Is it a bad idea to not do any questions the last 2 weeks?

[angkshus]

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I want to finish world asap and then spend my last 2 weeks going through FA two more times. I'm wondering if it will hurt me if I stop doing questions the final 2 weeks? I've been really inefficient juggling the two (reading FA and following it with UW blocks) and I'd like to just focus on 1 thing at a time. I have 1200 UW question left that I want to complete in 5 days (doing nothing but world). Anyone think this is a bad idea?

 

[HTxFrog]

If you were going to do it that way, I think it'd be better to read FA twice then do the questions rather than the other way around. If you've read first aid twice right before doing 1200 questions, you will only miss stuff you really don't know and then you can look at it in first aid. I feel you on that issue though. I'm way better at just reading straight through FA or just doing Q's on a particular day too, but I'm still gonna try and do morning q's and afternoon/night reading the next two weeks (my last two). Hopefully it works

 

[angkshus]

If you were going to do it that way, I think it'd be better to read FA twice then do the questions rather than the other way around. If you've read first aid twice right before doing 1200 questions, you will only miss stuff you really don't know and then you can look at it in first aid. I feel you on that issue though. I'm way better at just reading straight through FA or just doing Q's on a particular day too, but I'm still gonna try and do morning q's and afternoon/night reading the next two weeks (my last two). Hopefully it works

Thanks for the advice. I was following a similar plan but I know focusing on 1 thing is how I study best and I'll definitely waste less time with this plan. I don't really care if I miss a lot of questions on world. I'll be lightly annotating into FA so I'll see the info 2 more times.
My biggest concern is not being "used to" answering questions. Has anyone (or does anyone know anyone) who stopped doing questions >1wk before the exam- want to WARN me against doing this?

 

[blahwhatever]

I don't recommend it. As I'm doing questions I'm getting better at test taking, improving speed/thought process, and my scores are getting better just based on that. I think having done a lot of questions right before the exams and having those test taking skills fresh is a better way to do it. So I would really try hard to do questions in the morning and study evening/night. It'll be difficult, but it's important to consider that it also comes down to how good your test taking skills are on that day. And you lose those skills if you don't practice.

 

[angkshus]

I don't recommend it. As I'm doing questions I'm getting better at test taking, improving speed/thought process, and my scores are getting better just based on that. I think having done a lot of questions right before the exams and having those test taking skills fresh is a better way to do it. So I would really try hard to do questions in the morning and study evening/night. It'll be difficult, but it's important to consider that it also comes down to how good your test taking skills are on that day. And you lose those skills if you don't practice.

That's pretty much what I'm afraid of! In my original schedule, I'd finish world, a week out. So a week would go by without practice.
I wonder if I should redo all the questions I got wrong (not something I plan to do at this point) that last week just to maintain my test taking skills...
Ughhh I know there's no one 'right' way to prepare for this, I'd just like to avoid screwing up the hard work I've put in doing questions.

 

[coldweatherblue]

you could do random 48s to keep fresh.

I finished UW about two weeks ago, and since then I've run through a bunch of questions a second time while studying for shelf exams and finals (almost all of path, pharm, physio, and micro).

I have 11 days til boards and I've been doing random 48s of the sections I haven't done multiple times (biochem, biostats, epi, immuno, anatomy, embryo). As the exam gets closer I'll probably start doing random 48s of all of them. I get questions multiple times but it's still good reinforcement, along with reading FA and RR again. 50 pages of FA + 50 pages of RR + 192 UW questions a day is my plan from here on out.

 

[badasshairday]

50 pages of FA + 50 pages of RR + 192 UW questions a day is my plan from here on out.

Savage study plan. 👍

 

[NRAI2001]

you could do random 48s to keep fresh.

I finished UW about two weeks ago, and since then I've run through a bunch of questions a second time while studying for shelf exams and finals (almost all of path, pharm, physio, and micro).

I have 11 days til boards and I've been doing random 48s of the sections I haven't done multiple times (biochem, biostats, epi, immuno, anatomy, embryo). As the exam gets closer I'll probably start doing random 48s of all of them. I get questions multiple times but it's still good reinforcement, along with reading FA and RR again. 50 pages of FA + 50 pages of RR + 192 UW questions a day is my plan from here on out.

Wow that's still a lot of stuff to cover per day..

 

[angkshus]

So I'm going to do 4 days of world, then a go over fa, do 1 long day of world, and spend the last week memorizing fa. If I get antsy and feel like I need to do questions, I'll do some of the ones I got wrong that last week. I'll let you all know how it goes!

 

[radiodoc99]

Do a combination of UW questions but read the answers and answer choices. Go straight to the educational objective to save time. Read FA and your own notes by taking breaks in between. Eg: Wake up: 2 hrs read FA, do 50 questions, 30mins FA, 50questions, 100 questions and finally by bed time read FA for 3hrs.

 

[JimT30]

I would definitely recommend doing lots of questions the final week, it really helps when you get to the real thing, because you are so used to doing them that actual USMLE is no big deal. I read all of FA and Med Essentials in a week and a half and then spent the whole last week and knocked off UWorld and I felt really prepared going into and out of it.

 

[vicinihil]

Yes. Questions are more important than reading FA

 

[metalrex]

50 pages of FA + 50 pages of RR + 192 UW questions a day is my plan from here on out.

What do you think about just doing the blue margins from RR ? I am 2 weeks out and have been doing the margins alone from RR, coupled with FA and around 200-300 UW qs each day.

I just hope RR does not fall into oblivion in my head come test day.

 

[McGillGrad]

Yes. Questions are more important than reading FA

👍

 

[vicinihil]

What do you think about just doing the blue margins from RR ? I am 2 weeks out and have been doing the margins alone from RR, coupled with FA and around 200-300 UW qs each day.

I just hope RR does not fall into oblivion in my head come test day.

Not a bad idea if you've read and understood rr in its entirety. Otherwise read the text. It pays.

 

[coldweatherblue]

What do you think about just doing the blue margins from RR ?

Margin notes are gold. I did a pretty thorough pass through RR a week ago while studying for the path shelf, so this time around I'm going speed read through the stuff I remember, definitely focusing on the margin notes and blue boxes, but also going through the text looking for stuff I forgot (or never learned).