Not studying long enough?

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ak427

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Background: I’m an M1 and now that we’ve gotten past anatomy and our intro science courses, we have a organ system based curriculum with NBME exams. Before, I had been using our school lectures and sprinkling in outside resources as I needed to, and I did pretty well. However, I definitely was spending a lot of time studying, probably not doing it efficiently, and definitely burning myself out.

Now that our exams are all NBME, I’ve transitioned to using Zanki, Pathoma, B&B, Big Costanzo, and Sketchy. I don’t look at our school lectures at all. I plan on using USMLERx for practice problems. I also do all my reviews from older blocks everyday. I feel like I’m learning things well, but we haven’t had this type of exam yet. I feel like I’m not spending a lot of time studying anymore, which is great, but I’m concerned that I’m missing something. I see the majority of my classmates still watching our 4-6 hours of lecture everyday and stressing out, and it stress me out lol. Are these resources enough for these kinds of exams, or should I be doing more?

Thank you all for your help!

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Quality over quantity, as you haven't had a test yet there is no real way to gauge if you're studying effectively or not. Don't forget people extrapolate a lot in med school 4-6 hours of study a day may really mean an hour effectively. B&B is great for upfront immediate knowledge, Zanki takes awhile to see the results and for the most part its subconscious (at least for me). Make sure you do practice questions alongside with zanki though.
 
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Quality over quantity, as you haven't had a test yet there is no real way to gauge if you're studying effectively or not. Don't forget people extrapolate a lot in med school 4-6 hours of study a day may really mean an hour effectively. B&B is great for upfront immediate knowledge, Zanki takes awhile to see the results and for the most part its subconscious (at least for me). Make sure you do practice questions alongside with zanki though.

Agreed. It's about maximizing your output from your input. However long that takes differs for each person. As long as you're getting results, that's all that matters.
 
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Now that our exams are all NBME, I’ve transitioned to using Zanki, Pathoma, B&B, Big Costanzo, and Sketchy. I don’t look at our school lectures at all

As long as you are studying for Step, and your NBME results (and grades) reflect your goals, then don't fix it if it's not broken.

If you are looking for other activities (after reviewing all your primary sources + Qbank), watching school lectures can be a great way to review the content (depending on the lecturer).
 
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when I switched to board resources my grades didnt change and I was killing two birds with one stone. Basically starting 2 months into M2 (around september of last yr) i started sketchy BnB FA pathoma and I realized how thoroug UFAPS is even for class. There werent too many questions on class exams that were completely foreign to me. I regret not having started BnB and annotating first aid in M1 for biochem and physio. Would have saved me worlds of time second year winter/spring and would have set me up to be able to do more Qbank qs (kaplan, rx, UW)
 
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Quality over quantity, as you haven't had a test yet there is no real way to gauge if you're studying effectively or not. Don't forget people extrapolate a lot in med school 4-6 hours of study a day may really mean an hour effectively. B&B is great for upfront immediate knowledge, Zanki takes awhile to see the results and for the most part its subconscious (at least for me). Make sure you do practice questions alongside with zanki though.

Facts. This was me last summer starting Rx.

Solid 50-60% on the Q’s

“But...muh retention rate”
 
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