Is doing questions key?

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some people recommend doing just FA and Uworld and Kaplan twice for 95% of their studying, is that effective strategy? I have been doing that for about a week now and it's raising my Uworld percentage quite a bit, but I'm afraid that I get to the exam and it's completely different cause I'll be so used to UWorld/Kaplan style of questions.

I am currently in the process of studying this test myself so take this with a grain of salt. I think at the very least you should have a physio, pharm, and path resource to use in addition to the above resources mentioned. Sure first aid has all the information in there somewhere, but its sometimes better to see these especially high yield topics presented in another way.

I too have yet to take the exam in a few weeks. However, for me to master something, I need to see something in multiple combinations. Slowly but surely I am making progress. Try to interlink concepts with as many other concepts as possible and get used to thinking that way...if read that cyclophosphamide can cause TCC, think back and recall what cancers it can be used to treat, MOA, side effects. The danger with just doing "vanilla" passes of FA is that you will get used to the order in which FA presents materials RATHER than understanding/retaining the material itself. Its good if you know how to dribble one basketball but you need to be able to dribble two at the same time, and protect them against defenders.

Originally Posted by osumc2014

some people recommend doing just FA and Uworld and Kaplan twice for 95% of their studying, is that effective strategy? I have been doing that for about a week now and it's raising my Uworld percentage quite a bit, but I'm afraid that I get to the exam and it's completely different cause I'll be so used to UWorld/Kaplan style of questions.

I think for 85% of the general med school population, the answer is yes. And there have been countless anecdotes from people about scoring 230s and above w/ only FA and uworld/kaplan.

However, you are asking a question to a forum where we have the majority of neurotic medical students.

Originally Posted by lemonade90

I too have yet to take the exam in a few weeks. However, for me to master something, I need to see something in multiple combinations. Slowly but surely I am making progress. Try to interlink concepts with as many other concepts as possible and get used to thinking that way...if read that cyclophosphamide can cause TCC, think back and recall what cancers it can be used to treat, MOA, side effects. The danger with just doing "vanilla" passes of FA is that you will get used to the order in which FA presents materials RATHER than understanding/retaining the material itself. Its good if you know how to dribble one basketball but you need to be able to dribble two at the same time, and protect them against defenders.

FYI, cyclophosphamide can also cause hepatotoxicty at high dose, and SIADH, this is NOT found in FA. My point is that there is a lot that FA left out, and you need to supplement it w/ other sources if you want to score high.

The number of questions you do is directly proportional to your score.

The curve is probably like a Hb-O2 dissociation curve.

No no, the focus wasn't on FA but on the Qbanks, there's so much extra info just in the Qbanks, I mean it's not possible to remember all the details even if you do read many other sources, but I find that doing questions make you good at taking the test (or what I'm hoping it does), which is what it really is, even if you get good skills at guessing etc that can improve the score quite a bit.

Originally Posted by osumc2014

No no, the focus wasn't on FA but on the Qbanks, there's so much extra info just in the Qbanks, I mean it's not possible to remember all the details even if you do read many other sources, but I find that doing questions make you good at taking the test (or what I'm hoping it does), which is what it really is, even if you get good skills at guessing etc that can improve the score quite a bit.

I would say uworld has the least amount of extra information compare to other qbanks. Almost all of uworlds extra information is relevant one way or the other. You/we haven't figured it out yet. Also most of that extra information is already in fa, you just haven't picked on it yet. I still tend to overlook things/words in the fa. And when it shows up in a question then I am like "oh" it is important. FML

Make sure to get through FA. My exam had a lot of questions that I wouldn't have been able to answer based purely on knowledge from UW/Kaplan. They do a good job of covering the higher-yield points, but there are a lot of random low-yield facts in FA with which you should be somewhat familiar if you want to prepare yourself for those questions on the real test.

again, if you havent bought the book kaplan medessentials, it would be a good idea to buy it. complementing it with first aid and pathoma and uworld will easily get you a 230+

I jumped from 179-240 on NBME's 7,6,12 doing Uworld twice, FA, and DIT

Originally Posted by chiefMD

I jumped from 179-240 on NBME's 7,6,12 doing Uworld twice, FA, and DIT

Nice. That's what I am doing. I would like to incorporate Pathoma, but doing DIT + questions taks up my entire day, and exhausts the sh*t out of me.

I think practice questions/first aid are the most high-yield, bang for the buck way to improve your score. That's what "most" people do, and "most people" pass. If you want to get a better score than "most" you have to study more resources than others (and retain the additional information that is in those resources, not in practice questions/first aid, and that actually show up on the test

Originally Posted by msIngrid800

I think practice questions/first aid are the most high-yield, bang for the buck way to improve your score. That's what "most" people do, and "most people" pass. If you want to get a better score than "most" you have to study more resources than others (and retain the additional information that is in those resources, not in practice questions/first aid, and that actually show up on the test

The more I go through FA and UWorld, the more I feel like other resources are not neccessary. Sure, most people pass with FA and UWorld, but how well did they learn it? It's kind of hard to believe that if you really master FA and UWorld that your score would suffer for not using other resources. But I haven't taken it yet, so I could be dead wrong

The only other resource I feel like is a must is Pathoma; some systems are better in pathoma, and not just for the path. I think the heme section in pathoma for example covers the physio and path better than FA.

