Help, please! Am I making a mistake?

[yoyoni]

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Hi everyone!

Would anyone on here have taken Step 1 recently and/or be willing to offer advice? I am an M1 in a 18 month preclinical curriculum. I have always been the type to learn better from textbooks than lecture slides, and I realized early in Block 1 the organization of our lectures wasn't necessarily intuitive to me in forming a conceptual understanding.

For better or worse, I'm also an all-or-nothing type of person, and I decided halfway through Block 1 I would just use First Aid, Constanzo, Robbins, Pathoma, and Sketchy (keeping up with the material using Zanki), and not even watch any of our lectures. We are now doing our first system, which is CV/Pulm/Renal, and I am worried that I made a mistake, and should have also focused my attention and studies on class lectures...but our exams are coming up and I dont have the time this block to watch and/or review more than our lectures in Embryo, Anatomy, and Histology.

My question is this: If I know the above-mentioned resources 100% (let's say), would I be able to score in the 260s? And I am I doing a disservice to myself by ignoring class lectures -- I reviewed a friend's notes for one of our Pharm lectures and it had details sketchy didnt have (ie. Rivastatin is metabolized by CYP4503A, where Sketchy just says all statins except for one is metabolized by CYP450) -- will things like this be Step questions that I'll miss?

It just feels a little unnerving to walk into a class exam without having watched 70% of lectures, but I know I did this to myself and there's nothing I can do for this block except to live with the consequences and learn from my mistakes if my exams dont go well...the idea of me trying to do my best on Step 1 ironically ending up with me barely passing is a terrifying thought, and I just wanted to hear from other who took the exam (or are about to take it!) if what I am doing is a bad idea.

Thanks so much -- would so appreciate any advice!

Edit: @Foot Fetish correct me if I am wrong but I remember seeing somewhere sometime ago you asking a similar question about ignoring class materials? Do you have any thoughts as you approach Step 1?

 

[yoyoni]

@moderators, could move this to the general med school page - I dont mean to double post, I just didnt realize I cant delete posts!

 

[Dr Blue]

when do you take step 1 - is it immediately after 18 months or after clinical rotations?

I wouldn't do this. Study your class material and do well. But follow along with FA and pathoma (that should naturally help with the in class exams as well). you could do zanki independently based on whichever organ system you are in. Save Sketchy for Micro (I actually pretty much only used sketchy in leu of lectures for micro and got about 88%). Do not use sketchy for path , +/- for pharm.

step 1 is more of a thinking exam than you think. it is easy to get into the rut of memorizing things especially in M1/M2 when you don't really know anything about medicine anyway. learn to synthesize the information and digest it - studying for class exams helps for this.

 

[deleted480308]

You want us to tell you if you can get a 260 without any assesment tests or even preclinial grades?

 

[Redbarron21]

I think you will be ok for STEP 1, those resources are all designed to cover the highest yield material. The only thing I think you're missing out on is that sometimes professors emphasize their area of interest or area of study and drop hints about exam questions in class. They say stuff like "I hope you're paying attention to this part." or "This would be a good test question." or "memorize this slide hint hint." My medical school had tutoring lectures and exam review lectures put on by students which covered the highest yield material. If your medical school has something like that it could be helpful.