MD Need Advice for Step 1

[spillingthetea]

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Hi everyone,

I'm an incoming MS2 at a school with a 1.5-year preclinical curriculum, so I'll be taking Step 1 around December. We've taken one CBSE after immunology, pathology, neuro, heme/onc, and cardiology. I scored 35 (my NBME exams average: 92). We also took a formative NBME after first semester (anat/phys/histo/embryo/neuro), where I scored 64%.

I have a few questions about Step prep:

1. Summer studying

I'm doing research full-time this summer and have about one month before M2 starts. My school has us do Sketchy Micro and Pharm over the summer but recommends prioritizing Micro. Does that seem like the best use of my time?

2. Anki

I stopped using Anki toward the end of M1 because I found myself mindlessly doing reviews, and many B&B AnKing cards seemed to go beyond the videos. Despite finishing the B&B cards, I still felt the CBSE tested concepts I hadn't seen before.

Is it worth restarting Anki for M2 (neuro, cardio, heme/onc, pulm, etc.), or would my time be better spent elsewhere? If Step/CBSE tests these kinds of details, where are people actually learning them?

Also, my school requires two more CBSEs. The final CBSE cutoff is 55, even though I've seen people recommend waiting until 62+ before taking Step 1. Some M2s at my school scored in the high 50s on the CBSE and took Step a few weeks later. Is a 55 CBSE really enough with dedicated study, or is aiming for 62+ the safer approach?

3. AMBOSS vs. UWorld

My school provides AMBOSS for free. With only about five months until Step 1, would you:

Use AMBOSS only?
Buy UWorld instead?
Try to do both?

I'm worried that buying UWorld would leave me without enough time to finish either question bank well.

 

[Hollow Knight]

I took a P/F step 1 (so relatively recently)

I'd say the bare minimum for step 1 would be sketchy micro, sketchy pharm, and pathoma, and preferably doing the AnKing cards for those. That's the majority of the content for step 1 and your CBSE (Start working on this stuff ASAP)

"Back in my day" UWorld was gold standard. I see no reason not to tell you to do it instead of Amboss, not that Amboss is bad, it's just that I've never met a medical student who didn't do UWorld for their step exams. (If it's different now you kiddos let me know). Don't feel like you have to finish UWorld and Amboss, that's unneccessary.

I think if you at least do Pathoma + Sketchy micro and pharm + Uworld and do anki on all that and your UWorld incorrects you should be ok to pass.

If you want to be a dermatologist, some of those people do all of anking for step 1, all of uworld, and then some. But if you've struggled with that as an M1 don't feel pressured.

Definitely at least get a 62 on a CBSE or hopefully higher. I had several classmates underestimate the test and fail. It's harder to pass than in the past before it went P/F.

 

[Med Ed]

The curriculum is for primary acquisition (learning) of the material. Dedicated is for review. If your primary acquisition is effective then review is easier (and likewise more effective). Students get themselves into trouble when they are reviewing when they should be learning, and therefore have to learn when they should be reviewing. I therefore think it's better to keep the two activities partitioned.

If you want to do something over the summer, review M1 content. When M2 arrives, focus on M2 content (there will be plenty of it). When dedicated arrives, do the 5-week grind and take the test. I have seen students use AMBOSS during the curriculum and UWorld during dedicated. Seems like a perfectly reasonable approach.

 

[ketosisevangelist]

DO 200 questions a day USMLE world. BEST LUCK!

 

[elitetexan]

rising 3rd year DO student who took USMLE and COMLEX and passed both this year in June. During year 2 I did the associated high yield Anking cards for my systems courses and practice questions through Amboss. Btw i only finished about 35% of Amboss qbank after resetting due to using it during year 2.

For Step 1, I did two Amboss timed 40 question blocks a day (80 questions) and reviewed them heavily marking if misses were unknown content misses, timing/misreading question errors, chart/graph interpretation misses. I pulled ANKING cards for my missed questions and reviewed those cards every day and reviewed with FirstAid for unknown content. Pathoma ch 1-4, NBME forms 28-32 and the new free 120.

Didn't touch sketchy micro/pharm but I did review pharm/micro with DirtyMedicine and FirstAid. I also only had 4 weeks of dedicated from the end of our systems courses as a disclaimer.