8 weeks out, Step 1 study schedule/strategy

[minwoo]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Definitely starting to feel my anxiety level escalate. I actually wake up in the mornings a bit tachycardic..

2nd year student at a lower-tier US MD school. I'm registered for the Step 1 on June 15. My last day of class is officially on May 9 and during the next ~3 weeks I still have 3 more course exams to get through and 3 NBME exams on top of that (Behavioral Sciences, Pathology, Pharmacology). So in reality, I'll have ~5 weeks of true dedicated study time after the semester ends.

I purchased Rx and UWorld in the beginning of this semester. The plan was to do Rx during the school year to get First Aid down and prepare for Step 1 early. This didn't work out as I just could not let go of school grades and kept going for those A's (why can't our school just be P/F?!) and focused more on studying the course material vs going through the qbanks. I have done roughly 10% of the Rx Qbank questions as of today. Pitiful, I know. I started doing random, timed mode last week on Rx and for the last 3 sets I'm averaging around 57%..very disappointing.

I'm aiming for 240+

I know I could have done alot of things differently and better but what's done is done, and I really want to make these last 8 weeks count. My plan as of now is to dump Rx and start UWorld this week. I'll probably only be able to do 1 block (of 46 Q's) every 2 days since I still have to keep up with class. But the goal is to make sure I get through UWorld at least twice. Looks like it's about 48 sets of 46 Qs (2200 questions total). When the dedicated study period starts, I can see myself doing a max of 2 sets per day since it takes me about 4-5 hours just to review and annotate from a set of questions (is this normal??) with the rest of the time allotted to reading FA/reviewing.

I think Pholston (dude got 260+) recommended doing a first pass on timed, random and then doing the 2nd pass on tutor mode for UWorld. Is that pretty standard?

Also, I've never actually sat down and read FA page by page but I have the majority of the pages in there annotated...does this count as a first pass? I want to try to get 3 passes at FA as that seems to be the magic number for those who did well at my school.

Any advice or previous experiences you can share to help optimally maximize these last 8 weeks are welcome and appreciated!

 

[loveoforganic2]

PM me you're email and I'll send you the 8 week study plan I came up with for myself. Probably don't want to use it exactly as is, since it's tailored for me, but might inspire your own ideas

Edit: a few people have already asked for this, so I'll just go ahead and put it on here.

Couple notes about the plan - I've done various things to prep before this 8 weeks, but particularly of note are that I'll have done 3 blocks of UWorld (so the numbers to complete UW won't quite add up in the schedule) and I'll have done a pass of FA (thus the 1st time through FA being labeled as "FA - Second pass".

The two flex days at the end are basically days to use as I want (e.g. if I don't happen to finish a scheduled days work or if I need another break day). The NBME ppt listed at the end of the schedule is a compilation of screen shots of wrong answers on the NBME's that I'll make as I take them (and review all of them on that day)

 

[redpanda]

I'm just speaking from my own experience, but spending 4-5 h total to do and review 2 x 46 questions is a huge amount of time. When it comes to reading explanations, if I got the question correct, I skimmed the explanations quickly to make sure there was no information I hadn't seen before and moved on. If I got the question wrong, I read the correct answer choice explanation in depth, annotated a small amt in First Aid (read: not the entire three bloody paragraphs), and then read my wrong answer choice explanation to see why that was wrong. This probably took under ~3 h.

 

[oceanillusion42]

I'm not as knowledgeable as others on here... in fact, my goal score is only a 230 (I'm a DO student hoping to match into an allopathic EM program and I was trying to be realistic with myself as far as setting a score goal), but some things that have worked for me:

I've stuck to the mantra that all you need to do well is pathoma, FA, and Uworld. I did one pass of FA and Pathoma and then took a UWSA and got a 221 (I know thats not good by SDN standards, but seeing as how my goal was 230 and I still have 8 weeks left, I was happy). I too have 8 weeks left to test day, and during those 8 weeks I plan to do 2 more passes of FA and one more trip thru pathoma lectures. I plan to focus on more and more details with each pass thru FA (I started my first pass by trying to focus on the big picture). I also plan on doing as many Uworld questions as I can... I do a fair amount now, but I'm still in school, so i will greatly increase the number once I finish in May. I'm also going to do the second UWSA and 1-2 NBMEs.

My point here is that I think your focus should be on first aid and U world questions. If you dont know all of the information in first aid, you're giving up points that you could have earned. So I'd focus on going thru FA page by page and knowing all of that stuff cold.

It isn't over once you know all of that info tho. Unless you become a savvy test-taker, the literal knowledge won't be conveyed in your score. The only way to become a better test taker is to do a ton of questions. Pick out patterns in the questions that you see (i.e. recurrent Neisseria infections is always gonna be failure to form MAC). Ask yourself what they're trying to get out of you with this question, etc.

I'm not at the top of my class, I'm above average, but certainly not the smartest, yet I have a better Uworld % than some of my friends who honor their classes. I believe that boards really tests how well you can prepare for boards, and not your knowledge from medical school. You have to play the game and prep my memorizing FA and doing repetitive questions. 8 weeks is a lot of time, I'm sure you can reach your goal.

Others feel free to correct me or add your own 2 cents, thats just my take.