USMLE 6 weeks to 245

[charju]

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So I just got my score back for step 1 taken on 2/19 and got a 245. Would like to share my experiences on it. I studied a total of 6 weeks. Probably could have shaved it down to 5 by skipping the first week. See plan below. 🙂

did respiratory/cardiology/renal and parts of heme/onc/repro in first aid/pathoma prior to studying during regular school year.

Only used pathoma/first aid/uworld and two NBME practice exams

week 1: pathoma videos first pass (didn't find this super high yield, so would shift this week to doing uworld 1st/2nd pass)
week 2: first aid skim first pass (focus on learning what's there and understanding, instead of getting bogged down by memroizing all the details... just let info sink in)
week 3-5: UWORLD first pass(random/nontutor/untimed)/first aid second pass
UWORLD is brutal.. i ended up with a 59% on it. But what's more important is to understand what it's trying to tell you. Think of it as a learning aid, not an assessment. This was my primary form of learning.
Week 4: school administered NBME 225-230
end of week 5: NBME 13: 228
week 6: first half: UWORLD 2nd pass (Yes i did this in 3 days. Instead of resetting, i just resumed each block and went over every question and changed answers if I felt like it was wrong). Second half: quick review charts in 1st aid/watched pathoma videos on weaker topics

advice to people still in class: use pathoma/first aid simultaneously to develop a feel for it during regular classes

advice to people studying: do as many questions as possible. If you have extra time, then do more qbanks. Once you are comfortable with the timing on NBME, i would focus on the questions and not the score.

free to answer any questions 🙂 it will feel totally impossible and i definitely felt like crap a few times while studying. But I guess it all worked out in the end.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind this is my experience so take it with a grain or salt. I know my approach differs from most people. My belief is that repetition is key, and it's all about the high yield stuff 🙂. I used to be a test prep teacher/tutor.

 

[rcdamania]

Hey I am about 90 days out do you have any tips?? Thanks for your experience!

Do you also know how I could get thru first aid if I am not one to sit in one place and read? What do you think about DIT?

Thanks for your time and effort
Best wishes

 

[Apoplexy__]

Congrats on the score man. So you ended up doing FA 2x + final week skim? Did you feel like the questions you were missing on the real deal were due to a lack of depth or breadth of knowledge (i.e. would more FA time been helpful to increase breadth)?

 

[DermViser]

So I just got my score back for step 1 taken on 2/19 and got a 245. Would like to share my experiences on it. I studied a total of 6 weeks. Probably could have shaved it down to 5 by skipping the first week. See plan below. 🙂

did respiratory/cardiology/renal and parts of heme/onc/repro in first aid/pathoma prior to studying during regular school year.

Only used pathoma/first aid/uworld and two NBME practice exams

week 1: pathoma videos first pass (didn't find this super high yield, so would shift this week to doing uworld 1st/2nd pass)
week 2: first aid skim first pass (focus on learning what's there and understanding, instead of getting bogged down by memroizing all the details... just let info sink in)
week 3-5: UWORLD first pass(random/nontutor/untimed)/first aid second pass
UWORLD is brutal.. i ended up with a 59% on it. But what's more important is to understand what it's trying to tell you. Think of it as a learning aid, not an assessment. This was my primary form of learning.
Week 4: school administered NBME 225-230
end of week 5: NBME 13: 228
week 6: first half: UWORLD 2nd pass (Yes i did this in 3 days. Instead of resetting, i just resumed each block and went over every question and changed answers if I felt like it was wrong). Second half: quick review charts in 1st aid/watched pathoma videos on weaker topics

advice to people still in class: use pathoma/first aid simultaneously to develop a feel for it during regular classes

advice to people studying: do as many questions as possible. If you have extra time, then do more qbanks. Once you are comfortable with the timing on NBME, i would focus on the questions and not the score.

free to answer any questions 🙂 it will feel totally impossible and i definitely felt like crap a few times while studying. But I guess it all worked out in the end.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind this is my experience so take it with a grain or salt. I know my approach differs from most people. My belief is that repetition is key, and it's all about the high yield stuff 🙂. I used to be a test prep teacher/tutor.

So you studied relevant boards stuff along with classes, it seems.

 

[Polymyxin]

Charju, congrats on that great score!
(1) You mentioned during week 2 you read first aid without "getting bogged down by memroizing all the details". When did you start to sit down and memorize all the details? Did you make flash card to memorize the difficult items? Or, did you just end up memorizing things without explicit effort by doing UWorld?

(2) Did you annotate a lot from UWorld into FA during week 3-5?