Along the lines of questionz, is it better to plunge right int qbanks and getting the most out of them and just not waste time on in-class review books (exception being brs phys)...im also using gunner training and those questions take time but i was wondering if it is wise to leave out questions from certain review books bht if there are some you recommend (i.e. Ill prob hit up the brs phys series) Id appreciate the recommendations.

Originally Posted by shan564

Make sure to get through FA. My exam had a lot of questions that I wouldn't have been able to answer based purely on knowledge from UW/Kaplan. They do a good job of covering the higher-yield points, but there are a lot of random low-yield facts in FA with which you should be somewhat familiar if you want to prepare yourself for those questions on the real test.

Interesting ... this makes sense since there are several areas that are in FA but not covered at all by UW.

Originally Posted by Phloston

The number of questions you do is directly proportional to your score.

The curve is probably like a Hb-O2 dissociation curve.

This is dangerous advice to someone without a solid core knowledge. Thinking that simply doing more questions will increase one's score isn't realistic for people who don't have a good foundation.

There are two massive mistakes people can make when studying for Step 1:
1) Focusing too much on questions
2) Not focusing enough on questions

Core content is half the battle, and questions are the other half.

And this crazy idea that everyone needs to do at least 4,000 questions is ridiculous. Few people have the quality time to get through that many. Going through World alone is sufficient for most people, in my opinion (having taken the test).

Originally Posted by Phloston

The number of questions you do is directly proportional to your score.

The curve is probably like a Hb-O2 dissociation curve.

Do the people who do 10,000 questions score well because they did 10,000 questions or because they simply are better at taking standardized tests? I wonder if they'd kick butt with just UWorld 2x and FA.

I think there is a benefit from questions, but I don't really know if doing USMLERx, Kaplan, a decent chunk of USMLEWeapon has actually helped me much relative to something like Pathoma or working my ass for two years learning the basic sciences well the first time. I feel like I capped out a long time ago. Kaplan's nit-picky question style just annoyed me. USMLERx felt like it had at least some added value in terms of things that aren't already in First Aid, but I wonder if knowing the differential for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis would ever get someone more points on STEP 1 since it's not talked about in any other review book that I've seen. I think they just wanted a unique question.

I am 400 questions into UWorld and so far it has been amazing for me. I feel like I get content review, and I get in the mindset of how to approach questions.

Do you guys think the 12 month subscription of u world is beneficial?

Originally Posted by ijn

Do the people who do 10,000 questions score well because they did 10,000 questions or because they simply are better at taking standardized tests? I wonder if they'd kick butt with just UWorld 2x and FA.

I think there is a benefit from questions, but I don't really know if doing USMLERx, Kaplan, a decent chunk of USMLEWeapon has actually helped me much relative to something like Pathoma or working my ass for two years learning the basic sciences well the first time. I feel like I capped out a long time ago. Kaplan's nit-picky question style just annoyed me. USMLERx felt like it had at least some added value in terms of things that aren't already in First Aid, but I wonder if knowing the differential for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis would ever get someone more points on STEP 1 since it's not talked about in any other review book that I've seen. I think they just wanted a unique question.

If you are already getting 250+ continuously on practice exams then the rise you can get from doing additional questions is probably minuscule. If you're in the 230+ range though the benefit from doing more questions is exponential in my opinion.

how long does it take everyone to go through questions? i went through 100 questions today and it took me nearly 6 hours (and the last 30 I just breezed by!). I'm wondering why I take so long to get through material

Originally Posted by polkadoctor

how long does it take everyone to go through questions? i went through 100 questions today and it took me nearly 6 hours (and the last 30 I just breezed by!). I'm wondering why I take so long to get through material

SAME HERE!!!! If I do 100 ques, it liteally takes me the whole day. If i read material, then I can only get through 50 questions a day. sucks!

Originally Posted by StressedMedStud

SAME HERE!!!! If I do 100 ques, it liteally takes me the whole day. If i read material, then I can only get through 50 questions a day. sucks!

If it makes you feel better, it took me 10 hours to go through 100 questions of Heme/Onc. I do annotate a lot into FA, and go through the explanations thoroughly though. I think it's better to go through slowly and understand than to try to blaze through the questions.

Originally Posted by LaCasta

If it makes you feel better, it took me 10 hours to go through 100 questions of Heme/Onc. I do annotate a lot into FA, and go through the explanations thoroughly though. I think it's better to go through slowly and understand than to try to blaze through the questions.

I just wish that we can be hooked up via electrodes and dr. Sattar (pathoma) just drilled important hy facts from uworld explanations into our head. I would even volunteer to be the 1st one.

I've found that just reviewing the questions quickly, write down only the super high yield facts (keep fact writing to minimum) and then later in your studies do a 2nd run of Uworld to cement everything.

Originally Posted by RedSoxSuck

I just wish that we can be hooked up via electrodes and dr. Sattar (pathoma) just drilled important hy facts from uworld explanations into our head. I would even volunteer to be the 1st one.

I'd volunteer too. If I had even just pathoma downloaded on my brain I would feel better about the test.

Originally Posted by StressedMedStud

SAME HERE!!!! If I do 100 ques, it liteally takes me the whole day. If i read material, then I can only get through 50 questions a day. sucks!

I think the only way you can be efficient and fast in going through questions if if you've been goin through em for a long time. I've been doing questions since January (maybe like 5 question sets a week until my dedicated study time) and now I'm breezin through em. But it's only because I've been doing it for so long I think. Because at the beginning it definitely took me 3 hrs to get through 1 question set and annotate; now it takes me a max of 2 hrs, more so an 1hr & a half.