If You Had 8 Weeks

[IndianBabu]

Let's say you only have 8 weeks to prepare for this beast, and of course you have the Goljan audios and First Aid and all, which set of books would you use for your background studying,

1. Kaplan Home Study Set or

2. Use a combo of:
-RR Anatomy, RR Path, RR Micro, RR Biochem, Katzung, HY Embryo, HY Molecular Bio, HY Neuro.

My fear is that the Kaplan books are too extensive for only 8 weeks, especially for 2nd and 3rd reviews.

Any opinions?

Any suggestions for an 8 week regimen are welcome by the way.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[premed7]

The Kaplan books are meant for a 6 week course. So, I think 8 weeks would be plenty of time to get through them. You might want to annotate FA with stuff from Kaplan so that you only have to review FA over and over again that last week.

 

[girlmed]

Step II experience:

I think 80 to 90% of the questions were: 1.-Most likely diagnosis and 2.-next step in the management.
So its very important to study the order in which you start the managment or diagnosis of a disease, you dont need to know doses or specifications about the treatments
High yield: Immunodeficiencies, Congenital cardio defects, a lot of rheumatology, like pain in joints or knees or limping, defects associated to genetic diseases like turner

First aid really help me, a lot of stuff of first aid was on the test
Some side effects of very common medications, learn very good the milestones for pediatry, obgyn is easy so study very hard that way u gain points on that questions

Nothing about EKG nor arteries involved in strokes

I dont know my result yet, if i remeber somethig else i will post it.
I hope it helps

 

[dynx]

8 weeks is too much time.

You could do Kaplan twice in that amount of time so don't worry about being limited...worry about burning out. You want to take the test at your peak, not 1 week after you have become so burnt you can't bear to pick up a book. Relax for at least a week or two then start studying.

 

[mesoderm]

I say you got enough time to ferret out the good stuff in Kaplan and all the other books. So I guess you could go with the third option: #2 with a little #1mixed in?

 

[Dr Chooch]

I agree with dynx. 8 weeks is a ton of time, and chances are you may burn out if you study that long. If you are really worried about getting through everything, I would study for more hours each day for less overall time. I studied for Step I for 5 weeks for about 10 hrs a day, and during the last week I was getting burnt out but was definitely ready to take the test.

 

[pleaseletmepass]

hmm if i had 8 weeks, i would use 4 weeks to study for and take the exam and use 4 weeks for travel, alcohol, and sex.

 

[IndianBabu]

Thanks guys.

 

[Roy7]

i'm gonna put my post from another thread here:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyones probably gonna flame me for saying so, but it's really a personal decision. No one studies like you but you. Only you can decide how much you can retain efficiently in however long you have to prepare.

Personally, I can never retain information conceptually for long periods of time w/out hitting it over and over again. So I'm going to take as long as my school allows (which is June 19th - damn them!).

But, some of my classmates feel that they can cram a ton of info into their heads in a short period of time, and it'll be there just as fresh for exactly 4 weeks - right after which everything floats away. Thus, they're taking exactly 4 weeks for their test (or however long the kaplan program is).

Think about what you've done to help you do well in lecture (study schedule wise)- apply those same principles to board review, and hope for the best. Anyone saying "any longer than 4 weeks is too much", doesnt know you, and is just saying that because he's doing/did that. Likewise, anyone saying "take it as late as possible" doesnt know your mental atrophy rate, and probably did/is doing that too. G'luck.

- All I'd like to add is that I've got 2 cousins in india who spent around 8-12 months studying 12 hours a day for a year for step one and both recieved very very good scores (one recieved a 260ish). But they're from india and have been studying at 12 hours a day since they were 5.

 

[nprap]

along the lines of the kaplan books, what's better, the kaplan lecture notes or the home study program?

 

[Long Dong]

i'm gonna put my post from another thread here:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyones probably gonna flame me for saying so, but it's really a personal decision. No one studies like you but you. Only you can decide how much you can retain efficiently in however long you have to prepare.

Personally, I can never retain information conceptually for long periods of time w/out hitting it over and over again. So I'm going to take as long as my school allows (which is June 19th - damn them!).

But, some of my classmates feel that they can cram a ton of info into their heads in a short period of time, and it'll be there just as fresh for exactly 4 weeks - right after which everything floats away. Thus, they're taking exactly 4 weeks for their test (or however long the kaplan program is).

Think about what you've done to help you do well in lecture (study schedule wise)- apply those same principles to board review, and hope for the best. Anyone saying "any longer than 4 weeks is too much", doesnt know you, and is just saying that because he's doing/did that. Likewise, anyone saying "take it as late as possible" doesnt know your mental atrophy rate, and probably did/is doing that too. G'luck.

- All I'd like to add is that I've got 2 cousins in india who spent around 8-12 months studying 12 hours a day for a year for step one and both recieved very very good scores (one recieved a 260ish). But they're from india and have been studying at 12 hours a day since they were 5.

I agree with this guy and I spent 8 weeks of dedicated studying. I'm a slow reader and need massive repetition to retain things. I have to put in almost double the effort as some of those super smart peeps to get the same score.

 

[IndianBabu]

Its just so hard to stray away from the BRS, HY, RR hype that's on every step 1 forum. Its as if the Kaplan books just don't get the same hype.

How do you guys decide which way to go? I'm still confused, even after researching books for the past 2 months.

 

[Roy7]

Its just so hard to stray away from the BRS, HY, RR hype that's on every step 1 forum. Its as if the Kaplan books just don't get the same hype.

How do you guys decide which way to go? I'm still confused, even after researching books for the past 2 months.

I have a 2004 set of Kaplan books, they were too big for me, I prefer smaller books and having the flexibility to choose my own. Subsequently I went w/first aid AND individual BRS/High yield/Rapid review texts. Now when I say "too big", I just mean that there were a lot of words - not necessarily information, I like small books w/charts/tables/pictures.

A lot of people like kaplan - really regardless of BRS or Kaplan they'll all have the same information in them just a matter of how well you know it. There have been people who scored in the top 99 percentile using no kaplan and only BRS, other used only kaplan.

It shouldnt be that big of a deal. Just pick one and go w/it. Or better yet, order 1 copy of each type, and pick for yourself.