your patients alive, long nights, on call….you know what I’m talking about). The last thing you want to do is study for Step 3; it hangs over your head like a black cloud. Well, unfortunately, if you want to continue in residency, you have to pass it. You don’t want to waste time. You want a high yield step 3 prep.

At ccscases.com, we have 140 high yield step 3 prep cases which will allow you to study effectively and efficiency, so you can get back to your 15 minute nap before a nurse pages you at 2am asking for an order for Tylenol…and then telling them it was written as a PRN before you went to sleep. We love you nurses!

Our high yield step prep will give you all the tools that you need to do well on the step 3 CCS portion of the test. It’s worth 25-30% of your grade, so you definitely do not want to neglect this bad boy. It’s pretty much like a blank piece of paper, so you really have to practice your skills, or you will panic like a code blue or code yellow or some variation of code color. It won’t be good though. If you are prepared, then you’ll be calm as a summer’s morning…or something like that.

Give us a try. You can download 2 free cases here. The product is fully operational (like the Death Star before it was blown up) for those two cases.

How to Study for Step 3

There are a lot of resources out there that tell you how to study for step 3. There are online Qbanks, books, lectures, videos, and websites to name a few. Step 3 is a big deal, so we would like to tell you how to study for step 3 for the CCS portion of the test.

We recommend that you actually practice cases to prep for the CCS portion of the test. Watching other people do the test on a video or reading a book about how to do a case can be helpful, but it won’t give you the results that you want on test day.

Our recommendation for how to study for Step 3 is that you use our software and practice cases real-time. You will also get feedback after each case showing you what you did right and what you could improve upon. Actually practicing high yield cases will give you the experience you need to perform well on the test day. The testing environment is practically the same so that you will not need to learn the differences between what you are practicing on and what the testing program will be like on test day.

The great thing about our software is that you can try it out with two free cases before you purchase for the entire 140 cases. It is a reasonable fee that will give you access using any device, so you can study at work and at home.

If you’d like to try it out, click here to download our trial version

Our step 3 review will go over the most frequently seen CCS Cases on step 3. Step 3 covers all the clinical (and some non-clinical) things that you supposedly learned in medical school (and some who learned in their first year in residency). Reviewing all the clinical facts and treatments can be a challenge.

Our review program is great because you can review as you practice for the CCS portion of step 3. Our step 3 review includes going through 140 different CCS cases. Types of cases include Pediatrics, OB/GYN, Internal Medicine, and Emergency Medicine.

So, you can review by just reading a book about cases. This type of review has a tendency to be forgotten. The best kind of review is to actually practice on real software that mimics the real test. This will be review that you will remember on test day. There are 105 different cases that will help challenge you to perform well on test day for the CCS cases portion of the test. You will find that our program simply is the best for this part of the step 3 exam.

You can try out our step 3 review by clicking the link here. The program is for a PC or a Mac. You can download the fully-functional program which contains 2 free cases. If you have any feedback, please contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

Cracking the CCS Cases

You probably know what I’m going to say on the secret sauce on cracking the CCS Cases…wait for it….p….r…a…c…ok, that’s enough. Yes, it’s practice. Reading a book titled “Cracking the CCS Cases” is not going to cut it. You can read a book all day long about how to be a great tennis player. You can study how it’s important to grip the handle, the velocity of the ball, the rules of the game, ok you get the analogy. You’re never going to be a great player unless you get out there and hit the ball. The same is true about cracking the CCS cases; you need to practice cases with actual software and become efficient and competent in solving cases. Reading about it isn’t going to cut it.

We’ve got the solution for you: ccscases.com. Now, you can try it out for free (with 2 free cases), and you can see what you think. You get a grade after the completion of each test which goes through all the things that you did correctly and all the things which you could have done to improve your score.

No other software (that we are aware of) does this. We go through each section from the physical exam to the diagnostic testing to the treatment to the preventative care and go through what you did right and what you could have done better. You don’t need a study partner anymore.

