for those taking the beast in late May/ early June.... what are you doing NOW???

[pullandbear]

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What are you guys doing with your daily study schedule? I'm taking my exam June 3rd. I still have classes going on but I've been doing a few things now:
1. USMLERX questions everyday. Minimum of 20, sometimes 40 if classwork is light.
2. Also I'm through a little over half of FA already. Trying to finish the whole thing by ~25th of March.
3. listening to a Goljan lectures (like one every two days or so)

What are you guys up to? Have your classmates started prepping yet? (if you can, please say when you are taking your test)

 

[thomasyorke]

My exam is in early June. I'm working through Goljan at the moment, about a chapter every 2 days or so. I reviewed the first half of FA, haven't done the systems yet.. figure i'll get to that later.

I've done 50% of UW, doing about 20-30 q's a day.

seems like most of my class is going heavily into boards mode now.

 

[Zoom-Zoom]

Mostty just trying to mount up on Goljan and pharm for my shelfs...figure the best thing I can do to help prep for first-year material is to dominate Ms2 subjects now so I don't have to spend as much time on them later. That's the strategy. I also reviewed Immuno w/ Kaplan. It might help slightly with path. If I have time I'm going to do do one of the following: Neuro, Genetics, BRS phys.

Otherwise, I don't see much need to delve into too many things before study time really starts. At this point in the game I think you're either studying Ms1 stuff at the expense of MS2 stuff or vise versa.

But yeah, it seems like everyone in my class has already been through FA multiple times. Whatever.

 

[Mr hawkings]

What are you guys doing with your daily study schedule? I still have classes going on but I've been doing a few things now:
1. USMLERX questions everyday. Minimum of 20, sometimes 40 if classwork is light.
2. Also I'm through a little over half of FA already. Trying to finish the whole thing by ~25th of March.
3. listening to a Goljan lectures (like one every two days or so)

What are you guys up to? Have your classmates started prepping yet?

1. 48 Q per day on USMLERx regardless of class schedule except the day before an exam. Takes me about 1.5 hours total if you include reviewing the questions afterwards. Been doing that since thanksgiving
2. Reading the FA section of whatever unit we're studying in school at any given time, including the parts not being covered presently in class like anatomy and biochem.
3. Will be taking exam early June so switching to Uworld mid march and using that till the exam.
4. I plan on doing 1 NBME plus 2 Uworld self assesments.
5. God help me

Most of my classmates (about 70%)are doing DIT so they are getting weekly questions to work through and will start the course once school is done.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

Attempting a Taus method:

- I've been listening to Goljan lecs since the end of last summer; listened to most of them 3x.

- Read about 2/3 of FA last summer; since this school year started, I usually get through the appropriate sections of Goljan 2x and FA 2x with each block.

- Finished ~20% of both the Kaplan qbank and UWorld, plus using appropriate portions of Robbins/Cotran Review + FA Q&A book with each block.

- Read/annotated CMMRS and Levinson; currently working on biochem (with RR Biochem).

- Since the annotation hasn't been going as fast as I'd hoped, I'm reading 10 additional pgs of FA/day in an attempt to get the hell done with a first pass.

- As someone said before: god help me.

 

[MrBigLips]

Firstly, I'd like to state that I'm an IMG that just graduated last December. Step I for me is going to be late June so my schedule is a bit different from the U.S. students.

Kaplan series. I just completed my first read and I plan on cramming in 2 more. I've read 1/3 of FA so far. Plan on doing Uworld starting April (once, but maybe even twice). I heard the goljaan lectures about 3 times back in med school. And I've ditched the Kaplan patho for RR3 (which was a mouthful).

Aside from that, doing a lot of praying! Good luck to everyone.

 

[bleeker10]

I started in the middle of January with basic sciences. We took a Kaplan diagnostic in December so I used the results of that to tailor my studying. I did my worse subjects first (biochem). I annotated things into FA from RR Biochem just because I can't look at a picture and figure it out as quickly as writing the process down. Then I did micro and annotated things from CMMRS into FA and added things in from class lectures since we have a strong micro dept. Figured since I was on micro that I'd do immuno next. Once I finished the basic sciences in FA and the first 7 chapters of Goljan, I moved on to systems. I am reviewing them in the order we learned them. I started with MSK then neuro and I just finished cardio. I read through FA, BRS Phys (if applicable), Goljan and then run through FA Organ Systems to add a few extra things in at the end.

