I’m in a mess student Facebook group that has a lot of foreign med students as well and just saw this post that is the perfect example of how foreign schools game their numbers:
What the person is referring to is essentially a comprehensive shelf exam. You can buy old ones as practice tests for step 2 as they are mostly made up of retired questions. So basically this person’s school wants to know how well they will do on a step 2 practice exam before they will let them take step 2.