1 year out from Step 1 - study plan

[caxoo]

Hey all, was hoping for any advice/suggests regarding my study plan. I've read pretty much every post regarding how to score a 250+ (which is my goal), and have incorporated ideas here and there

I'm <12 months out from Step 1, my plan of attack is 2-fold:
- solidify current topics in class: organize relevant info from FA/Pathoma into ANKI, so when dedicated time comes along I'll have all the busy work out of the way already and can focus on studying
- relearn past topics in MS1: really unsure/worried about this tbh. I was a crap student in MS1, didn't focus on Step and crammed a lot - I'm probably weak in BCT, physio, micro. Was considering reading BRS physio for each organ system as I learned it in class, while just going through all of BCT again/taking notes in my off time, and watching Sketchy until I pass out every night. For stuff like anatomy/embryo/histo, I'm just gonna wait til I approach dedicated

I guess I'm hoping for advice regarding catching up in previous topics. One thing people say is to do firecracker or something for review, but I'm not sure how that works out if you pretty much forgot all the subjects - wouldn't that just involve flagging every question and pretty much learning it all from scratch? Currently I just started using it and I've marked down a lot of topic from MS1 for review, but it feels like I'm just blindly guessing for most of it and not really "learning" per se

Another thing I'm wondering about is use of qbanks in general. After yall go through your 100 or so questions of the day and look at the rationales, how do you retain that information? Do you incorporate it into your ANKI deck or notes?

Any help would be super appreciated

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[yoyohomieg5432]

1. strongly agree with anki use. as we went thru all the organ systems i essentially created an anki card for every topic in that chapter. every morning i spent an hour or so doing all the anki cards i've made for FA. as the year progressed, i was reviewing CV, respiratory, renal, etc etc just through my anki cards. everything stayed infinitely more fresh in my head than if i just learned it and forgot and had to remember it all come boards time
2. i was a **** student M1 year too. and nobody studies step m1. i didnt go back and read anything. you will get physiology again in each organ system and you'll be surprised that most comes back. google sufficed for any gaps in that
3. dont do firecracker. half of the learning comes with making the card in my opinion. being lazy with firecracker you wont learn as much
4. start sketchy early but dont cram it. i did "a bug a day" and i was done with first pass thru sketchy by like january. i created an anki card for each bug to keep everything fresh. come boards, i didnt need to study the micro section at all and that's the biggest section in the book'
5. i used kaplan at the end of each block as a means of reviewing for the class test and getting practice with boards style questions from the start of the year, and making sure you understand the relevant things in FA too. kaplan was great for physiology. by doing the questions was also a good review of that stuff. i used usmlerx in february - april with all organ systems as a means of reviewing everything before getting into dedicated step time and using uworld.

these are my opinions, but it worked really well for me.