I also try to average 50 questions a day with my qbanks. Some days I don't do any so I just do more the next day. I like doing questions and they don't take me too long plus I can do them during class. It's also a way to study without having to read FA or look at a review book.

The best way I learn is to make multiple passes (at least 3-4) at the material and do practice questions. I'm hoping to have my first pass done by the end of March. My exam is May 24th so that will give me enough time to get through it a couple more times.

The one thing I've noticed since starting my board studying is the material is coming back much faster than I thought it would. It always drives me crazy when I can't remember material a week after a test. It seems to be sticking in my head better now since I am going at my own pace. Hopefully I can take it from the range to the course (thought I'd throw in a golf reference since I'm itching to play and boards are severely getting in the way of that).

I'm using the Taus method that I modified for my schedule and resources

 

[Encephalectomy]

Taking the exam May 25th with a one month intensive period. I'm shooting for the moon since my top interests right now are neurosurg and ortho.


So far I've been doing gunnertraining along with class (added most of the first year stuff over the summer), and now have it all banked, so I have ~150 gt questions a day. I've been doing Kaplan qbank along with class and annotating into first aid from the qbank (I've finished my first pass through the kaplan qbank except for heme, which we have last). I've also been doing webpath and robbins qbook along with class. I started UWorld last week and my goal is to get through that + my missed and marked q's before I start my intensive study period.

Each block I go through brs phys once, and try to get through the corresponding first aid section and goljan chapters twice. I also have a 30 minute commute, so I get 1 goljan lecture most days, so I've been through those 3-4x except for heme, which I'm starting to listen to now.

so basically right now my day has 150 gt questions, 50 Uworld questions (+annotating), some first aid/goljan/brs phys reading, and watching class lectures at 1.5x. I finally cut the cord on our class syllabus😀 Good luck everybody!

 

[nightc2awler]

Currently running through First Aid, with the help of ~100 USMLERx question daily, which will hopefully help me have FA down by the end of it all. Then over to Kaplan videos (as a refresher), with daily Qbank questions. Finally, over to Uworld, followed by NBME's around the final 2 weeks, in order to really assess where I stand.

To some, it may seem overkill, but it's been discussed time and time again. Simply put, those that have ran through multiple Qbanks (2 or more) have never regretted doing so. Not to mention, I have the leisure of studying comfortably at home, undisturbed w/ no one around (since everyone's working)!

 

[DrJD]

Okay I will be the first to say it:

You all make me feel like a slacker 🙂

 

[DAKAZA]

1. 48 Q per day on USMLERx regardless of class schedule except the day before an exam. Takes me about 1.5 hours total if you include reviewing the questions afterwards.

Damn, this makes me feel like an idiot. When I do 48 question blocks, it usually takes me 3 hours (2 hours to review answers). Hopefully it will go quicker once I'm sharper with the material.

 

[Mr hawkings]

Damn, this makes me feel like an idiot. When I do 48 question blocks, it usually takes me 3 hours (2 hours to review answers). Hopefully it will go quicker once I'm sharper with the material.

I only review the screen shots of FA that are provided on the USMLErx answer explanations. No additional review unless its something i've never even heard of. I'll do the real in depth review when i start my dedicated step 1 study. Right now, i dont have the time to do a really detailed review.