(3) Also, what is your advice for micro? (I'm having a tough time with this)

Thanks!

 

[Cinematographer]

So you studied relevant boards stuff along with classes, it seems.

Isn't that commonly done by most MS2s?

 

[charju]

Hey I am about 90 days out do you have any tips?? Thanks for your experience!

Do you also know how I could get thru first aid if I am not one to sit in one place and read? What do you think about DIT?

Thanks for your time and effort
Best wishes

I'm a firm believer in not studying pass the point of diminishing returns, and 90 days out is a lot of time. did your classes end already? if not, I would really take it easy and focus on your classes while supplementing it with first aid/pathoma. And then transition to step 1 study maybe 6-8 weeks out. If you have nothing else to do, I guess it doesn't hurt to start early... Though I would take it slowly at first cause you don't wanna burn out in the end.

I can't speak for DIT. I never used it. With that said, I know people who used it in my class, and my impression was that it took A LONG TIME. I don't really think spending that much time on FA is worth it. If you have time, I would just do more questions and read their explanations. It is a much better learning tool than learning directly from FA. If you adopt my skim FA approach the first pass then transition to cranking out qbanks like I did, I would say its fairly doable in a short amount of time.

 

[charju]

Congrats on the score man. So you ended up doing FA 2x + final week skim? Did you feel like the questions you were missing on the real deal were due to a lack of depth or breadth of knowledge (i.e. would more FA time been helpful to increase breadth)?

Yes, pretty much I ended up doing FA 2x and a final quick skim in the last week on the charts/drugs that I thought were important.
I honestly do not feel like I could've done anything differently to get questions that I were confused on the actual test right. What I did thought I could've used a little boost on was basic pathology and immunology. My feeling is that the step 1 is really basic concept heavy. Instead of doing more FA, I would say do more questions. If you have time, doing another qbank (rx or kaplan) is probably the real way to go.

 

[charju]

So you studied relevant boards stuff along with classes, it seems.

yes sir. And i wish i did it from the beginning instead of just starting in my second year.

 

[charju]

Charju, congrats on that great score!
(1) You mentioned during week 2 you read first aid without "getting bogged down by memroizing all the details". When did you start to sit down and memorize all the details? Did you make flash card to memorize the difficult items? Or, did you just end up memorizing things without explicit effort by doing UWorld?

(2) Did you annotate a lot from UWorld into FA during week 3-5?

(3) Also, what is your advice for micro? (I'm having a tough time with this)

Thanks!

1. I would say more of the latter. I'm a firm believer in that repetition is key. The 2x FA... + random times I would flip to the charts/look things up + UWorld really helped me memorize stuff. There are days during my 3rd to 5th week where I would decide to commit certain charts to memory after seeing many questions drawn from it in the past few days. There are still entire charts that I have no clue whatsoever (parasites anyone?), and I have no regrets that i triaged it out. First pass of FA is really to develop a good sense of the depth of materials, I also did not use any flashcards. I feel like any time involved in creating studying tools yourself adds to the cost/effort but may not always guarantee returns. Ofcourse, if you are a firm believer in flashcards you should go for it.

2. I am also not a note taker. With that said, I did circle, scribble certain things from UWorld into FA. But my FA is pretty blank compared to my classmates.

3. Micro, you really have to just buckle down and know your bugs and drugs. I forced myself to tackle a certain part of it in a day (1 day i would do all the bacteria, the next day i would do virus, another day the antibacterial drugs etc) Micro is pretty high yield, UWorld is brutal on micro so honestly if you get through Uworld and know everything about micro from it you should be good for the real deal. Parasites are the only section of micro that you can triage.

 

[charju]

Isn't that commonly done by most MS2s?

Yea, its definitely common. In fact I wish i started doing it my first year.

 

[DermViser]

Isn't that commonly done by most MS2s?

My point is that charju got a 245 after studying for a longer period of time - all thru out MS 2 year. Not just for 6 weeks. Six weeks is probably when he/she kicked it into high gear. There is no magic.

 

[notbobtrustme]

My point is that charju got a 245 after studying for a longer period of time - all thru out MS 2 year. Not just for 6 weeks. Six weeks is probably when he/she kicked it into high gear. There is no magic.

yep, I think that's what trips some people up. There is no magic bullet that will jump your score 20 points. It's just weeks of grind and hardwork.

 

[DermViser]

yep, I think that's what trips some people up. There is no magic bullet that will jump your score 20 points. It's just weeks of grind and hardwork.

