THIS BOOK WILL KILL USMLE STEP 1

It's a great resource, and I definitely got questions right because of it, but there's a ton of it. I would listen to Goljan audio while I was working out, and was able to make almost a complete second pass through it. Took a practice test every week. Morning of I woke up and worked out, then showered and headed to the test center. First block went pretty well and I was feeling good, but all the rest of my blocks felt harder. Definitely a handful of questions that I had never encountered in any study resource, or asking about concepts in a way that I had never encountered.

Pharm was pretty easy, Micro was all sketchy, path was hard but fair. Physiology was where was test was funky and hardest. When I left the test center I was convinced that I had way undershot my practice tests. I think how you feel after the test probably has very little relationship to how you actually did.

Looking back I really only marked a couple of questions per block, but after 7 blocks there's a lot of questions floating around your brain that you weren't sure about. Dedicated is this weird marathon, and if you aren't careful you can get yourself into a bad spot. Make sure you are taking care of yourself, and stop to assess what your mental state is frequently. Being in a good head space is a big part of succeeding on test day.

I am happy to answer any questions about what I did, how I used resources, the test, or whatever anybody can come up with. My exam is in 4 weeks. I have a similar level of preparation.

Baseline NBME 15 taken yesterday was Looking back on your prep, do you think there was any you could have prepared for those random questions not covered in UFAP? I heard there are a lot of Step 2 style "next step" questions creeping into Step 1 nowadays - was that your experience? My suggestion would be to go back and review low-yield anatomy because a lot of my funky questions were anatomy and I basically had no "normal" anatomy type questions.

Also, if you did well in anatomy it might just come back to you.

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Other than that, I'm not sure there's much you can do to prepare for the weird stuff. IMO when they are asking those questions a lot of the time they are testing you on a concept that you know, but with different material that you haven't seen before. Don't skim the Step 2 deck, it's definitely not worth it. I think there is a lot of variability possible in the set of questions that you get, and you don't want to get boned by getting a lot of questions that you only skimmed. Hey man, I really appreciate your advice and enjoyed reading your experience. Congratulations, you deserve a score like that with all of your hard work.

You said to go back and review the low yield anatomy if we have time. Do you have any advice on that? Like a particular resource that is in depth enough, but not off the wall crazy detailed. And then finally, how were subjects like Physiology and Behavioral science? Were they pretty straight forward?

Also, did you have a lot of pathology pictures from which you had to solely make a diagnosis? I don't have any particular suggestions regarding the anatomy thing, maybe go back and do the Michigan Q's again? I didn't do this and I don't think it is necessary but it's the only thing I can come up with. All of the weird anatomy on my test was things that we had covered in my anatomy curriculum, just not "board high yields. Physiology was the mot difficult part of my test.

Definitely focus on really truly understanding cardiac, pulm, and renal physiology if you want to do well. Physiology is a subject that poorly lends itself to just memorizing things. Behavioral science was stupid easy: I had like a single schizoaffective Q, a handful of ego defense Q's and that was it. I don't remember having very many path questions were the picture was the only thing required to answer the question. My philosophy with path was that could usually be pretty sure what the answer was from the stem and the picture confirmed the suspicion. My test wasn't overloaded with path pictures.

First off amazing score and congrats! Your hard work paid off. My question is do you have Any tips on question taking strategies. And approximately when did you finish maturing your cards such that you were only reviewing old cards. Last question for uworld did you take any notes on incorrects or did you also include notes on the ones you got right but figured would just jot down.

Every stem or vignette is aiming to essentially test you on a single fact, concept, relationship, etc. The faster you can really sort of what they are asking you, the faster you can ignore all the extraneous information. This is not always easy, and I think is a skill you pick up as you do 's of Q's. Read the first line, the last line, answer choices, then the rest of the stem in that order.

For example, 60M presents with chronic cough that is occasionally bloody Answer choices are all cancer, so I know this guy has cancer and I don't have to waste brain energy on figuring out what he has. If you get a question wrong, don't blow it off! Understand if you got a question wrong because of an information deficit, incorrect application, or if you incorrectly diagnosed or identified what they were asking.

It feels good to get questions right, but you should spend more time on the one's you got wrong. He would occasionally point out relationships that I had not thought about before, or hadn't gotten through to me yet. I would actively quiz myself as I listened to these, like as he was asking the class a question or bringing something up I would try to answer it myself. I also think he's funny and I was a moderately entertaining way to passively study.

