Regarding step 1 / comlex prep

[TheSuperColider]

hi guys.

2nd year with straight B's from 1st year. 50th %ile in my class.

Ive been using anking with ~10k mature cards so far with BnB, sketchy, and pathoma for my learning.

I want to incorporate some practice questions and wanted to know what you guys think i should do regarding that.

On top of my anki and board video resources, I was thinking of using USMLE RX and doing like 20-30 questions per day on the subject im learning in my block (we are a systems based school so we have blocks like repro, msk, cardio, ect.). I want to save uworld for dedicated. If i am rusty on something, i was going to use usmle rx videos and first aid passages that are related to them on the website to brush up on the material. On top of this, i use AMBOSS with anki and i want to do the AMBOSS questions as well after a few weeks of RX. I was thinking towards the spring i could use kaplan qbanks b4 dedicated and uworld as soon as i hit dedicated.

Is there any other resource i could use that would compliment my learning? I appreciate any advice ty.

Edit: how many questions should i be doing per day and how much time should i be spending doing them?

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[Dr Tapatio]

It's always good to do two passes of UWorld or at least repeat all the ones you got wrong

 

[JimBone905]

It's always good to do two passes of UWorld or at least repeat all the ones you got wrong

It's always good to do two passes of UWorld or at least repeat all the ones you got wrong

regarding OP's post, shouldnt he be doing more questions per day?

 

[iforget2]

I think having 4 different qbanks would be overkill. Maybe just have 3 at most. In my experience, doing UW twice isn't very productive unless you're doing your incorrects. You'll subconciously still have some of the questions and answers memorized and it's just better to do new questions, especially if you're already planning on having multiple qbanks. It's good to have one that you do alongside class, then 2nd semester finish up that qbank. There are many different opinions on whether it's worth saving UW for dedicated, but it was helpful to me to start UW a little before dedicated after I finished Kaplan. During dedicated I would do 2 UW blocks and 1 Amboss block and continued with zanki reviews. If you can finish zanki before dedicated starts you'll be in a really good spot.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

All of the stats and studies show that doing UWorld twice had no increase in people's scores. People like to tout this advice on here for some reason, and maybe it worked for them, but it's not a must. I agree that 4 qbanks is quite a lot, but if you feel that it will help you be successful, you can attempt it. Personally, I didn't want to do any questions until 2nd semester of M2 because I don't like the idea of learning from questions, but rather using them to test my knowledge. I wanted to start questions once I had pretty much already seen everything, so I started around March of M2 with Rx. I started UWorld right after finishing Rx, a little bit before my technical dedicated started. #1 piece of advice is to have whatever Anki deck you're using matured before dedicated; this is what I did and I believe it's the biggest reason why I got the score that I did.

I thought 2 qbanks was enough for me. UWorld is king and as long as you take your time to go through it and learn from it effectively, it trumps everything else. You need to figure out what works best for you and of course everyone is different, so this is just my two cents. Scored 250+.

 

[slowthai]

All of the stats and studies show that doing UWorld twice had no increase in people's scores. People like to tout this advice on here for some reason, and maybe it worked for them, but it's not a must.

Yeah, I think it's because that's what a lot of people did for YEARS. My cousin (doctor) told me to do that when I started last year and I was like thank you, but no, lol

 

[mm5869]

Edit: how many questions should i be doing per day and how much time should i be spending doing them?

for me, i slowly did 30-40 questions/day in UW for a couple months before dedicated. took me roughly 2-3hrs to do + review
some qbanks move faster (/are easier)...doing 50q/day in comquest took me 2 hours to do + review.

i dont know that there is a 'correct' amount of questions that you 'should' be doing. i would set a goal date to finish something by, then divide out the work evenly to get there. some people are able to up their pace to 5x40 in UW during dedicated...but some are not.

 

[WhereMyLiberalsAt]

Yeah, I think it's because that's what a lot of people did for YEARS. My cousin (doctor) told me to do that when I started last year and I was like thank you, but no, lol

“Oh and also do the Bro’s deck! ****s fire!”

-SDN (circa 2015)

 

[fldoctorgirl]

Yeah, I think it's because that's what a lot of people did for YEARS. My cousin (doctor) told me to do that when I started last year and I was like thank you, but no, lol

Also, UWorld was way shorter back then. It's over 3000 questions now so....nah.

 

[slowthai]

“Oh and also do the Bro’s deck! ****s fire!”

-SDN (circa 2015)

Yeah, you just get really good at nodding and mhmm-ing knowing full well that you're going to do something totally different, lol

 

[Goro]

hi guys.

2nd year with straight B's from 1st year. 50th %ile in my class.

Ive been using anking with ~10k mature cards so far with BnB, sketchy, and pathoma for my learning.

I want to incorporate some practice questions and wanted to know what you guys think i should do regarding that.

On top of my anki and board video resources, I was thinking of using USMLE RX and doing like 20-30 questions per day on the subject im learning in my block (we are a systems based school so we have blocks like repro, msk, cardio, ect.). I want to save uworld for dedicated. If i am rusty on something, i was going to use usmle rx videos and first aid passages that are related to them on the website to brush up on the material. On top of this, i use AMBOSS with anki and i want to do the AMBOSS questions as well after a few weeks of RX. I was thinking towards the spring i could use kaplan qbanks b4 dedicated and uworld as soon as i hit dedicated.

Is there any other resource i could use that would compliment my learning? I appreciate any advice ty.

Edit: how many questions should i be doing per day and how much time should i be spending doing them?

My students love Sketchy Micro, even with the strange runes and glyphs. My Micro colleagues just shake their heads, but encourage anything that works.

There are so many resources out there that they gel in my mind, but there are some poor ones. Avoid the ones with pseudoquestions or pseudocases, or teaching questions, or too many first order questions.

FA is the bare minimum.

 

[TheSuperColider]

Sounds like i should stick with my anki and try to mature it asap.
I guess ill cut down on what qbanks to use.

How does this sound:

30-40 questions/day with intensive reviewing.
keep doing sketchy micro/pharm and keep trying to mature those cards.

USMLE- RX fall
Kaplan - spring
UWORLD- dedicated

try to get at least around 4k questions done before i take comlex/usmle

Sketchy micro is great! so is the pharm. not a huge fan of path one

 

[fldoctorgirl]

30-40 questions/day with intensive reviewing.

You can try, but this might be too much on top of classes. ~20 might be better, but you can give it a shot and see how it goes. UWorld is 3k questions and they're constantly adding more, so you'll be way over 4k with this plan.