Yeah, I think when people search on SDN they think that somehow all they need is First Aid, a Path resource, and USMLEWorld and that's the key to getting 1-2 standard deviations above the mean. The people who said they only needed ___ weeks to achieve that score are people who mastered the material well in classes during the first 2 years (even using subject based review books), and really grinded it out during their study period, without burning out. First Aid is a good recall tool for your brain, but that's about it.

 

[Apoplexy__]

Yeah, I think when people search on SDN they think that somehow all they need is First Aid, a Path resource, and USMLEWorld and that's the key to getting 1-2 standard deviations above the mean. The people who said they only needed ___ weeks to achieve that score are people who mastered the material well in classes during the first 2 years (even using subject based review books), and really grinded it out during their study period, without burning out. First Aid is a good recall tool for your brain, but that's about it.

...Wow. I don't know why, but this conversation here just blew my mind regarding the disparity between drastically different scores among students with very similar studying plans.

I mean, we all obviously knew that studying earlier, studying harder, and remembering better would score better. And we all knew that there was something about the high scorers (especially the ones that break the stratosphere) that was intrinsically different...that set them apart from anyone who tried to mimic their movements to get the same score. But I think that's it -- the quality of studying during MS2 (and maybe MS1).

I guess this is just so amazing to me because I always struggled with the concept on how Phloston scored around 260 with excruciating months of board prep (he probably had a significant course load during the time, but he spent 10+ MONTHS preparing), then non-"celebrity" SDNers get scores right up there and higher with a non-absurd schedule (as in, not 10+ months). It's because different people have different histories...you can't just isolate a board prep story and ignore the past 12 months of formative education. MD/PhD students, MD students, DO students, and IMGs are all very different than one another. The most important factor in a student's score is probably not in their board prep story.

 

[DermViser]

...Wow. I don't know why, but this conversation here just blew my mind regarding the disparity between drastically different scores among students with very similar studying plans.

I mean, we all obviously knew that studying earlier, studying harder, and remembering better would score better. And we all knew that there was something about the high scorers (especially the ones that break the stratosphere) that was intrinsically different...that set them apart from anyone who tried to mimic their movements to get the same score. But I think that's it -- the quality of studying during MS2 (and maybe MS1).

I guess this is just so amazing to me because I always struggled with the concept on how Phloston scored around 260 with excruciating months of board prep (he probably had a significant course load during the time, but he spent 10+ MONTHS preparing), then non-"celebrity" SDNers get scores right up there and higher with a non-absurd schedule (as in, not 10+ months). It's because different people have different histories...you can't just isolate a board prep story and ignore the past 12 months of formative education. MD/PhD students, MD students, DO students, and IMGs are all very different than one another. The most important factor in a student's score is probably not in their board prep story.

Also, there are other factors that play into it:

1. How good of a standardized test taker you are (hence the difference between people who ace professor made exams but don't do as well when the exam is standardized) - which can be highly predicted based on the MCAT.

2. Stress management esp. on the day of the exam - i.e. how easily flustered they get on test day, esp. if they realize they miss a question

3. Strength of the person's application and critical thinking ability vs. rote memorization ability (there will be a few gimmes of rote memorization, but it's the ones that make you apply concepts which is where the money is) - sadly professor exams still emphasize rote memory when board exams used to be that way.

4. A little bit of luck and raw aptitude on getting questions on topics that are your strengths vs. weaknesses.

We all have different ways to ingrain the information into your brain. Hence why 2 people using the exact same review books, same Qbank, same NBMEs, and same time interval after classes are over get completely different scores.

It's difficult for the person who scores the 240-260 to explain to someone exact tips to get a 240-260 bc the info. is so ingrained in their heads, it's sometimes hard for them to remember if that info was due to brute studying from review books vs. something they learned and stored from classes. After all, there are questions that you won't find in review books or First Aid. To get a 260 which is nearly 2 standard deviations above the mean will involve answering and getting correct the so-called "low-yield" facts - as Phloston clearly did.

 

[charju]

My point is that charju got a 245 after studying for a longer period of time - all thru out MS 2 year. Not just for 6 weeks. Six weeks is probably when he/she kicked it into high gear. There is no magic.

All your points are very valid (other than that my second year was only one semester, we are already in rotations). My advice is based on the assumption that everyone has put in their work during their basic clinical science courses. Ofcourse, everyone's baseline is still very different. Instead of expecting the same score, I think it's more realistic to focus on the study plan and expect realistic improvement.