There were questions on my test where the information was contained only in the incorrect answer choices for a questions. Thanks for this write-up - very helpful. It confirms for me that it is extremely helpful to do all three major question banks and that zanki is essential. Can you provide a rough estimate of the number of questions you believe you got right? How many totally stumped you? Does pathoma include any information than BnB doesn't? Is doing both helpful?

How did you do on the MCATs guessing a 40? What speciality are you interested in pursuing? Only like truly stumped me, as in I have no idea how to even begin to answer this question. There were quite a few that I got it down to 3 or fewer answer choices and had to make an educated guess. I used Pathoma primarily, and BnB only sporadically so I can't really comment on that. Pathoma is essential, while BnB can help fill in gaps. I became a much more effective student in medical school compared to when I was in college.

I got much better about focusing on active learning IE Anki and practice questions. I also was able to improve my procrastination habits and really focus on getting to work when I got home. I took medical school very seriously and treated it like a high committment job and tried to get out of the classic "student" mindset as much as I could. Throughout the year or during dedicated? Yes, I completed all 3 of the major Qbanks before I took Step 1. I would spend about 10 hours a day actively studying.

If it was closer to a test I would be working later. I used my weekend to recuperate and also study like hours, unless it was pre-test. Not to be annoying, but zanki is definitely not essential. I scored higher than OP without doing any anki whatsoever. This might be a dumb question, but what did you use instead? I did my reviews during dedicated, and I think it was worth it. If you are only doing reviews the time commitment drops way down. I think that Zanki is superior to reading FA because you are actively learning, so if that is working for you keep doing it during dedicated.

As per your NBME, give it time you're only a week in and still figuring things out so don't stress out. If you still haven't improved in a week you may want to consider changing things up. Good luck to you!! To piggy back off this, how many Zanki reviews per day were you during dedicated? How many hours spent with zanki vs hours spent with Uworld? Congrats on the killer score. I would spend 1. I used both Zanki and Uworld for anatomy. I left path questions until later, though, but Kaplan allows you to toggle subjects on and off.

Here is my question for you: What is your daily study routine during classes? Do you go to class or listen to the lectures at your own pace? Do you read texts or learn from lecture notes? Do you use study aids like Anki?

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When you go through material, do you take notes? Or just read things multiple times? I do well in classes, but I find that I'm very inefficient so I spend nearly all of my time studying leaving no time for anything else. My goal for M2 year is to become more efficient so I can learn the material as best as possible while not wasting so much time.

I went to every lecture except for a few where I left town to see my SO a day early on the weekend. I'm a big proponent of repetition for memorization, so I would just go through powerpoint slides over and over again to pound the material deep into my brain. I rarely took any significant notes as I find they tend to bog me down.

I figure if the professor thought it was important, he or she would put it in the slides. Just my 2 cents. How pertinent would you say getting the latest edition of FA is? I have a copy and I am wondering if that is good enough. Getting the latest edition is huge. So many updates and modifications that are tailored to the latest trends show up in each new edition. It would be foolish in my opinion to use anything more than 1 edition behind the current one.

How was your performance during MS1 and MS2? What resources did you use prior to entering your dedicated study period? I did well during MS1 and MS2 by primarily using lecture notes. My main post details the resources I used before dedicated study, so give it a read if you're curious. Work hard in class and it'll pay off down the road. I've been getting great feedback in clinical rotations about my knowledge base.

Just be thirsty for learning new things and make connections between what you learn as often as you can. They wouldn't really be useful in a general sense, I promise. They contain random facts and concepts that I found difficult to pin down.

It'd be much better to individualize them and make them useful for you by making your own. First of all, keep at it. Anatomy lends itself particularly well to repetition. Second, try to think about anatomy through a clinical lens. Step 1 likes to test what you know about anatomy gone wrong. Anything beyond that, there's no use studying because the likelihood that you'll study the right obscure anatomy fact is miniscule.

So don't sweat it. I was just wondering -- when you started out with the Kaplan Qbank at the beginning of the year, how did you deal with questions you hadn't covered in class yet? Did you just guess and try to learn from the answer? And would you recommend starting out with 46 question blocks? Or is it better to start out with smaller blocks at first? Sorry if these are silly questions -- I'm a little anxious about starting M2 soon and wondering how to approach Qbanks at the beginning of the year when I have so little Step 1-relevant knowledge.

I held off with Pathology for a bit, but eventually I decided to opt for the guess and learn strategy. And I don't think the number of questions at a time is particularly important, especially at first. Do whatever you're comfortable doing. Later on, with UWorld in particular, do full blocks or a half block if that's in your schedule to get used to pacing yourself. I love that method you used to create powerpoints of your missed or need to review questions from uworld.

