Doing a High Volume of Random Questions in M1 and M2 Years

[greentealeaves]

Hey guys, I spoke with a few very high scorers (270+) and a constant thread seems to be doing a high volume of questions. Given that it's impossible to know every fact tested on Step 1, at some point you have to be good at being able to draw conclusions based on basic principles that you do have. A couple people mentioned doing questions on random even in advance of having covered those subjects in class. I'm in a traditional curriculum in M1 year and I've started doing some random questions (even though I don't know much, I feel like I learn a lot by doing this). What do you think about this strategy? Trying to use what knowledge you do have to make educated guesses on a wide variety of questions and then afterwards plugging your holes by using fundamental resources such as Wikipedia, UpToDate, and the Amboss library. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

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[deweystrontium]

I don't really understand how one can do this without feeling disheartened. I would at least try to mature a significant chunk of zanki (70% or more) before attempting practice questions. I just don't see how this is beneficial when one needs to develop a sound core knowledge base within the first two years.

EDIT: I did also speak with some high scorers who were my upperclassmen who do agree with the fact that QBanks are a must. But they also stressed how it's more important to learn things properly the first time round during clinical years. The general consensus was that learning something properly saved so much time and stress from having to do content "relearning" during/near dedicated period. Almost every upperclassmen mentioned regret about not starting spaced-repetition earlier (with the exclusion of the more traditional learners) to ingrain more content into their heads.

 

[Goro]

Hey guys, I spoke with a few very high scorers (270+) and a constant thread seems to be doing a high volume of questions. Given that it's impossible to know every fact tested on Step 1, at some point you have to be good at being able to draw conclusions based on basic principles that you do have. A couple people mentioned doing questions on random even in advance of having covered those subjects in class. I'm in a traditional curriculum in M1 year and I've started doing some random questions (even though I don't know much, I feel like I learn a lot by doing this). What do you think about this strategy? Trying to use what knowledge you do have to make educated guesses on a wide variety of questions and then afterwards plugging your holes by using fundamental resources such as Wikipedia, UpToDate, and the Amboss library. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

I'm a firm believer that the more practice questions you do, the better.

A fair number of clinical review articles have GME continuing education credit questions att he end. Al though these are over my head, they still impress me as something that is in the ballpark for a good M2/OMS2.