Uworld for boards

[medstudent12080]

Are the things that are in First Aid but not covered at all by Uworld really worth learning? First Aid covers a lot of things in a lot of detail, but it seems to make more sense to follow Uworld as far as what content is worth devoting to memory and what content can reasonably be skipped.

First Aid seems to cover ever possible thing the boards can ask- and I feel like they just go by the list of topics the NBME goes by without necessarily considering whether or not something is high-yield. I know nothing about who works for Uworld and how they keep their content true to what will be covered on the boards, but they seem to really know what they're doing based on how amazing their questions are. This is for step 1 btw. Thank you!

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[PhillyMed777]

Are the things that are in First Aid but not covered at all by Uworld really worth learning? First Aid covers a lot of things in a lot of detail, but it seems to make more sense to follow Uworld as far as what content is worth devoting to memory and what content can reasonably be skipped.

First Aid seems to cover ever possible thing the boards can ask- and I feel like they just go by the list of topics the NBME goes by without necessarily considering whether or not something is high-yield. I know nothing about who works for Uworld and how they keep their content true to what will be covered on the boards, but they seem to really know what they're doing based on how amazing their questions are. This is for step 1 btw. Thank you!

Depends on your goal bud.
If you goal is to do really well, keep in mind that anything can show up on the test. Many things beyond FA showed up on my actual test. So yes, it is worth learning in that case.
I don't think one can do really well solely based on Uworld content. There's a lot of good learning in uworld, but its foolish to think that covers all the content.

 

[medstudent12080]

On that same note, if Uworld has a bunch of questions on a subject, does that mean it's more likely to be more represented on the actual boards? For example, reproductive has only 109 Uworld questions and represents 44 pages in First Aid, whereas Cardio has 309 Uworld questions, but has the same number of pages in first aid (44).

 

[sloop]

Yes, I think FA is important. If you ask me, FA was even more "meat and potatoes" for this exam than UWorld. Both are important but UWorld seemed to cover more of the esoteric may/may not show up stuff than FA.

But for what it's worth, the esoteric stuff is what largely separates passing to average performance from doing well or very well.

This is from someone who did very well on this exam.

 

[sloop]

On that same note, if Uworld has a bunch of questions on a subject, does that mean it's more likely to be more represented on the actual boards? For example, reproductive has only 109 Uworld questions and represents 44 pages in First Aid, whereas Cardio has 309 Uworld questions, but has the same number of pages in first aid (44).

I don't think this is always a sure-fire rule, but reproductive is probably one of the least represented subjects and cardio one of the most heavily represented, for what it's worth.

 

[PhillyMed777]

On that same note, if Uworld has a bunch of questions on a subject, does that mean it's more likely to be more represented on the actual boards? For example, reproductive has only 109 Uworld questions and represents 44 pages in First Aid, whereas Cardio has 309 Uworld questions, but has the same number of pages in first aid (44).

The breakdown of subjects is variable from exam to exam. Some may be reprod heavy, others may be pharm heavy.
For example, I was shocked as to how little micro questions there were. I used sketchy micro to know all the tiny bug facts, and exactly zero of these little details showed up. Don't try to predict any breakdown.

 

[Ace Khalifa]

The breakdown of subjects is variable from exam to exam. Some may be reprod heavy, others may be pharm heavy.
For example, I was shocked as to how little micro questions there were. I used sketchy micro to know all the tiny bug facts, and exactly zero of these little details showed up. Don't try to predict any breakdown.

Does this mean you should just try your best to learn everything in FA and UWorld and not worry about what exact questions will show up on the real thing? I don't mind working extremely hard during my dedicated step 1 study period, but it'd be nice to know what to focus on more.

 

[sliceofbread136]

Why do people question FA? It was passed down to med students by God himself, you would be a fool not to use it. You have plenty of time to learn FA by heart and supplement it with uworld questions. Not using FA will negatively effect your score for sure, my guess is 10-20 points.

 

[medstudent12080]

I feel like First Aid is one of those things flock behind because everyone above them uses it. When you look critically at it, it's really not that good- it requires heavy annotation to make any sense of it, even if you already have a good grasp on the material. My biggest theory/complaint about First Aid is that they include tons of unnecessary things just for completeness sake, without truly thinking whether or not it will get people points on the test, but are trying to be complete so they can include every imaginable fact. Anyone who says they have memorized all of first aid is not being accurate- even if you think you have memorized it you really haven't, and will certainly not be able to recall all of those so-called high yield facts during a high-pressure test where you have little more than a minute to answer each question. I believe that you truly need to understand something deeply to be able to recall it on test day, and First Aid doesn't provide that. I use First Aid simply because I was conned into using it by virtually every medical student above me.

