If you memorize EVERYTHING in First Aid, how well will you do?

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Thank you for your responses.

What is the BEST way to prepare for the boards other than first aid, assuming if you still have another year left?

Some friends and I discussed this a while back. Providing you studied hard during your basic science years in school (i.e. the info is in your knowledge base somewhere), if your were to commit First Aid to memory we all concurred that you would at least pass the exam. If you tack on a few thousand mcqs there, you'd do even better than that. Good luck.

I don't think it is THAT easy to memorize everything in first aid. It may look thin but there are tons of stuff in there. Plus, most stuff are so dry, so I don't think that you can committ all of it to memory (they just disappear after 3 minutes of taking a break and watching some TV ).

do some practice questions.

focus on big, prevalent diseases.

epidemiology and calculation seem to be high-yield.

From what I have heard, step 1 qs involve a lot of lateral thinking, they are never as black and white as material in first aid would have you believe. I think how well you studied in initial years, which more or less correlates with how well is your concept base, is more important in answering that kind of qs.

Even First Aid accepts that. There is a list of common errors that med students do, and 'Studying only First Aid' is one of them.

What I was told way back when was that if one memorized everything in First Aid, one would pass, but not do well. Based on what I remember (it was a few years ago), this seems accurate.

As for preparing when you have one year left:
1) Relax. Take it easy. You have lots of time. If you want to study now, do so at a leisurely pace.
2) I don't know where you are in school (FMG vs MD/PhD vs 1st year), but if you are a first year, I highly recommend keeping up with the second year work. The path/pathophys/pharm/etc is on the boards. Also, I found that studying path/pathophys was a perfect time to review normal anatomy/physiology/histology of each system.
3) First Aid is a good start. Make notes in the margins if you want. Turn it into your 'bible' of board prep. Other good review books are BRS physiology, BRS path, and the Kaplan series (I took intense prep and used those books but I hear the books they sell separately are also good).
4) Sometime next spring, a month or two before the test, start doing practice questions. This will help you judge your week points so you can focus your studying. Also, I found that the stuff I learned best was the stuff I got wrong on practice questions. Of course, the practice questions will also help you figure out test taking techniques and time management.

Hope this help. Good luck.

The first 2 years are key -- the cramfest at the end yields variable results. I've seen people who memorized First Aid fail, likely because their foundation from the first 2 years wasn't solid enough. Work hard for those 2 years, then cram for a month with first aid.

I agree with the above posters. It is never too early to begin studying for the boards. But you can trick yourself into styuding for the boards while you study for the classes. I would buy Firts Aid. Look at the books that they recommned and buy one for each subject area. Then use that book during your class. Also, go through that area in first aid. For example, while studying pathology do Goljan's question book and read the pathology section in first aid.
First aid can be a blessing and a curse. And Step I is a BEAST!! (oh the horrible memories). Some of my classmates had tests right out of First Aid. My test was full of biochem, histo, molecular bio, etc

BTW what ever happened to medschool.com they were excellant when I was studying for the boards. Then they went under construction, but it never was the same again....

Thank you all for the advice.

For some reason, I found first aid to be lacking in a lot of the details that I find in my practice questions. For the easier questions, the answer is straight from first aid, for the harder ones, you're sitting there drooling with a blank stare....But I have taken the actual step 1 yet, so I don't know, I just don't feel my fund of information is completed by step one, or I feel that I already know the basics of the topics inside, and want more...

If you just want to pass, then step 1 and a few mcqs are probably okay....if you want a 'make the dean wet his pants in joy' score, you'll need more.

I've found the reviews in the back of first aid to be extremely accurate. Use the higher rated books A or B to supplement your knowledge or to work on what you feel weak in. There are good books for almost every learning style.

i think that if you memorize first aid, and do the q's in kaplan q bank, at least a thousand or so, and read the explanations, you will do very well. this is provided that you studied well, esp for 2nd year classes during the year. my grades the first two years were not great, and i did very well on step 1 by those 2 modalities.

so would you recommend starting on the kaplan q-bank the beginning of second year? is that too early?

