How to take breaks during day 2 of Step 3?

[Eyeball Tickler]

As I understand it, we get a 5-min tutorial for MCQs and 7-min tutorial for CCS section and have a total of 45 minutes of break otherwise. This day is longer yet has the same amount of break as day 1? Is that the case?

How do most people take breaks during day 2? The way I think I'd do is:

Block 1, Block 2, break 5 min, Block 3, Block 4, break 15 min, Block 5, Block 6, 5 min, CCS... take 5 min break after every 3 CCS cases?

I don't know how to take my breaks! Help!

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[lana62]

My way of doing this was: Block 1, Block 2, break 15 min, Block 3, Block 4, break 15 min, Block 5, Block 6, break 15 min. Before CCS section I had 1.5 min break time left. Tutorial for CCS adds 7 min. Then, for 20 and 10 min cases, the actual allocated time is 21 and 11 min. When you start the case, first screen you see says how much time you have for the case and the button "start". Same like in Primum software. When you press start, you add 1 min break time for every case. All my long cases ended early. So after just 4 cases I had 18 min of break time, took 15 min. After 4 more cases, I had more than 15 min again. Still, with this strategy I finished the exam with about 15 min break time left.

 

[Eyeball Tickler]

If only I had known that almost all my CCS cases would end early... I would have taken more breaks in the earlier half of the day. I ended up having 30 minutes break time almost towards the end of my CCS.

 

[cpr16]

If only I had known that almost all my CCS cases would end early... I would have taken more breaks in the earlier half of the day. I ended up having 30 minutes break time almost towards the end of my CCS.

Congrats on taking it....can I ask you a question as my prep is just beginning? Is advancing the clock intuitive, because I don't seem to get how to do it. I've seen that you can advance the clock to get the next lab result, but how do you get the hang of advancing the clock otherwise? Is the uworld ccs package helpful in this regard?

 

[Eyeball Tickler]

Congrats on taking it....can I ask you a question as my prep is just beginning? Is advancing the clock intuitive, because I don't seem to get how to do it. I've seen that you can advance the clock to get the next lab result, but how do you get the hang of advancing the clock otherwise? Is the uworld ccs package helpful in this regard?

If it's an acute case like in the ER, I usually advance clock by a couple of hours. Doing so, you still get the results whenever they become available. And if something abnormal comes up on any of the results, you can stop the clock then and make appropriate interventions then.

UWorld is useful but I felt like the CCS software from official USMLE website was far more useful and looked exactly like the real test in its interface and functioning.