how do you do questions?

[Ramoray]

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I am a little bit confused how to go about doign questiosn for step 1. Unlike mcat where i reviewed all the material before i dove into the questions its pretty much impossible to review everything and then start questions or atleast you wouldnt have much time for Qs if you did it this way. I understand for path you can do specific questions for each section and pharm and micro maybe but for books like NMS, qbank etc say you wanted to do 50 questions a night or something, do you just go ahead and do them even if you havent reviewed alot of the questions taht come up and just do it that way and continue your normal review schedule during the day or do you try to do questions specifically on things you reviwed? which i dont know how you would and that is my question i guess. So if someone has good advice how to go about doing questions taht would be great. I basically have 8 weeks and wanted to get through Robbins q book, Kaplan Qbook and qbank, NMS, and appleton and lange. as well as of course reviewing all the subjects. any ideas? thanks so much

 

[automaton]

basically what i do is read a bunch of books in decreasing level of detail. so in the morning i read harrison's, then review the key points with cecil's. after that i'm ready for even lighter review with robbins, and finish it off with BRS and first aid. by this time it's about 8pm and i have 3 hours for questions. i do questions in pretty much the same method - i start with robbins, quickly test my new knowledge with qbank, then review that with qbook, then nms, and appleton and lange. sometimes when i'm not satisfied with that i do usmleasy and bss, and occasionally bust out pretest. by the way i've been getting something like 95% on all questions and my nbme score predicts i'll score 280. and if this hasn't gotten old by now, i'm going to read harrison's and cecil's two more times and review with blueprints, pretest, ucv, and mksap so i'm pretty sure i'm going to get straight honors in clinicals, just for your info.

 

[Pox in a box]

basically what i do is read a bunch of books in decreasing level of detail. so in the morning i read harrison's, then review the key points with cecil's. after that i'm ready for even lighter review with robbins, and finish it off with BRS and first aid. by this time it's about 8pm and i have 3 hours for questions. i do questions in pretty much the same method - i start with robbins, quickly test my new knowledge with qbank, then review that with qbook, then nms, and appleton and lange. sometimes when i'm not satisfied with that i do usmleasy and bss, and occasionally bust out pretest. by the way i've been getting something like 95% on all questions and my nbme score predicts i'll score 280. and if this hasn't gotten old by now, i'm going to read harrison's and cecil's two more times and review with blueprints, pretest, ucv, and mksap so i'm pretty sure i'm going to get straight honors in clinicals, just for your info.

Post your score as soon as you get it.

 

[scootad.]

LOL automaton! Actually this is a very good question. I agree that its silly to dive into questions without having a base knowledge or done at least some studying.

What I did was during Spring Break, studied micro, pharm, and biochem sections of FA. This was before school ended and gave me the head start and base knowledge I needed. Then once school ended I did systems (cardio, resp, GI, GU, repro, endo, etc.) covering path/pathophys/anatomy/embryo/histo of each area spending 2-3 days on each system and reviewing the spring break material in my spare time. I started Q bank 1 week into my studying systems (after school ended and after ~2 systems). This way I started questions after having done a base amount of studying and started right away with random questions. Random is really the only way to go, b/c you wanna simulate the real exam and if you went by subject you might do well after having done that topic but 2 weeks later you'd forget it all.

Good luck!

 

[DHMO]

basically what i do is read a bunch of books in decreasing level of detail. so in the morning i read harrison's, then review the key points with cecil's. after that i'm ready for even lighter review with robbins, and finish it off with BRS and first aid. by this time it's about 8pm and i have 3 hours for questions. i do questions in pretty much the same method - i start with robbins, quickly test my new knowledge with qbank, then review that with qbook, then nms, and appleton and lange. sometimes when i'm not satisfied with that i do usmleasy and bss, and occasionally bust out pretest. by the way i've been getting something like 95% on all questions and my nbme score predicts i'll score 280. and if this hasn't gotten old by now, i'm going to read harrison's and cecil's two more times and review with blueprints, pretest, ucv, and mksap so i'm pretty sure i'm going to get straight honors in clinicals, just for your info.

Damn dude! I actually thought you were serious until that last sentence. Haha.

