Can u study too long for this test?

[aesop]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Need some help. So I took off my first rotation of 3rd year to study longer for step I and have been studying pretty hard now for about 2 months. I'm shooting for 240 (not sure if I'll get there) and supposed to take step 1 in a week. Took NBME 1 (a month ago)- 232 and NBME 2 (2 weeks) ago- 228. In USMLE world my scores have sig. increased over last week (averaging 75%), with a couple of 80s and a textbook throwing 60 every so often. I may have the opportunity to bump my test back 1 more week and will still have month vacation after. Is there anyone here who thinks an extra week wouldn't have helped or maybe even would have hurt their score (due to burn out, forgetting old material, psychotic break)? Anybody in a similar situation who did or didn't take extra time?

 

[Law2Doc]

So I took off my first rotation of 3rd year to study longer for step I and have been studying pretty hard now for about 2 months. I'm shooting for 240 (not sure if I'll get there) and supposed to take step 1 in a week. Took NBME 1 (a month ago)- 232 and NBME 2 (2 weeks) ago- 228. In USMLE world for last week averaging 75%, with a couple of 80s and a textbook throwing 60 every so often. I may have the opportunity to bump my test back 1 more week and will still have month vacation after. Is there anyone here who thinks an extra week wouldn't have helped or maybe even would have hurt their score (due to burn out, forgetting old material, psychotic break)? Anybody in a similar situation who didn't take extra time? All thoughts are appreciated.

I do. If you start too early, you will definitely notice that you no longer remember a lot of what you covered in your first week or two. Everyone has an optimum time. There is a too short and a too long.

 

[Roy7]

Need some help. So I took off my first rotation of 3rd year to study longer for step I and have been studying pretty hard now for about 2 months. I'm shooting for 240 (not sure if I'll get there) and supposed to take step 1 in a week. Took NBME 1 (a month ago)- 232 and NBME 2 (2 weeks) ago- 228. In USMLE world my scores have sig. increased over last week (averaging 75%), with a couple of 80s and a textbook throwing 60 every so often. I may have the opportunity to bump my test back 1 more week and will still have month vacation after. Is there anyone here who thinks an extra week wouldn't have helped or maybe even would have hurt their score (due to burn out, forgetting old material, psychotic break)? Anybody in a similar situation who did or didn't take extra time?

I studied for around 8 weeks hard, and didnt burn out at all. However, I did feel that my last week was pretty much useless in that all the "extra material" I tried to review wasnt on my test, and the rereading of first aid probably didnt make a difference.

I really think it's a personal decision. During my last week I had the option to push it back 1 week to - but I was just sick of studying and had nothing left to review.

 

[Taurus]

Law of diminishing returns...

 

[Scaredshizzles]

But law of diminishing returns doesn't equal negative returns, unless you take into consideration you are losing vaction time, etc. If you study for a long period, then you definitely want to go over the early stuff you studied a second time...but the second time will be much easier than the first. I can't see how waiting would hurt your score though if you use that extra time to study. If someone tells you pushing it back would hurt your score if someone tells you that you should never study more than 4 weeks, they are probably full of it and would rather you don't do well/better than them.

 

[Roy7]

If someone tells you pushing it back would hurt your score if someone tells you that you should never study more than 4 weeks, they are probably full of it and would rather you don't do well/better than them.

Sooooooooooooooooooo true, half the people here, and in the class above me kept on saying "4 weeks, first aid, prayer, and kaplan Qbank is all you need for 270".

That being said, I did feel that the further I got away from class, I forgot some level of the detail of my core subjects that I had learned during school and had a more superficial knowledge of reviewbooks from the past 6 weeks.

 

[Scaredshizzles]

Yea, exactly....For some people First Aid is enough because they were really good students in med school and still remember most stuff. But you got to do what works for you in the end. Personally I didn't bother with goljan because path was the only course I really liked during med school and I can still remember some minute details from the pages of Robbins or class lecture notes even though I took it several months ago. But for someone who didn't enjoy path and who cracked more sliced section slides than they looked at, that plan isn't going to work so well.

 

[Law2Doc]

if someone tells you that you should never study more than 4 weeks, they are probably full of it and would rather you don't do well/better than them.

I'm not sure if I would put 4 weeks as the mark, but I can tell you that the advisors at some med schools precisely do caution that if you block off too much time for studying, you run the risk of burnout, forgetting the early stuff, and forgetting more of what you just covered in second year. I assume they wouldn't say this without some data to back it up -- they have an incentive and no down side to have their students work harder, not less. It's also hard to maintain a good intensity if you give yourself too long a time frame. So they recommend not starting too early. As I said before there is probably an optimum time for each person, and there is going to be a point where you lose more than you retain.

 

[Scaredshizzles]

I think people say a lot of things without data to back it up because it appeals to their common sense. There is no question you start forgetting the early stuff you studied, but it is easy to regain that information with quick review. Moreover, step 1 doesn't tend to be overly heavy on details, and our minds tend to be pretty good at deleting less important information first. Concepts are usually easier to retain for longer periods.

And there is also such a thing as burn out from studying on any given day. If you're studying like 12 hours a day or more, by the end your mind is just too bored/burnt out to retain much. So it kind of works both ways. There might be a cut off, but I think it is considerably more than 4 weeks. Just think how hard residents work, yet they only mess up and kill well patients occasionally...🙂

 

[Law2Doc]

Just think how hard residents work, yet they only mess up and kill well patients occasionally...

Well, the longer the residents are out of school the more they rely on underlings to look things up for them. I'm not sure it's a good example because lots of people use pda's, uptodate and other resources rather than carry around long ago learned details in their heads. If you could do this on the boards life would be very different.

 

[SoCuteMD]

I think people say a lot of things without data to back it up because it appeals to their common sense. There is no question you start forgetting the early stuff you studied, but it is easy to regain that information with quick review. Moreover, step 1 doesn't tend to be overly heavy on details, and our minds tend to be pretty good at deleting less important information first. Concepts are usually easier to retain for longer periods.

And there is also such a thing as burn out from studying on any given day. If you're studying like 12 hours a day or more, by the end your mind is just too bored/burnt out to retain much. So it kind of works both ways. There might be a cut off, but I think it is considerably more than 4 weeks. Just think how hard residents work, yet they only mess up and kill well patients occasionally...🙂

I have to disagree with you. You reach a point of diminishing returns where there's only so much you can learn to imporve your score. You do forget details, and eventually you find that you are spending all of your time "reviewing" material you've already "studied" so you are just sort of treading water - not getting anywhere.

 

[Roy7]

I have to disagree with you. You reach a point of diminishing returns where there's only so much you can learn to imporve your score. You do forget details, and eventually you find that you are spending all of your time "reviewing" material you've already "studied" so you are just sort of treading water - not getting anywhere.

Yeah, but only you know when you've mastered all the subjects well enough to not cover new material.

Like if I had an extra month I would have completely changed my schedule to esure I'd covered the HY Anatomy book and more molecular, then had ample time to refresh anything.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

After taking the test, I was glad I hadn't studied any more.

For my "I have no idea" questions, I don't feel studying for another week, or even another month would have helped me get them. They were so far out or specific I doubt I would have met them.

However, I know the further out I got the chance of me missing easy inane questions just because of mental burn out and being very far out from the time I first studied it.

 

[IzzyMD09]

i love you guys and SDN its so great

im going to start coming here with my personal problems

soooo helpful

if i ever make it big i am donating my organs to SDN

izzy
😀

p.s. I am using what defense mechanism to keep myself from freaking out on the boards in 13 days?