Advice on Step 1 preparation

[Aconitase]

Hi everyone!

I am new to this forum, so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong area! I have begun my board studying now. I am in my last term of 2nd year and plan on taking the test in mid or late October. The date will be decided based on how I score on the comprehensive exam my school offers at the end of the term. I am doing one block of Kaplan Qbank a day, 46 questions, random, timed, not on tutor mode. So far I have done 3 blocks of Qs and my scores have been erratic. I scored 43% on one day, 60% the next, and 43% again today. The diagnostic I took before all of this gave me a score of 67%. In addition to all of this, I am doing 2 hours of DIT a day, but I am moving very slowly through it (only on day 2, finishing the second hour). Anyways, after doing 3 blocks so far, I just wanted to know if I am approaching the Kaplan Qbank effectively as a study tool. I chose to do the questions at random and on a timed mode because that is how they will be offered on the real test. I review the answers the following day after I have taken a block and spend a good chunk of time going over both correct and incorrect answers. Anyways, I didn't want to continue doing Qbank questions the wrong way and end up wasting this resource. Any suggestions on how I should structure my studying would be helpful. Thank you for taking the time to read this

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[Go Ducks]

You should post this in the STEP 1 forum section

I am doing UWorld. I'm half way through and my scores are still erratic, so don't worry too much about being erratic on your first three.

 

[HelpPleaseMD]

Hi everyone!

I am new to this forum, so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong area! I have begun my board studying now. I am in my last term of 2nd year and plan on taking the test in mid or late October. The date will be decided based on how I score on the comprehensive exam my school offers at the end of the term. I am doing one block of Kaplan Qbank a day, 46 questions, random, timed, not on tutor mode. So far I have done 3 blocks of Qs and my scores have been erratic. I scored 43% on one day, 60% the next, and 43% again today. The diagnostic I took before all of this gave me a score of 67%. In addition to all of this, I am doing 2 hours of DIT a day, but I am moving very slowly through it (only on day 2, finishing the second hour). Anyways, after doing 3 blocks so far, I just wanted to know if I am approaching the Kaplan Qbank effectively as a study tool. I chose to do the questions at random and on a timed mode because that is how they will be offered on the real test. I review the answers the following day after I have taken a block and spend a good chunk of time going over both correct and incorrect answers. Anyways, I didn't want to continue doing Qbank questions the wrong way and end up wasting this resource. Any suggestions on how I should structure my studying would be helpful. Thank you for taking the time to read this

Since you have quite a bit of time before your boards... I would recommend you to go over DIT/FA first before you do the questions. That way when you do a question you will better understand why you got the question wrong. 1 month review. 1 1/2 month question bank. 1/2 month review. then take the test

 

[Instatewaiter]

Since you have quite a bit of time before your boards... I would recommend you to go over DIT/FA first before you do the questions. That way when you do a question you will better understand why you got the question wrong. 1 month review. 1 1/2 month question bank. 1/2 month review. then take the test

Not good advice for a bunch of reasons. Do as many questions as you can and start them as soon as you start sudying. Also only it is pretty rareto get that much time to study

 

[235009]

Hi everyone!

I am new to this forum, so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong area! I have begun my board studying now. I am in my last term of 2nd year and plan on taking the test in mid or late October. The date will be decided based on how I score on the comprehensive exam my school offers at the end of the term. I am doing one block of Kaplan Qbank a day, 46 questions, random, timed, not on tutor mode. So far I have done 3 blocks of Qs and my scores have been erratic. I scored 43% on one day, 60% the next, and 43% again today. The diagnostic I took before all of this gave me a score of 67%. In addition to all of this, I am doing 2 hours of DIT a day, but I am moving very slowly through it (only on day 2, finishing the second hour). Anyways, after doing 3 blocks so far, I just wanted to know if I am approaching the Kaplan Qbank effectively as a study tool. I chose to do the questions at random and on a timed mode because that is how they will be offered on the real test. I review the answers the following day after I have taken a block and spend a good chunk of time going over both correct and incorrect answers. Anyways, I didn't want to continue doing Qbank questions the wrong way and end up wasting this resource. Any suggestions on how I should structure my studying would be helpful. Thank you for taking the time to read this

you're not approaching the qbank efficiently or effectively. the qbank is there for you to learn from. you're not learning anything by going through 46 questions in a timed block on subjects you obviously don't know yet and then reading the answers the next day when you don't remember what your thought process was.

at this point in your studying you should approach questions systematically. do the topic you learned in DIT that day on untimed tutor mode. that way you'll see whether the info actually stuck. The next day you tackle a new subject. Once you get through all the topics once you can do mixed question sets but always keep it on untimed tutor mode! the qbank is NOT meant to test your knowledge! it is meant to be an active learning tool where you think about the question, give an answer and then read the explanation whether or not you got the question wrong! The explanation usually contains additional information and may at times reveal that you got the question right for the wrong reasons so the most important thing about doing qbank questions is reading the explanation immediately after you do the question.

 

[Valadi]

you're not approaching the qbank efficiently or effectively. the qbank is there for you to learn from. you're not learning anything by going through 46 questions in a timed block on subjects you obviously don't know yet and then reading the answers the next day when you don't remember what your thought process was.

at this point in your studying you should approach questions systematically. do the topic you learned in DIT that day on untimed tutor mode. that way you'll see whether the info actually stuck. The next day you tackle a new subject. Once you get through all the topics once you can do mixed question sets but always keep it on untimed tutor mode! the qbank is NOT meant to test your knowledge! it is meant to be an active learning tool where you think about the question, give an answer and then read the explanation whether or not you got the question wrong! The explanation usually contains additional information and may at times reveal that you got the question right for the wrong reasons so the most important thing about doing qbank questions is reading the explanation immediately after you do the question.

I 100% with this.

If you finish kaplan qbank before October (as I expect you would) then pick up world and start going through that.

 

[Hughz]

I just started my revisions
I started with FA microbiology and immunology.

I can see here you are talking about DIT, do you mean Doctors in training online course for $799? sorry if this sounds daft but leave it to my naivity.

I was planning to do First Aid (FA) and then USMLE world?

What will I achieve if I shift towards DIT Doctors in training course as you explained above?

May I thank all of you in advance for any clarification on this.

BW