FA/UW enough?

[usmlestep1]

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I scored a 181 on NBME 7 and have six weeks of dedicated time. Will it be enough to stick with FA and UW? I would like to get > 220. And what about taking notes from UW - if I take notes there will be enough time to go over UW once, if not then 1.5x.

 

[ArcGurren]

You should definitely take notes from UW; there's no question about that; annotating it will definitely help you. More importantly you should know WHY the answer is right/wrong as opposed to just memorizing them.

As for whether it's enough... eh. I dunno. I know people who've gone through using purely FA and UW and didn't bother with Goljan resources or anything of that sort but I'm not really sure.

I'm going through my pre-boards review right now (taking it in about 5 weeks from tomorrow!) and I'm using UW, Goljan, FA, and Costanzo (just to sort of clarify stuff I'm having trouble with). I would at the least get the Goljan high yield notes (which-don't-exist-sorry-moderators) and read them if you don't want to listen to the whole thing or dig through all of Rapid Review Path.

 

[da8s0859q]

I scored a 181 on NBME 7 and have six weeks of dedicated time. Will it be enough to stick with FA and UW? I would like to get > 220. And what about taking notes from UW - if I take notes there will be enough time to go over UW once, if not then 1.5x.

I feel like it could be enough, provided you've got a solid understanding of path. Otherwise, I'd say spend some time with Goljan like ArcGurren said. But that's just my opinion based on where I am in Step prep myself.

Also: did your school administer the CBSE, and does it correlate with the 181 you have on NBME 7? I'm trying to figure out just how well you have to do to get certain scores.

 

[genswim24]

It does depend on your background in pathology. For me, Uworld and FA have been more than enough to keep all of my practice test scores well above average.

To help my FA knowledge, I also got USMLERx. This has really hammered FA points home and has helped me much more than passively reading. I have rarely come across any questions on practice tests that have not been in FA or Uworld but are in Goljan. That is not to say I don't keep goljan close and read it when I am confused, but to read it chapter by chapter is way too low yield for me. If you listen to Goljan lectures, he states that there is a lot of info in his Rapid review that is step II related and wading through all of that information can be very time consuming.

 

[Mace1370]

I stuck with just UWORLD and Falcon and it did the job for me. I took about 4 weeks after the course and went through my books again while doing about 100-150 questions daily. One of the most important things you can do is expose yourself to as many questions as possible, so you can become familiar with all the different ways a question can be asked!

I did want to look at FirstAid but it didn't fit into my schedule at the time. Falcon did recently come out with a new module where you go through all of FirstAid in small 15-20 minute videos. I think this is a great new tool that would further solidify high yield points!! I added the link if you want to check it out!

http://www.falconreviews.com/firstaid/




Good luck!

Not using first aid sounds like terrible advice. Also, plugging a review website on an account with 3 posts is kind of suspicious.

 

[ar2388]

Not using first aid sounds like terrible advice. Also, plugging a review website on an account with 3 posts is kind of suspicious.

man we are just paranoid on here, arent we?

 

[DoctorDreamer]

See my post in the scores thread today, but I say FA and UWorld all the way. I did DIT, which helped me get through FA, but didn't add much more info that was super-helpful (I know 1 Q on the test that I got from DIT that wasn't in FA). I also listened to a lot of Goljan, but don't think it helped me much above where I was already at.

The major info is in FA and UWorld. Learn it... REALLY learn it, and you'll do well.

 

[usmlestep1]

FA + UW it is. I've been annotating UW into FA the past few days. But a block of UW takes an entire day, like literally 8 hours. Am I just extremely slow? Do you guys carefully learn all the wrong answer choices as well as the main explanation? Like for each wrong answer choice I'll try and do a complete review of that topic. So sometimes a question takes 30 minutes or more!

 

[RySerr21]

FA + UW it is. I've been annotating UW into FA the past few days. But a block of UW takes an entire day, like literally 8 hours. Am I just extremely slow? Do you guys carefully learn all the wrong answer choices as well as the main explanation? Like for each wrong answer choice I'll try and do a complete review of that topic. So sometimes a question takes 30 minutes or more!

8 hours? that seems like a terribly long time. I try to focus on the first and last paragraphs. Ill read more carefully if i get it wrong or knew that it was a lucky guess. If it was an easier question that I knew for sure ill kinda skim the first paragraph and then read the summary at the bottom. I'd say it takes me about an hour to hour and 15 to go through the answers. 8 hours seems a bit excessive. i dunno how much time you have til your test but w/ that timeline i dont see how you can do anything else but questions??

 

[DoctorDreamer]

FA + UW it is. I've been annotating UW into FA the past few days. But a block of UW takes an entire day, like literally 8 hours. Am I just extremely slow? Do you guys carefully learn all the wrong answer choices as well as the main explanation? Like for each wrong answer choice I'll try and do a complete review of that topic. So sometimes a question takes 30 minutes or more!

8 hours does seem excessive. I spent about 3 hours to do the questions (~35 minutes) and all the answers for each block. I read all the answers (except for a few I knew at the end of the bank when I was running out of time), focusing on the summary, but paying attention to the rest esp if I didn't KNOW the question and why all the wrong answers were wrong. I definitely annotated what wasn't explained in FA, but didn't spend time memorizing all the details. Know the big picture. If there are drugs that aren't in FA, put them in FA and make sure you go over FA once more time before your test if you can...