Having taken step1 just 2 weeks ago, I thought i should contribute to this discussion.
After devoting about 12 months of studying for the boards(I know, sounds like a lot of time, but I am an IMG) and looking back to my studying strategy, If I had to do it all over, it would be something like this:
1) I would buy one of the highly rated review books in first aid for each subject
2)Provided that there is a strong foundation from the normal courses, I would NOT go through them cover to cover(which I did and was clearly a mistake), but rather concentrate on 1st aid-emphasized topics. This will save a lot of time that would be otherwise used for studying extremely low yield topics(which again happened with me).
3)I would buy at least one good question book for each subject, and a couple of comprehensive question books(like the nms review for step1).
4)The last month or so, I would enroll an online course( I did Kaplan, but there are others as well), and try to simulate the real exam every day. That is, sleep early, wake up at the same time, and do one hour sessions followed by short breaks for AT LEAST 8 hours a day. I don't think time is an issue in step1(and I was a person with no experience of standardized,mcq tests until I started studying for step1, so i guess it is even less of a problem for a US student). However, even though i did my best to simulate the test at home during the last month on a daily basis, I did burn out during the last couple of blocks, merely answering based on instict rather than knowledge, trying to find the magic word that would prevent me from the -by then- extremely painful process of thinking, so I guess fatigue IS an issue.
Hope this helps,
Theodore

Here was my simplified plans for Step I:

First Aid

Q Bank -- did all questions...read all answer explanations....made notes in first aid as appropriate for future reference based on Qbank explanations. Once going through all questions, redid those that i originally got incorrect.

USMLE Released items a few days before exam.

That's it...no other books.

Result: 247/99


More likely factor in my success -- busting my butt 2nd year -- slacked off 1st year though....but my study methods were enough to catch me up on that boring stuff.

Wow Crusher,
That's pretty amazing. Do you consider yourself memory gifted? Do you read something once and it sticks? Or do you have to do it over and over again?

Hey Crusher, how much time did you dedicate to Board studying? When did you start doing board material and not just second year stuff. Congrats.

Holy Crap. I'm still hanging up on the concept of memorizing First Aid. I have the deepest respect for anyone who can do it but, really, it has about 300 information dense pages. Unless you have a photographic memory or a year to study for the boards I don't see how it can be done.

I'm taking Step 1 on June 10th. I started studying last week and am spending about six hours a day reading the "Grid" books and doing Qbank questions. I am shooting for 100 questions a day, reading the explanations to the ones I get wrong, and redoing the ones I miss at the end of the day.

When I have two weeks left I'm going to cut out all of the reading and start hitting First Aid hard while continuing to do questions. I wouldn't call it memorizing, just trying to establish "fuzzy" connections between concepts and key words.

i dont think crusher is bull****ting..FA + Kaplan q bank are good enuf for great scores it all depends on how u use them..u just have to see the poor corelation between q bank scores and step 1 performance....but if ure basics are right..its possible..

Originally posted by Panda Bear
Holy Crap. I'm still hanging up on the concept of memorizing First Aid. I have the deepest respect for anyone who can do it but, really, it has about 300 information dense pages. Unless you have a photographic memory or a year to study for the boards I don't see how it can be done.

That's what I said in the beginning of this thread too....

Step Up is definitely easier to go through than First Aid because it goes by system-based. I would say, read step up first then go through subject-specific books along with the appropriate section in First Aid.

I would go through First Aid 3-4 weeks ahead of time. I tried going through it the second time 2 weeks prior to USMLE Step and yet ran out of time.

I went to the book store and saw 2 different "step up" books for step 1. One of the I think said step up clinicals but it was still for step 1. What's the difference? Which one is the one that you are talking about?


This may seem like a dumb question but I'm a first year so I don't know much about study materials for step 1. What is Q-bank? From what I can gather, it's a bunch of really good practice questions with answers. How do you get access to Q-bank? How many questions are there in Q-bank?

Thanks!

Originally posted by newbie123
I went to the book store and saw 2 different "step up" books for step 1. One of the I think said step up clinicals but it was still for step 1. What's the difference? Which one is the one that you are talking about?


This may seem like a dumb question but I'm a first year so I don't know much about study materials for step 1. What is Q-bank? From what I can gather, it's a bunch of really good practice questions with answers. How do you get access to Q-bank? How many questions are there in Q-bank?

Thanks!

I used the version mentioned in the book review section of First Aid.

Q-bank has 2,100 questions online that simulate real USMLE step I. It is offered by Kaplan.

I thought that the service is okay. It is definitely worth while to buy 3-month subscription and get to know how the step 1 will look on the real thing. Also, very good at scaring yourself into studying more.

However, I found the questions were often obscure; it focused a lot on genetics (HLA, etc.) which I did not find on the real exam. The subjective, touchy-feeling doctor-patient relationship-type of questions on Q-bank also don't really appear on the real thing. So use it, but do use your own discretion and focus your studying ont he common, prevalent diseases (instead of spending too much time memorizing too many glycogen-storage disease or HLA-types....).