The 'Taus' Method for Step 1

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cbest

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For those of you who used the 'Taus' method for your Step 1 prep...

How long before your exam did you begin your first run through? How long did your first run through take you?

Did you begin practice questions from day 1, like Taus suggests (I think), or did you try to get a bit of a foundation first?

Is there anything you would have changed? Books? Timeline?

To Taus, thank you in advance for putting your study schedule together! From one future PM&R doc to another, I hope you match into a great program!

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I'm going try to follow some yet to be determined Taus like plan. From what I heard/read the way to do it is take the COMLEX few days to one week after USMLE, and study Savarese in that time period. We've also been told OMM is 20% of the COMLEX by school faculty(I don't know if that is true), soo i'm not sure if just a few days is actually enough time to sufficiently cover it.

OMT "clues" will be in probably 20-30% of the stems. Pure OMT questions will probably comprise 10-15% of the test (at least my test). If you have a good OMT professor you will have no problem with a quick weeks or so worth of review. As everyone says, autonomics cold, sacrum, cranial movements, inhale/exhale ribs and you will probably be fine.
 
How many hours a day would you say one should study during the first and second passes? Should I just be "skipping" class material and prepping for boards 8 hours/day or is that overkill?
 
On another note: I've been annotating second-year subjects as I've gone along in the courses, so I'm a little ahead of the game on that. I was wondering for those of you who annotated FA in your first run how much time it took you during your studying of a particular subject? For example, if it takes you 5 days to cover heme/onc how much of that time was just annotating?
 
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Ive been annotating in my Medessentials since the beginning of the year, and was wondering if anyone had any experiences with Taus method using Medessentials instead of FA?
 
Ive been annotating in my Medessentials since the beginning of the year, and was wondering if anyone had any experiences with Taus method using Medessentials instead of FA?

I don't understand why people feel the need to ignore sources that are so universally accepted to be complete clutch for step 1.

First Aid is renowned for being the single best review source for Step 1. Why would you use something else instead of it?
 
I don't understand why people feel the need to ignore sources that are so universally accepted to be complete clutch for step 1.

First Aid is renowned for being the single best review source for Step 1. Why would you use something else instead of it?

Totally agree! Just came out of my exam and i have to thank God, FA and UW. Step 1 byebye. I'll comment on experience tomorrow. Good luck to everyone out there reading this.
 
Definitely DO NOT use MedEssentiials in place of FA... its a good supplement, but you should use FA as the main study source. Use MedEssentials to go into more detail for sections you need to brush up or aren't learning as well from FA
 
i was wondering if anyone had ideas for what would be a good book for covering pathophysiology, that has more detailed explanations than goljan's RR. from what i've seen of RR, it doesn't really provide a concrete picture of a disease, rather, it is just a list of related concepts- is BRS pathophys good enough?
 
i was wondering if anyone had ideas for what would be a good book for covering pathophysiology, that has more detailed explanations than goljan's RR. from what i've seen of RR, it doesn't really provide a concrete picture of a disease, rather, it is just a list of related concepts- is BRS pathophys good enough?

IMO you don't need more than RR and the audio of course for pathophys for this test. UW will hammer you with tough qs on those but after going through them you'll
be ready for the real exam's pathophys qs.
 
hey guys...sorry, but I am just having a hard time understanding some of the things in the taus method, so I was hoping someone on here could clear up my confusion.

So...i am a little confused about the basic sciences portion of the taus method...for example, where it says anatomy. There is not a specific anatomy section in first aid, so does it means to annotate in the anatomy sections of each of the systems?
Also, in the full systems sections, what is meant by "*Order in each system: anatomy→physio→micro→path→pharm (add others where needed or specified by FA)"

Sorry if this way really easy and self explanatory and Im just not see it.
thank you for your help in advance
 
hey guys...sorry, but I am just having a hard time understanding some of the things in the taus method, so I was hoping someone on here could clear up my confusion.

So...i am a little confused about the basic sciences portion of the taus method...for example, where it says anatomy. There is not a specific anatomy section in first aid, so does it means to annotate in the anatomy sections of each of the systems?
Also, in the full systems sections, what is meant by "*Order in each system: anatomy→physio→micro→path→pharm (add others where needed or specified by FA)"

Sorry if this way really easy and self explanatory and Im just not see it.
thank you for your help in advance

Yes, annotate anatomy sections of each system when covering anatomy as basic science.

