Help with Step 1 planning....taking it on Jun 1

[NSDream]

Hey everyone

2nd year will be over with this FRIDAY and I've signed up to take Step 1 on Jun 1. That leaves me exactly 34 days to study! I need some help planning out those days and I am open to any suggestions or critques. My original plan was to finish UWorld before school was over, but school got in the way and i only was able to finish about 600ish questions. My FA run thru has been pretty spread out....Did Micro/Immuno back in February. Read thru most of the organ systems portions of FA throughout spring semester. This leaves me with Anatomy, Biochem, Phys, Embryology, and Behavioral Science

1. DIT (Finish it 15 days according their outline)
2. Pathoma
3. Goljan Audio?
4. UWorld (2 or 3 blocks/ day) (Should I reset Uworld or continue with remaining1400 questions?)
5. 2nd Q bank? ( is it realistic?)
6. BRS Phys

The DIT folks are coming by my school this Wed and I'm pretty sure I'll be buying it after reading about it on SDN and suggestions from upperclassmen. If anyone has a schedule that incorporates many of these study materials that they would share or PM me I'd really appreciate it.


Thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[shan564]

If I were in your place, I'd spend a few days doing a detailed pass of the FA non-systems sections before anything else. How much time you spend will depend on how strong you are at those subjects, but it took me about 2 weeks altogether.

If you can do all of that quickly enough, you might have enough time to watch all of the Pathoma videos before starting DIT. He's a pretty slow talker, so you could speed up the lectures and watch all of them in about 20-25 hours. I found that it was best to read a system in FA and watch the correlating Pathoma videos along with it.

You'll really have to rush if you want to cover all of that and still leave enough time for DIT. The DIT people recommend that you leave 4-5 days for one final pass of FA after finishing their course. But if you're pressed for time, I think it's more important to do a full thorough pass of FA before the DIT course than it is to do a rapid pass after the course.

Goljan audio is not comprehensive. It's great to help you learn concepts in 1st/2nd year, but if you have 34 days, stick to Pathoma. Goljan goes on a lot of tangents and takes his time to explain everything, so it's not the most efficient use of your time unless you're listening to it in the car or at the gym.

BRS Phys is a great book, but I'd only touch it if you think that phys is a weakness for you. Otherwise, I don't think you have enough time.

After you do all of that, see how many UW questions you have time for. If you're going through them fairly rapidly, you might benefit from another Qbank. But most people take about 2-3 hours to get through a 46-question UW set (including reading the explanations), so if you plan to do two sets every day, that won't leave a lot of time for actual reviewing.

And check this out:
http://www.doctorsintraining.com/usmle-step-1/study-plans/6-week

 

[johndoe3344]

How much you can do really depends on how fast you get through things (aka how much you remember).

If it were me, I'd prioritize doing FA once fully before doing DIT. Also, definitely pathoma > goljian if you only had 30 days -- you have (well explained) pictures with pathoma, and the guy is much more concise (read: high yield). Keep in mind that goljian audios are from 2002 -- what's high yield then may have changed over the course of a decade. Just saying.

Regarding BRS physio, I'd suggest using it for some of the physio topics that FA is deficient on/that you are weak on. I would not suggest reading it cover to cover unless you have time for it (you probably won't). For instance, I found that FA cardio physio is pretty decent, while FA GI physio simply consists of a table of hormones (in 2011... not sure if they added more in 2012). If you're weak in GI physio, for example, I would read a chapter of BRS to go along with the FA.