We suggest you try our free trial version here and let us know what you think. Go hit those tennis balls or ccs balls…ok, I’ll stop, now it’s just getting weird.

This has been a much requested feature. Many users couldn’t remember what they did or what they ordered by the end of the 10 min or 20 min case. This is a common complaint when studying with Uworld where there is no grading, feedback, or log feature. They have a paragraph of what should have been done, but the user is wondering “Did I do that? I don’t remember. I hope I did.”

Well, we have created a solution to this. We have created a new logging feature that will log events and what is ordered throughout the case and will be stored in your case feedback at the end of the case. We will be adding time advance logging soon.

The logging feature will look like this:

We hope that you will like this new feature and that it can help you in your study for the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases. We are constantly improving our program which is why it’s the absolute best in rich features, cases, and grading. You will not find a better prep for the CCS Cases portion of the USMLE Step 3.

As usual, all paid customers get free upgrades to all new versions. You can download the new version here.

I know! What? Why would we even do this? This is the reason most people decide to use CCSCases.com to study for the CCS Portion of the test.

Well, we rarely get hate mail stating that they really feel that they know best when it comes to how a case should be performed (why do you need to study again?). These particular users feel that it would be best if they graded the case themselves.

Although we disagree vehemently, it did not take much time to add this feature, so here you go! See below:

You can un-click the checkbox “Enable Feedback Grading.” You will no longer receive a score, and all grading will appear as “Suggestions.”

For those interested, you can use the new log feature to look at what was done and ordered during the case to grade it yourself if you are so inclined.

We do not feel that this feature will be used very often, but it’s there anyway!

Try our program out for free here.

When the USMLE Step 3 CCS Cases first came out, they had the functionality called Urgency. After each order, you would select how “urgent” the order was. You would select “Routine” or “stat.” The USMLE realized students would agonize over an order was routine or stat which would be distracting (In our opinion, they never did grade the difference between urgency or stat - this was heavily emphasized on exam preps, but we felt that this was an unnecessary detail). About a year later, the USMLE decided to just make all orders “stat” and not have the option of “routine.” This is what our program also showed for a long time. We received a lot of e-mails asking us about where “routine” went, and we had to explain that the real test eliminated this function.

Now, the USMLE has eliminated “stat” as well, so there is no Urgency options anymore. You will no longer need to even think about whether an order is “stat” or “routine” anymore. For consistency sake, we also have removed this functionality as well, so in new versions, there will no longer be a “stat” or “routine” options when ordering orders.

You will still have the option to select “Frequency” which is an uncommonly used option in the USMLE. The new box will look like this:

We stay up-to-date in the changes occurring on the real test so that you will not be surprised on test day. We recommend that you try our CCS Cases simulator for free here.

Practice makes perfect.

USMLE 3

You’re finally at the last of the dreaded USMLE series and are studying for the grand finale of the USMLE 3. After suffering the grit of USMLE step 1 sweating if you don’t get that high score that your plastic surgery days will never come to be. With the CS portion of step 2, you pretended to care about what a fake patient was telling you and put a stethoscope down at all the right placed even though you would never do that in real life. You are now almost done with things and now must pass USMLE 3 to become a doctor.

OK, learn about your new opponent. The USMLE 3 is divided into 2 sections. The multiple choice section and the CCS (Clinical Case Simulation) cases. The CCS cases are tantamount to a blank sheet test or an essay test. You are given a list of symptoms and now you need to tell the computer what to do. This is a much more challenging test for a lot of people because you can’t just pick a multiple choice answer. Wait, there’s no ‘E’! This means that you can pretty much choose any answer which may or may not be the correct thing to do.

This takes some getting used to. Of course we are going to recommend our software (we’re not shy about that). We have the program to help you get accustomed to the CCS software and get the muscle (or brain) memory to order the test reflexively so that on test day you’ll have things down pat. CCSCases.com has 140 cases to get accustomed to the type of case that you will be asked about and how to correctly order and treat different cases.

