My Step I Thread (Long)

[laxman310]

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[Pinkertinkle]

Have you looked into Kaplan video lectures? I highly recommend them.

 

[tony montana]

Things might be run different at your school, but at mine you could know Goljan RR pathology and audio 100% and you would not pass pathology.

 

[SeventhSon]

before someone else gives this advice,

Just do as well in your classes as you can, take a peak at first aid/RR Path when it coincides with your classes, and look up first-year material when it relates to second year.

I have yet to take the test, but I am skeptical of using UWorld at this point. You are better off staying focused on the subject you are studying than doing questions that you don't have the proper background to appreciate. It does not take THAT long to get used to the question format.

 

[laxman310]

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[laxman310]

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[OddNath]

before someone else gives this advice,

Just do as well in your classes as you can, take a peak at first aid/RR Path when it coincides with your classes, and look up first-year material when it relates to second year.

I have yet to take the test, but I am skeptical of using UWorld at this point. You are better off staying focused on the subject you are studying than doing questions that you don't have the proper background to appreciate. It does not take THAT long to get used to the question format.

I have taken the test (and scored in the OP's goal range) and completely agree with this advice. I started doing qbank sporadically in January, stepped in up during spring break, then really hit it hard during finals/the month off. Study hard for your classes, review old stuff as it comes up.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

I support the BigFrank position. I'm in the study for step I early camp vs the study for classes camp. I think a good percentage of the stuff (at least 30%) we were taught by our clueless basis science professors have no use for wards or step 1. Studying really hard and acing your classes may be good prep, but is not high yield. I worked enough to do pretty average on ms1 and ms2 classes and spent the rest of my time studying the board relevant aspects of the material with kaplan lectures and videos and doing research. It paid off with a very bigfrankish score so I'm recommending it to you.

If you look at BigFrank's advice (he got a 262) you'll see that he started doing questions in November/December. Though it may not sound like a good score, I've done about 60 so far, and have been getting about 50% right. I do it in tutor mode, so it helps teach me. I'm at a pass fail school, so doing "good" in my classes gives me no reward and a bunch of knowledge of which I won't use as a practicing physician.

I am very goal oriented, and my goal is to get into a competitive residency, which this aims at.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

I don't want to disagree with Pinkertinkle, but present the opposite viewpoint because it's what I did.

I focused on class stuff almost exclusively during the year and studied high yield stuff like mad after second year was done. I ended up with a 259.

My theory is that even though the stuff they teach you in basic science class seems low yield, it may be the only time you SEE it during medical school and it's worth hearing it once so you can maybe get one of those random weirdo questions right.

The second part is that even if you screw up the boards for whatever reason (test anxiety, sick, test that just hits you in your weak areas), getting good preclinical grades still gives you a bit of the buffer. With my method, even if I had done not so hot on the boards, I would still be point at my rank and grades and show that I can maintain hard work over a long period of time and may have had a bad test day (which of course, second part of the plan would be to then kill Step II early). This of course is different if your school really doesn't tabulate a class rank or something.

 

[blz]

Seems like overkill to start so early. You'll just forget all the stuff you did in the beginning of the year and you'll just end up studying like everyone else in the end. Getting a "bigfrank" score probably takes more than just starting early (many here have gotten over 260 without studying a year for it, myself included). You're going to be sacrificing a lot to study the whole year (such as A LIFE) for low return.

Maybe you could start doing your content review now, taking notes and such so when you do get serious about studying you'll have it all nicely laid out in reviewable form. I hate the idea of starting questions so early.

 

[The Buff]

Seems like overkill to start so early. You'll just forget all the stuff you did in the beginning of the year and you'll just end up studying like everyone else in the end. Getting a "bigfrank" score probably takes more than just starting early (many here have gotten over 260 without studying a year for it, myself included). You're going to be sacrificing a lot to study the whole year (such as A LIFE) for low return.

Maybe you could start doing your content review now, taking notes and such so when you do get serious about studying you'll have it all nicely laid out in reviewable form. I hate the idea of starting questions so early.

While I only got a pedestrian 246, I completely agree with Johnny (or Mr. Game & Watch as I think of him) and blz here. I think you'll forget anything that is "reviewed" this early and miss out on life in the process. To me one of the keys of step 1 studying was making connections between all of the various materials and structuring all of that information in my mind so that i could find it quickly--this was only possible when I was focused on the material all day, every day. I know plenty of people at my top 20 school who were average in class and still got 240+ and only studied for step 1 toward the end of the year.

That said, I also know people who were masochistic/ got-off on thinking how all of this studying would let them kill step 1 and therefore didn't want a life. If this is you, go ahead an kill yourself now.

 

[EricVorheese]

I slacked a lot of first year and have not been excelling so far in second year.

I am very goal oriented, and my goal is to get into a competitive residency, which this aims at.

kinda contradictory, no?

 

[osli]

I can see some benefit in doing a bit of studying now for specific reasons and/or purposes.

For example, I can identify areas where I feel our curriculum (which is on the whole excellent) is not as good at giving me the big picture view. One of these areas is biochemistry... we are on a systems based curriculum format, and getting one part of food metabolism in august and another lecture in november and another in march makes it difficult for me to put the whole picture/process together. So I'm going through RR biochem now, not with the goal of memorizing pathway enzymes, regulators, and metabolites but rather so that I'll be familiar with how the various pathways interact (generally), and to put all of the "details" I've learned over the past year or so into a better framework.

Another example: I'll probably read through FA over the Christmas break. Not with the intent to memorize a lot of the details, but rather to "read it as a book" and get familiar with what it does and does not contain. Some stuff will stick, most will not... but when I get ready for serious study later and go to a more subject specific source (HY, BRS, RR, etc) it should be easier to annotate FA, and when I get ready to study FA in earnest I'll have a much better idea of how to tackle it.

Also, I've started using RR path as a regular supplement to our path lectures. We are getting a lot of repeat now in path (since we have it continuously for two years), and it helps to see the same information from a different perspective.

But all of this is on an "as I have time" basis. I'm doing just fine in all of my current courses. I'm certainly not going to sacrifice grades for a bit of a head start.

 

[AlbertConstable]

250+ here and my advice is to understand the material in your courses to get average or above but don't focus on all the details required to get 90%+ unless you really have fun learning those details. Instead take time to enjoy life and then when the January comes around, start questions when you have some time but still nothing too hardcore. The last month or two focus on tons of questions and a few good review sources and you'll be golden.

 

[laxman310]

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[lankysudanese]

I attend a medical school which could NOT care less about Step 1 (we are required to sit for, but not necessarily pass step 1, in order to graduate). That being said, I busted my a$$ off studying during MS1 and MS2, and did not even start worrying about Step 1 until I got my MS2 grades back. Even though I used several review books when studying for Step 1, I found that what truly helped me do well was the solid background, which was the result of my hard work in the first 2 years. I viewed the review books as good aides for "reviewing' and organizing information that I was already familiar with.

my 2 cents.