 

[ar2388]

Okay I will be the first to say it:

You all make me feel like a slacker 🙂

wow i totally agree...
i really wanted to do taus but i just dont have the time..
ive been trying to do gunner training with classes but that has only been slightly successful.. i try to do some GT questions every day or every other day. I have had UWorld for a while but havent been able to do more than like 100 questions so far in it, will start more seriously probably when spring break starts on march 14. i have been reading FA the day before the exam in each subject so Ive seen probably 50% or more of FA. been trying to read RR chps with class but that has only been 50% successful, sometimes there is not enough time to read the 3-4 relevant chps on top of all the lectures..
i try to read BRS with each organ system as well, but not too successful. the main problem has been the 15+ lectures a week we've had... now that things have become a tiny bit better since we have finished renal/GI, i have too much stuff going on in my life.. just moved apartments so first 2 weeks of endocrine/repro i didnt do anything and now struggling to catch up before our exam on march 11...

i really want a 240+.. i really want to do radiology in NYC.. my exam date is may 19 giving me a day shy of 4 weeks after classes end on april 21... so screwed arent i? 😱

 

[DrJD]

wow i totally agree...
i really wanted to do taus but i just dont have the time..
ive been trying to do gunner training with classes but that has only been slightly successful.. i try to do some GT questions every day or every other day. I have had UWorld for a while but havent been able to do more than like 100 questions so far in it, will start more seriously probably when spring break starts on march 14. i have been reading FA the day before the exam in each subject so Ive seen probably 50% or more of FA. been trying to read RR chps with class but that has only been 50% successful, sometimes there is not enough time to read the 3-4 relevant chps on top of all the lectures..
i try to read BRS with each organ system as well, but not too successful. the main problem has been the 15+ lectures a week we've had... now that things have become a tiny bit better since we have finished renal/GI, i have too much stuff going on in my life.. just moved apartments so first 2 weeks of endocrine/repro i didnt do anything and now struggling to catch up before our exam on march 11...

i really want a 240+.. i really want to do radiology in NYC.. my exam date is may 19 giving me a day shy of 4 weeks after classes end on april 21... so screwed arent i? 😱

You aren't screwed!! Trust me, you don't have to study hours a day starting in January to score really high on the test. (Obviously I don't know from personal experience, but I have talked with many people who have done very well who didn't really start studying until their dedicated study time.) However, these people were probably good test takers to begin with.

Either way, you aren't screwed. From the program directors I've talked to its not worse getting bad grades. We have had class until 3 or 4 every day anda test every 8-10 days since January. There has literally been no way I could do anything for Step because if I did my grades would suffer!

 

[MossPoh]

I've found that many people are "studying" for boards now in my class, but they vastly overstate what kind of work they are doing.

I try to do 25 random uworld questions a day (46 on sunday) with all the annotation and reading. I listen to Goljan for every unit we're on at least once and usually twice. I do the DIT handouts. I also do the robbins review, webpath and random kaplan qbook questions for the unit or when I'm away from a computer.

I might have heard of people who use DIT audio and follow it along with FA 2010 as well. I've heard they listen to the audio and annotate for whatever unit they are on and then on Sundays they listen through sequentially to get the stuff they haven't heard. It is a great way to get through first aid and the stuff you hate, or so I hear. *cough*

 

[bleeker10]

One thing I've learned is that it doesn't matter what other people are doing for board studying because it has no effect on my knowledge and how well I do. I have friends that are on their second pass through the material and I have friends that have barely started. If you have a solid knowledge base before reviewing, then you don't need as much time to do well. My goal right now is to condense all my review sources into FA, RR path and BRS phys. This way when I am reviewing later on, it's all in one central location and it won't take me as long to review.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

wow i totally agree...
i really wanted to do taus but i just dont have the time..
ive been trying to do gunner training with classes but that has only been slightly successful.. i try to do some GT questions every day or every other day. I have had UWorld for a while but havent been able to do more than like 100 questions so far in it, will start more seriously probably when spring break starts on march 14. i have been reading FA the day before the exam in each subject so Ive seen probably 50% or more of FA. been trying to read RR chps with class but that has only been 50% successful, sometimes there is not enough time to read the 3-4 relevant chps on top of all the lectures..
i try to read BRS with each organ system as well, but not too successful. the main problem has been the 15+ lectures a week we've had... now that things have become a tiny bit better since we have finished renal/GI, i have too much stuff going on in my life.. just moved apartments so first 2 weeks of endocrine/repro i didnt do anything and now struggling to catch up before our exam on march 11...

i really want a 240+.. i really want to do radiology in NYC.. my exam date is may 19 giving me a day shy of 4 weeks after classes end on april 21... so screwed arent i? 😱

Look, it all depends on how confident you are with the material, how boards-focused your school's curriculum was, how well you learned things when you learned them for class, etc. I started early because I tend to be one of those people who needs many passes for stuff to stick and because our school's break period between years 1/2 is fairly short. I didn't feel I could jam enough passes into the dedicated study period to optimize my score. YMMV, of course.

