Not finishing UW

[TheShaker]

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I'm coming to the realization that I'm not going to be able to do everything that I want before test day so I was wondering what you guys would prioritize. I can either get through all of UW but not get to do a second pass of FA or leave UW 90% finished and take the remaining time to get through most of FA and nail the stuff that I'm weak on or have forgotten. Is that final 10% of UW essential enough to sacrifice going through FA again?

 

[Entadus]

Personally I'm realizing that UWorld is top priority; I am going to try like hell to complete it before test day.

Right now I'm hitting 80-90 questions per day, but I'm hoping I'll be able to maintain 90-120 questions per day by next week. That should allow me to finish my first pass of UWorld with enough spare time to do some UWSA/NBME's.

(I have not read FA cover-to-cover but I did complete all of USMLE-Rx and 4 passes of Pathoma)

Ideally I'll get more comfortable and faster with UWorld as I go, and be able to incorporate more READING of FA/pathoma without sacrificing my ability to finish UWorld. This will depend on me getting MORE efficient over the next few weeks (and not LESS efficient/burnt out! )

 

[Entadus]

Hmmmm P.S.

When I factor in the time needed for UWSA1/2 and some NBME's, it looks like I may need to increase my pace to around 3 full Uworld blocks per day (120 Questions per day). Hopefully as my scores improve I will be able to review blocks faster. It's hard at the beginning since you're missing so many Q's, the review process takes way longer than the actual timed block

 

[Postictal Raiden]

Hmmmm P.S.

When I factor in the time needed for UWSA1/2 and some NBME's, it looks like I may need to increase my pace to around 3 full Uworld blocks per day (120 Questions per day). Hopefully as my scores improve I will be able to review blocks faster. It's hard at the beginning since you're missing so many Q's, the review process takes way longer than the actual timed block

For the past week or so, I had been doing 3 blocks (44) a day. Takes me 10-12hrs to do them. 3hrs for taking the tests plus another 7-9 to review. It's a draining process but it's gotta be done. Now that I'm toward the end of my first pass (1 more block, woot woot!), I'm planning on doing 4 blocks a day starting Monday. Reviewing each block shouldn't take more than 90mins since I have already seen these questions and explanations before.

P.S. I remember you from the MCAT days. IIRC, you destroyed the MCAT.

 

[TBV]

I think it's so person dependent. If you know your gaps and have been doing uworld randomly I would think to focus on studying those gaps. But if I felt pretty good maybe I'd put the effort into uworld. It also depends on your learning style and whatnot.

 

[tennislover1989]

For the past week or so, I had been doing 3 blocks (44) a day. Takes me 10-12hrs to do them. 3hrs for taking the tests plus another 7-9 to review. It's a draining process but it's gotta be done. Now that I'm toward the end of my first pass (1 more block, woot woot!), I'm planning on doing 4 blocks a day starting Monday. Reviewing each block shouldn't take more than 90mins since I have already seen these questions and explanations before.

P.S. I remember you from the MCAT days. IIRC, you destroyed the MCAT.

Just out of curiosity, what are you doing during your UW reviews that it takes 7-9 hours to get through 120 questions? I was spending about 2 hours reviewing each block in the first week but my school's cognitive skills program suggested spending no more than an hour-90 minutes on it so I've sped it up a bit. Just wondering about other people's study methods!

 

[Postictal Raiden]

Just out of curiosity, what are you doing during your UW reviews that it takes 7-9 hours to get through 120 questions? I was spending about 2 hours reviewing each block in the first week but my school's cognitive skills program suggested spending no more than an hour-90 minutes on it so I've sped it up a bit. Just wondering about other people's study methods!

Perhaps it takes me this long because I interrupt my review by going on SDN or FB. I agree with your school though; it shouldn't take more than 2 mins to review each q.

 

[W19]

Just out of curiosity, what are you doing during your UW reviews that it takes 7-9 hours to get through 120 questions? I was spending about 2 hours reviewing each block in the first week but my school's cognitive skills program suggested spending no more than an hour-90 minutes on it so I've sped it up a bit. Just wondering about other people's study methods!

What was the reasoning behind their suggestion? I am doing 2 blocks in RX and it still takes me 3 hrs to review each block--8 hrs total to do 2 blocks 🙁...

 

[wjs010]

What was the reasoning behind their suggestion? I am doing 2 blocks in RX and it still takes me 3 hrs to review each block--8 hrs total to do 2 blocks 🙁...

