How to get a 260

[pathstudent]

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if you are shooting for a 260.,,

Study every day from 8am-11pm with only two 45 minute breaks.

Memorize path BRS and do all questions from Robbins text.
Memorize Lange Review of Micro and Immuno
Memorize Lange review of Pharm (or lippencot)
Memorize Lippencot Review of Biochem'
Memorize HY Anatomy, Embryo, Histo and Neuro,
Memorize BRS Physio (this is actually the weak link but it is still the best reveiew)

Then the last three days go over all of first aid.

Do 2 hours of Kaplan per day the previous few weeks.

Hopefully you have retained some minutia from the past two years.

You will rock the test and crush 250, most likely in the 260s

 

[8744]

Dude, I know you're kidding. But you've got to be careful. There a lot of type "A," Obssesive-compulsive gunners who read these forums and might take you seriously.

 

[j_sde]

oh... he wasnt serious?

ha.

but for reals.....this step 1 studyin is a freakin pain. i guess i sorta slacked off first 2 yrs and now am bitin the dust for it. still... i wonder how other people are focusin their studies? like some past poster said, i'm readin thru first aid , but its takin a long time... and i'll memorize stuff only to forget it in a week or two. so now i'm focusin more on doin questions.... got the medruv bank which is helpful (although questions can be difficult sometimes)... i'm debatin whether to get kaplan. either way, this is gonna be a long summer.

 

[pathstudent]

NO Dude, that is what I did or at least attempted to do, and it paid off.

You need a good four weeks and you can cover that easily, but literally it takes that 8am-11pm dedication.

 

[LoneSEAL]

pathstudent, so what did you get man? also, how many weeks did your method take?

 

[pathstudent]

of course you can't "memorize" memorize all that, but you gotta try to.

I only took three weeks to study from the end of finals to the EXam, but I worked my butt off the whole two years and especially from Feb to finals of my sophmore year.

I tried to cover what I listed above, but I wish I would have had one more week as I had to slop through a bit of it.

My score was way beyond what I was hoping for.

 

[ajl102]

Congrats, good work...

What was the breakdown of the test like? How much path vs micro vs pharm vs everything else?

I'm assuming you mixed in Qbank time in that schedule?

HY Gross Anatomy seems like major overkill for a handful of questions - what do you think?

 

[pathstudent]

It is hard to judge the breakdown. The test is so long and it was almost a year ago. I remember being shocked at seeing a few really tough molecular/cell biology questions. It just seemed like there was a lot of everything.

HY Anatomy is a mouthful, but probably worth it, although the pay off from knowing Lange's review of Pharm cold would be much much much greater.

At the same time there are quite a few questions that are not covered in any review book and on those you gotta hope it rings a bell from for your first couple of years. Go with your first instinct on those.

 

[pathstudent]

Oh yeah,

get started on Q Bank and one other practice test such as the systems based review (board simulator I think it was called). Definitely start doing those a couple hours a day at least a month before the test, and take them seriously (i.e. read their explanations of the answers) also do the USMLE sample questions from the NBME (for some reason a few of the exact same questions showed up and they were not easy questions. it felt great to have a few freebies or hard questions)

 

[trex92499]

I'm actually shooting for a 260 and doing many of the things pathstudent says...only over a 6 week period and with some of the same review books (path, micro, and physio) and different ones for pharm, bsci, anat/embryo, etc, plus a very comphrensive study of first aid and an enormous book called Princeton Review's Cracking the Boards (great if you enjoy a paragraph type writing format, which I do, not great if you don't)

I was actually shooting for a 250, but then my husband bet me a car that I couldn't get a 260, and who I am to walk away from a challenge like that....

BTW....for Bsci, get High Yield BSci...it's like 117 pages, a whopping 20 bucks, but contains a very very valuable section of about 10 or so pages entitled what to say to the patient....and if you're doing Qbank you've seen those type of questions and I have heard over and over that they do show up en masse on Step 1.

 

[Global Disrobal]

Shoot to pass first, then worry about the 10's over 220... By the way don't base so much on the score. Alot of "Club 260" members can't secure decent residencies due to lack of overall appeal. Anyone can cram for 12+ hours a day, its what you do overall in 4 years of school that matters.

