Need advice on studying for shelves - M3

[HybridEarth]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hi all,

I'm looking to go into a competitive specialty where I am slightly below average for their avg. Step 1. I am trying to compensate for this by performing well clinically, but I am missing honors on most of my rotations by about 1% or so. It always comes down to my average performance on shelf exams (scoring between 75-80 consistently). I've been crushing my evaluations, so at least I have that going for me.

Can someone please give me some insight as to how I should be spending my time studying for these exams? I've changed my strategy 3 times and I can't find anything that works. Mostly consists of doing UWORLD in tutor mode throughout the block and making flashcards, reviewing the flashcards before the exam, supplemented by Step 2 review books and at least 1 other recommended book for the clerkship itself.

I'll be honest, I'm only getting about 3ish hours of quality studying time a day because of fatigue at the end of my work day. The only thing I can be doing at this point to not have that is by slamming down energy drinks daily which I don't want to do lol. I was getting very high exam scores during M1/M2, but I feel like either everyone just got smarter/working harder during M3 or I am being relatively less efficient with my time.

Any help would be great. Thank you!

 

[MerYangBey]

Have you checked the shelf threads in the clinical rotations section?
Also which ones do you have left?

 

[HybridEarth]

Have you checked the shelf threads in the clinical rotations section?
Also which ones do you have left?

I have not taken a serious look there, but I will be sure to. Thank you!

I have surgery (NBME), and Medicine/Neurology (school-written exams...). Also idk if I should just be focusing on Step 2 after surgery or not, because idk how similar our school curriculum/exam is to NBME style for Medicine/Neuro.

 

[bananafish94]

I’ve generally scored in the high 80s. I know many of my classmates swear by Zanki/other pre-made UWorld Anki decks but I don’t like them because they spoil the UWorld questions. I usually spend the first half of the rotation completing every relevant UW question and making my own Anki deck from them - I get to know the UW content very well, which is the gold standard. I will also use ~1 additional question bank (eg PreTest) just to familiarize myself with some lower yield stuff. Obviously take every practice NBME. And I try to get studying done in short bursts when there’s any free time during the day so that I don’t get to the end of the workday without having studied at all.