 

[ski89]

I feel like First Aid is one of those things flock behind because everyone above them uses it. When you look critically at it, it's really not that good- it requires heavy annotation to make any sense of it, even if you already have a good grasp on the material. My biggest theory/complaint about First Aid is that they include tons of unnecessary things just for completeness sake, without truly thinking whether or not it will get people points on the test, but are trying to be complete so they can include every imaginable fact. Anyone who says they have memorized all of first aid is not being accurate- even if you think you have memorized it you really haven't, and will certainly not be able to recall all of those so-called high yield facts during a high-pressure test where you have little more than a minute to answer each question. I believe that you truly need to understand something deeply to be able to recall it on test day, and First Aid doesn't provide that. I use First Aid simply because I was conned into using it by virtually every medical student above me.

lol, how does first aid require annotation? Is it that difficult to understand the the most common birth defects associated with maternal diabetes? And no you dont need perfect recall of first aid, you need recognition, there is a huge difference. Literally hundreds of people have testified to the utility of memorizing every detail of first aid no matter how minute. If you dont want to, then dont..

 

[cbrons]

Are the things that are in First Aid but not covered at all by Uworld really worth learning? First Aid covers a lot of things in a lot of detail, but it seems to make more sense to follow Uworld as far as what content is worth devoting to memory and what content can reasonably be skipped.

First Aid seems to cover ever possible thing the boards can ask- and I feel like they just go by the list of topics the NBME goes by without necessarily considering whether or not something is high-yield. I know nothing about who works for Uworld and how they keep their content true to what will be covered on the boards, but they seem to really know what they're doing based on how amazing their questions are. This is for step 1 btw. Thank you!

First Aid does not cover everything that might be tested. If anything, First Aid is missing a lot of things that are testable. But that's the purpose of the book, its just a high yield very brief factoid review, it is not a comprehensive textbook.

 

[PhillyMed777]

Does this mean you should just try your best to learn everything in FA and UWorld

Unfortunately yes that's what it means.
I know it would be satisfying to get another answer, but I genuinely think this is the best way to go about the material, by covering all your bases.
I'll be willing to bet when you come out of your test you can think of one subject that had way fewer than expected questions and one subject that you think was unexpectedly overtested. It's really hard to predict.
For example, I didn't expect to get relatively such few questions on biochem or microbio.
And i didn't expect to get relatively so many ethics, biostatistics, and "challenge" alternate presentation questions. (i.e a different presentation of a disease)
You could have the opposite of this experience. It varies too much to bank on it.

 

[Psai]

I feel like First Aid is one of those things flock behind because everyone above them uses it. When you look critically at it, it's really not that good- it requires heavy annotation to make any sense of it, even if you already have a good grasp on the material. My biggest theory/complaint about First Aid is that they include tons of unnecessary things just for completeness sake, without truly thinking whether or not it will get people points on the test, but are trying to be complete so they can include every imaginable fact. Anyone who says they have memorized all of first aid is not being accurate- even if you think you have memorized it you really haven't, and will certainly not be able to recall all of those so-called high yield facts during a high-pressure test where you have little more than a minute to answer each question. I believe that you truly need to understand something deeply to be able to recall it on test day, and First Aid doesn't provide that. I use First Aid simply because I was conned into using it by virtually every medical student above me.

Have you taken step 1 yet?

 

[medstudent12080]

Have you taken step 1 yet?

Nope. But another element to this is the changing nature of step 1- having the 40 questions instead of 44 questions per section means they are really trying to focus on clinical applications and deep understanding of things. First Aid has not evolved to compensate for this changing dynamic of the test

 

[Psai]

I would reserve judgment until you actually take step 1. It's very easy to say this and that wasn't necessary. But when you look back, you see how far you went. I think uworld was the clear #1 and first aid was #2 in terms of resources but they are synergistic. First aid is not so much a review book as it is an outline for all the facts that you must know to do well on step 1. How do they know what to include? It is written by top notch students who just finished taking step 1. It is not sufficient to know just the facts. You have to know how to integrate and apply them. But you can't apply them if you don't know what they are.

I can definitely say that knowing as much of first aid as you can is a prerequisite to doing well on step 1 and that there were several times during the test that a high yield fact came to mind for easy points. I could picture the actual page that it was on and where it was on the page.

I scored highly on step 1 two years ago. When I was preparing to study for it, I read through two of step 1 threads that were posted in the years prior to my year in their entirety. Out of the hundreds of people who posted their experiences, I can only think of one who scored high on step 1 without using first aid at all. They supplemented with several other sources and scored in the 260s from what I remember. The vast majority used uworld, first aid and pathoma. These are a must.

