- Joined
- Mar 19, 2006
- Messages
- 958
- Reaction score
- 4
First of all, thank you to all the members of this great forum that have aided me in the past couple of months! I picked up a lot of handy advice along the way and it was nice to occasionally (okay, very "often-ly") whine like a little baby and vent some of my frustrations and insecurities about studying for Step 1 here. Just wanted to share my experience, my preparation, and hopefully help others along the way as so many of you have done for me.
Comprehensive Source: FA 2007. What else? I should note that a lot of my classmates had the 2006 version and about three weeks into their studying, got freaked out at the missing information in their versions and purchased the 2007. My personal feeling is that now is not the time to play Scrooge. Pony up the dough for the latest version so you don't have to wonder if having an older edition may have had any effect on your score.
Anatomy: HY Anatomy. It was fairly useless as my exam fortunately contained very few and very manageable anatomy questions. FA, UW, and Qbank were more than enough for me. If I had gotten an exam with more anatomy questions, there's no doubt in my mind I would have been screwed.
Biochemistry: BRS Biochemistry and Lippincott's Biochemistry. These two were also fairly useless as my exam fortunately contained very few and very manageable biochemistry questions. FA and the occasional glance at ONE reference source to fill in any missing details would have been more than enough. Both UW and Qbank's practice biochemistry questions were way too difficult. I could have just lucked out with my biochemistry questions though.
Pharmacology: Lippincott's Pharmacology and PharmCards. These two were also fairly useless. See a trend? FA should cover 95% of the drugs on the exam. For my exam, the focus was more on side effects than MOA. I would use the flashcards to flesh out the details of drugs that FA just lists. For instance, there is a TB drug listed in FA that has no details. It has a very prominent visual side effect and I got TWO questions on that side effect. It stunned me as the questions were in the same block, separated by only three questions, and were worded almost identically. I thought I had gone backwards in my question progression for a moment.
Microbiology: Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple. Good book that is well-written and informative. A lot of the mnemonics were really helpful. My exam was very light on microbiology and again, FA was all that's necessary. Again, this could just be a quirk with my exam and I wouldn't recommend using FA as the sole source for micro.
Immunology: How The Immune System Works and Lange's Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. Immuno is not my strong suit so I definitely appreciated the simplistic approach of this book. I certainly wouldn't recommend using this as your sole immuno source but if you find yourself tiring, why not spend a day breezing through this? I followed it up with Lange (started from the immuno section and proceeded until the end of the book). A good review for micro as it's hard to keep all those bacteria, viruses, and parasites in your head with just one readthrough of CMMRS. Immunology was quite tough on my exam so I wished I would have gone over BOTH immuno books again. In terms of page amounts, it would have been doable in a day or two. My exam really emphasized knowing the basic concepts of immunology as opposed to memorizing the effects of the different IL cytokines.
Pathology: BRS Pathology, RR Pathology. This was the meat of my exam. I felt nearly 85% of my questions were pathology. I wish I would have listened to Goljan's tapes and spent almost all of my time with RR Pathology. My personal feeling is that BRS Pathology is next to useless. I had originally set aside 5 days to study path and I used just BRS Pathology. Upon visiting this forum, however, I immediately purchased a copy of RR Pathology and spent about an hour a night (at this point, I didn't feel I could afford to spend more time on pathology) going over it. During my last week of review with FA, I'd look up any concepts I didn't understand in RR Path. Diseases involving the gallbladder always tripped me up so I spent a while learning all the material there. 0 questions on the exam. Kidney diseases also trip me up. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to fully mastering that material. And wouldn't you know it? I got at least 5 questions on kidney pathology asking me to identify the disease and then translate that knowledge into what kind of laboratory findings those diseases would cause. Ugh.
Physiology: BRS Physiology. It's a decent book. I still feel it's missing some material but no one at my school or online has ever suggested another book is needed beyond BRS Physiology. I'm guessing I must have skimmed through the book too quickly and missed some points. (I felt the renal section and pulmonary section were both lacking)
Behavioral Science: BRS Behavioral Science. I know a lot of people enjoy using the shorter HY version but again, I did this after a heavy period of science topics so the 2 days I spent with this book seemed like a "vacation". I didn't get too many of the "quote" questions. I feel I do pretty well on those so I was a bit disappointed but at the same time, I've heard horror stories of people getting quote questions where 2-3 answers seem really good. I still had a couple of nasty surprises regarding behavioral science questions so I would recommend reading the larger book to try and cover all those points. I got a question about healthcare billing on my exam. That had better be an experimental question.
