Hey guys,
Long time lurker. I think its super awesome that everyone here is so supportive of one another on this thread. Ive gained a lot from these forums, and I thought it was time to give back by imparting some advice on Step 1 prep. I am taking my exam June 13. I will have 4 ½ weeks of dedicated prep time.
First point- I want to start it off by saying that entering med school, I saw myself as an underdog. My undergrad GPA and MCAT were below the average for people matriculating at my school. I was pretty intimidated. At the end of the first two years, I am sitting comfortably in the top quartile of the class, and my averages for all of my second year blocks have been in the 90s. My point in bringing this up is that anyone can succeed in med school if you work hard, find motivation (mine is I will kill my patient if I dont learn this information) and find study habits that work for you. I am not dumb, but I am by no means the smartest person in my class. I have to work my a** off to get the grades I get, and I spent a ton of time perfecting my study habits for my method of learning. Seriously, anyone can do it! Of course, take any advice you get on board preparation with a grain of salt. Different things work for different people.
Second point- I treated my second year of medical school as an entire year to prepare for boards. I am fortunate in that my school has a systems-based curriculum with NBMEs at the end of each block, and most classes are non-mandatory. My board focused studying thus worked well for succeeding in classes.
2nd year prep- My big 3 resources that I consistently focused on through out the year were Pathoma, UWorld, and FA. I used other stuff, but these were the major ones.
Costanzo physio- I would start off the system block by skimming through Costanzo when we were covering subjects that were very physio heavy (like renal, pulm, cardio, etc.).
Pathoma- I am a huge fan. There is a reason why this resource is becoming so popular. After a review of physio, I would go through the relavent chapters in Pathoma.
Robbins Qbank- I would use this to reinforce the pathology concepts that I used in Pathoma. I would do these questions with Pathoma open to the relevant pages and constantly refer back to these sections.
Goljan Audio- I would listen to the relevant lectures in the car on the way to and from school (I have a decently long commute). By the time the block was over, I would have listened to the relevant lectures 2-4 times.
Goljan Rapid Review- I honestly didnt use this very much. I feel like this is sacrilege, but it is just so dense that I would get bored reading it and my mind would wander off. I really need to be doing active learning in order to get anything out of whatever subject Im studying, and so I tend to focus way more on doing questions than reading. I think that general path sections of Goljan are helpful and worth reviewing.
UWorld- I spent the bulk of my time on UWorld questions. As many others have said its an extremely high quality question bank, absolutely essential, etc. Right now I have completed 93% of the qbank. I plan to finish it by dedicated study period, reset it, and do a second pass. Right now Im sitting at a 74% average.
There is a big debate as to whether to save UWorld for dedicated study period or to do it throughout the year. I am a firm believer in using it throughout the year as a learning tool. I honestly think that you are cheating yourself if you do not do this. I try not to pay attention to my percentages (although its hard when you totally bomb a block of questions, haha). I would start going through the questions towards the beginning of every block. I go through it on tutor mode by system, and I spend on average 10-15 minutes per question. I annotate anything that I dont know into First AID (or anything that is not in there). I go through every single explanation. When I get to something that I feel needs further clarification, I refer to other resources. It can get a little tedious, but I have found it to be very worthwhile. I talk to my classmates who are like I did 200 UWorld questions in 2 days and I still didnt do well on the NBME exam. You are not using this qbank to its full potential if you are rushing through the questions like that. I realize that not everyone feels this way, but thats my spiel on Uworld haha.
During dedicated study period, I plan to do 1-2 blocks within a specific system that I am reviewing that day, and then 1 block timed random per day. I plan on only reading the correct answer and the learning objective the second time around. This is a way to associate the question with the correct answer. (Gotta make those neural connections, yo.)
USMLRX- Ive completed about 55% of this qbank with a 79% average. I think it is a worthwhile supplement to UWorld. I use it for when I want extra questions, and usually I will just pound out a ton of questions from Rx for several days before an NBME final. I dont plan on using it much during dedicated study period.
Step 1 Secrets- I feel like this is an underrated resource! Im a big fan. Its kind of a cross between a textbook and a question book. It goes through topics and cases in a q and a type format. The explanations are very clear and concise, and its a bit more clinically oriented than some of the other more commonly used resources for Step 1. Its also very integrative. I have had some great revelations while reading this book. Its not essential, but I wish I had known about it earlier in the year.
Dedicated study- Its approaching. Im planning pretty much only using UWorld, FA and Pathoma. I will go through UWorld as delineated earlier. Im planning on taking practice 3 NBMEs and the 2 UWSAs. I will let you know how it goes. Hopefully I dont return and be like oh well gee guys, I failed so nvm about all that hot air I blew earlier).
-Freeski
Cheers to 2013 