Try out USMLE 3 case simulator for free by clicking the link here.

Are you looking for something to help you prepare for the CCS test? Well, we’ve worked hard to make the most effective and money valued product that will help you prepare for the CCS test. We have 140 cases which will more than adequately prepare you for the CCS test on the real testing day. The program which works on a Mac and a PC is almost identical to the real program. This will give you valuable experience, so that you can perform well on the CCS test.

Prepare for the CCS test

Go ahead and try our our product by going to the download page here and loading it up. You will notice that the product works much better than UWorld’s version which is slow and clunky. Our program for the Mac and PC is quick and can grade. Compare this to Uworld’s CCS program. They only give a paragraph of what should be done and what shouldn’t be done. Our program offer interactive grading and feedback. It will tell you what you did right and what you missed. This is very powerful in helping you learn and study, so you can ace the CCS portion of the test on test day.

How our program will help for the CCS test

140 cases, 20,000 different orders (just like the real test), interactive feedback and grading, and a reasonable fee. Buy early and study where you would like. This can be helpful during a very busy residency where you do not have a lot of time to study. Go ahead and give our CCS test program a try.

My Step 3 Case will end early - Is that normal?

It is a common question to ask yourself it it normal that your step 3 case will end early. The answer to this question is as you suspected, yes and no. There are 2 different ways that will cause a Step 3 Case to end early. The first is that you do the correct treatment or order the correct diagnostic study. This will cause the Step 3 Case to end early. This is something that you should not worry about. Just be sure to order all of the preventive medicine treatments in the final 2 minutes when a case ends early.

What is the other reason a Step 3 Case will end early?

The other reason a Step 3 case will end early is if you do the wrong thing or let the simulated time pass without ordering the correct diagnostic tests or the correct treatment. This would be a bad thing as you would be penalized for not treating the patient effectively. An example of this is where you have an emergency patient in the ER and the patient has a tension pneumothorax. If the correct intervention is not done and a chest tube is not placed, then the patient will die. This will prematurely end the case.

A great way to practice getting used to Step 3 cases ending early is to download our software for PC and Mac and try our cases out. This will help you get the hang of when Step 3 cases will end early due to doing the correct treatment versus doing the incorrect treatment and having it end early. This is easily deciphered by the grading section given to you at the end of each case completed. It will tell you if you did the correct tests and procedures and which ones were missed. Click here to download and get started today.

You may be wondering which are the best step 3 resources. At least for the CCS portion of the test, ccscases.com is the best step 3 resource for you to crush/devastate/destroy/smack [enter your favorite action] the CCS portion of the USMLE step 3 test. The CCS portion counts for 25-30%, so you will definitely need to put some focus and attention on this part of the test.

Of all the other step 3 resources, our program has a grading feature which will go through all of your orders and tell you exactly what you did right and what you could have done better. No other program out there does this. This way you won’t have to feel pressured to cram all of your studying in a short period of time. This way you just buy early and study at your own pace.

What do you have to lose by downloading and giving our program a shot? We have a free download which the link is located below. You can try out 2 free cases without any strings attached. Everything is functional when you try it out, so you know exactly what you will be getting if you choose to invest in our software. 

Another great thing is that you can try out the program in it fullness prior to purchasing. You can do this by clicking here to go to our download page to try it out for either a PC or a Mac.

We have a Step 3 CCS product that will meet your highest expectations for studying for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test. It has all the features that you would be looking for including a fully interactive software, 20,000 orders (just like in the real test), interactive grading based on your orders/responses, a reasonable fee, with over 140 Step 3 CCS cases. We would ask that you take a look at our Step 3 CCS cases and download the trial version our our Step 3 CCS cases here.

