USMLE Haven't started. Step 1 in 7 weeks. Freaking out.

[musiconcerto]

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[Ismet]

Step 1 (lol): Calm down
Step 2: Make yourself a schedule. It can be as detailed or basic as you like, but I recommend mapping out your 7 weeks and planning how you're going to get through everything. I think it's doable, but you have a lot of work ahead of you.

Why don't you have 20% of DIT done? I haven't used DIT but I thought the purpose was to go over FA?

My usual schedule at the beginning of my dedicated time was to study a chapter in FA, then do questions in that subject. I had already done Pathoma during MS2 so I would just read through the book/my notes as a supplement to reading FA. As I went through more topics, I started incorporating those subjects into my question blocks so I worked my way up to a block of random questions by the time I finished my first pass of FA. If you haven't studied specifically for Step 1 and you do a block of random questions, of course it's not going to go well, unless you really know your stuff.

Don't judge your performance on a block of 10 UWorld questions. UWorld is meant to be a learning tool, not an assessment tool, and doing less than 1/4 of the questions in a real block is even less of an assessment than a full block.

 

[deleted564496]

Hey there OP... I don't have a lot of advice for you other than to inform you that you are not in any way, shape, or form alone. I (and I'm sure many others) have not even began to prepare and are in the same shoes you are. It's okay to be nervous, but use that as an advantage as a way to motivate you.

It's easy to get on these forums and feel overwhelmed, especially since so many have been studying all year or for months and months. This is not the case for everybody and I would argue it's not the case for the majority. At my school over 80% of people in my class have not studied at all throughout the year (we had a survey). Get after it each day and do everything you can.

Also, if I started UW right now I'd probably be doing even worse then 30%. I feel like I've forgotten everything I've learned in the first two years, even though I have done much better than I thought I would. Take everything one day at a time and don't let people on here make you feel like you are a failure for not having gone through FA & pathoma already. Some of us have to just focus on classes to make it through them and then use dedicated to prepare for Step 1.. YOU HAVE SEVEN WEEKS TO FULLY DEDICATED TO BOARDS! 95% OF US GRADS PASS! You can do it!

 

[smarts1]

I've wondered though... A lot of people say that UWorld is just a learning tool and not an assessment tool, and that the NBMEs are an assessment tool. But some of the upperclassmen at my school have said that many of the questions on the NBMEs are first order (or second order questions) and tend to be more organ specific than compared to UWorld and say that the exam is much harder (and is more on par with UWorld if not worse). So then how do the NBMEs tend to predict scores relatively well?

 

[CherryRedDracul]

Many of my classmates and upperclassmen were able to get through all the material at least twice in 6 weeks of dedicated study time and said that having a few extra weeks would have yielded diminishing returns.

In other words, relax yet work hard. You are in no way or shape alone.