 

[usmlestep1]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I agree 8 hours is just too much. Basically it comes down to this: I have to pick either FA or UW. I can't do them both in 6 weeks (I'm a below-average student). I guess I can do half of both but that doesn't seem like a very good idea. Since I haven't looked at FA at all during classes, my gut is telling me that UW will be more productive. Obviously this is a bare-bones prep for Step 1 but I'll be very happy with the mean score.

Is there a "for dummies" type of book that I can use to supplement UW? It's gotta be something that I can spend maybe 2 hours on a day and get through completely over 6 weeks.

 

[namethatsmell]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I agree 8 hours is just too much. Basically it comes down to this: I have to pick either FA or UW. I can't do them both in 6 weeks (I'm a below-average student). I guess I can do half of both but that doesn't seem like a very good idea. Since I haven't looked at FA at all during classes, my gut is telling me that UW will be more productive. Obviously this is a bare-bones prep for Step 1 but I'll be very happy with the mean score.

Is there a "for dummies" type of book that I can use to supplement UW? It's gotta be something that I can spend maybe 2 hours on a day and get through completely over 6 weeks.

I didn't bold this stuff to be a jerk, but when you add it all up it doesn't strike me as somebody who's on the right track to get a 220 (about the mean). Make sure you REALLY can't find a way to do FA and UW in 6 weeks before ditching one of them. I won't take step 1 until June so consider my opinion uneducated...but I'd really recommend talking with your dean to see if you can push your rotations back 1 block to give you more study time.

I wish you best of luck (wo)man...from a dude who's also just hoping for the mean!

 

[usmlestep1]

I didn't bold this stuff to be a jerk, but when you add it all up it doesn't strike me as somebody who's on the right track to get a 220 (about the mean). Make sure you REALLY can't find a way to do FA and UW in 6 weeks before ditching one of them. I won't take step 1 until June so consider my opinion uneducated...but I'd really recommend talking with your dean to see if you can push your rotations back 1 block to give you more study time.

I wish you best of luck (wo)man...from a dude who's also just hoping for the mean!

I see your point, but pushing back rotations is not an option. Do you have any suggestions for getting through FA faster? What seems to hold me back is that I end up googling pretty much every topic because I see something that I don't understand. For example, when I see hypokalemia listed as a symptom and it's not obvious to me why, I feel like I can't move on until I find out the mechanism. Is this what you do also? Is it just that most people already know most of the mechanisms? I wish there was a book that just layed out plain and simple WHY stuff is the way it is.

As for UW since I've stopped annotating it's taking me a reasonable 4 hours to get through a block. This way, I'll be able to cover UW twice before my exam. Is covering UW twice enough to go from a 181 >> 220? I forgot to mention I am listening to Goljan audio as well.

 

[nkhan]

I see your point, but pushing back rotations is not an option. Do you have any suggestions for getting through FA faster? What seems to hold me back is that I end up googling pretty much every topic because I see something that I don't understand. For example, when I see hypokalemia listed as a symptom and it's not obvious to me why, I feel like I can't move on until I find out the mechanism. Is this what you do also? Is it just that most people already know most of the mechanisms? I wish there was a book that just layed out plain and simple WHY stuff is the way it is.

As for UW since I've stopped annotating it's taking me a reasonable 4 hours to get through a block. This way, I'll be able to cover UW twice before my exam. Is covering UW twice enough to go from a 181 >> 220? I forgot to mention I am listening to Goljan audio as well.

You need to just read through it don't worry about the nitty gritty details on the first pass. Read it once to get the general idea and main picture for stuff, then start doing q's and you will quickly find out what you didn't get. Don't kill the cow all at once, take bites 🙂

 

[da8s0859q]

You need to just read through it don't worry about the nitty gritty details on the first pass. Read it once to get the general idea and main picture for stuff, then start doing q's and you will quickly find out what you didn't get. Don't kill the cow all at once, take bites 🙂

Agree completely.

 

[DoctorDreamer]

You need to just read through it don't worry about the nitty gritty details on the first pass. Read it once to get the general idea and main picture for stuff, then start doing q's and you will quickly find out what you didn't get. Don't kill the cow all at once, take bites 🙂

Agree. And as for UWorld, if you don't have time to reread FA carefully, don't even bother annotating it, and you'll get through the Q bank faster. You can do FA in a week, and UWorld in 2-3. Very doable.

 

[tootheye]

I recently realized that we can highlight UW! (Even checked if it would stay highlighted for a later use- correct me if itsn't). So for the last few times when I feel like doing a quick time with a block, specially in systems I've been highlighting UW with out annotating FA! Boy its saving time. I hope it'll help during next pass/es.This might help with first pass go quick and get familiar.
At the same time I feel annotating anything right away reinforces memoryfor a better recap!

1. First pass UW - High light UW-systems/ blocks that you want a quick run not wanting to annotate into FA right away.

2. Second run- Annotate those you didn't ( High lighted)

3. Review annotated FA only

 

[nickkokordoc]

Hello, guys. Could anyone answer to my question? I am right now at the middle of UWorld and my average score is about 84% (95th percentile). Is there anyone who has the experience to tell my what my score on real exam (step1) would approximately be? Thank you