Neuroanatomy: HY Neuroanatomy. I thought this was an excellent book. I only spent two days with it but I wish I would have spent more. Neuro is definitely well represented on the exam and while I felt I did well, I would have liked to turn those questions into "slamdunk" questions with no uncertainty at all. As this was a 1st year course for me, I really ought to have spent a bit more time in reviewing the material.
Weird Stuff: BRS Cell Biology and Histology and HY Cell and Molecular Biology. I read the first four chapters of BRS Cell Biology and Histology. The book is horrifically dense but I did get a handful of questions that I probably could not have answered without having gone through the BRS book. It might be a good thing to read in the final day of your exam prep as crammable material. At the recommendation of people on this forum, I also picked up the 1999 copy of HY Cell and Molecular Biology. While I didn't have any questions pertaining to the book's material, it's a very short read and well-worth the time in the event you do get questions. Amazon is a great place to pick up this older and briefer edition for a very fair price. I remember paying $2 for the book and $3 for shipping.
Embryology: HY Embryology. I'm torn regarding this book. I personally hated it and spent most of my study time skimming through it. But I did get more embryo questions than I had anticipated. That being said, I'm not sure spending more time with the HY Embryo book would have gotten me those points anyway. All in all, I'd recommend sticking with FA or exploring another studying option.
Test Banks: I did 100 UW questions, 50 Qbank questions, and 25 IV Qbank questions each morning. As you can see from my percentages though, the 25 IV Qbank often got neglected if I felt tired or if something on TV caught my eye. I also completed NBME Form 2 after I had gone through all my review books. I made sure to leave a week of review after this practice exam in the event it didn't go smoothly. Finally, I completed the 150 Free Questions halfway through the weeklong review period.
IV Qbank = 38% completed, 80% correct
Qbank = 100% completed, 70% correct
UW = 100% completed, 72% correct
NBME Form 2 = 650 (~248)
150 Free Questions = 90% (~260)
Summary: 6 weeks to study, 1 day off. Daily schedule = 8 hours of review books, 3 hours of questions
Score: >250 (I would have loooooved a 260 but I would have to slap myself if I were to say that I was even the slightest bit disappointed with my performance)
Comprehensive Source: FA 2007. What else? I should note that a lot of my classmates had the 2006 version and about three weeks into their studying, got freaked out at the missing information in their versions and purchased the 2007. My personal feeling is that now is not the time to play Scrooge. Pony up the dough for the latest version so you don't have to wonder if having an older edition may have had any effect on your score.
Anatomy: HY Anatomy. It was fairly useless as my exam fortunately contained very few and very manageable anatomy questions. FA, UW, and Qbank were more than enough for me. If I had gotten an exam with more anatomy questions, there's no doubt in my mind I would have been screwed.
Biochemistry: BRS Biochemistry and Lippincott's Biochemistry. These two were also fairly useless as my exam fortunately contained very few and very manageable biochemistry questions. FA and the occasional glance at ONE reference source to fill in any missing details would have been more than enough. Both UW and Qbank's practice biochemistry questions were way too difficult. I could have just lucked out with my biochemistry questions though.
Pharmacology: Lippincott's Pharmacology and PharmCards. These two were also fairly useless. See a trend? FA should cover 95% of the drugs on the exam. For my exam, the focus was more on side effects than MOA. I would use the flashcards to flesh out the details of drugs that FA just lists. For instance, there is a TB drug listed in FA that has no details. It has a very prominent visual side effect and I got TWO questions on that side effect. It stunned me as the questions were in the same block, separated by only three questions, and were worded almost identically. I thought I had gone backwards in my question progression for a moment.
Microbiology: Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple. Good book that is well-written and informative. A lot of the mnemonics were really helpful. My exam was very light on microbiology and again, FA was all that's necessary. Again, this could just be a quirk with my exam and I wouldn't recommend using FA as the sole source for micro.
