Anyone have luck studying early for the boards?

[ishaninatte]

I mean, in theory it should work, but I'd like to hear what the word on the street is on using board review books during the semester in order to get a little edge come Step-1 study time. I'm giving it a try now, and I do think it does reinforce the material, but it also takes away from more focused, test-specific study time. Is it worth it? Any inspiring success stories out there? I realize it's something that's hard to quantify, so generalities are welcome.

Now I'm using BRS CTB, BRS Physiology, HY Anatomy, and I've just picked up First Aid 2005 for Biochemistry.

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[tiredmom]

The test is really skewed to second year classes. The best advice I got (and it worked very well for me) was to spend second year studying for second year... really know that material well. If you take shelf exams for path and pharm... that much better, kill 2 birds with one stone. I reviewed the first year material and 2nd year material over the month of May... tested first weekend in June. I had enough time to cover everything (make a schedule and stick with it) and enough to be sick of it the last 3 days before the test. The one thing I would have done differently would be to spend a bit before each exam for path/pharm/etc to do Qbank questions. Also, at some schools, Immuno and Microbiology are 2nd year classes, so give extra time to those topics - they were covered very heavily on my test.
Good luck!