The fact of the matter is that a premed has no relevant background in order to offer advice to people that are studying or have studied for this test.
I don't want you to think that I'm picking on you, because I'm not. Neither am I siding with the pre-med, who I feel was unable to articulate his thoughts and resorted just being unnecessarily and ineffectively defensive/combative. With some exceptions, your opinions appear to be the current mentality, and it's that which bothers me.
I understand where you're coming from. Intuitively it would seem that you're right, but we can't all experience everything - we all learn from others' successes and failures.
Where your argument doesn't hold water is - just because you experience something doesn't mean you understand it. There are so many variables in life that we can't keep track of them. We often confuse causation with correlation, which is why statistics is such a valuable field. n = 1 means nothing. Often, the perspective of an outsider is required to view something objectively (using the term loosely here). Bottom line: experience ≠ understanding,
Now let me give you the flip-side. One of my friends once told me this (it smacks of a stolen quote) and it's stayed with me since: 'The illusion of understanding is a product of distance and perspective. True understanding requires involvement'. It's true that once you spend enough time actively studying something, you gain some insights that escape others who aren't as involved. On a forum like this, those insights are shared and anyone with average intelligence can identify patterns, which is what he claims to be doing, and what most of us do.
It just makes people angry.
Why? Seems infantile.
Whether this premed ends up being right or wrong, myself and many others could care less. Looking back I wouldnt trade my good times before med school, during med school, or thereafter for "developing a comprehensive study plan before med school" for a 260.
I don't know why 'premed' is used as a pejorative. We've all been pre-meds, and I certainly don't understand the hate for planning in advance. We all know the quote 'no battle plan survives contact with the enemy', but this doesn't mean you shouldn't plan or have contingencies in place.
For all the good times you had before med school, I'm sure there were times you were bored ****less and could have formulated a Step 1 plan. I can't think of any reason to not plan something so important and spend time understanding it before having to deal with it.
It really doesn't take very long to skim the thread since most of the posts are quite short. I agree, however, that someone a week away from the step would be better served just asking the question even though it'd been answered before. I have driven myself to distraction before looking for a particular post I'd read earlier, and still haven't managed to find it.
Free advice: It's 'couldn't care less'. Saying 'could care less' implies the opposite. You can choose to use it to your benefit or to rail at me.
To each their own though. Ask a third year medical student what would happen if they started giving advice to the surgery residents on how to study for their surgery boards. It wouldnt last long...
I posted to offer my experience with the test after having been through the ordeal. With so many high scores on this board I thought lurkers like myself might appreciate what an average score study plan looks like. What works for one may not necessarily work for another though. My score is not great by any means but there are plenty of more intelligent people than myself who scored less.
I appreciate any and all inputs. We can learn something from everyone. I would consider any advice given to me seriously. I might not follow it, but I certainly wouldn't disregard it just because it came from a pre-med, a 3rd year, or someone with an 'average score'.
With this, let's please get back to actual plans and experiences, which is why I invited the pre-med to share his.
Cheers to 2013 
. I am going to take the afternoon session cause my brain only turns on by like 11 am (i study long hours into the night..up untill 3-4 am some days). I havent taken any standardized testing in a settting like this, so i want to get used the procedures and not be anxious doing them for the first time on real test day. How well do these questions correlate to the real performance?