 

[*brobro*]

Nope. But another element to this is the changing nature of step 1- having the 40 questions instead of 44 questions per section means they are really trying to focus on clinical applications and deep understanding of things. First Aid has not evolved to compensate for this changing dynamic of the test

Surely, you must realize how foolish you look making such statements after it was pointed out that you haven't even taken step 1? I will agree with your point that in order to truly recall things and apply them well, you must have a solid foundational understanding. However, you also need a ton of memorized facts at your disposal if you want to excel. This is why doing well in the first two years is so important -- you have to really learn this **** the first time. This is what allows one to really memorize everything...imo. Also, I think you are vastly underestimating just how much your fellow test takers will have memorized. It illustrates this point when you say things like: "...will certainly not be able to recall all of those so-called high yield facts during a high-pressure test where you have little more than a minute to answer each question." You do realize that most of us who scored well had way more than that memorized, right? Like, that's the easy part that was placed there for procrastinators to try and cram last minute....With the availability of spaced repetition like anki and firecracker, I can assure you that there are people out there who have FA memorized almost entirely. A couple weeks prior to my test, you could have flipped open FA to any random page, picked a topic, and asked me to tell you what is covered...I would have gotten it right probably 9/10 times (thanks anki).

Step 1 is important and you should simply listen to the majority of those who took it before you and did well. Is it the only way? No. But why try to be the exception when you can just follow the rule and do well? This test is out there for the taking and lots of people fail to do so year after year because of there own laziness or stubbornness (yeah, some are probably just incapable...but I'm trying to be nice here).

 

[WilliamofOckham]

FA is important as a general outline of the topics the last are the "core" of Step 1. It's also valuable to have a single book to use for annotations, as seeing the same pages over and over and over inevitably "burns" a lot of info into your mind.

When people say that UWorld is the gold standard, realize that this in no way means that it's the be-all-end-all for Step studying. It just means that if you had to pick a single resource with which to study, it would be that. Do not short-change yourself when it comes to Step studying. Your M2 resources should include FA, UWorld, Pathoma, and RR Path by Goljan.

 

[Psai]

FA is important as a general outline of the topics the last are the "core" of Step 1. It's also valuable to have a single book to use for annotations, as seeing the same pages over and over and over inevitably "burns" a lot of info into your mind.

When people say that UWorld is the gold standard, realize that this in no way means that it's the be-all-end-all for Step studying. It just means that if you had to pick a single resource with which to study, it would be that. Do not short-change yourself when it comes to Step studying. Your M2 resources should include FA, UWorld, Pathoma, and RR Path by Goljan.

The Goljan book is very heavy and I think it's better to read it during the year, not in dedicated study time. I listened to his audio 2 times and change and thought it was very useful in learning how to think like a doctor. People say good things about sketchy micro although I've never used it. Just powered those facts in

 

[WilliamofOckham]

The Goljan book is very heavy and I think it's better to read it during the year, not in dedicated study time. I listened to his audio 2 times and change and thought it was very useful in learning how to think like a doctor. People say good things about sketchy micro although I've never used it. Just powered those facts in

The audio was good listening at the gym for the couple of months leading up to Step 1. Though I did get some weird looks when I was laughing at some of his weird tangents.

 

[The Kraken]

FA is important as a general outline of the topics the last are the "core" of Step 1. It's also valuable to have a single book to use for annotations, as seeing the same pages over and over and over inevitably "burns" a lot of info into your mind.

When people say that UWorld is the gold standard, realize that this in no way means that it's the be-all-end-all for Step studying. It just means that if you had to pick a single resource with which to study, it would be that. Do not short-change yourself when it comes to Step studying. Your M2 resources should include FA, UWorld, Pathoma, and RR Path by Goljan.

I get PTSD when I think about reading Goljan RR. When people talk about hating reading FA, I can semi see why but shoot me before I read Goljan again. It's more dense than Harrison's and Robbins combined. It's like if I tried to integrate every med school lecture into FA, made it all bullet point and filled every single margin with frequently marginally helpful facts.

It was good during lectures I guess, but I couldn't recommend it during dedicated unless you had more than 8 weeks.

 

[WilliamofOckham]

I get PTSD when I think about reading Goljan RR. When people talk about hating reading FA, I can semi see why but shoot me before I read Goljan again. It's more dense than Harrison's and Robbins combined. It's like if I tried to integrate every med school lecture into FA, made it all bullet point and filled every single margin with frequently marginally helpful facts.

It was good during lectures I guess, but I couldn't recommend it during dedicated unless you had more than 8 weeks.

Yep. That's why I recommend it for the long haul. I bought it around Christmast-time and only opened it around April, at which point I was like "Damn, really wish I'd used this since September." I agree that it's mostly useless during dedicated study time.

 

[medstudent12080]

FYI for everyone who responded to this thread- I got a 253 on my boards, doing that by barely using First aid and instead using Uworld and pathoma. Let that be a lesson to not always listen to what everyone else says.

 

[Donald Juan]

FYI for everyone who responded to this thread- I got a 253 on my boards, doing that by barely using First aid and instead using Uworld and pathoma. Let that be a lesson to not always listen to what everyone else says.

So, you still used first aid?

 

[mcloaf]

FYI for everyone who responded to this thread- I got a 253 on my boards, doing that by barely using First aid and instead using Uworld and pathoma. Let that be a lesson to not always listen to what everyone else says.

The plural of anecdote is not data, as they say. Everyone I know who scored well used first aid. Not to mention everyone would tell you to use first aid in addition to uworld and pathoma, not in place of them.