Doing full systems means follow that format in learning subject specific to each system. For example, Cardio...do cardio anatomy > cardio physio > cardio micro, etc..
 
Do you guys think Taus method is realistic for about 25 days before I start DIT. Then the week before my exam Ill do one week of the final last two I guess.
 
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Hey guys, I am thinking of starting this program but seem a little shaky on some of the details. I was hoping that someone could answer a few Q's for me:

How much time should be spent during each "pass"? How much time is dedicated in total for all 3 passe? Also, for those of you who did this, did you begin it during classes or only during your dedicated study time?

Finally, I am a little confused about how to spend my time each day, and how much time to allocate to each subject. Does anyone have a specific, day-by-day schedule of what to study? I.e. how much time to spend on Pulmonary block vs Heme block, vs. General stuff like biochem or immuno...

And perhaps most importantly, how and when did you integrate NBMEs or UWSA into your schedule?

Thanks again and sorry for such a long post.
 
Looking over the schedule for the last two weeks, and am a little confused about how you're supposed to get through 184 questions (and go through the answers) as well as study for six hrs a day...?! My only guess is that it assumed that "going through the answers" is more skimming at this point? How long it takes most people to go through answers to 46 questions by the end of their study period?
 
Hey guys, I am thinking of starting this program but seem a little shaky on some of the details. I was hoping that someone could answer a few Q's for me:

How much time should be spent during each "pass"? How much time is dedicated in total for all 3 passe? Also, for those of you who did this, did you begin it during classes or only during your dedicated study time?

Finally, I am a little confused about how to spend my time each day, and how much time to allocate to each subject. Does anyone have a specific, day-by-day schedule of what to study? I.e. how much time to spend on Pulmonary block vs Heme block, vs. General stuff like biochem or immuno...

And perhaps most importantly, how and when did you integrate NBMEs or UWSA into your schedule?

Thanks again and sorry for such a long post.

Well I'm only a first year but I was curious about how in the world I'm going to remember everything I'm learing this year for the boards and did quite a bit of forum reading last night. For the Taus method I found that it is designed for 10 weeks. 4 weeks for 1st pass, 2 for 2nd, 2 weeks for 3rd, and then the 2 weeks before test.

I think how much time spent on each subject is different from person to person, I've had cadaver anatomy 3 times, each time was over the course of a year, and I tutor it, so I know it well. The amount of time I spend on anatomy will probably be much less than someone who had only 1 semester. For the first pass, there isn't a set schedule, just make sure you go through the listed resources in full, making sure you understand everything, skimming over the stuff you are comfortable with.

Good luck!
 
Is it possible to rock step 1 with this method without using any pharm review book?

I'll do it as he taught, the only difference is that i'll read hy gross too.

I am foreign, so never had behavioural and don't remember much from statistics. Is hy beavioural enough? I understand things fast. But are these enough sources?

thanks
 
Just wanted to give my support for the Taus method. I used it and studied from January 3rd to the June 16th test and did much better than expected.

I'm not AOA or anything, and I dont consider myself a super student, but I studied my behind off and used the Taus method (with a few minor adjustments)

Good Luck! :thumbup:
 
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Hi Guys,

I need some honest advice. I really want to start Taus method at the beginning of my second year (I'm finishing up my first year right now ) instead of the last few months of my second year just because I'm a slower learner and I know I need time to go through things to really understand them but at the same time I'm afraid that by dragging out this plan too long, I wouldn't be able to remember all the stuff I learned. What do you guys think? Any suggestions/comments is greatly appreciated!
 
You won't be able to remember some things, but that's why it consists of several passes. It's all about repetition.
 
You won't be able to remember some things, but that's why it consists of several passes. It's all about repetition.

I recall there being an updated Taus version out there that I had downloaded but I can't find it. Does anybody have it that? Thanks in advance. :)
 
You won't be able to remember some things, but that's why it consists of several passes. It's all about repetition.

