Best way to study for step I DURING years 1 & 2???

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moca83

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I'm interested to hear opinions (or something less anecdotal, haha) on how to reinforce my potential step I topics as I go though years one and two. UWorld, other programs, etc. I appreciate any advice. Thanks.
 
Disclaimer: I am an IMG and am not too familiar with how first- and second-year medical education is carried out in the US.

I started studying for Step 1 about halfway through my second year. Like the poster above, I have heard many people talk about Gunner Training but I don't even know how it works. These are a few random tips that worked for me:
- Use First Aid as a general outline, to get a "feel" for the system/subject and to know what to focus on, preferably even before you take the course. If you can, read a bit. Simple summarized review books may serve as introductory texts (I used Secrets for Step 1, which is very very simple and lacking in information, but it gave me a base on which to start building my knowledge. There's books like first Aid Basic Sciences, and the FA Organ Systems which may serve as texts, but I don't know whether they're any good.)
- UW or Qbank may be a good investment, but these may be very expensive if you have to pay for a long subscription that will last 6-12 months, it would be great if you could start one of these early, but I don't think it's 100% necessary - you can save it for the last two months or so
- I would recommend non-online question books for practicing: Pre-Test series is really old and outdated but can be found pirated online or bought used for very cheap (a friend of mine bought like 20 books for $25 used on Amazon). First Aid has a Q&A. Kaplan has a Qbook. Lange Case Files has select cases with discussion and a couple of questions for each. Stuff like that. All you need is something you can start practicing on and that you can use for general studying before you pay for a "real" question bank
- When you finish a particular topic/system/subject, go over First Aid again as a final review, then do as many questions as you can, this will help "seal" the information.
- Study for your classes and seriously try and do well. My classes were terrible but I still paid attention and studied for my tests (and later on in my clinical years, really put effort into my rotations). This helped me a lot, see the next point:
- Build a good foundation of medical knowledge - read articles, stay up to date on medical news, look up EVERYTHING you don't know, even things you hear on House/Grey's Anatomy/Scrubs if you watch any of that stuff (wikipedia is actually really good for quickly looking up diseases/drugs).

For example, I did all this for my patho courses in my second year and I barely had to study ANY patho for Step 1 (this was two years ago and I took my test last week)

Your mileage may vary and like I said I don't really know what most US students do, but in short - study a lot, do questions, expose yourself to Step 1 level material early and you'll do well and won't have to study that much when test time comes. If you do it just right, all you'll have to do is skim First Aid and do many many questions.

Hope this helps and good luck!
 
Thanks for the replies everyone! So I guess I will look into Gunner Training for starters. 👍

And thanks quique2 for the detailed reply!!
 
Besides the Qbank to do with second year (I'd recommend it and they have this whole year for 199 deal). I also do Webpath from Utah's SOM website and i LOVE the robbins review question book. If you are doing systems I would recommend doing both before each exam - that will hammer pathology into your head. Like the previous poster said it seems to really help to learn the material as well as you can and then just hammer out questions - as you jump from qbank to qbank you will see different variations on the same question. I'd argue this has the added benefit of making you a better test taker as well.
 
Besides the Qbank to do with second year (I'd recommend it and they have this whole year for 199 deal). I also do Webpath from Utah's SOM website and i LOVE the robbins review question book. If you are doing systems I would recommend doing both before each exam - that will hammer pathology into your head. Like the previous poster said it seems to really help to learn the material as well as you can and then just hammer out questions - as you jump from qbank to qbank you will see different variations on the same question. I'd argue this has the added benefit of making you a better test taker as well.

Do you ever feel the WebPath (Utah) and Robbins Review Question book are sometimes super detailed? They are definitely good prep for Pathology exams (organ systems), as the exams often require knowing the nuances between diagnoses. But I am just curious how the questions compare to Step 1 questions.

In my experience, the various QBank questions are not as difficult as WebPath or Robbins Review.
 
Webpath imo isn't that bad - but that is probably because i do webpath last (after qbank and robbins) for each system. After qbank (which i love - people give it a negative rap but i think it great for preparing me for my school exams - which tend to be easier) Robbins Review seems perhaps just a little tougher by the way they link certain diseases together. But i like the way robbins asks questions because i really feel like I'm getting the whole concept vs. just some knit picky detail - i think they are really good questions. Sorry if my answer seems disjointed - currently studying for my last exam before break and my brain is fried.

One point: the only qbank that i really haven't liked is USMLERx - it is great for covering first aid but some of the questions are reptitive and while uncommon- some questions are just poorly written.
 
I also really enjoyed the Webpath questions and the Robbins questions. The Webpath questions helped me a LOT for my school patho course, and they even test a few relatively simple concepts that are not typically tested on other question banks.

Now that we're on the topic of patho, personally I also used the questions at the end of each chapter of BRS Pathology, and Rapid Review Path also comes with (or used to come with) a Windows program that had questions...
 
Yes I really like WebPath too, and found those better than some of the Robbins. In any event they are all good questions... it is always good to practice with challenging/harder questions than easier questions!
 
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