This thread was sort of necro-bumped, lol. I guess I could give my input since I started this thread over 2 years ago...
I ended up finishing MS1 without failing anything, and getting through MS2 with mostly Honors and several High Passes. The most helpful thing I did was to write my own notes based on the following rules:
(1) Do NOT write down something you already know, it is just a waste of time.
(2) Condense in a 10:1 or 20:1 ratio. This depends on how large you write. I write pretty small, so I would go through my course books or textbooks and write 1 college-ruled page of notes for every 20 pages of text, so I'd have ~20 pages of notes to review from a 400 page coursebook. It seems like it is not enough, but it WILL be enough if you only write what you know you really NEED to see again before the test.
(3) If using coursebooks as the primary source of info, also watch lecture videos at 2-3x and be sure you didn't miss extra info or hints of what will be tested.
For Step 1, I studied for 3.5 weeks and I made 1 pass through FA really slowly while annotating, did all the UW questions with each section (tutor mode, untimed, not random). Made a 2nd pass through ID and biochem sections; didn't have time to review anything else or go over my incorrect UW questions. Scored 250's.
For MS3 shelf exams, I've had difficulty identifying the best resources so I haven't done as well. I bombed the surgery shelf (pestana notes did not help), but have been in the 70-95th percentile on the rest of them. I think the key is just to pick something, anything, and be sure to do a little bit every day.