Thanks!
That's true, in medical school everything is about repetition repetition
I'm actually excited to start this Taus thing...let's see how I feel 5 months from now lol
 
When people talk about "Passes" through the material...do they mean memorizing or just passively reading or annotating other notes as they read? I'm a bit confused as to what I should do :(
 
hey guys

do you think it is possible and worth to do the last 2 weeks of Taus method twice?

already did basic reviewing of all subjects for several times, did kaplan, almost done with 1st UW pass.

this is what I think to do:

- assessment form
- last 2 weeks plan
- assessment form
- again last 2 weeks plan
- exam

haven't yet chosen exam date, but feel that if I don't choose it I will continue preparing for step 1 like forever..want to speed all things up

thanks
 
Hey friends i don't find anything about pharma in taus method? İs it my fault or really there isn'n anything about pharma? Thank you for your answers :)
 
Katzung has a board specific Pharm review that I thought was pretty good for classes-I did not have many board pharm questions that I didn't think were in FIrst Aid
 
I'm doing that too - though I didn't originally set out to annotate RR into FA, I started by just adding in the margin notes and tables, but after two painful years, I found that I learn best by writing things down and just started adding things(probably best to stick with what works at this point). The number of things in RR that weren't even listed in FA got scary... I also annotated HY Molc Bio and BRS Phys into FA - they're short, and I'd rather have everything together - its logistically difficult to hold 3 books at once, and I like to be able to see everything together. I also think I'd just feel better having everything that I need to know in one binder (bc if it can't even fit in one binder, how is it going to fit in my brain??)

Not to be all SDN-gunnerific, but I attached a pic of one of my pages (it helped me to see other students notebooks at my school, so maybe it'll help someone?)... I have really small, (somewhat) neat handwriting, so its still legible... at least I hope I'm able to read it on my 2nd pass. :) Someone in another thread was asking how much they could sell their annotated FA for, and I couldn't believe (a) that they would want to get rid of it, and (b) that anyone else would want it. There isn't room to add anything else to mine, and I've underlined just about everything, so I'm pretty sure it'd be useless to anyone else. So, now I'm worried that I need a reality check and that maybe I'm way overdoing this...

Unbinding FA was the best decision ever (I should have done it to all of my 1st year books) - I put it in a Levenger Circa notebook with a nice cover, so at least its pretty and I like it... which is more than I can say for "normal" FA. I really like the "Le Pen" pens for writing on the shiny pages - they don't smear as much as the Staedtler fineliner pens I used for class, and they come in 20+ colors (and they sell them at a Books-a-Million I like to study at, so its convenient if/when they run out). I'm a huge school-supply nerd, so new pens and nice notebooks are just little tricks I play to try to get excited about all of this.

Regarding timing, I started mid-March, and am just now finishing my first pass (I have part of MSK and Cardio remaining) - 3 of those weeks were part-time (still in MS classes), then a 2 week break (not planned... minor family emergency), and then ~5 weeks of almost full time studying (I have one class that's still going on, so I'm maybe at 75% max effort?). I've been doing questions from a Kaplan book and from the Robbins question book, but no world yet (I feel a little guilty about this, but it was just too depressing when I had no idea what the questions were asking - I wanted to at least look at everything once).

I definitely didn't think that the first pass would take this long. I was thinking I'd spend 5 weeks on the first pass, 3 on the second, maybe do a third pass, and then do the final 10 days. Granted, I'm doing a lot of writing, I've been a having a hard time making myself work for more than 8 hours a day, and I'm realizing that I basically learned nothing over the past two years (I'm about in the middle of my class, but our curriculum is NOT AT ALL tailored to the boards), but... even then, its been slow. So I guess I'd warn anyone who's just starting to not underestimate how long the first pass will take.

Other than that, I alternate daily between being excited about how much I'm learning and terrified that there's so much I didn't know until now. Not to mention certain that I'm not going to remember any of this come test day. And worried that I won't be able to Match. Oh and worried that even if everything works out, health care reform will f it up and I'll have gone to school for waaay to long for nothing. There's a lot of worry.

I take my test May 26th, so I have 22 days left. My plan is to finish MSK and a class project tomorrow (an unfortunate interruption), then finish Cardio and take NBME 4 on Wednesday. Hopefully that will scare me into working harder... from then on out, I'm going to do 100 world questions a day (at least) and memorize things in the afternoons. Ideally I'll finish all the world questions and have time to redo the ones that I've missed.

Where is everyone else in the process?

I know this is an ultra-late reply, but I just wanted to say that my gf and I both used this binding method last year during board prep and it worked out well. We always had classmates in awe of our book. Plus, it looked nice whenever we studied in coffeeshops.

Thanks again, StereoSanctity
 
StereoSanctity, what size Circa discs did you use for the First Aid book? Did you have any issues with pages tearing out? Thanks~ Kelly
 
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