 

[Long Dong]

basically what i do is read a bunch of books in decreasing level of detail. so in the morning i read harrison's, then review the key points with cecil's. after that i'm ready for even lighter review with robbins, and finish it off with BRS and first aid. by this time it's about 8pm and i have 3 hours for questions. i do questions in pretty much the same method - i start with robbins, quickly test my new knowledge with qbank, then review that with qbook, then nms, and appleton and lange. sometimes when i'm not satisfied with that i do usmleasy and bss, and occasionally bust out pretest. by the way i've been getting something like 95% on all questions and my nbme score predicts i'll score 280. and if this hasn't gotten old by now, i'm going to read harrison's and cecil's two more times and review with blueprints, pretest, ucv, and mksap so i'm pretty sure i'm going to get straight honors in clinicals, just for your info.

👍

 

[trouta]

I started doing Qbank from day 1 of studying and did questions in blocks of 50 always random. never do questions in blocks of material you have just studied. This is artificial (the test isnt like this) and once questions are used in Qbank they dont appear again when you want to do random questions.

As you can imagine my percentages increased with time. When I first started I was missing most of the questions, but that only motivited me to study.

The one thing I did that was very useful was to write down the info from quesitons I missed so I could review that and add it to FA if it wasnt in there already.

 

[Su4n2]

can't you do blocks of 50, the start from the beginning and do th whole thing random?

 

[p53]

basically what i do is read a bunch of books in decreasing level of detail. so in the morning i read harrison's, then review the key points with cecil's. after that i'm ready for even lighter review with robbins, and finish it off with BRS and first aid. by this time it's about 8pm and i have 3 hours for questions. i do questions in pretty much the same method - i start with robbins, quickly test my new knowledge with qbank, then review that with qbook, then nms, and appleton and lange. sometimes when i'm not satisfied with that i do usmleasy and bss, and occasionally bust out pretest. by the way i've been getting something like 95% on all questions and my nbme score predicts i'll score 280. and if this hasn't gotten old by now, i'm going to read harrison's and cecil's two more times and review with blueprints, pretest, ucv, and mksap so i'm pretty sure i'm going to get straight honors in clinicals, just for your info.

Me too, I just completed Goodman and Gilman cover to cover for Pharm, Big Katzung is next for clinical detail, planning on Lippincott for April, Katzung Review in May, then Pharm Cards, Brush up on minutiae with Pharm Secrets and close it out with Pharm Recall.

P.S. If you memorize Harrison's verbatim, you will score a 280.

 

[Pox in a box]

Me too, I just completed Goodman and Gilman cover to cover for Pharm, Big Katzung is next for clinical detail, planning on Lippincott for April, Katzung Review in May, then Pharm Cards, Brush up on minutiae with Pharm Secrets and close it out with Pharm Recall.

P.S. If you memorize Harrison's verbatim, you will score a 280.

Great, then you can explain to us the differences of opinion that G&G have with Katzung on the mechanism behind eplerinone. Let us know.

 

[automaton]

i think katzung simplifies things too much. the pharmacological effects are much too complicated to be summarized in a few sentences or even a few paragraphs. what i do is read FULL articles with several competing theories of MOA. that way i get a broad sense of possibilities and actualities. i recommend not cutting corners with abstracts - reading full articles complete with p-values and materials/methods is key to scoring highly on step1. i truly hope this helps others.

 

[medstudam]

👍

i think katzung simplifies things too much. the pharmacological effects are much too complicated to be summarized in a few sentences or even a few paragraphs. what i do is read FULL articles with several competing theories of MOA. that way i get a broad sense of possibilities and actualities. i recommend not cutting corners with abstracts - reading full articles complete with p-values and materials/methods is key to scoring highly on step1. i truly hope this helps others.

I can draw two conclusions from your posts: 1) you're absolutely serious about this, or 2) you must be joking!
Dude, I'm not opposed to reading Harrison's, Cecil's etc, etc... or whatever 'encyclopedias' are out there which probably should have been done during your basic sciences/clinicals, but when it comes down to crunch time, you need to be doing as many questions as you can per day!! It's that simple!! You already know your stuff and you simply have to put it together by doing questions and then analyzing your weak areas, focus on those areas and you will do well!! Quickly refer to the FA, Secrets, and if you absolutely need more detail or don't understand a concept, yeah, by all means pull out the Harrison's.
On those nights of insomnia from your excessive caffeine consumption pull out those articles and read those p-values 👍