I am an excellent standardized test taker, as I've mentioned in my OP, I used to work in the test prep industry myself. With that said, I have not honored any preclinical classes, and have been known to focus on cost and return. I like to think of myself as a high efficiency person. Not always the highest results, but definitely high incremental gains.

 

[DermViser]

All your points are very valid (other than that my second year was only one semester, we are already in rotations). My advice is based on the assumption that everyone has put in their work during their basic clinical science courses. Ofcourse, everyone's baseline is still very different. Instead of expecting the same score, I think it's more realistic to focus on the study plan and expect realistic improvement.

I am an excellent standardized test taker, as I've mentioned in my OP, I used to work in the test prep industry myself. With that said, I have not honored any preclinical classes, and have been known to focus on cost and return. I like to think of myself as a high efficiency person. Not always the highest results, but definitely high incremental gains.

Grades in preclinical courses on professor-made exams is not necessarily correlative with actual learning of basic science for a standardized exam. It just means that you aced being able to ingrain your professor's powerpoints and what he/she thought was important (which frequently is useless for Step 1).

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/step-1-as-an-iq-test.257872/

http://whatshouldwecallmedschool.tumblr.com/post/79993459706/how-nbme-questions-are-written

 

[lllTRAUMADOClll]

Charju,
Thank you for your post. It hit home.
May we ask for a breakdown of your daily schedule ?
like how many hours a day did you study and the breakdown between Uworld and reading pathoma/FA ?
Thanks

 

[Polymyxin]

Charju,
Thank you for your post. It hit home.
May we ask for a breakdown of your daily schedule ?
like how many hours a day did you study and the breakdown between Uworld and reading pathoma/FA ?
Thanks

That would be helpful. Thanks.

 

[charju]

That would be helpful. Thanks.

week 1: i took it really easy... just watched pathoma videos.. depending on my ability to focus i had them from 1x to 1.7x speed..Some days I would watch more than others, but my goal was to finish all the videos, i actually started some of it during winter break but did not make much progress. Honestly I would call these half days (4hrs~ish) cause I was also adjusting my jet lag back after being in Asia for 3 weeks for winter break. (25percent effort)

week 2: Skimmed FA once: i broke them down to subjects that I felt went well together. You can do them in whichever combo that makes most sense to you. cardio/renal/resp i did in one day. GI/endo one day. musculoskeletal/heme/onc one day. NS/psych 1-2days (this was hard tho... cause it was super dense) etc. I would say these took longer but I was not at full throttle yet. 6-8hrs depending on the chapter combination. (50percent effort)

week 3: began UWORLD. In the first week i started with like 2-3 46q blocks, read over the explanations, and looked them up on first aid/google if i had questions. This was how i approached all of UWORLD. I would focus on really knowing the learning objective at end of each q. These were def 8+hr days. (75percent effort)

week 4-5: ramped up # of blocks per day to 4-5blocks/day. exact same approach as week 3. During this period I took 3-4 days to skim FA a second time. These were 12+ hr days. (100% full throttle)

week 6: did UWORLD 2nd pass as described in my OP in 3 days. (day 1: 1100 q, day2 500q, day 3, 500q). Again, focusing on the learning objective was key. I was super motivated on day 1 because i just took my NBME 13 and got 228. Took it easy for the next 3 days by watching pathoma videos on subjects I thought I could use some clarification... and went over drug charts/bug charts and all sorts of charts on FA). I took the day before the exam off. (100% effort for first 3 days, 25% for last 3 days)


As you can tell.. I was able to build in a ton of repetition in a very short amount of time (namely weeks 3 and on). 2x full pass of FA not counting the infinite times I would read certain pages while going over question explanations. It required a lot of willpower to force myself to go through so many questions at such a high rate on UWORLD, but I think repetition really is KEY to committing things to memory. I understand the approach is not for anyone, which is why I would suggest instead of doing what I did week 1 (pathoma), shift that week into weeks 3-5 to give yourself more time with doing questions.

some people like more time but doing less everyday. I prefer to go full throttle in a short time period and get it over with.

Something that may also be worth mentioning is that I regularly went to the gym 4-5x a week throughout this whole process. It was my 30min-1hr excuse to get away from books.

 

[Fox800]

week 6: did UWORLD 2nd pass as described in my OP in 3 days. (day 1: 1100 q, day2 500q, day 3, 500q). Again, focusing on the learning objective was key.

Holy hell.

 

[charju]

Holy hell.

hahah. Keep in mind I didn't do a clean reset but simply went back and resumed blocks and went over each question. I went backwards starting from the most recent. So the first 1100q or so were really like the ones I did in the last 5-7 days.