Do you know of any such app or program for people that use pc. I would love to try it. Look into any virtual machine that you could run on Windows. Other than that I'm not too PC savvy unfortunately. Good luck finding something though! If one were to be using a mac and didn't know how to set up a virtual machine, one could always There is a handy option "new screen recording" until File.

You can even pick an area of screen to record. Once the missed questions or concept were captured, said person would simply close out the qbank, play the freshly recorded quicktime video, and easily be able to take screen shots. Congrats on the great score! I'm starting MS2 next week and what you did is similar to what my plan right now is. Since you finished Kaplan Qbank in February, what resource s did you use to learn the material that your school teaches from March-May?

I didn't wait for the Kaplan questions. If anything, learning some important details and areas of focus before the lectures via Qbank questions helped me direct my focus when the material came up in class. They really wouldn't be useful in general. They're just quick facts that I struggled with remembering.

I literally tried to memorize FA so it was just in helping with that theme. Hey Stabapples, Congrats on a phenomenal score.

Want to add to the discussion?

I just started my second year and want to get on top of step 1 preparation right away. I realize the importance of questions and have been doing my research. My biggest concern right now is that; according to First Aid's guide to other resources, there are about 11 books one for each subject that I should read and then consolidate the information into First Aid.

Did you do this as well? How necessary is this? I don' think this leaves time for me to be reading Costanzo's Physio or Lippincott's Micro cover to cover What is your advice on this? I sincerely hope you get a chance to reply, I realize you must be busy with rotations now. Know those resources well, and you'll do just fine. Only dip into other resources if you find yourself particularly weak in one area, and don't get hung-up on it for too long.

I think that focusing on anything in FA is overkill for first year plus you'll likely use a different edition anyways. Sent this as a PM, but I realize it might be useful for other people to see. I'm really torn because I was originally going to go Kaplan, by the fact that it's harder, but now I'm hearing that it's really low yield and that even though Rx is a little easier, it at least really covers FA which is something I need help with. Unfortunately I can't afford and probably won't have time to do both before my dedicated study period especially since I'm starting later than I wanted.

I would choose Rx.

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It helps in mastering FA which is really the most important foundation heading into your dedicated study period. Kaplan is very nitpicky and "low-yield. Thank you so much, I appreciate it! I hope you're doing well in 3rd year, and maybe figuring out what you want to do! Last I read you still weren't sure. Do you think there's any difference between doing Kaplan before UsmleRx rather than Rx before Kaplan? Hey man, how did you schedule the contents? Did you read FA from page one to end or did you select the subjects?

I selected subjects loosely based around the pathoma section I was planning on watching that day. If only you made this post a few hours earlier, I would have added it to my archive, now I have to re-number everything! But seriously, congratulations and thank you for your extremely detailed information on success and schedule.

I have a few questions: Regarding your NBME practice exams, when did you take these during your study period? And did you ultimately finish your goal of UFAP x2 in five weeks? How did you do and then re-do UW, random untimed and then random tutor, or organ blocks? Here you go , it also has my MS2 questions linked. I pulled up my schedule to look at exact time frames, and I got flashbacks but I got the info you wanted. I then took one 4 weeks out, 2.

The reason I took so many so close to my exam was to get my mind in gear for test taking. As for UWorld, I only used timed random. I only bought a 30 day subscription, so I marked every single question on my first run through. On the second run through, I selected the option to do only marked questions which allowed me to go through every question on random again without paying any extra money.

Thanks for taking the time out to make this post and reply. Did you do anything different the day before the exam or just stick to your normal schedule? The day before the exam I just reviewed the powerpoints I had made for the FA chapters mostly to just distract myself. I used it as a day to relax and get my mind fresh for the marathon ahead.

Would you suggest I do one each week and then ramp up closer to my exam date to, as you said, get my mind in gear for the real deal? That's about what I did. It worked for me, but then again I love doing practice questions to study. I took NBMEs 7, 11, 12, 13, 15, and Those were the ones offered when I was studying. The tests offered might change by the time you go to study, though. That's the general consensus. Although my practice scores all hovered around the same number.

Step 1 worked out very well for me, which I largely attribute to a focus on conceptual learning, UWorld, Pathoma, and the combined use of FA and Crush Step 1. There is a FB page for this book which has the errata available. There are only a few corrections FA always has a running errata list, so don't let that put you off but worthwhile to get it corrected. Sections of this page. Email or Phone Password Forgotten account? See more of Crush Step 1 on Facebook. Pakistani Medical Students Non-profit organisation. Bill and Melinda Gates Public figure. Mount Sinai Psychiatry Medical and health.