Here is a screen shot of our Step 3 CCS Product:

Study for the Step 3 CCS with over 100 Step 3 CCS Cases with interactive grading/feedback for the Mac/PC

Notice that our Step 3 Product looks nearly identical to the real test. This is to get you familiar with the format so that on test day you will be comfortable and perform well on the Step 3 CCS portion of the exam. You will learn when to perform a physical exam, what diagnostic tests to run, what treatment options to perform, and appropriate preventative orders at the end of the case. This is a comprehensive Step 3 CCS test preparation software that will fully prepare you for the real Step 3 test.

Go ahead and check out our Step 3 test preparation material by going to our “Try It” page and downloading the Step 3 test preparation trial version which contain 2 free and fully functional cases. You can purchase the full version to have access all of our 140 Step 3 Cases to study and master the Step 3 portion of the exam, so you can do well on test day. We are sure that you will find that our product is more more thorough and complete and is a better value than our competition in particular UWorld which does not offer grading and interactive feedback.

Many people have tried and loved our CCS software simulator. The great thing about our software is that you can try a full version of the product with 2 cases prior to purchasing our product. We feel that you will know exactly what you will be getting before you decide to buy. In order to do this, simply click here and you can download the CCS software simulator for the PC or MAC

Archer CCS

We would like you to compare our product to Archer CCS. First Archer CCS does not have a real time simulator. They have videos which go through high yield cases. They also have some courses which teach you Strategies which is considered a workshop. The difference between Archer CCS and our product is that instead of lecturing you on how to do something, our product lets you actually practice and do a case and then give you feedback.

More effective teaching than Archer CCS

This strategy is way more effective at teaching for the CCS test than to just explain how to do something. Again, going over the cases and reviewing what was done right and what was done wrong is the best way to study for the CCS Cases portion of the test. Lets give an analogy of teaching a person how to swim. You can discuss how it’s important to hold your breath and teach some basic swimming strokes. The fact of the matter is that person will never learn how to swim no matter how many times you lecture him on the strategies of swimming unless that person goes into the water and attempts to swim.

Likewise, the same is true about the ccs portion of the test. You have to learn how to master the CCS portion of the test by doing live cases (i.e. swimming) instead of being lectured on the strategies on what should be done. You can practice with a program that is near identical to the real test. Strategies will be taught and proper ordering practices. This is all done at the end of the case going over strengths and weaknesses and strategies for mastering that particular case. Go ahead and actually learn to swim instead of being lectured on how to swim by doing real cases and learn to master it by doing rather than watching. Download our trial version here.

CCS Videos

We have a couple CCS Videos here at CCSCases.com. The first video can be found here. This video goes over how to use the CCSCases program with ordering labs and treatments and how the grading system works. This video will go through a typical case that you might see on the real test day. You will notice that it looks very similar to the real program. This is because we do not want there to be any surprises on test day. If you decide to use our product, you will be very familiar with the software on test day. Give it a try! See the link at the bottom.

There are other companies that have CCS Videos on YouTube that you can watch. This can be helpful in the beginning, but you are really not going to get the level of experience that you will need to complete a case on test day by just watching CCS Videos. You really need to practice different types of cases: Internal medicine cases, Pediatric cases, Ob/Gyn cases, and emergency cases, so that you will be well prepared to tackle any type of case that you see on test day.

We recommend that you download our trial version and test it out for yourself. Don’t just trust us. You can download the trial version and try out 2 free cases which are fully functional to see what you are buying before you buy the product. Give it a try. Check out the trial version download page here.

How much of your total step 3 score comes from the CCS portion of the test?

The answer is that the USMLE does not give a clean cut answer. However, the general consensus is that the CCS portion is worth from 25-30% of your total step 3 grade. This is a very significant portion of your grade, so you should not neglect the CCS portion of the USMLE Step 3. There are 13 CCS cases that you will have to complete on test day. Each case is worth between 2% -2.5% of your total grade. Thus, it is important to understand the CCS portion of the test, what to order, how to order, how to navigate the software, and how to diagnose, treat, and solve cases.

