5 weeks out with wasted time on DIT! Help!

[danvasta]

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I've Got 5 weeks to go spent the last week on DIT 2013 which I thought was a complete waste og time. I thought it would help me get through irst aid thoroughly when I was constantly pausing cause they skipping so much detail! Now Im 5 weeks out with about 2ish passes the material (but I don''t know it inside out which was what DIT was supposed to do but.. 😕
I also have about 50% uworld the other 50% I need to redo as I did it months ago. Any suggestions appreciated!
Should I try to stick it out or do my own thing with their study guide (although I'm not sure whether thats particularly high yield either)?

 

[Trogghunter]

you have 5 weeks left. that is more time than a lot of people allocate to hardcore studying for step 1. you honestly have time to make 4 more passes through FA and take a weekly nbme.

i didnt do DIT, but IF I WERE YOU (and i am not), i would
1) finish uworld and annotate into FA
2) when you finish uworld..take ~2 days to read through FA + annotations and then DO AN NBME
3) after you see your score, take a day off then go through uworld again, maybe take the uworld exam
4) you should have a week or so left, so use that time to scan your FA, learn the high yield stuff, and get your body adjusted to sitting/focusing for 8hrs. eat right, exercise before.

The DIT stuff is in there somewhere...maybe take a day or two off and resume. you have a long long time, especially if you do ~10hr days. I had a freak out moment 2 weeks before my exam. i called my parents (both have been through usmle nonsense) had them calm me down. in 2 weeks i went through FA two more times, scored 93% and i have average grades.
good luck

 

[danvasta]

You think I should do uworld then go through irst aid. The reason I started DIT was cause I thought I wasn't thorough and I was scoring terrible on uworld. So what do you think I should do review weak material then do uworld or uworld right away?

 

[Trogghunter]

You think I should do uworld then go through irst aid. The reason I started DIT was cause I thought I wasn't thorough and I was scoring terrible on uworld. So what do you think I should do review weak material then do uworld or uworld right away?

98% of people score low on uworld, especially at first. it sounds like you made that decision to do DIT out of fear/panic. i have found it to serve me well to avoid making decisions in that state of mind...big life lesson.... DIT is kind of like reading through FA anyway. It's good for people that learn from lectures.

Yes, i think that you should finish uworld. pay attention to why you got things wrong AND right, and annotate why you did into FA with a brightly colored marker, but the same color (i used green) that you only use for uworld so that you can separate it from your other notes. dont worry about your score.

you're 50% through-that's like 1000 questions left. A block of uworld for me took about ~3 hours including answering and reviewing. so that is ~7-8hrs/day with a one hr break between blocks. that is doable in 10 days, certainly a week if you have more than 1000.

after you finish, i would read through FA again in no more than 3 days, concentrating on the uworld points-I kept a notebook with things that i thought were high yield'. (after this you should take an nbme/uworld exam. it may underscore you, but you still have weeks to go and you could definitely bump your score 10,20+ points in a few weeks.)

when i finished my qbank 1x and finished reading FA, i reset, but i could do 200+ a day because i had already seen them, so it took me like no time flat. averages go up, so that boosts confidence AND it trains you to sit put for hours and answer questions. when i finished the 2nd time, i had a week or so left, so i used flashcardexchange.com to just hammer through bugs and drugs.

finally....finishing uworld is very important because it really is very high yield and it trains you to think constantly through blocks of questions. many argue that it is equally as important to go back through uworld. AT LEAST GO THROUGH YOUR INCORRECTS.
this has been more of a free flow of ideas, so forgive me if it sounds like i am blabbering.

 

[danvasta]

Thank you so much ! Right now I'm just going to do my weak areas and then start uworld right away! 800 dollars down the drain.. Oh well! Also are lower limb muscles important? I know the nerves are but what about each muscle it innervates ?

 

[Mygod]

really important question. is jennifer shuford still in the videos? hahaha other than that yeah no way i would waste my time with only five weeks left. DIT is good if you want someone to read to you parts of first aid but not for true studying

 

[Phloston]

98% of people score low on uworld, especially at first.

Where did you come up with that? If anything, that would only apply to MS2s who use it throughout the year, as opposed to those who start it closer to their exams.

 

[Bouddha]

really important question. is jennifer shuford still in the videos? hahaha other than that yeah no way i would waste my time with only five weeks left. DIT is good if you want someone to read to you parts of first aid but not for true studying

I keep seeing people say DIT is just a read through of First Aid, but my experience with the 2013 videos has been quite different. Yes, for some conditions they do a cursory review of what's written in First Aid, but for most of the high yield topics, the do much more than just read First Aid.

For me, it's been good to have the information presented in another format (the same benefit I'm getting from the Pathoma videos). That being said, for anyone who is considering DIT, I think I've really benefited from doing DIT 3 months out, as opposed to waiting until my dedicated 6 week block after classes to do it. I'm sacrificing a block of my second year curriculum, but given the relative weight of Step vs pre-clinical grades, I'm very comfortable with that trade-off.

