Hello fellow 2018 class member, I shared this in the main thread but I thought I would cross post it here as well in case it is helpful for anyone!
Hey everyone, first off thanks everyone for your help through studies, I feel that seeing other people's experiences and resources was hugely helpful in helping me push harder and study smarter. As a background I'm a US med student at a state school, with a fairly USMLE minded curriculum. Ok so first off here are my score breakdowns
NBME's
12=220 (baseline before any studying, took during last semester around march I believe)
13=240 (still during semester not dedicated, during end of march I believe)
15=249 (start of dedicated in april)
UWSA1: can't remember for sure, in the 250's, maybe 252?
17=256 (probably halfway through dedicated like end of april)
18=256 (2 weeks left of dedicated)
UWSA2:262 took 5 days before exam
Free 150: 88% I think? I can't remember, it was in the 80's, I thought it was pretty tough but useful I actually had a couple of the exact questions show up on my exam lol
UW: overall avg. 80%
Real deal: 258
I took it May 28th, felt ok after the exam, easier than I thought it would be in some ways but still felt like it was a total crap shoot. Stoked as can be
. For a full write up of my thoughts after the test/on the test itself see my earlier post in this thread. total dedicated time after classes= ~5 weeks. during dedicated I spent 12-14 hrs/day usually studying, weekends significantly less time than that... but still a good chunk of time. I think a key was listening to Goljan audio and pathoma in the car/doing uphills mountain biking/workingout/etc., doing FC in lines, pretty much maximizing time. IMO studying for step 1 is all about time management.
Preparation:
1. Starting MS1 I used Firecracker. I won't say I used it religiously, wish I would have... but I feel like it wasn't very good for our materials we were taught during first year. They have since improved and they were very helpful for review of first year materials. I used it heavily during second year and mostly study for class tests using it. This worked very effectively for our curriculum, my scores actually went up if anything switching to this method from using more class notes. Anyway, I think this was a very helpful resource for me, i'm not usually one who get's much from flashcards but there were actually a lot of random factoids that came up that I remembered from FC.
2. I used FA throughout and annotated into it. I annotated most of my UW notes into it. This was helpful, but I think the writing process itself was more important than anything. The trick to FA that has been talked about on here but I took for granted early on was that FA is an outline, not a study source, you should be able to explain and understand the background of pretty much EVERY WORD in FA. I never really read it cover to cover, I feel like that would be a waste of time, but I ended up going through it at least once, maybe twice after curriculum and dedicated. I would find the topic for every question in UW, look to see I understand it in FA, add notes as needed, and then check out other related stuff on that page. Last week of dedicated I went through it hunting for topics I didn't know. Also, and this was GOLD, the last 1.5 days I went through the high-yield facts thing in the back and ya... surprisingly high yield i actually got at least 3 questions right from this alone.
3. UW: This was of course golden. in hindsight I probably spent just a little bit too much time in the minutiae of the answers, probably should have focused just a bit more on bigger ideas and known these more in depth. The key for me here was going through this very meticulously. I would read all the incorrect, corrects, and thinks about why I missed a question. "oh i was just being dumb" is never a reason IMO, take a step back and objectively look at why you didn't know something. Then think about other ways they could test the topic, since they of course will likely never ask you the same question again. Basically use it as a guide to know a topic, never just memorize an answer. This has been talked about a lot but it is a key concept. The other key for me was unlike most any note I've ever done I hand wrote all my notes. And any diagram that I felt was helpful it Uworld I drew it. This helped concrete the topics for me more. It did however take a ton of time.
4. Pathoma: used this during the first two years. went through the audio again with the textbook on the major chapters during dedicated, and listened to the whole thing probably once, 2-3 times for the first couple chapters on basic path (that stuff comes up a lot lol) and my weaker topics. This is gold but really use it as an outline of basics, you should know pretty much everything in this book, it is NOT enough to do really well I feel like. Nonetheless, a very valuable resource.
Other super awesome resources:
1. How the immune system works. I cannot recommend this book enough! it was dialed for immunology. I previously understood and retained next to nothing from our course in school on the topic and this was immensely helpful! It's a quick read and I highly recommend it, didn't need anything but it and FA/UW for immunology.
2. Sketchymicro/pharm: I had very little exposure to the pharm (came out too late), but I used it for a couple drugs I was having a hard time remembering, for that it was quite helpful. sketchy micro I mean what more is there to say, it's freaking amazing. I did it during the semester in MS2 and made notes from it that i could quick review later (biggest regret... not using it MS1, if only I had known!!!!). I will say that you need to know the epidemiology of the infections better than they teach IMO and treatments... class notes helped me for this, I didn't do as well on micro as some of my other topics on my score sheet which is unusual for me and I think that is why.