At ccscases.com, we have a solution to help your studies. Instead of reading on how to solve cases and attempting to memorize and hoping that you will remember how to solve cases on test day, we have actual software that mimics that real test, so that you will learn “muscle memory” so that diagnosing, treating, and offering preventative care will be second nature to you on test day. This is something that other companies cannot offer. Each case also comes with a personalize grade based on your orders and responses, so you will get personalized feedback on what you should have done and should do next time to get a better score. This is much more helpful than a long paragraph about what to do to treat hepatitis. Using our program will help your total step 3 score through improving you CCS score worth 25-30%.

Try our product our before you decide to purchase. Click here to download and try 2 free cases.

Are you looking for some Step 3 CCS Tips? Well, with our program, you will receive thousands for Step 3 CCS tips because each case will give you tips for managing the patient correctly. It will go through diagnostic orders, preventative medicine orders, treatment orders, and good bedside manner. All these combine for the best Step 3 CCS tips out there because it will go order-by-order in the feedback section at the end of each case.

What is different about your Step 3 CCS Tips?

The difference is that other websites and companies will give you generalities for their step 3 ccs tips. CCSCases.com is different in the sense that it will give you specifics such as this was the diagnostic order that should have been ordered and this was the treatment that should have been administered. This makes the advice and feedback much more valuable, so you can learn what specifically should be done in each case and not just in generalities.

So….what does that mean for you? It means specific advise is better than general advise. For example, if you are buying a specific house and you call up on a radio show and ask if you should buy a house, you will likely get advise like “well, make sure the house gets a home inspection and make sure the price is comparable to other houses around the neighborhood.” This is good advice, but the better advice would be someone who is familiar with the neighborhood and the specific house, “It’s a great house. You should buy it because of x, y, and z.”

This analogy is the same for ccscases.com. We have the 140 most common cases tested, and we know how to specifically prepare you for each and every one of them. We ask that you try out our program for the PC or the Mac by going to our download page here.

Are you studying for step 3 or looking for a program to help you study for step 3? While it’s important to learn the clinical content and facts of step 3, it could be very detrimental to your step 3 score if you are not familiar and prepared to take the CCS portion of the step 3 test. Did you know that the CCS portion of the test is worth 25% of your entire grade? That is 3% per case. The CCS portion can determine whether you pass or fail. It’s important that you are prepared. We recommend to all that are studying for step 3 to take a look at our interactive case simulator. You will not be learning from a book, but from software that will teach you and familiarize you with the actual software that you will be using on the real test day. This way, when the real test day arrives, you will be very familiar with the software including how to navigate the software, how to order, what to order, the sequencing of the orders, what’s important for diagnosis, what is important for treatment, and what is important for preventative care.

To those who are studying for step 3, why don’t you give our software a try. You can download a free version for 2 full cases that can show you how it works. The best thing that we can tell students that are studying for step 3 is that it gives you feedback on the orders on things that you did and what things you could improve on. It also gives you a final score when you complete the case. The final grading will give you feedback on the physical exam, the diagnostic orders, the treatment, and any preventative care.

You can download our free trial here.

Have you failed step 3?

We understand that for students who have failed step 3 that this can be devastating. Many students report that the reason they failed step 3 is due to the CCS Case portion of the test. They were unfamiliar with the testing environment, unfamiliar with what to order, unfamiliar with what the cases were looking far.

Being unfamiliar with the software can lead to telling your friends and family that you failed step 3

Being familiar with the CCS software is essential to avoid failing step 3. Our software is almost identical to the real test, so you develop valuable experience using our software that you can’t get from reading a book about step 3. Actually practicing is the only way to get better and to avoid telling your friends and family that you failed step 3.

Our software lets you practice with 140 cases, and there is a reasonable fee, so you can take as long as you need to become familiar with the software, and the most commonly seen cases. We only select the cases that have a high probability of being seen on the real test day.

