Am I overdoing PREP questions?

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zeppelinpage4

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Starting to hunker down and settle into a study plan to take the test this coming Fall. I have a lot of time but I'm starting my first attending job in January and expect to be busy but despite some long days and a busy call schedule, will hopefully still have around 9 days off each month and most evenings.

I took advice from this forum and will surely do PREP, and Medstudy questions. Deciding if I'll read the Medstudy books or PBR but will try to get in one major content source.

My question is, I started PREP questions this past month and I'm worried I'm taking too much time to do them. I heard they're overly detailed and may not be pertinent for passing purposes but I am also a weak test taker with really poor in service scores. So I feel like I need to go the extra mile and not skim anything over.

My current approach, is to answer the question (1 minute), read the PEARLS and full explanation (5-10 min) and then write down notes (5 min) on those explanations on a word document which I'm organizing by topic (e.g. infectious disease, cardio, endocrine etc,). It takes 10-20 minute per question doing this but I figure this way I retain the info a bit better versus forgetting the explanation in a few days and I can have a nice summary of all the prep info organized by topic for me to refer back to closer to the test. It's what I did for my Step 1/2/3 studying with USMLE world but PREP is obviously not as high yield for the test so this could all be massive waste of time. Leaving me less time to cover other more relevant sources like MedStudy.

Related to that, I just started reading MedStudy but I feel like I'm not retaining any of it, it's just so dense. I'm worried I'll forget 90% of this info by next Fall. Did you guys take detailed notes on the MedStudy books or any of the sources? Or just read through everything once and focus on repetition/seeing the information multiple times over several sources and trusting it'll stick?
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PREP questions are good for content, not necessarily for practicing the format of the boards themselves. The actual boards have much shorter question stems and thus don't take as long to do. But the information in PREP questions (particularly the explanations) is great and can help you cover a lot of material.

So you're probably fine.
 
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I completed all 6 years of PREP while in residency. They were great for my base knowledge, but they are not representative at all of the Boards experience. I'm still glad I did them, but I wouldn't worry too much about using these for studying purposes. I still highly recommend the MedStudy questions!
 
Apologies for the late reply! Been a busy week with completing my onboarding.
SurfingDoctor said:
You can never do too many PREP questions.
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Thanks, okay that's reassuring to knw my efforts are at least going in the right direction.
mvenus929 said:
PREP questions are good for content, not necessarily for practicing the format of the boards themselves. The actual boards have much shorter question stems and thus don't take as long to do. But the information in PREP questions (particularly the explanations) is great and can help you cover a lot of material.

So you're probably fine.
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Okay good, yeah that's exactly what I am hoping to use PREP for. I need a good content review as I feel deficient in my basic knowledge base.
For content review, is pedialink PREP for 3 years as good as the MedStudy or PBR books? I could read those instead, but I feel like I learn better from PREP and going through their explanations versus reading a text book which feels very passive.
FrkyBgStok said:
Do what works for you. If it’s working, continue. As long as you have enough actual time to get through them, continue it.
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Thanks, will definitely make note of the time. As of now I should be able to cover it, but I'll see how busy my job actually ends up being. In which case I may need to reevaluate and take a new approach.
BabyDoc86 said:
I completed all 6 years of PREP while in residency. They were great for my base knowledge, but they are not representative at all of the Boards experience. I'm still glad I did them, but I wouldn't worry too much about using these for studying purposes. I still highly recommend the MedStudy questions!
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Will do! There's 2000 MedStudy questions right? How long did it take to get through all of them? I will definitely make sure to schedule time in to complete MedStudy questions before my test date.
 
zeppelinpage4 said:
Okay good, yeah that's exactly what I am hoping to use PREP for. I need a good content review as I feel deficient in my basic knowledge base.
For content review, is pedialink PREP for 3 years as good as the MedStudy or PBR books? I could read those instead, but I feel like I learn better from PREP and going through their explanations versus reading a text book which feels very passive.
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I used both, and MedStudy videos. I think it depends on how you use them and how you study. Reading books and summarizing information works well for me.
 
mvenus929 said:
I used both, and MedStudy videos. I think it depends on how you use them and how you study. Reading books and summarizing information works well for me.
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I see, I’ll give the MedStudy books another try. I have them, but i end up highlighting and writing everything when I try to summarize, but I have to work on that.
 
I took a month to get through all of the MedStudy questions. I would read the MedStudy chapter, do all of those questions, and then purge the high points onto my Flashcards, and review them frequently.
 
How many hours a day did you spend? Trying to figure out scheduling.....
 
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