Ramoray said:
I am just wondering how much detail is on step 1. For example especially biochem, would they ask things like what type of chains make up collagen, or do you have to know the linweiver burk plots graphs and michelas menton equeations etc. Sorry spelling is wayyy off there. but u know what i mean? any input would greatly save time studying and help me out! thanks
This is a pretty difficult question to answer. I tend to think that about 70% of the exam is made up of questions that aren't too detailed (they test particular important concepts), and 30% is made up of picky questions. The way this works out is: the 30% (picky) is what separates the passers from the acers on the Step 1. Using this logic, most if not all of the people who PASS the exam get the majority of the 70% concept questions correct. It follows that if you can also get most of the detailed questions correct (the 30%), you'll score very well on the exam, but if you don't get a lot of the detailed questions yet excel on the important concept questions, you'll probably score around the mean.
I know I haven't directly answered the question you want answered (i.e. what the hell do i study), but I really can't. No one can. Everyone's exam experience is totally different. One person might have 3 easy questions on enzyme kinetics, another person might have 2 complicated, detailed kinetics questions, and two other people might not have a single question about it. I really don't think any person or any study program (kaplan) can efficiently prepare you to ace the detailed questions because they can come from any angle and cover any aspect of the basic sciences. That's how the NBME separates the good students from the best and gets its upper end of the normal score distribution.
The best choice is to just take a standard review text like First Aid and use that as your guide. If you ever see anything covered in FA that you think isn't covered in enough detail (i.e., it just seems thin, or doesn't seem to have any real importance) then I would suggest looking that stuff up in another FOCUSED review source (like HY or BRS) or even a representative text on the subject (a better choice if you have the time).
Again, the point of the board exams is to test how well you've learned this information (both the concepts and the detail) over the course of two years. The point is not to test how well you can memorize a few review texts and high yield topics and beat the exam. Therefore, there's going to be anywhere from a little to a lot of studying for the Step 1 for you, all depending on how much you've retained from your two basic science years.
