USMLE DITers Post-exam Poll: How helpful was DIT for Step 1?

[inanevida]

Hey guys,

For people who have not taken the exam yet (like me), DIT is a very time-consuming course and is also a "gamble" because the main course is meant to be started 45 days or less before the exam. So we have to think twice before spending time on this resource, because we could instead spend it towards another Qbank (for ex.).

I'm making a poll for people who have taken the exam to look back and respond on how helpful DIT actually was. Your guys' input will really help us make this important decision. Please respond and reply with any details that will guide us!

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[sliceofbread136]

What I did was watch it before my dedicated study time. It definitely helped, but I'm not sure if just reading FA would have been more efficient... My guess is that DIT is good if you find yourself reading FA and not understanding a lot of the material. Having someone explain it to you is helpful in that case.

 

[Mabus3]

I was using DIT at 7 weeks out. Got half way thru and stopped. I felt like when they would go over stuff I was already comfortable with, I was wasting my time. Maybe if I would gave done it in January or something as more of a foundation it would have helped more. Granted for the entire first 2 years I only used anki to study. No notes, no power points, no study guides. Just anki. So I was used to learning from doing questions so I elected to do another pass of uworld, rx, and FA in lieu of DIT. Hope that helps

 

[inanevida]

I was using DIT at 7 weeks out. Got half way thru and stopped. I felt like when they would go over stuff I was already comfortable with, I was wasting my time. Maybe if I would gave done it in January or something as more of a foundation it would have helped more. Granted for the entire first 2 years I only used anki to study. No notes, no power points, no study guides. Just anki. So I was used to learning from doing questions so I elected to do another pass of uworld, rx, and FA in lieu of DIT. Hope that helps

Thanks buddy, that does help. Can you clarify - you made a second pass of Rx? I was considering it because I think they have some good questions despite it being not as acclaimed as Uworld; plus it's another chance to review first Aid. Did doing a 2nd pass of Rx help? I was considering doing only the marked questions towards the end of my prep.

 

[Mabus3]

Thanks buddy, that does help. Can you clarify - you made a second pass of Rx? I was considering it because I think they have some good questions despite it being not as acclaimed as Uworld; plus it's another chance to review first Aid. Did doing a 2nd pass of Rx help? I was considering doing only the marked questions towards the end of my prep.

So I didn't do like a complete second pass of rx, I would just supplement about 80-100 questions on top of the 3-4 blocks of uworld questions i was doing. Basically I used the time i would have been spending on DIT and did it with Rx. And by Rx I mean I would go through the questions with FA opened and open to w/e page pertained to that question and I would read that page and anything else that applied. Especially if I chose the wrong answer, I would read about the correct one and read about "my wrong one". That's how I actually did my second pass of FA, I would read based off of the questions. I always tried to read at least 1-3 extra pages, especially if there were a lot of pictures. Or like if the questions was painting a patient with a meningioma and the correct answer had something to do with a histological finding like a psammoma body, I would look up all the histology charactersitics for various brain tumors and tumors that had psammoma bodies (ie papillary carcinoma of the thyroid). So it was time consuming but it was directed at FA all while doing practice questions. I always tried to make time for Uworld tho. There were at least 2 questions that were verbatim on my USMLE that was on uworld.

Hope that helps

 

[inanevida]

Also guys, I found an interesting research study done on question bank vs. review materials; though the study is old and has many limitations (only 1 med school was studied), they suggest that question banks are the answer! I didn't know where to share this article, so I'm posting it on my own thread:

http://www.slideshare.net/doctorneel1/data-are-questions-the-answer

 

[EmergDoc2B]

I used DIT after I was burned out on reading FA. I finished it in roughly 2months. Im not sure it was all that great. I took comlex yesterday and didnt find myself thinking DIT saved my skin / helped / ect. However reading the Goljan audio transcript got me a few questions just from memorizing some of his facts. If you look at cost vs benefit alone I dont see it as worth the 800 dollars. The good side is I slogged through stuff I may have just skimmed though.

 

[stevesteve123]

DIT is garbage (imo, dont get mad)

pros: free catered lunch during their MANY visits to our school and sometimes a free t-shirt

cons: waste of $ and spam email from them every other day

 

[inanevida]

DIT is garbage (imo, dont get mad)

pros: free catered lunch during their MANY visits to our school and sometimes a free t-shirt

cons: waste of $ and spam email from them every other day

Did you actually take their course?

 

[StepCrunchTime]

DIT is a huge time sink

Even listening to the videos at 1.5x and taking notes, it was taking forever

I should have spent that time running thru a QBank

 

[hallowmann]

Everything on my exam was in DIT in one form or another. Do it close to your exam, but get through it fast (2-3wks) while annotating into FA (I didn't use their book) and doing at least 2 blocks of uworld a day. Leave at least a week left to review, if not more. I couldn't sit and read through FA bullet points all day, so I needed something like DIT to force me through it all.

Ultimately, it really comes down to your studying style. Find something that teaches you in a way that makes you remember the material. Everyone is different, and DIT is time consuming.

 

[seminoma]

Did it for 6 days. Total waste.