- Joined
- Jun 7, 2003
- Messages
- 18
- Reaction score
- 5
Its finally over, I just took the exam a couple days ago. I used this forum a lot over the past month and a half to try to get advice/opinions on how and what to study...of course what follows is my 2 cents :
1.) If you have a lot of common sense you will do well on Step 1 no matter what you study or how long you study. The questions are very well written and make you think about situations in new ways, "recall" questions are the minority although you must remember some basic details to apply your knowledge to.
2.) If you dont sleep well the night before the exam your score will probably go down by 10 points or so. Being well rested is your #1 asset. Be aggressive in ensuring adequate rest the night of the exam, get short acting sleeping meds from your doc if necessary (or if the warm milk works for you no need for meds).
3.) You can ask as many people who have taken Step 1 for advice as you want, be assured you will get a different opinion each and every time you ask someone new. It will start leading to confusion and elevate your stress level beyond its already high level. There is no need to ask more than 5 people what to study...they all will tell you to use First Aid, or that Kaplan live courses did or did not help them, or that they used BRS for this NMS for that and HIgh Yield for the other thing... or they just used the Kaplan books for this but not that....blah blah blah, and oh yeah, there's always someone who swears on their life that they know a guy who memorized every line in First Aid without using any other books and he got a 270.... I assure you that this is a lie or some sort of a med school urban legend. Absolutely impossible I promise you. First Aid is awesome, I had tons of direct hits, especially from pharm...but thats not enough.
4.)There is no perfect combo of books to study, I could come up with tons of different things I could have done differently and I know I still would have learned the same material in the same way and probably would get the same exact score. I wouldnt use any review books that nobody else has heard about--stick to the well known titles. You should try to use the review books you used all year.
5.)There is a common sense way to go about studying for Step 1, each individual student can fill in the smaller details themselves by USING THE SOURCES THAT THEY FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH!!!
The common sense approach is to emphasize Path, Pharm and Physio. Thats the one piece of advice that worked for me. I thought it was way too simple to be true, but its the only thing that ended up to be true in the end. You have to know other subjects like anatomy/biochem/immuno/micro but dont go crazy over every last detail in those areas.
---absolutely know Pathology as well as you can, BRS path + Pathophysiology for the Boards and Wards was 50% of my exam!!! You can use any good path book, just know it well.
Use a path atlas shortly before the exam, thumbing through baby Robbins pictures or WebPath is fine. Make sure you know what you're looking at. You only need to look at Path pictures once or twice, not a huge deal.
---know the big drugs for Pharm. The big drugs are the ones that are in First Aid. Yes, First Aid is enough if you are looking to just pass or beat the mean, but you have to use another source if you want to really master autonomic drugs or other frequently tested drug classes like antibiotics or CNS drugs. The mega Pharm books suck and are a waste of your time...if they ask about an obscure drug, it will be something you never even heard of before, chances are its not in your review book. Kaplan was a good book for the CNS drugs and autonomics but thats it.
---relearn the **regulation** of biochemical pathways and how that ties into disease states (ie alcoholism). Lysosomal storage diseases are easy points to score, but they dont just ask for the enzyme all the time, you gotta know how these patients look (eg Tay Sachs is predominantly neuro symptoms, Pompe's is cardiac). Lippincott biochem is a waste of your time. Do you really think you need to read that massive "review book" for step 1? First Aid is enough but I personally found it too cryptic so I supplemented with Kaplan biochem and penciled in the other details in First Aid.
DNA-->RNA-->Protein and everything in between comes into play indirectly in many situations, know your molecular bio!
--I wasted so much time relearning every lab detail for all those different bacteria, you should review that stuff but dont go crazy over it. Clinical micro is much MUCH higher yield.
--I didnt have any hits from Q bank, and I found the behavioral sci questions to be picky and annoying. Step 1 questions are much more refined in terms of their writing, I used Q-bank to figure out WHY I got questions wrong in certain areas or what I needed to study more. I got used to taking exams on computer screens by using Q-bank, that has to be its #1 utility. Q-Bank emphasizes some wierd details that I never ran into in med school, nor in Step 1. Dont read too much into your Q-bank score. There is no solid correlation between Q bank scores and your Step 1 score. Well, if you're getting 40's in Q bank a week before you take Step 1, I think that would mean you should study a bit harder or perhaps consider a career in dentistry.
6)If you use your common sense and trust your own judgement on what to study, you will do well. Its easy for me to tell you all to not stress out, I know....but after taking the exam I realize the I stressed out way too much for this thing. They are not out to trick you or make you fail, if you make an honest attempt at learning the major material you will be fine.
