I have not got my score back, but in my experience of dedicated, trying to cram in all of UFAPS and BnB in 1 month is a lot. With one month left, I would say that you have to pick a strategy and STICK WITH IT. In my experience, cramming with the generic anki decks wasn't that helpful. I did have a "master deck" where I would move things that I had gotten wrong on UW to. I would mainly focus on that deck so that I did not lose information
Here are things that did/didn't work with UFAPS for me:
- I annotated FA heavily during pre-clinical. In dedicated, I just used it as a reference. I tried reading "x" amount of pages per day, but I wasn't really retaining enough. I'm pretty visual, so I focused a lot on pictures.
- I also tried to keep up with zanki decks for pharm/micro, but found there to be too much low-yield information that I was getting bogged down with.
In the last month, I wasn't really watching X amount of sketchy videos per day because I felt like I knew the videos really well. I found that I was getting tripped up on the application and clinical picture. I found that DOING QUESTIONS was helpful.
- UW: before, I was taking detailed notes on the answer and thought that I was having content issues because I did not know an obsecure detail that was only in UW. I found that I was retaining a lot more when I kind of quickly read through UW and took 1 MAIN POINT away from each question. If there was a really big issue I didn't know (i.e. chromosomal disorders, CHF, etc.) I would make a list and go through that with BnB.
- BnB really worked for me because I used it a lot in my course work throughout the year. I also downloaded the BnB anki deck and would use the preview anki mode to quiz myself on the videos. For physiology, I had to take hand notes and one note. Also, not all BnB are the same yield. I found that I was awful at basic microbiology but didn't need as much help on the actual bugs. I watched the basics of bacteria/viruses probably 3x during dedicated.
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My experience was that I had a huge increase to get to the 210s and then my score plateued for almost 6 weeks. This was so incredibly frustrating because I desperately wanted to crack 220 and felt so defeated every time. I finally did on my last nbme the week of step 1.
All that studying was not for waste. Now that I am gearing up for third year, I am so glad that I put the time. I put in time on a lot of things that were not on my exam, but that I learned during dedicated and that have been helpful for third year.
You are so much more than a number. Best of luck!