Good luck on your test

 

[Spanish Guitar]

I beg to differ.....uhm...disrobal,
If you shoot to pass, you'll end up barely doing so or worse yet, failing. Unfortunately, as I understand it, ReZ committees weigh your Step I score heavily, much more so than your actual med I/II scores. Once upon a time, passing Step I was sufficient enough to move on through the med school process. Nowadays, it is used as the standard indicator of your mastery of the medical curriculum. So, passing....is futile. Lastly, although I know you exaggerate to make your point, not everyone can study 12+ hours a day or even 6+ hours a day, unless they're cramming 2 or 3 days before a final. Now, when I say 6 hours, I mean real studying...not the time "wasted" on eating, resting, moving about, talking, day-dreaming. But, I suppose in actually getting 6 good hours of studying, one would probably have to adopt the 8am to 11pm regimen. Heck I know I would.

PS. I hated the "Creator of the Matrix" character in Matrix: Reloaded (or the dude that Neo met in the room with all the screens). Pure Bombast, spoken quickly and in a monotone voice to elude viewers that what was said was highly sophisticated, intelligent, conceptual, complex and beyond the grasp of anyone but america's most elite minds. But I loved the movie

 

[Foxxy Cleopatra]

Global Disrobal offered some very sound advice- scores are a part of, but not close to being the whole picture. I've known more than one person who had phenomenal scores/grades and went unmatched in something competitive, and I also know people with good (but not great) scores who got nice spots in ortho and neurosurgery.

I think pathstudent's book choice is pretty good. I would emphasize First Aid and doing a lot of practice questions.

Actually, the one part of his advice that particularly rings true is studying along the lines of 12+ hours a day (to get an astronomical score.) You'll hear from classmates about how they only studied a few hours a day and rocked the boards. In truth, the ones who really did do that well really were spending the good part of 3-4 weeks in the library, studying their hind ends off.

Though it's been 2 years since I've taken step 1 and 1 since step 2, for step one, there was a lot of path and pharm as I expected. I was surprised by the amount of physiology. The thing that I really didn't expect was a test somewhat heavy in stats. Nothing too bad, just the basics, but if you didn't know it well, it would have been tough. I also had a few weird ethics questions, but probaly only 3-4. Histo, gross, devo, and neuro were all extremely light (probably about 2 questions per each.)

good luck to all- I hated studying, but it will soon be over

 

[Crusher]

Well I certainly wasn't gonna argue with pathstudent about how to get a 260 b/c I sure didn't. I thought what he suggested was a little over the top. But know I find out he got a 249 and since I got a 247, I will offer an entirely different take on obtaining a score in that range.

I only studied First Aid and did QBank questions. Repeated all incorrect Qbank questions as well. Also did BRS Beh Sci Questions ONLY (no reading). All this over the course of 3 weeks. I feel that the sources listed above are too expansive too master. However, it obviously beat my score so who am I to say. But at least you see now that you don't need to do 5 books to get high 240s

 

[Bananahammock]

What do you guys think about this strategy: mastering everything in the Kaplan Step 1 Lecture Notes that come with the course. This is the 7 book set...it's concise and easy to read, but is it complete? It seems to me that Kaplan would know best what to know for the USMLE and include it in the books, but I can't say for sure. Anyone got an opinion on this?

 

[Iron Horse]

Originally posted by Crusher
Well I certainly wasn't gonna argue with pathstudent about how to get a 260 b/c I sure didn't. I thought what he suggested was a little over the top. But know I find out he got a 249 and since I got a 247, I will offer an entirely different take on obtaining a score in that range.

I only studied First Aid and did QBank questions. Repeated all incorrect Qbank questions as well. Also did BRS Beh Sci Questions ONLY (no reading). All this over the course of 3 weeks. I feel that the sources listed above are too expansive too master. However, it obviously beat my score so who am I to say. But at least you see now that you don't need to do 5 books to get high 240s

Thanks for the suggestions and info. Can you share your experience/performance over your first two years? The reason I ask is, your previous advice will mean one thing if you did just alright over your first two years, and something very different if you aced everything your first two years with a gunner/OCD profile.

Thanks.