Help with my Step 1 Plan please! :)

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Elbowstoopointy

U aware?
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2011
Messages
277
Reaction score
1
7 months out. I will have 8 weeks dedicated prep after school.

FYI...We have not covered Endocrine, Repro, or GI yet...most of our other classes are low yield so I should be able to put them on the back burner and study boards most days.

Resources:
-FA
-Pathoma
-Qbanks (Kaplan Now, USMLE world later)
-HY Neuro (my weak point)
-Kaplan Biochem
-BRS Physio

REALISTICALLY I'll be able to study 3-4 hours a day during school...how should I use that time? Kind of struggling to figure that out....Lately just have been doing Pathoma about 2/3 of the time since I get so much out of it, and FA (starting from the start) the other time. Once I finish Pathoma I can do more FA and maybe hit Goljan RR path to hammer home stuff in path...

Any advice? I feel kind of lost!
 
I'm in the same boat as you!

I have about 7 months to prepare for Step 1, and I'll have 5 weeks of dedicated study time before I take it. I plan to go through First Aid 4x, UWorld 2x, Kaplan once, and USMLERx is to go along with my courses.

My school saves the systems pathology for the last semester before step, so I'll be using RR Goljan, BRS Path, and listening to Goljan audio for that as well. Other than that, I'll refer to HY books (BRS Phys, etc) only if I need to.

I obviously still want to pass my courses, but honestly Step 1 is more important to me than getting an Honors in my classes, so I plan to study for Step 1 during the first half of my day, and study for my courses during the second half. I think I'll be spending 3-4 hrs a day on Step 1 from Jan-May. Anything more than that I think is overkill just because I do still want to pass my classes lol. During those 3-4 hrs I'll read a max of 10 pgs in FA and do a question block from UWorld or Kaplan. The question block takes the most amount of time because I plan on annotating wrong answers in my FA.

Sooo what you're doing seems pretty similar to me! I think slow and steady wins the race ... going through FA and being continuous with question blocks hopefully should have us set by the time we are ready for the "dedicated study time." Good luck!
 
I'm in the same boat as you!

I have about 7 months to prepare for Step 1, and I'll have 5 weeks of dedicated study time before I take it. I plan to go through First Aid 4x, UWorld 2x, Kaplan once, and USMLERx is to go along with my courses.

My school saves the systems pathology for the last semester before step, so I'll be using RR Goljan, BRS Path, and listening to Goljan audio for that as well. Other than that, I'll refer to HY books (BRS Phys, etc) only if I need to.

I obviously still want to pass my courses, but honestly Step 1 is more important to me than getting an Honors in my classes, so I plan to study for Step 1 during the first half of my day, and study for my courses during the second half. I think I'll be spending 3-4 hrs a day on Step 1 from Jan-May. Anything more than that I think is overkill just because I do still want to pass my classes lol. During those 3-4 hrs I'll read a max of 10 pgs in FA and do a question block from UWorld or Kaplan. The question block takes the most amount of time because I plan on annotating wrong answers in my FA.

Sooo what you're doing seems pretty similar to me! I think slow and steady wins the race ... going through FA and being continuous with question blocks hopefully should have us set by the time we are ready for the "dedicated study time." Good luck!

Sounds solid! We are straight P/F MS2 (no class rank either) so I'm in the same spot, also we finished a lot of our "big" classes already...the stuff we have left is a lot more low yield.

Maybe I'll plan on dedicating the first 4 hrs of studying a day to Step 1 like you said, and then just study class as needed. I figure other students will be doing something similar as boards approach so the class avgs may drop :laugh:
 
hey guys, same boat too taking step june 14th 2012. so ive actually been trying to do more step for the last several months than school work and it has shown...haha barely passed 1st sem block but luckily thats all i care about. iv been annotating systems into FA as i learn. also been doing kaplan qbank questions throughout (25% thru). i am a little worried cuz my school has saved (i believe) the harder systems for second sem but hopefully this means itl b fresh in my head for step. i plan on doing uworld blocks and reading/rereading FA everyday. wen do u guys plan to or think its best to take my first NBME/practice exam???
 
Last edited:
Top