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- Jul 6, 2009
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Hey guys-
Wanted to gauge some Step 1 advice from everyone on here. I've broken it up into scheduling and studying.
Scheduling: I signed up for the May-June-July period. I finish M2 classes late March and have roughly 8 weeks to study. This is followed by a 4 week "clinics" bootcamp (9-5 PM, 4 days a week). Our system is flexible such that it's very easy to take extra time off to study for boards with virtually no repercussions on graduation time/etc. Thus my real options are:
(1) Take Step 1 at the end of May (8 weeks study time)
(2) Take step 1 at the end of July (8 weeks study, 4 weeks broken up by clinical training with less devoted study time, 5 weeks pre-test review).
Thoughts? I like the extra time on Option 2. But also worry those 4 weeks of less intense study might set me back. Also...4 months of boards studying sounds rough on the burnout scale.
Studying: I feel very weak on a few subjects, particularly biochemistry/metabolism, neuro/neuroanatomy, anatomy, dev bio, etc. pharmacology, and microbiology. Pretty much to the point where I feel like I need to learn a lot of the concepts "anew". Right now, I'd rather devote time to keeping up with current classes and knowing the new material really well rather than attempting to learn older, weak subjects. Thus, I won't likely get a lot of time to concentrate on these until guarded study time. Before boards studying, I will have gone through all the Pathoma videos once (been using them to study for classes). I love them.
Resources so far: Pathoma, First Aid, Kaplan QBank, Micro/Pharm flash cards., USMLE World.
Not sure if I should add more to that. Any advice on how to study? best methods?
Wanted to gauge some Step 1 advice from everyone on here. I've broken it up into scheduling and studying.
Scheduling: I signed up for the May-June-July period. I finish M2 classes late March and have roughly 8 weeks to study. This is followed by a 4 week "clinics" bootcamp (9-5 PM, 4 days a week). Our system is flexible such that it's very easy to take extra time off to study for boards with virtually no repercussions on graduation time/etc. Thus my real options are:
(1) Take Step 1 at the end of May (8 weeks study time)
(2) Take step 1 at the end of July (8 weeks study, 4 weeks broken up by clinical training with less devoted study time, 5 weeks pre-test review).
Thoughts? I like the extra time on Option 2. But also worry those 4 weeks of less intense study might set me back. Also...4 months of boards studying sounds rough on the burnout scale.
Studying: I feel very weak on a few subjects, particularly biochemistry/metabolism, neuro/neuroanatomy, anatomy, dev bio, etc. pharmacology, and microbiology. Pretty much to the point where I feel like I need to learn a lot of the concepts "anew". Right now, I'd rather devote time to keeping up with current classes and knowing the new material really well rather than attempting to learn older, weak subjects. Thus, I won't likely get a lot of time to concentrate on these until guarded study time. Before boards studying, I will have gone through all the Pathoma videos once (been using them to study for classes). I love them.
Resources so far: Pathoma, First Aid, Kaplan QBank, Micro/Pharm flash cards., USMLE World.
Not sure if I should add more to that. Any advice on how to study? best methods?
