david letterman's top 10 review books for step 1

[xylemera]

Hey everyone,

I will be a second year in the fall, and I have been reading most of the threads on this forum religiously to get a sense of how to study for the "beast" next summer. I am particularly interested in the opinions of people who have just finished taking Step 1. I know this topic must have been beaten to death already in in bits and pieces scattered over a lot of different threads, but I (and future second years) want a central thread to refer to for future reference.

Anyways, my question is if you could only choose a maximum of 10 books/study aids for Step 1 prep, what would they be? I'm looking for the highest yield possible obviously.

If you could rank the choices (and perhaps assign high-yield utility points to each out of a total of a hundred points, with the best book/study aid receiving the highest number of utility points), I would very much appreciate it. Congrats to everyone who just finished taking Step 1.

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[newbie5]

10. All the other books
9. Robbins (best book ever but 1100 pages = low yield)
8. Kaplan notes
7. High yield series (molecular, anatomy, neuro, embryology)
6. BRS series (path, physio)
5. NMS questions
4. Q-bank
3. Boards and Wards
2. First Aid 2004
1. Your first 2 years in med school

 

[14022]

1) First Aid (especially for pharm, micro, anatomy, biochem and behavioral science)
2) Q-bank
3) BRS Path
4) BRS Phys
5) NMS Question book

these 5 are all i really used....i looked through high yield gross anatomy, high yield neuroanatomy, and high yield biochem but didnt spend more than a few hours on each book....i also used microbes made ridiculously simple as a reference but did not read it cover to cover

make sure you get first aid and buy it new since you will fill it up with info from all your other resources...and get the most recent addition as well

 

[xylemera]

I was wondering which book is better for behaviorial science. I know both are written by the same author, yet BRS is quite a bit longer than HY. I heard that HY provides more bang for the buck, yet it doesn't have any of the questions BRS does. I guess what I am asking is if HY behaviorial science is sufficient for Step 1 purposes, or should I use BRS if I have the time.

 

[Mirror Form]

use HY for behavioral sciences. You'll get plenty of questions when doing q-bank.

 

[newbie5]

i would agree, HY is compact plus BRS questions are not as great as Q bank questions

 

[Sprockette]

Honorable mention: Lippincott Pharm, Underground Clinical Vignettes, Q Book, Netter

10. HY Cell and Molec Bio (i didn't use it but wish i had, although it STILL would not have helped for many of the ridiculous cell and molec questions i had on my test - the only way i would have gotten those would have been to go back and reread 8 months of CMB notes from first year)
9. The Robbins question book - helps turn path questions into a drill
8. Lippincott Biochem
7. HY Embryo / HY Gross anatomy / HY Neuroanatomy
6. Clinical Micro made ridiculously simple
5. HY Behav Sci (go with this over BRS - it's short and easy to read.)
4. BRS Phys
3. Q Bank
2. BRS Path
1. First Aid

Obviously, this is just what worked for me, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, don't bother asking what my score was b/c I don't know and I'm not going to post it when I get it. Good luck!

 

[trouta]

10. HY Embryo
9. HY Anatomy
8. Qbook - good supplement to Qbank
7. HY Neuro
6. HY Micro (cant stand Ridiculously Simple)
5. HY Biochem
4. BRS Behavioral Science
3. BRS Physiology (FA doest have enough of this)
2. First Aid (You have got to know this in and out before messing w/ other books)
1. First Aid

But... this being said I would avoid acquiring too many resources. I made this mistake and it cost me in terms of mastering one source (FIRST AID!!!). I just knew some from lots of sources.