I would definitely study hard for Step 2, take it early enough so if it's awesome, you can release it and have it as part of your application, but late enough so if you bomb it, you can keep it from showing up. But it's very important you destroy the exam and then people will look less hard at your Step 1. However, you will miss many cutoffs, so as said above, you need to pick 1 or 2 programs and rotate there, do research, develop a good relationship with someone. This is all very important.