MS1: Concerned that I haven't started using any 3rd party materials yet...

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oldjoe97

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It's been about a month into my time as an MS1 and I am getting adjusted to watching lecture at 2x speed, making image occlusion cards from some of the lecture slides, and unsuspending most relevant cards from the Zanki deck. Occasionally I do practice questions from USMLERx (provided by the school) and I am considering purchasing AMBOSS.

However, I haven't really delved into Bnb, Sketchy, or Pathoma and uncertain of how or when I would even incorporate this into my day. When do I need to start doing this, can I get by with just studying lecture?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!
 
That's exactly what you need to be doing: making sure you can handle what you're currently doing. Relax. If you're finding that you need some path help, etc., try a resource out. Don't use too many though.

I'd do lolnotacop and watch sketchy starting in ID. My school had a throwaway block before ID, so I watched and did those before ID even started. Life changingly helpful and more than enough for ID and step (if you really remember your videos and cards).

Do what works for you. If you're understanding the material now, you're okay for now.
 
To be fair, I did exactly what you did. Minus zanki. Started that 2nd year, and was really upset I didn't use it 1st year and stuck w/ it until step.

You're in fine shape.

Side note. I'm in a fight. Do you say za-aeyki, or zahn-ki?
 
ArteryStudyPainting said:
To be fair, I did exactly what you did. Minus zanki. Started that 2nd year, and was really upset I didn't use it 1st year and stuck w/ it until step.

You're in fine shape.

Side note. I'm in a fight. Do you say za-aeyki, or zahn-ki?
Click to expand...

Your comment is much appreciated! I'm definitely doing okay thus far with the in house exams and our NBME finals. Understanding all the relevant content and whatnot. I just think that watching videos is a really passive study method for me and isn't the best way for me to learn, so I tend to not invest my time there.

I say the latter! Zahn-ki for the win.
 
oldjoe97 said:
It's been about a month into my time as an MS1 and I am getting adjusted to watching lecture at 2x speed, making image occlusion cards from some of the lecture slides, and unsuspending most relevant cards from the Zanki deck. Occasionally I do practice questions from USMLERx (provided by the school) and I am considering purchasing AMBOSS.

However, I haven't really delved into Bnb, Sketchy, or Pathoma and uncertain of how or when I would even incorporate this into my day. When do I need to start doing this, can I get by with just studying lecture?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I didn't even know what boards were till end of first year you will be fine
 
oldjoe97 said:
It's been about a month into my time as an MS1 and I am getting adjusted to watching lecture at 2x speed, making image occlusion cards from some of the lecture slides, and unsuspending most relevant cards from the Zanki deck. Occasionally I do practice questions from USMLERx (provided by the school) and I am considering purchasing AMBOSS.

However, I haven't really delved into Bnb, Sketchy, or Pathoma and uncertain of how or when I would even incorporate this into my day. When do I need to start doing this, can I get by with just studying lecture?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

It depends on your curriculum. If you do the typical path/micro/pharm during M2, you don't need to get Pathoma or sketchy until then. BnB is useful for all of preclinicals. Knowing that you don't like videos, you can just skip all the vids and do the questions that go with each BnB/sketchy vid. For Pathoma, you can get the Duke deck or make cards straight from Dr Sattar's book. This way you won't be doing any passive learning.

Typically, people do a first pass with the board resources and then fill in whatever they need to with school lectures. You can skip whatever you already know and just focus on the low yield minutiae.

I'd recommend incorporating these resources as soon as possible, as they'll make your learning more efficient.
 
I vote for not complicating your life before you have to. If you're doing well with in house PPTs & zanki, carry on. At some point you'll either struggle, have a terrible lecturer, or begin to think "there's gotta be a better way to do this" and then we'll all still be here to point you towards those resources.
 
Start today (or tomorrow). You're only a month into M1, so you're aren't really behind.
 
I watched sketchy micro first semester and that’s it. Didn’t touch flash cards and didn’t open FA. Still did pretty well. First semester was just too overwhelming for me to do more than that.
 
Yeah so I would NOT take @Falconslick ’s advice. I mean he told me that I have a very modest score of 251 and shouldn’t be doing any AMA (but I did of course and you can check it out if you want). So I’ll give you some modest advice, use first aid and boards and beyond as a SUPPLEMENT. I had PPTs from school that were filled with a decent amount of unnecessary stuff and it just obscured the actual concept for me. I used Boards and beyond to dumb it down. Then read the class PPT to add whatever info was extra, and then I read FA for summary and any other extra info. Wrote the PPT and boards and beyond stuff into FA. For someone not innately bright like me (especially starting dedicated with a 210 baseline), best decision I made.


EDIT: unless of course you’re a genius like @Falconslick and you know 251 is super modest for you, you can start in M2 😉
 
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are you using zanki even though step may be pass fail? iv been debating becuase its so much extra work. but i havent started 3rd party either and nither have most of my classmates
 
Too many FOMO posts about zanki etc. If you do use it, it depends on curriculum. The best way to use it is not to learn from it; for example, you shouldn't just unsuspend 250 zanki cards then that is your primary source. What you should do is use third party resource: read fa, watch bnb or pathoma, etc. THEN u unsuspend the cards associated with that. This way, you do the cards MUCH faster, and it's an extra "pass" of stuff you just read/watched about.

And, don't do the thing where you search everything based on class powerpoints. That's a huge waste of time, takes too long. Ik for some school (mine especially), the board relevant material is so sparse that when my school teaches something that is board relevant topic they miss about ~15 percent of it, and focus on some minutiae. This is when watching boards and beyond will be super helpful especially their physio/anatomy sections of certain blocks, or reading first aid. pathoma i find doesn't cover most physio you need, but their path is beautiful. But I didn't even do that first year, and it's not a big deal, because I can just spend 1-2 hours watching BnB now and it's like I never forgot em.

