How many hours a day do you study for Step 1 during MS2 courses?

[Elbowstoopointy]

Like 2-3 hrs a day dedicated step 1 hours with GT/First Aid/RR, or do you guys do more? I think its ridiculous to not even look at stuff like micro, immuno, neuro, biochem etc until your 4 weeks of dedicated prep personally.

Oh and this is assuming you don't go to a school that does letter grades 2nd year

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[2012mdc]

Like 2-3 hrs a day dedicated step 1 hours with GT/First Aid/RR, or do you guys do more? I think its ridiculous to not even look at stuff like micro, immuno, neuro, biochem etc until your 4 weeks of dedicated prep personally.

Oh and this is assuming you don't go to a school that does letter grades 2nd year

Step 1 was in June and I started studying in January. Started with 25 UW questions a day and would annotate into FA. This took 1 - 1.5 hrs a day. I would read FA and RR on the weekends mostly.

I didn't study Step 1 material the week before test week or during test week.

In April I transitioned to doing about 3-4 hrs a day with the same amount of UW questions but FA and RR reading during the week plus some shelf studying (mostly Path b/c I needed to do well).

I was at a letter grade school and was able to get straight A's and do well on Step 1 with this strategy

 

[Elbowstoopointy]

Step 1 was in June and I started studying in January. Started with 25 UW questions a day and would annotate into FA. This took 1 - 1.5 hrs a day. I would read FA and RR on the weekends mostly.

I didn't study Step 1 material the week before test week or during test week.

In April I transitioned to doing about 3-4 hrs a day with the same amount of UW questions but FA and RR reading during the week plus some shelf studying (mostly Path b/c I needed to do well).

I was at a letter grade school and was able to get straight A's and do well on Step 1 with this strategy

Solid plan...I am going to purchase Uworld in January. For now, I'm just using the GunnerTraining Qbank. I try to do my 2 hours of board prep right when I get up..usually consists of
1- Reading the topic in FA or a more detailed book if I'm rusty
2- Then doing the topic on gunner training
3- Review using gunner training/FA

This doesn't take a ton of time...just trying to keep up with the Micro/Immuno/Biochem from first year since thats the only real board stuff we've had so far.

Other than that, I'm just studying hard for class assuming that foundation will pay off for boards (Although I use RR/FA in addition to class notes)

 

[2012mdc]

Solid plan...I am going to purchase Uworld in January. For now, I'm just using the GunnerTraining Qbank. I try to do my 2 hours of board prep right when I get up..usually consists of
1- Reading the topic in FA or a more detailed book if I'm rusty
2- Then doing the topic on gunner training
3- Review using gunner training/FA

This doesn't take a ton of time...just trying to keep up with the Micro/Immuno/Biochem from first year since thats the only real board stuff we've had so far.

Other than that, I'm just studying hard for class assuming that foundation will pay off for boards (Although I use RR/FA in addition to class notes)

When are you taking Step 1? If it's in May or June I wouldn't spend too much time on M1 subjects now as they won't get reinforced during M2 and you'll forget a large portion of what you are learning now

 

[swamprat]

Ok major question:

kaplan qbank vs. usmlerx qbank vs. gunner training qbank

mainly wanna know between kaplan and usmlerx... idk what to choose and ive read alot of different reviews on the site.. any other fresh opinions? I want this qbank to work through the year.. ill get uworld during my 6 week dedicated study period.

 

[Elbowstoopointy]

Ok major question:

kaplan qbank vs. usmlerx qbank vs. gunner training qbank

mainly wanna know between kaplan and usmlerx... idk what to choose and ive read alot of different reviews on the site.. any other fresh opinions? I want this qbank to work through the year.. ill get uworld during my 6 week dedicated study period.

I hear Kaplan is a lot better than usmlerx...I am wondering this as well

 

[swamprat]

I hear Kaplan is a lot better than usmlerx...I am wondering this as well

Yeah but I also hear it goes into too much detail that's not necessary.. ?

 

[2012mdc]

Ok major question:

kaplan qbank vs. usmlerx qbank vs. gunner training qbank

mainly wanna know between kaplan and usmlerx... idk what to choose and ive read alot of different reviews on the site.. any other fresh opinions? I want this qbank to work through the year.. ill get uworld during my 6 week dedicated study period.

If I could do it all over again I would do this
UW 6 month subscription
Kaplan Q bank 1 month subscription for shelf exams (since they have more detail)
2nd run through UW during dedicated period

I still did very well on the shelf exams and Step 1 but I kind of overused world; I repeated Micro and Pharm and some of Path for shelf exams so I ended up doing some questions 3 times.

World is far and away the best source so I think doing it twice is beneficial and it's unecessary to "save" it.