Need advice about Qbanks

[Nephronlearner]

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I need a bit of a guidance. As a foreign student studying at a European university, I can't really ask anyone for advice when it comes to preparing for Step 1 (since I don't know anyone who has taken it) so I am hoping to get some guidance here.
I tried searching in past threads but haven't really found much. (maybe I missed something)

I am currently in my final pre-clinical year, planning to take Step 1 over summer. I will probably have up to 10 weeks of free time (not planning to use all of it).
I would probably take the exam in August or September and I just purchased a subscription for USMLERx and to be honest I am not quite sure how to use it.
So far I have annotated a few topics from review books into FA (very little).
Option 1 would be to keep reading FA and annotating from review sources and then doing questions. Option 2 would be to do questions with no pre-reading and then annotating unfamiliar stuff from explanations and review books.
Option 1 would take a lot of time (and I have class exams coming up so I can only spend maybe an hour per day or 2 if it's the weekend) and option 2 seems a bit like 'wasting questions' that should teach me stuff from First Aid.
What is your view on this?

After the exams are over I plan on spending 6-8 weeks studying for the test using primarily FA, UW and Pathoma/RR Path. (I need a bit more time since my school curriculum hasn't covered clinical biochemistry, radiology, embryology, psychiatry or biostatistics well). Too much time? Too little?
Would you do any other books in dedicated prep time for those subjects (I do have the HY Biostatistics, BRS Behavioural, HY Embryology and Anatomy and Lippincott Biochemistry) or should I stick with UW?

I tried looking at some offline questions and... pretty much everything seems familiar... in a sense... 'yeah, wouldn't take long to review all that' but I get a lot of questions wrong.
While doing my pathology course I also do Robbins Qbook and usually get ~70-80% correct (so I suppose my path background is fine?)

Yes, I know as a FMG graduating in a couple of years I am facing a tough battle to get into a decent residency so I know a good score is a must (alongside a bunch of other things).

So... any advice from people who know about this exam more than I do? 🙂
Thank you a lot in advance!

 

[Donald Juan]

Remember that doing questions is a learning process, so getting questions wrong is not a waste. My advice would be to get to doing questions as soon as possible, especially given you plan on doing two qbanks, and annotate/look up subjects as you go. Yeah, you'll get stuff wrong, but that only helps it to stick in your brain better and helps you to identify weaknesses.

As far as your 6-8 week plan of UW, FA, and Pathoma, I think that is plenty of time to get through it. If you stay focused, 8 weeks should be enough time to go through all those resources and possibly identify weaknesses and decide if there is a subject or any broad topics you really need to spend real time going through a review book for.

Also, remember that you should plan on having time to take a few of the NBMEs in order to get a feel for how you are progressing. Those should be your measure of where you stand, not so much the qbanks.

 

[Nephronlearner]

Remember that doing questions is a learning process, so getting questions wrong is not a waste. My advice would be to get to doing questions as soon as possible, especially given you plan on doing two qbanks, and annotate/look up subjects as you go. Yeah, you'll get stuff wrong, but that only helps it to stick in your brain better and helps you to identify weaknesses.

As far as your 6-8 week plan of UW, FA, and Pathoma, I think that is plenty of time to get through it. If you stay focused, 8 weeks should be enough time to go through all those resources and possibly identify weaknesses and decide if there is a subject or any broad topics you really need to spend real time going through a review book for.

Also, remember that you should plan on having time to take a few of the NBMEs in order to get a feel for how you are progressing. Those should be your measure of where you stand, not so much the qbanks.

Thank you very much for the response!

So you are suggesting doing questions without going through FA before but rather going through it while reading explanations and then reviewing topics in review books as necessary?

Also you are suggesting reading the whole review books only for subjects that I am weak in? (aka subjects that I haven't done at school)
One of them is biochemistry (we did not learn any metabolic disorders that seem to appear on Step 1) but reading Lippincott's seems like a huge waste of time...

I know about NBME's and I plan on doing a few once I get familiar with all of the material!

 

[Donald Juan]

If you want to go through FA beforehand, I don't think it's a terrible idea, but I don't think it should be something that takes up an exorbitant amount of time. You can go through it along with doing questions, or in some manner that is a quick way to get an overview as well as an idea of what topics you feel confident on and which ones you are weak in. I know a lot of us really fret over the idea of starting qbanks when we don't get 80% of the questions right immediately, but it's ok. You will learn from them. I think it's a mistake when people try and spend several weeks watching lectures and reading texts and annotating FA before they start doing questions. You should already have a somewhat of a solid foundation from med school.

If you are sure that you are deficient in a subject (like biochem as you mentioned), then it may be worthwhile to start using a review book (or any other resource) right away, I just worry that if you decide you are going to do, let's say, 5 review books, it shouldn't be at the expense of your qbanks. If you are doing questions and you realize that you are constantly having issues in a particular subject, then start go ahead and start doing some remediation on it.

 

[Nephronlearner]

Thanks again!
It makes sense, I was just trying to make sure I wasn't wasting questions, haha. And I believe I have a very solid foundation - I know the concepts, but I have forgotten the details. I did a few random questions on the USMLERx trial and got 50% - I suppose it's not bad without having finished path and pharm at school and without any repetition, right?

I see. The problem is that most of those review books are quite large so I assume it would take a lot of time to get through all that. Lippincott's Biochemistry is pretty much a textbook, for instance. High Yield Biostatistics is also relatively large for a 'low-yield' topic. I suppose spending the 1st week of the dedicated prep time to go through those few resources is reasonable?