That's normal. It should take that long to do 2 blocks.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[gobigorgohome22]

For the past week or so, I had been doing 3 blocks (44) a day. Takes me 10-12hrs to do them. 3hrs for taking the tests plus another 7-9 to review. It's a draining process but it's gotta be done. Now that I'm toward the end of my first pass (1 more block, woot woot!), I'm planning on doing 4 blocks a day starting Monday. Reviewing each block shouldn't take more than 90mins since I have already seen these questions and explanations before.

P.S. I remember you from the MCAT days. IIRC, you destroyed the MCAT.

Im on my 2nd pass and it still takes me 3-4 hrs to review a block.

Just out of curiosity, what are you doing during your UW reviews that it takes 7-9 hours to get through 120 questions? I was spending about 2 hours reviewing each block in the first week but my school's cognitive skills program suggested spending no more than an hour-90 minutes on it so I've sped it up a bit. Just wondering about other people's study methods!

90min per block seems crazy to me. If that's working for you, great! But I would not be able to get the most out of it if I did that and would feel like im wasting time.

 

[gobigorgohome22]

I'm coming to the realization that I'm not going to be able to do everything that I want before test day so I was wondering what you guys would prioritize. I can either get through all of UW but not get to do a second pass of FA or leave UW 90% finished and take the remaining time to get through most of FA and nail the stuff that I'm weak on or have forgotten. Is that final 10% of UW essential enough to sacrifice going through FA again?

I think 90% uworld + 2nd pass of FA would be a better plan.

While I agree that Uworld is an amazing resource with lots of info, but it doesn't cover everything. I think getting through 2nd pass of FA would earn you more points.

Another thought is for those last ~10% (4-5 blocks), you could just read the "educational objective" and glance at the charts. That way you would still have exposure to the material covered in the last few blocks and it wouldn't take you a lot of time, maybe a day to do all of it. Spend the rest of the time on FA. While you definitely wouldnt be getting the most out of those last few block, you would still have covered the main points.

 

[kenjixshadow]

What was the reasoning behind their suggestion? I am doing 2 blocks in RX and it still takes me 3 hrs to review each block--8 hrs total to do 2 blocks 🙁...

Wait, you're talking about RX not UW. I think you are spending way too much time for RX. I'd only read the explanation thoroughly on the questions that I got wrong or guess on (but still got them right). Normally, I finished 1 block of RX within 1-1.5 hrs and another 45 mins - 1 hr to review them. P.S., aren't you on your dedicate study time right now? I'd stop doing RX and jump to UW right away.

 

[W19]

Wait, you're talking about RX not UW. I think you are spending way too much time for RX. I'd only read the explanation thoroughly on the questions that I got wrong or guess on (but still got them right). Normally, I finished 1 block of RX within 1-1.5 hrs and another 45 mins - 1 hr to review them. P.S., aren't you on your dedicate study time right now? I'd stop doing RX and jump to UW right away.


I've seen plenty of ppl wished that they finished UW if they were to redo it over again. With that being said, I think a better case would be finish UW + focus on your weak area in FA instead of going a second pass of FA.

I am, but I just started and still have 8 wks left... I will finish Rx next week and use the remaining 7 weeks to do Uworld and go over Rx one more time.

 

[tennislover1989]

What was the reasoning behind their suggestion? I am doing 2 blocks in RX and it still takes me 3 hrs to review each block--8 hrs total to do 2 blocks 🙁...

The gist of it was that UWorld doesn't cover everything and it shouldn't be the way you learn most of the information, so if you're getting enough questions wrong that it's taking you so long to do a review then you would be better served by spending more time on content review instead of doing questions. They also advised us not to spend much time on questions that you answered correctly ( if you got them correct for the right reason). I did kaplan q bank and usmle Rx during the school year and I spent time reading every answer choice and reasoning out why it was the wrong answer. We have 4 weeks to go so I can see why they would say now isn't the time for that.

 

[Milotic]

First Aid covers WAY more tidbits than Uworld's entire bank. Uworld just does a better job explaining processes while throwing in new/random diseases/drugs into the mix (albeit most of these that aren't featured in First Aid are usually just wrong answer selections on Uworld). Uworld is a BETTER source than FA, IMO. But, it is not as COMPLETE as FA for covering high yield for the boards. In essence, ONLY doing Uworld would enable us to know less stuff VERY WELL, vs ONLY doing FA would enable us to know a surface level of Most stuff. Ideally, it would be great to finish both and store the lower yield stuff in the back of your head and pray that some of it surfaces on the exam day if any of those "one-time" topics pops up.

 

[slz1900]

If you only have 10% of uworld left why wouldn't you just do the blocks and "review" them very quickly or only look at wrong answers? 10% is like 7 or 8 blocks. That seems like it could be done in 1 day if you do minimal review, and at least then you've seen it.