If your curriculum doesn't seem feasible for you to do that first year, OR you don't want to spend 500 dollars for some 2 year BnB subscription (which was probably the major reason zanki was frustrating first year) then just wait until second year. Unless you are super paranoid for no reason and you think you can won't burn yourself out while you do 500 reviews every day during your M1 year AND summer, then you should do the "ima unsuspend everything on zanki based on what block we're on". If this is you, more power to you, because that seems like hell.
 
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7331poas said:
you dont need to anki. step 1 is pass fail
Click to expand...

Some /could/ argue that Step 1 performance translates to Step 2 performance. Though I'm sure you can argue that this isn't because of the content, and mainly due to the work ethic or brains of the individual but still developing that work ethic early could translate over. But yes you definitely hit diminishing returns much earlier on grinding for a P/F Step 1 but I wouldn't discredit the use of Anki even for a P/F Step 1 (which isn't 100% yet tbf).

Especially traditional curriculums, good to have that physio knowledge reinforced when you get up to Path/Pharm.
 
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AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson said:
Some /could/ argue that Step 1 performance translates to Step 2 performance. Though I'm sure you can argue that this isn't because of the content, and mainly due to the work ethic or brains of the individual but still developing that work ethic early could translate over. But yes you definitely hit diminishing returns much earlier on grinding for a P/F Step 1 but I wouldn't discredit the use of Anki even for a P/F Step 1 (which isn't 100% yet tbf).
Especially traditional curriculums, good to have that physio knowledge reinforced when you get up to Path/Pharm.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. My aim for M1/M2 was to know as much as possible. And I don’t think that approach should change even if step 1 is pass/fail. It can only help you in M3/M4 to know as much as you can about what you’re gonna be seeing. That’s why FA + boards and beyond was great to solidify/clear up class PPTs. And combine that with sketchy later. I don’t see how it can hurt you to have an easier time absorbing the info you are gonna get and be tested on anyways.
 
tbhdying said:
Yeah so I would NOT take @Falconslick ’s advice. I mean he told me that I have a very modest score of 251 and shouldn’t be doing any AMA (but I did of course and you can check it out if you want). So I’ll give you some modest advice, use first aid and boards and beyond as a SUPPLEMENT. I had PPTs from school that were filled with a decent amount of unnecessary stuff and it just obscured the actual concept for me. I used Boards and beyond to dumb it down. Then read the class PPT to add whatever info was extra, and then I read FA for summary and any other extra info. Wrote the PPT and boards and beyond stuff into FA. For someone not innately bright like me (especially starting dedicated with a 210 baseline), best decision I made.


EDIT: unless of course you’re a genius like @Falconslick and you know 251 is super modest for you, you can start in M2 😉
Click to expand...
Lol dude I was kidding in the post on the other topic chillax. no one needs to study for bords before second year. Plenty of us did well without killing ourself
 
Falconslick said:
Lol dude I was kidding in the post on the other topic chillax. no one needs to study for bords before second year. Plenty of us did well without killing ourself
Click to expand...

Yeah I’m pretty sure most peoples improvements come during dedicated doing hundreds of questions and reviewing them. Nobody comes out of m2 year, zanki or otherwise, scoring 240 on their first attempt or 80 percent uworld lmao.
 
scoopdaboop said:
Yeah I’m pretty sure most peoples improvements come during dedicated doing hundreds of questions and reviewing them. Nobody comes out of m2 year, zanki or otherwise, scoring 240 on their first attempt or 80 percent uworld lmao.
Click to expand...
Falconslick said:
Lol dude I was kidding in the post on the other topic chillax. no one needs to study for bords before second year. Plenty of us did well without killing ourself
Click to expand...

I don't get the "killing ourselves" part doh. Anki isn't a huge time commitment. Sure if you start M2 and need to unsuspend all of M1, you're gonna have a lot going for you. But if you start early, it doesn't build up to that much and the time done doing Anki is studying time. 1 pass of material + anki (+ PQs at the end of the week) and you're done for the day.

If you're a "5 cards/min" fella doh then yeah your whole life will be at the spacebar.
 
AnonymousDoctorGuyPerson said:
I don't get the "killing ourselves" part doh. Anki isn't a huge time commitment. Sure if you start M2 and need to unsuspend all of M1, you're gonna have a lot going for you. But if you start early, it doesn't build up to that much and the time done doing Anki is studying time. 1 pass of material + anki (+ PQs at the end of the week) and you're done for the day.

If you're a "5 cards/min" fella doh then yeah your whole life will be at the spacebar.
Click to expand...

Yeah I use lightyear as my primary learning tool and average 10 seconds a card. It takes me an hour give or take 5 mins to do all my cards for the day. Not a big time sink.
 
GreenDuck12 said:
out of curiosity, why did you pick lightyear?
Click to expand...

When I used Zanki, I found myself just memorizing the pattern and context of the card. Made it easier to go through the cards, but I found that if I got presented the info in a different way, it was hard to recall it because I had just been memorizing patterns.
 
Falconslick said:
Lol dude I was kidding in the post on the other topic chillax. no one needs to study for bords before second year. Plenty of us did well without killing ourself
Click to expand...
i don't know why you keep thinking using resources to make studying more efficient = killing yourself, solely bc you're using them in M1. That's really good you did well, i'm happy for you.
 
The thing that people don't understand is that using anki is actually faster than reading PPTs and whatever else these med students are doing. I spend 3 hours doing my reviews in the AM. And maybe an hour or two doing new cards at noon/afternoon. Afterwards you are free.
 
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