I'm also finding that I'm generally doing better on my class exams than before (and beating the class avgs by a fair margin too). Why? Because I'm doing all the Kaplan/UWorld questions for each block and I've discovered that I'm really one of those people that learns well by doing lots of questions. I wish I'd been doing this last year, too - it would have made things easier. Before I started doing so much boards study, I made peace with the fact that I might not be able to quite pull off the grades I was before - and surprisingly it hasn't been an issue.

 

[MossPoh]

I think everyone does better by doing questions, but many of them don't think they do because it is much harder to quantitate and you never really feel like you "covered" the material.

My friend was asking how I could finish exams so fast and the only answer I could give him was that I did so many friggin practice questions it was almost algorithmic.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

I think everyone does better by doing questions, but many of them don't think they do because it is much harder to quantitate and you never really feel like you "covered" the material.

My friend was asking how I could finish exams so fast and the only answer I could give him was that I did so many friggin practice questions it was almost algorithmic.

Yeah, isn't that "algorithmic" bit crazy? You start to get a feel for the patterns and pretty soon you're reading questions and knowing which pieces of info are likely to come next. If you're at a loss, you can usually dump the answer choices that look ridiculous and then at least have it narrowed down to 50/50 (or even rule out everything but the correct answer).

It makes studying so much more efficient - and for once I finally feel like I'm absorbing/integrating the material so I can work with it for the questions that don't fit the classic patterns. I can't say enough good things about the "question method".

 

[bleeker10]

Yeah, isn't that "algorithmic" bit crazy? You start to get a feel for the patterns and pretty soon you're reading questions and knowing which pieces of info are likely to come next. If you're at a loss, you can usually dump the answer choices that look ridiculous and then at least have it narrowed down to 50/50 (or even rule out everything but the correct answer).

It makes studying so much more efficient - and for once I finally feel like I'm absorbing/integrating the material so I can work with it for the questions that don't fit the classic patterns. I can't say enough good things about the "question method".

This is why I do practice questions. There are only so many ways to phrase a question or topic. Plus when you do questions, you see a buzz word or abnormal finding thats pathognomic. The next time you see the topic, you see that word or phrase again and it allows you to answer the question faster which gives you more time for questions you are unsure about later.

 

[da8s0859q]

What are you guys doing with your daily study schedule? I'm taking my exam June 3rd. I still have classes going on but I've been doing a few things now:
1. USMLERX questions everyday. Minimum of 20, sometimes 40 if classwork is light.
2. Also I'm through a little over half of FA already. Trying to finish the whole thing by ~25th of March.
3. listening to a Goljan lectures (like one every two days or so)

What are you guys up to? Have your classmates started prepping yet? (if you can, please say when you are taking your test)

I'm taking in early June also. And yes, (some of) my classmates are starting to take this mother****er seriously.

As for me, I used Goljan and FA in tandem with organ systems in my school as we did them, and FA for the micro/immuno/etc. stuff when we did that. So when we were in cardio block, I piled the Goljan CV stuff and the FA CV section on top of my class notes. So I guess that counts as one haphazard pass.

Also a big fan of question banks and have used them concurrently for the last several blocks.

Planning on doing something loosely based on Taus's approach, more emphasis on practice questions because that's just what I do, with the lighter stuff (and current organ system stuff) through the remainder of M2. My school administers a CBSE towards the end of the year, and we also have a comprehensive for our curriculum in May which covers the last several months, so I'll be shifting things accordingly while studying for them as needed.

Actually kind of thankful for the comprehensive exams in the month or two preceding Step. Makes me sit my ass down and get things done.

 

[MossPoh]

Yeah, isn't that "algorithmic" bit crazy? You start to get a feel for the patterns and pretty soon you're reading questions and knowing which pieces of info are likely to come next. If you're at a loss, you can usually dump the answer choices that look ridiculous and then at least have it narrowed down to 50/50 (or even rule out everything but the correct answer).

