Thank you for your kind words! These are interesting questions.
- No, no textbooks, AT ALL! Reading is one of the worst ways to retain content long-term (you'll forget 90% of what you just read after 2 weeks). I used the UW explanations and the NBMEs as content sources (and of course Pathoma) and only used FA as a cross-reference when making cards based on my incorrects. I focused very very much on doing questions and learning from questions.
- I would not spend any mental energy thinking about % correct. This just induces anxiety. I never counted my percent correct or thought about this. My practice test scores ranged from the 230s to 250s for Step 1. For Step 2 CK, they ranged from 240s to low 270 on a UWSA (which over-predicts). I tend to do better on actual exams as adrenaline seems to help motivate me.
- There is such a range, in my own case, I was someone who did not study particularly hard during the first 2 years of med school b/c it was pass/fail (I'm a little bit of a procrastinator and would often mostly study close to the exam, I don't pay attention well in lectures, but I did learn well in tutorials because I love discussions and to be honest learned the most from teaching other classmates). But we took Step 1 after third-year, which was very lucky for me because I loved third year and learned so much. Working with patients was extremely motivating for me and I think I made up for some knowledge gaps by virtue of that. However, most of my non-clinical Step 1 content was learned in the 7 weeks before my exam using spaced repetition and focusing on questions. I would say that the people who did less well than they wanted often focused too much on memorizing and FA (and did questions and practice tests too late). These were not uncommonly people in the top quartile who studied super hard (and could excel on in-class exams) but maybe weren't the best test-takers or efficient studiers (more of an OCD-like focus on memorizing EVERYTHING, rather than the truly high-yield stuff). Some people with anxiety also had more trouble (particularly doing worse on the exam than their practice tests). I wouldn't worry about other people and take my story to mean that you can achieve a lot in a dedicated study period even if you didn't do boards studying previously, as long as you use the right methods and don't have too much too improve in terms of test-taking (if the latter is true, you need to start with questions much earlier).
