Just how much did your UWorld annotations matter?

[Blue Flame]

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For those of you who've taken Step 1, just how much did annotating UWorld into FA do for you? Were there any questions you got right that were in your annotations, but not in FA itself? A few? A large number? I will be starting UWorld in the next month and I just don't picture myself annotating into FA for hours on end. I've always seen Step 1 as a big picture/pattern recognition sort of exam and so I just don't see the utility of annotating every detail in UWorld into FA, which I feel like would already have that info by now if it was particularly high-yield. I also don't see the point of annotating info that is already in FA just to better memorize it, as some people like to do. Will this hurt me in or the long-run or will the time I save by not annotating (and putting towards knowing FA inside and out) be worth it? Thanks!

 

[plasmodium]

It's impossible to quantify the benefit of any strategy, but I am personally happy that I annotated. I was able to answer 3-4 strange ethics questions solely because I had remembered a couple of lines from a few UWorld annotations. The questions on the real deal that I am referring to were not directly asked in question format in UWorld; these questions were only able to be answered with one or two lines that, by chance, I was able to remember from the the explanations themselves. When studying these annotations, it did not occur to me that I would have specific questions on minor details in the explanations. I was just fortunate to have thoroughly read them and internalized their underlying concepts to be utilized later. I'm sure that they were integral to my success in other areas well, but it is these few ethics questions that were particularly elusive, and without the UWorld annotations I would in no way have been able to answer them.

Many students don't annotate and still score very high. Do whatever you feel comfortable with. Hope this helps.

Scored 260+

 

[Blue Flame]

It's impossible to quantify the benefit of any strategy, but I am personally happy that I annotated. I was able to answer 3-4 strange ethics questions solely because I had remembered a couple of lines from a few UWorld annotations. The questions on the real deal that I am referring to were not directly asked in question format in UWorld; these questions were only able to be answered with one or two lines that, by chance, I was able to remember from the the explanations themselves. When studying these annotations, it did not occur to me that I would have specific questions on minor details in the explanations. I was just fortunate to have thoroughly read them and internalized their underlying concepts to be utilized later. I'm sure that they were integral to my success in other areas well, but it is these few ethics questions that were particularly elusive, and without the UWorld annotations I would in no way have been able to answer them.

Many students don't annotate and still score very high. Do whatever you feel comfortable with. Hope this helps.

Scored 260+

Thanks for the feedback and congrats on a great score! Would be great to hear more experiences with UWorld annotations and the real deal if anyone wouldn't mind sharing.