It makes studying so much more efficient - and for once I finally feel like I'm absorbing/integrating the material so I can work with it for the questions that don't fit the classic patterns. I can't say enough good things about the "question method".

I agree completely. The biggest problem is that it has made me very aware of what awful question writers some of our profs are at my school.

There are certain questions where I literally will see 1 or 2 words and go straight for the answer. I then have to say, "Woah woah woah, slow down. READ the question".

I do feel much more efficient in learning class material now, because I'm aware that some stuff is just trivial and impossible to distinguish things from. My classmates will spend countless hours memorizing all the bacteria and all of the random little "which one was _____?" crap, when the two they are struggling to remember details about have completely different presentations. I've almost gotten to the point that if I see something like "nausea" or "abdominal pain", I just ignore it unless there is a unique identifier, because EVERYTHING seems to cause that.

 

[p30doc]

June 9th is my day of reckoning, t-minus 91 days. I've been using the cramfighter iphone app, since early Feb., to try to finish a 1st pass of FA, RR, and BRS by the end of march. All which are taking me way longer to read than anticipated. I've randomly been doing 5-10 Q's in either uworld or kaplan less than 150 total. I listen to Goljan sometimes while exercising I've been through about 1/3 of the audio I think. My goal is a 240+, right now that doesn't feel possible it is all a bit overwhelming. School is going to be hitting us pretty hard in April with all kinds of testing which I'm worried will make it hard to get in enough board studying.

 

[iA-MD2013]

you guys are so awesome. I am trying to find the motivation to start studying and unfortunately have shut down this year. 🙁 But with 3 months left, it's time to get to work!

I am planning on getting through all the possible question banks (uworld x2, usmlerx, kaplan) and some of the extra question books i have lying around (nms, brs physiology, kaplan qbook). I am going to use a variety of review books (kaplan biochem, kaplan behavioral science, cmmrs, brs physio, etc) and annotate into FA without getting bogged down in the details. And I'm planning on getting through rapid review pathology with audio but without annotating since that would take forever.

Would it be too ambitious to try and annotate the questions/explanations from the qbank into FA? I obviously wouldn't repeat facts or throw in the stupid details from kaplan qbank.

My problem throughout med school is that I take on too much and run out of time...Is this too crazy to accomplish?

 

[da8s0859q]

Would it be too ambitious to try and annotate the questions/explanations from the qbank into FA? I obviously wouldn't repeat facts or throw in the stupid details from kaplan qbank.

I don't think it's too ambitious, but I also don't think it's worth your time. I feel like it's more time-effective to use FA / RR as the study source, and the question bank as your chance to apply that information -- and re-review questions on concepts with which you're not completely comfortable. Not sure it's worth annotating all of that into FA.

 

[qmcat]

We have had class until 3 or 4 every day anda test every 8-10 days since January. There has literally been no way I could do anything for Step because if I did my grades would suffer!

I'm in the same spot man. I'm trying to put in some hours for Step 1 studying, but we have tests every week and that's not helping. I also tried doing the whole "scrap your lectures and do Goljan/FA/Qbank questions" and barely passed the last exam we had at school. They ask way to many detailed and obscure questions from our lectures that you have to study the lectures to pass. I'm just going to stick with my school lectures and Goljan on the side, then hit the studying hard when we get our 1 month off.

 

[da8s0859q]

I'm in the same spot man. I'm trying to put in some hours for Step 1 studying, but we have tests every week and that's not helping. I also tried doing the whole "scrap your lectures and do Goljan/FA/Qbank questions" and barely passed the last exam we had at school. They ask way to many detailed and obscure questions from our lectures that you have to study the lectures to pass. I'm just going to stick with my school lectures and Goljan on the side, then hit the studying hard when we get our 1 month off.

I dunno if it's worth anything, but I've started hammering the big picture stuff (basically, anything I see in both class notes and FA / RR) through test prep to try and do something useful for Step, and binging/purging the little obscure details unlikely to show up on the board (like some receptor which your PhD lecturer believes important, but which is probably not board fodder).