We would highly recommend going to our download page located here and trialing 2 free cases which is fully functional. All the functions and features are available for this, so you can test what you are really purchasing. We have confidence that you will find that our software is better than our competitors and has a better value than our competitors who charge in our opinion excessive amounts. We also have interactive grading which our competitors do not. It actually tells you what you did right and what you did wrong.

The NBME Step 3 or the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) is the organization that issues the NBME Step 3 exam. The NBME Step 3 has many resources on their website. Click the on the NBME Step 3 link to see what they have to offer.

NBME Step 3

The NBME Step 3 site does not have the software preparation material for the USMLE step 3 since the NBME Step 3 site mainly focuses on the other exams. However, if you go over to the USMLE.ORG website, it does have links to download the Primum Computer-based Case Simulations (CCS) (Windows only). If you have a Mac, then you cannot run this software.

Alternative to Primum Computer-based Case Simulations

As a good alternative to the Primum Computer-based Case Simulations (CCS) cases it to download our software located here, and you can test out 2 free cases and you can buy the other 138 cases for a reasonable fee. You can buy early and study at your own pace. 

The difference between the Primum Computer-based Case Simulations (CCS) and our software is that we offer 140 cases to practice and the Primum CCS cases offers 5 cases to practice. Also, the Primum CCS cases does not offer interactive feedback. They give you a pdf to look at, and you have to judge and guess if you did according to what the pdf says. In our program, you do not have to guess. It will show you which things that were done correctly and which things were done incorrectly. You can go to the downloads page and try out our program whether it be on a Mac or a PC. Try it out for free.

Are you looking for a USMLE Step 3 CCS Tutorial? Here at ccscases.com, we offer a USMLE Step 3 CCS Tutorial that will go step-by-step into each order that you should order and each procedure that you should order. You can repeat each case as many times as you need so you can master the most frequently viewed cases that you will find on the real test. Other USMLE Step 3 CCS Tutorial programs do not have the interactive, real-time feedback that our USMLE Step 3 CCS Tutorial offers.

USMLE Step 3 CCS Tutorial

Step-by-Step USMLE Step 3 CCS Tutorial

Our program will go step-by-step into what needs to be ordered. No more wondering after reading a paragraph at the end of the case if you ordered correctly or did the right thing. You will see exactly what was ordered correctly and what was missed. This leads to valuable feedback and learning so that mistakes are not repeated on next cases. There is absolutely no question that this is the most effective way of learning. Learning from a book is not how you will do well on the Step 3 CCS portion of the exam! You have to learn by practice and doing case after case after case. This is the only effective method for scoring high on the real Step 3 CCS test. There are no acceptable alternatives even though other products will say that it is equally effective. The reason they say that is because it is a lot of work to create a program that gives this interactive step-by-step feedback. It’s a lot easier to just write a paragraph in a book on how to do this. We spent countless hours developing this program so that you could get the valuable feedback needed to improve your score and score high on test day.

USMLE Step 3 Uworld

Many people have asked us what the difference between our product and USMLE Step 3 Uworld. Well, there are a bunch of differences which include our content, our grading, and our pricing. Compared to the USMLE Step 3 Uworld, we have 140 cases and not 51 cases; we grade each case and don’t just give an explanation about the case so you can determine yourself how well you did on the case. With our product, you won’t finish a case and say, “That’s it? Well, I’m not sure how I did on that case.” You will be graded and will get customized feedback based on your responses for each case. What is also different of our product compared the USMLE Step 3 UWorld is our pricing.

There are a few other differences that our program offers. We offer the full set of orders that you will see on test day (over 20,000 orders). We also have a way for our users to practice taking a test and simulate if there is a network lag. You can customize to slow down after each order which can mimic a network delay (or lag) which is a more often occurrence on the real test day than is hoped for. We have the ability to randomly select a case or to randomly select a case that you have never tried. With 140 cases, you will have plenty of material to help you prepare for the USMLE Step 3 CCS portion of the test.

You don’t have to take our word for it. You can try out our program for free. Click here to goto our download page where you can download and run our program for free.