Immunology: How The Immune System Works and Lange's Review of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. Immuno is not my strong suit so I definitely appreciated the simplistic approach of this book. I certainly wouldn't recommend using this as your sole immuno source but if you find yourself tiring, why not spend a day breezing through this? I followed it up with Lange (started from the immuno section and proceeded until the end of the book). A good review for micro as it's hard to keep all those bacteria, viruses, and parasites in your head with just one readthrough of CMMRS. Immunology was quite tough on my exam so I wished I would have gone over BOTH immuno books again. In terms of page amounts, it would have been doable in a day or two. My exam really emphasized knowing the basic concepts of immunology as opposed to memorizing the effects of the different IL cytokines.
Pathology: BRS Pathology, RR Pathology. This was the meat of my exam. I felt nearly 85% of my questions were pathology. I wish I would have listened to Goljan's tapes and spent almost all of my time with RR Pathology. My personal feeling is that BRS Pathology is next to useless. I had originally set aside 5 days to study path and I used just BRS Pathology. Upon visiting this forum, however, I immediately purchased a copy of RR Pathology and spent about an hour a night (at this point, I didn't feel I could afford to spend more time on pathology) going over it. During my last week of review with FA, I'd look up any concepts I didn't understand in RR Path. Diseases involving the gallbladder always tripped me up so I spent a while learning all the material there. 0 questions on the exam. Kidney diseases also trip me up. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to fully mastering that material. And wouldn't you know it? I got at least 5 questions on kidney pathology asking me to identify the disease and then translate that knowledge into what kind of laboratory findings those diseases would cause. Ugh.
Physiology: BRS Physiology. It's a decent book. I still feel it's missing some material but no one at my school or online has ever suggested another book is needed beyond BRS Physiology. I'm guessing I must have skimmed through the book too quickly and missed some points. (I felt the renal section and pulmonary section were both lacking)
Behavioral Science: BRS Behavioral Science. I know a lot of people enjoy using the shorter HY version but again, I did this after a heavy period of science topics so the 2 days I spent with this book seemed like a "vacation". I didn't get too many of the "quote" questions. I feel I do pretty well on those so I was a bit disappointed but at the same time, I've heard horror stories of people getting quote questions where 2-3 answers seem really good. I still had a couple of nasty surprises regarding behavioral science questions so I would recommend reading the larger book to try and cover all those points. I got a question about healthcare billing on my exam. That had better be an experimental question.
Neuroanatomy: HY Neuroanatomy. I thought this was an excellent book. I only spent two days with it but I wish I would have spent more. Neuro is definitely well represented on the exam and while I felt I did well, I would have liked to turn those questions into "slamdunk" questions with no uncertainty at all. As this was a 1st year course for me, I really ought to have spent a bit more time in reviewing the material.
Weird Stuff: BRS Cell Biology and Histology and HY Cell and Molecular Biology. I read the first four chapters of BRS Cell Biology and Histology. The book is horrifically dense but I did get a handful of questions that I probably could not have answered without having gone through the BRS book. It might be a good thing to read in the final day of your exam prep as crammable material. At the recommendation of people on this forum, I also picked up the 1999 copy of HY Cell and Molecular Biology. While I didn't have any questions pertaining to the book's material, it's a very short read and well-worth the time in the event you do get questions. Amazon is a great place to pick up this older and briefer edition for a very fair price. I remember paying $2 for the book and $3 for shipping.
Embryology: HY Embryology. I'm torn regarding this book. I personally hated it and spent most of my study time skimming through it. But I did get more embryo questions than I had anticipated. That being said, I'm not sure spending more time with the HY Embryo book would have gotten me those points anyway. All in all, I'd recommend sticking with FA or exploring another studying option.
Test Banks: I did 100 UW questions, 50 Qbank questions, and 25 IV Qbank questions each morning. As you can see from my percentages though, the 25 IV Qbank often got neglected if I felt tired or if something on TV caught my eye. I also completed NBME Form 2 after I had gone through all my review books. I made sure to leave a week of review after this practice exam in the event it didn't go smoothly. Finally, I completed the 150 Free Questions halfway through the weeklong review period.
IV Qbank = 38% completed, 80% correct
Qbank = 100% completed, 70% correct
UW = 100% completed, 72% correct
NBME Form 2 = 650 (~248)
150 Free Questions = 90% (~260)
Summary: 6 weeks to study, 1 day off. Daily schedule = 8 hours of review books, 3 hours of questions
Score: >250 (I would have loooooved a 260 but I would have to slap myself if I were to say that I was even the slightest bit disappointed with my performance)