Originally posted by sunny9505:
•Old Man Dave,
How did you divide your time between systems/subjects? Did you have a schedule prior to starting or just see how things went with each topic? And do you know what differences there are between the COMLEX and the USMLE? Thanks for your help.•••
I did not treat/review for them separately...it wasn't necessary. Of the books I mentioned above, First Aid is more or less a subject-specific style book and Step Up is more clinical/systems based. Buzzwords is purely recall and trigger words.
Read, reread and know the materials from both First Aid and Step Up. The questions tend to resemble Step Up more -- but there are a ton of Qs that require factoid recall, like that emphasized in First Aid. So, utilize them both, extensively.
Buzzwords...my study partner and I used it for quizzing purposes only. We got together at least 2x per week and spent and hour or two opening either of the three books to a random page and asking questions. Buzzwords should NOT be used as a solo prep. BUT, knowing some buzzwords came in very handy for the vignettes. Sometimes, just do to lack of memory cells, you could narrow it down to a couple of reasonable choices -- I found I could use those buzzwords to generally pick a single answer. Or, if I was clueless on a Q, I used buzzwords to refine my best guess.
Most nearly all of the subject-specific board prep books are waaaaaay too in depth for the boards. If you spend all of your time pouring over those, your in-class grades will suffer. And, you're likely to suffer from memory block secondary to too much $hit crammed b/t your ears!
