Hey guys, I've been reading this thread (mostly to kill time, since I'm still waiting for my Step 1 score -- due any week now). I thought I could post a few observations and hopefully allay some of your concerns. My one disclaimer is that what I say is based SOLELY on my exam experience, and I totally understand if others had a different experience. Ultimately, only you know what's best for you, what feels right and what doesn't.
I did all of Kaplan and UWorld qbanks, with the average percentage in the high 70's for both. Coming out of the exam I felt that Kaplan just gave me the practice of doing questions, but not necessarily the foundation that you need to answer the real exam questions. UWorld in my opinion is vastly superior to Kaplan, mostly because it is an excellent resource for reviewing old stuff and learning a lot of new concepts that were not really taught at my med school. Coming out of the real exam, I felt that some of the questions reminded me of UWorld, and I think I may have gotten a few points based on remembering some of the detailed explanations they give (remembering the "learning objectives" of UWorld is more than enough). But UWorld by itself is not enough to do well, at least for me, since I thought that most of the questions on the real exam were very similar to the practice NBME's I took. So, in short: UWorld is a must (learn/review the "learning objectives"). Kaplan is accessory -- good practice at answering questions, but not really great for high yield stuff on the real exam (the one exception with Kaplan is their heart sounds -- those are worth checking out).
FA: in my opinion it's the "bible" of Step 1 for a reason. I had read through all of FA once during my second year of med school, and some subjects I had read twice. I started off my first 4 weeks of study period by reading through each section of FA methodically, with the intention of retaining as much as possible. However, being only human, there were still so many details that still eluded me. By my fifth week of study period, I read through all of FA at a fast pace (this was my second pass during reading period). In my last week (the 6th), I read through all of FA once again, this time picking up even more minutiae that I had somehow not been able to pick up or notice in my previous passes -- it would always amaze me how I could possibly have overlooked such details. In the last 2 days before the exam, I did one final read through of the particular sections I had highlighted/flagged (such as all the pharm, the biochem vitamins, and the micro drugs, etc.). I'm so glad that I spent my last week of study period basically memorizing all those elusive details, because it turned out that I had a lot of questions on my exam that were indeed straight out of FA -- many of those questions were testing small details, some of the details were just from diagrams included in FA. I was able to answer those questions quickly and move on to the other questions that required more time. So, in my experience, having taken the exam randomly assigned to me on test day, I can say that I must have had at least 25 questions that tested the minutiae of FA.
NBME's: I did 11, 12, 13, and 15. My scores varied a bit, with the highest scores being the first two I took (11 and 13). I don't have my Step 1 score yet, but I can report back on which NBME came closest, or if it was just close to the average of the ones I took. Coming out of my exam, I really did feel that the real exam was very similar to NBME 12, 13, or 15. Many questions on my exam just felt like they were similar in content and style to the NBME exams -- if I had to make an estimate of the percentage of questions that reminded me of the NBME exams, I would say at least around 50% or 60% (the rest either reminded me of UWorld type of questions, or the very weird, odd "experimental" looking questions).
With the "experimental" looking questions, my big recommendation is not to lose your cool. Keep calm and collected, read the stem, read the answer choices, start crossing what you think might not be right, and then commit to an answer. Leave it alone, and hope for the best. The best thing you can do is to make an informed, educated guess, even if it's one of those "this answer just feels right." I did just that, and I was able to look up some of my answers on UpToDate and PubMed after the test, and it turns out at least quite a few of my educated guesses were right. Keep this in mind when you have to guess, and you will inevitably have to guess on quite a few questions (my estimate was that I must have guessed on at least 10 questions per block, based on the red flags I marked by the questions). Most of these time-consuming, convoluted questions were ones that I felt I could tackle and make an educated guess on. There was only 1 question in the entire test that completely baffled me -- as in I had no clue whatsoever. On that one, I simply cut my losses, marked a random answer choice, and moved on without even flagging it, because I never wanted to see it again. A big part of keeping your focus during this beastly exam is to know when to let go and move on.
Equations/formulas: don't over do it on this. Be prepared to use any of the formulas in FA, but I can tell you that the "math" I had to do was very basic and simple, and I actually only had to know 2 of the biostats formulas. On my exam, I didn't even get to use any of the pharm formulas, or pulm, or cardio, or renal. But that was just my experience.
Anatomy: yes, there was quite a bit of anatomy, but on my exam, most of it was straightforward. There were a few questions that were not in FA, so I had to do some fast thinking back to first year anatomy class. You can look through Moore and Daly, Grant's, or Netter's, but honestly I think it's in your best interest to maximize your knowledge base by covering everything presented in FA and in UWorld. If you have to miss a couple of anatomy questions that are clearly not covered in FA or UWorld, then my attitude is "let it be." Think of all the other questions you'll get right by covering all the high yield stuff in FA and UWorld.
GunnerTraining: I finished all of GT toward the end of my second year in med school, and I didn't have time to touch it during the dedicated study period. I feel that it served its purpose well. It's basically a carbon copy of FA in many respects, with extra info to "flesh" it out more. I think GT gave me the confidence to answer Step 1 questions -- many of the minutiae presented in GT are those that are included in FA. So it all comes back to FA -- in my experience.
Goljan's Rapid Review Path: I had read about 75% of this during my second year of med school, so I didn't touch it during study period.
Pathoma: I did about half of the videos during second year. Honestly, I don't think that Pathoma added anything new that is not already covered in FA or in Goljan's RR Path. In one heme question, I immediately thought of Dr. Sattar's video, but then I also quickly remembered the section in FA in which it's found. In my opinion, Pathoma is over-hyped. It's great for getting the basics and learning things for the first time, but it's not the holy grail of serious study period review.
Endurance and Energy: I would not recommend doing any studying the night before the exam (or even the morning of the exam, if you have one of those afternoon slots). Don't psych yourself out. By then you know the stuff. Trying to cram in the details of a particular formula, or pathway, or mechanism of a drug is not going to be productive at that point -- it only serves to increase the anxiety. Do everything possible to be in the right frame of mind, and go into the exam with confidence that you have prepared well. I highly recommend taking a small break after each and every block -- it's worth it. Get up, get a snack, drink water/coffee, go to the bathroom, clear your mind, stretch. When you get back to your computer, you'll feel refreshed and ready to tackle another block. I took about 7-8 mins after each block -- not once did I feel tired, hungry, thirsty, or needing to go to the bathroom during my exam.
My schedule during the first 5 weeks of study period: Mon-Fri I would read FA from 7:30AM until about 3:30PM (with plenty of breaks, of course). Then I did 2 consecutive blocks of 46 questions on UWorld, then dinner, then review the 2 blocks of UWorld (reviewing 2 blocks usually took about 3 or 3.5 hours -- enough time to read through the explanations and take quick notes on a Word doc). On Saturdays I took a practice NBME, a UWSA, or a Kaplan full-simulated exam (the Kaplan sim exam was 7 blocks, so it gave me a good idea of what to expect on test day -- and the content/style of the questions weren't bad, although not stellar). Sundays: relax, chores, "me" time, and any left-over stuff that I wanted to review more from the previous week.
If you want to take anything from this long post, please let it be that you should stay focused, and stay as motivated as is humanly possible, and do what works best for you. Don't be distracted or discouraged by others' test experiences, since apparently there appears to be variability when it comes to this. 🙂
Cheers to 2013 
). It's about putting in minimal effort to find whats already been well documented.
