Need a little guidance

[Domenech]

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Hi all, I am taking my exam on June 10th, however as the date is nearing, I am getting consistently confused about what my study strategy should be. These days I am just studying first aid.

I gave nbme form 3 last november (I am studying alongwith my school routine so study schedule was on and off until now). I got 244 on that. At that time I also did the USMLE sample exam from their website and scored 90% correct. Only just recently (yes just a few minutes ago), I did usmle world self-assessment exam form 1 and scored 256. That left me slightly distraught as I have usually been hearing that usmle world overestimates actual step1 performance by about 10-15 points. Does that mean I'm still lingering near 244?

Another thing I'd like to ask is what book should I study specifically now. First AID is brilliant but there's this growing problem with usmle world questions that are mostly "out of" the syllabus of first aid. Furthermore these uworld questions seemed to be frustratingly concentrating on topics that rather weren't really discussed at all in first aid and Kaplan. I wish to improve my score further in the remaining days. Any tips I can use? Should I concentrate MORE on usmle world questions (and explanations) rather than the actual first aid and kaplan stuff?

 

[metalrex]

To me you are def in the right direction 👍 I take the exam just 4 days after you do and I am still tackling UW and a standard system based review.

I would ditch kaplan, and focus full steam on UW and FA.Carefully analyse on what's keeping you back from your target on those tests you took-then tackle those from RR and FA over again.This strategy helps me get through my weaknesses.Then take another test of you wish.

Remember ,as you get closer to test day, keep it as simple as possible.

GL ! Waiting to hear that great score 👍

 

[Domenech]

Wow I had the same thoughts about Kaplan since sometimes it just frustrates the hell out of me. I have kaplan medessentials. I'd finish a read of first aid today and I'd be infrequently referring to kap medessentials book since it's basically all of high yield info from kaplan.

It looks like I'd also concentrate full time now on Uworld questions and their explanations. Good luck on your preparation too! 😎

 

[metalrex]

kap medessentials 😎

Should be sometimes called "medsuperflous".I understand what frustration can do at this point.

I was curious to know how many days you took to get through FA straight?

 

[Domenech]

Should be sometimes called "medsuperflous".I understand what frustration can do at this point.

I was curious to know how many days you took to get through FA straight?

I think probably 8 days, with a break doing uworld form 1 as well. I did go through FA last year in november too before giving the nbme3 last year. But I haven't really annotated it much with uworld or kaplan. So now it seems that in the remaining 20 days or so, I'd just do uworld extensively and cross-reference kaplan and FA occasionally.

What's your plan?

 

[metalrex]

I think probably 8 days, with a break doing uworld form 1 as well. I did go through FA last year in november too before giving the nbme3 last year. But I haven't really annotated it much with uworld or kaplan. So now it seems that in the remaining 20 days or so, I'd just do uworld extensively and cross-reference kaplan and FA occasionally.

What's your plan?

I have done almost 75% of UW by now and doing system based review of weak areas this week, after which I take UWSA # 1 saturday.The last test i took was the free 150 and that gave an estimate of 80% /239.Come next week crunch time begins with 3 weeks left and FA, UW will be the meat of my study.

Hopefully before that I would have finished RR, BRS phys or whatever other resources I am using now.I also wanna run through UW 2x in those last 3 weeks.

We can track each other's progress, stay in touch!