Good luck to all of you !
1.) If you have a lot of common sense you will do well on Step 1 no matter what you study or how long you study. The questions are very well written and make you think about situations in new ways, "recall" questions are the minority although you must remember some basic details to apply your knowledge to.
2.) If you dont sleep well the night before the exam your score will probably go down by 10 points or so. Being well rested is your #1 asset. Be aggressive in ensuring adequate rest the night of the exam, get short acting sleeping meds from your doc if necessary (or if the warm milk works for you no need for meds).
3.) You can ask as many people who have taken Step 1 for advice as you want, be assured you will get a different opinion each and every time you ask someone new. It will start leading to confusion and elevate your stress level beyond its already high level. There is no need to ask more than 5 people what to study...they all will tell you to use First Aid, or that Kaplan live courses did or did not help them, or that they used BRS for this NMS for that and HIgh Yield for the other thing... or they just used the Kaplan books for this but not that....blah blah blah, and oh yeah, there's always someone who swears on their life that they know a guy who memorized every line in First Aid without using any other books and he got a 270.... I assure you that this is a lie or some sort of a med school urban legend. Absolutely impossible I promise you. First Aid is awesome, I had tons of direct hits, especially from pharm...but thats not enough.
4.)There is no perfect combo of books to study, I could come up with tons of different things I could have done differently and I know I still would have learned the same material in the same way and probably would get the same exact score. I wouldnt use any review books that nobody else has heard about--stick to the well known titles. You should try to use the review books you used all year.
5.)There is a common sense way to go about studying for Step 1, each individual student can fill in the smaller details themselves by USING THE SOURCES THAT THEY FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH!!!
The common sense approach is to emphasize Path, Pharm and Physio. Thats the one piece of advice that worked for me. I thought it was way too simple to be true, but its the only thing that ended up to be true in the end. You have to know other subjects like anatomy/biochem/immuno/micro but dont go crazy over every last detail in those areas.
---absolutely know Pathology as well as you can, BRS path + Pathophysiology for the Boards and Wards was 50% of my exam!!! You can use any good path book, just know it well.
Use a path atlas shortly before the exam, thumbing through baby Robbins pictures or WebPath is fine. Make sure you know what you're looking at. You only need to look at Path pictures once or twice, not a huge deal.
---know the big drugs for Pharm. The big drugs are the ones that are in First Aid. Yes, First Aid is enough if you are looking to just pass or beat the mean, but you have to use another source if you want to really master autonomic drugs or other frequently tested drug classes like antibiotics or CNS drugs. The mega Pharm books suck and are a waste of your time...if they ask about an obscure drug, it will be something you never even heard of before, chances are its not in your review book. Kaplan was a good book for the CNS drugs and autonomics but thats it.
---relearn the **regulation** of biochemical pathways and how that ties into disease states (ie alcoholism). Lysosomal storage diseases are easy points to score, but they dont just ask for the enzyme all the time, you gotta know how these patients look (eg Tay Sachs is predominantly neuro symptoms, Pompe's is cardiac). Lippincott biochem is a waste of your time. Do you really think you need to read that massive "review book" for step 1? First Aid is enough but I personally found it too cryptic so I supplemented with Kaplan biochem and penciled in the other details in First Aid.
DNA-->RNA-->Protein and everything in between comes into play indirectly in many situations, know your molecular bio!
--I wasted so much time relearning every lab detail for all those different bacteria, you should review that stuff but dont go crazy over it. Clinical micro is much MUCH higher yield.
--I didnt have any hits from Q bank, and I found the behavioral sci questions to be picky and annoying. Step 1 questions are much more refined in terms of their writing, I used Q-bank to figure out WHY I got questions wrong in certain areas or what I needed to study more. I got used to taking exams on computer screens by using Q-bank, that has to be its #1 utility. Q-Bank emphasizes some wierd details that I never ran into in med school, nor in Step 1. Dont read too much into your Q-bank score. There is no solid correlation between Q bank scores and your Step 1 score. Well, if you're getting 40's in Q bank a week before you take Step 1, I think that would mean you should study a bit harder or perhaps consider a career in dentistry.
6)If you use your common sense and trust your own judgement on what to study, you will do well. Its easy for me to tell you all to not stress out, I know....but after taking the exam I realize the I stressed out way too much for this thing. They are not out to trick you or make you fail, if you make an honest attempt at learning the major material you will be fine.
Good luck to all of you !