3. Clot or bleed: I was pretty terrible at hematology (it was early on in first year and I didn't remember it well). I think this book offers a really good overview of hematology and was very memorable. Again quick read, well worth it IMO.
4. Goljan rapid review. I didn't use this book enough. I used it for reference during the later part of MS2 and dedicated and really liked it but I really wish I had been using it all through MS1 and MS2, great resource, fills in some key gaps that pathoma doesn't.
5. Constanzo (full version) I didn't like the review version, but I LOVED the full version. I would honestly suggest reading the whole thing if you have time. I think having a background that is super solid in the physiology is absolutely key for everything else to fall into place. This book really clicked for me too and helped me understand things better.
6. Goljan audio: these were really great, probably went through them 2-3 x over the course of commuting to school during MS2. These were memorable to me, I got a few questions right due to these.
7. Becker pharm: i'm not sure if this would really be helpful for most but our pharm curriculum was garbage for most of the units we had. I knew I needed to fill in some serious gaps in knowledge and Dr. Raymond is the man. I found this very very helpful. This teamed with FA/UW/FC= pharm was one of my highest topics (after being dreadfully low on my first NBME). I did this during the last semester of MS2 and then referred to my notes as needed during dedicated.
Pearls that I found during study:
1. Number one key for me I think is being curious!! Make sure you know what you are reading and if you don't look it up! I actually read countless review articles, wiki entries, random medical school pages, etc. during dedicated and I think this was super key. If you force yourself to be interested and engaged in what you are reading you will learn far more!
2. Understand all the words you are reading. If you don't know what a word means or what a name is look it up! I actually think vocab is a huge deal on step 1.
3. For descriptions (of path, etc). Think about how you would describe it in layman's terms. Step 1 loves to do this, they remove all of the comforting medical buzzwords and they describe things in a more "general" way. This would trip me up at first but if I looked at images and talked about it outloud or explained it to myself out loud then it helped me to start thinking that way when a question came up. I would force myself when they gave a description to think about what it was really describing, and if you get used to making the associations early it becomes easier.
4. Be able to describe topics to other people clearly! The harder the concept the more important this is. I would describe things and teach things to my wife all the time (she was very patient haha) and to other students. I also used SDN as a platform for this. Almost everyday for some time I would look through a thread, see if there was something I didn't know, and then look it up, synthesize it and then teach it to them. They would learn, I would learn it, great opportunity for all and I think it is one of the most useful things on here. Also, IMO, group study is a waste of time unless you have already gone over the topic beforehand. If you have then I think going over NBME's with people is an awesome opportunity for this as well. A group of a couple other students and I would decide what NBME we were going to take on a certain day and then review it together afterwards. This was faster than going through it myself and it offered the opportunity to teach and be taught by other students=golden.
5. Simple concept but important. Do as many questions as possible!!! I had a few NBME questions that were like exact questions come back up on the test. It also really helped me think about topics from different angles and helped identify weaknesses. Again as I mentioned above. It is tempting to say "oh I missed that question because I wasn't paying attention or something" but never let that be an excuse! Always think about why you missed a question. and if it was because I didn't think about a question right then I would think how I could change that to reduce stupid errors. For me this led to me reading the last sentence before the full question. I had never done this before and I started it about half way through dedicated. I found it to be immensely helpful in helping me concentrate during the question more and pay more attention.
6. Do well in class through MS1/MS2. One of the big things I learned was that you
absolutely cannot makeup for a bad base during the dedicated study alone. (unless I guess you have a really long dedicated study time) You have to have that base there. I wasn't a crazy good student or anything but I worked hard and did reasonably well during the first two years, this was invaluable.
7.
Last but very important strategy I learned: Always go with your gut!! it sounds silly but it was true for me. For my final couple of practice tests and the real deal I made the following rule with myself: Go with the first impression, mark it for review, but DO NOT change it unless I had an epiphany moment. I actually got quite a handful of questions right due to this on the real test (yup i was neurotic and looked them up at breaks). I was surprised how my first impression was right and when I thought about it I did vaguely remember hearing about something somewhere before.
Sorry for the huge novel everyone! Hopefully it is helpful and contains some good info. Congrats to everyone on hear, there are some incredible scores, it is humbling and inspiring to see your work!