Bottom line, DIT is not a waste of time, but I would do it earlier than they recommend.

EDIT: Jennifer Shuford is still in the videos, and she is great.

 

[danvasta]

i agree I guess I listened to the time recommended by them and purchased it around 8 weeks prior to my exam and then started to panic about 50 videos in. Now I have to put it aside and study smart. I don't know how high yield their study guide is tho.. I have noticed that they missed alotta important detail that is high yield that's why I thought it was time wasted esp so close to the exam.
Also I don't know whether going through uworld multiple times is going to help me since you already know the question and the answers are already annotated into ur book. I think knowing concepts are more imp rather than just memorizing questions thats the only reason why I started DIT. I wanted to know enough to approach any question. how do you suggest I approach uworld tho ... uworld and dirst aid side by side or my plan was to do weak topics then do a week o just uworld then redo irst aid then take an nbme and keep alternating like that.. (ie 1 week uworld 1 week review then nbme)

 

[Trogghunter]

Where did you come up with that? If anything, that would only apply to MS2s who use it throughout the year, as opposed to those who start it closer to their exams.

Forgive me...low is relative and I made that stat up. I don't know anyone that started out getting +80% random timed. I was discouraged at first but that got better as it progressed.

Phloston...I read your experience a while ago. Why do you want to leave australia? My parents would pull teeth to practice in Sydney. Their recruiters were going to ship them to the outback for 3yrs before they got to a big city.

 

[Bouddha]

i agree I guess I listened to the time recommended by them and purchased it around 8 weeks prior to my exam and then started to panic about 50 videos in. Now I have to put it aside and study smart. I don't know how high yield their study guide is tho.. I have noticed that they missed alotta important detail that is high yield that's why I thought it was time wasted esp so close to the exam.
Also I don't know whether going through uworld multiple times is going to help me since you already know the question and the answers are already annotated into ur book. I think knowing concepts are more imp rather than just memorizing questions thats the only reason why I started DIT. I wanted to know enough to approach any question. how do you suggest I approach uworld tho ... uworld and dirst aid side by side or my plan was to do weak topics then do a week o just uworld then redo irst aid then take an nbme and keep alternating like that.. (ie 1 week uworld 1 week review then nbme)

I think if I were in your position, I would try and get through FA as many times as possible. Like someone above said, take an NBME a week. In the mean time, finish UWorld, and maybe buy a one month USMLE-RX QMax pass (Its $79 with an AMSA membership, which is free). I'm using UWorld, Kaplan, and USMLE-RX. I plan on a full pass through Kaplan (which is more concepts based in my opinion), a full pass through USMLE-RX (which has thus far tended to test recall a bit more), and 2 passes through UWorld. I'm less worried about memorizing the ~7000+ questions I'll be working on, and more worried about touching on concepts as many times as possible.

 

[Democritus]

Where did you come up with that? If anything, that would only apply to MS2s who use it throughout the year, as opposed to those who start it closer to their exams.

Maybe from the average being so low?

 

[CDI]

EDIT: Jennifer Shuford is still in the videos, and she is great.

 

[Zzmed]

The trap became, "ok, I didn't finish all of today's lectures, I'll start super early tomorrow and finish them then finish all of the next days and review both days tomorrow night..." This kind of thinking snowballs and you're struggling to keep your head above water and you just end up mindlessly watching your computer screen highlighting stuff without having time to think about it because you're just thinking about how behind your are.

So true... Not only for DIT... So true...

 

[danvasta]

thats exactly what I am doing now. I really do learn (historically) better doing questions anyways. Plus I'm an average student but trying to shoot above 230 at LEAST. Hence doing DITseemed like a good idea. DIT must be done early it was a stupid idea doing it during my dedicated study period I only did it cause an MS4 suggested it to me and he got in the 260's but he's always been sorta gunnerish. Right now I switched to doing alternate day uworld and reading (1 day reading 1 day uworld) and I do think I'm making some progress compared to the stagnation I experienced during DIT. Them suggesting that it should be done "5 weeks prior to exam" is a loada BS. I actually wrote to them and told them to suggest it earlier so students don't screw themselves over.

 

[survivordo]

50 timed,random questions on USMLEWorld, take notes on both correct and incorrect answers, review notes and pertinent FA sections. Repeat. If you can internalize all of the information in FA and UW you will have all the information you need to do well on the exam. As long as you can apply it on test day (monitor your progress with NBME) you will do well.

Survivor DO

 

[danvasta]

Thanks everyone! much appreciated! Just want to get this over with.. I am so BORED and tired and I'm only 2 weeks into my study period.. oh well

 

[Oreoomar]

The trap became, "ok, I didn't finish all of today's lectures, I'll start super early tomorrow and finish them then finish all of the next days and review both days tomorrow night..." This kind of thinking snowballs and you're struggling to keep your head above water and you just end up mindlessly watching your computer screen highlighting stuff without having time to think about it because you're just thinking about how behind your are.

This was just my personal experience. My buddy obviously had better luck. Stick to the q-banks.

Holy crap. This is me every single day