When I was studying for step 1 I browsed the 2012 thread frequently and found it to be reassuring so I thought I would share my story:
UWSA 2 (2 weeks before exam): 261
UWSA 1 (1 week before exam): 255
NBMEs: none, I'm too cheap
Real thing: 259
Background info: my school does 1.5 yrs basic science -> 1 yr clinics -> step 1
Step 1 prep:
Preclinical/Clinical yrs: I am not one of those students who was studying specifically for step 1 during my pre-clinical years. I went to classes, studied hard for exams, but didn't open First Aid or do any other prep besides just reading my notes from class. During the clinical year I studied hard for shelf exams but still did not even own First Aid but did work through the UWORLD step 2 questions.
Dedicated study time: 8 wks, which is roughly 2 wks longer than most of my classmates took. Studied roughly 10-14 hrs a day, took only 2 days off.
Materials: Our school has a list of recommended books for crushing step 1 - I bought them all and, like most of my classmates, realized it's impossible to read them all in 8 weeks. The only resources I actually used were:
First Aid - read each system 2x and all other sections 3x (focusing on biochem, micro, pharm in last few days)
Lippincott's biochem to make sense of what was written in First aid since our school doesn't teach biochem that well
Pathoma - videos 1x, text 2x
A few sections of High Yield Gross Anatomy - mostly upper/lower extrem, abdominal stuff, decided to not study pelvic anatomy and just hoped it would not show up
BRS Physio - read 1x, seemed awesome while reading it but in retrospect didn't help for the test, didn't hurt though either
Questions: Uworld 1x - 79% overall, redid marked questions and some of my incorrects
TEST: overall not bad, I left the test feeling fine but over the next few days realized the stupid mistakes I made and basically couldn't shut my brain off until getting busy with 3rd yr electives.
I thought the majority of questions were easy-medium in difficulty (easier than Uworld), but the hard questions were definitely harder than uworld. There were a handful of questions that made absolutely no sense so I just told myself to pick something and move on. I typically marked 5-10 questions per block, and finished each section with 10-15 mins left to review only my marked.
I don't remember that much from the test itself - except that the
biochem and
pharm was very simple - I regret putting so much effort into these. A couple simple MOA, maybe 2 side effect questions but all basic drugs.
Pathology: I felt like I had a great handle on pathology and was prepared for the difficult questions, but felt that these questions were much more simple than UWorld, very straightforward. I think Pathoma helped me a little maybe, but the material on my exam for this section was very superficial and did not require a thorough understanding of pathology - I had no questions on heme/onc or renal fyi. Most of my friends who also had scores in the 250s did not bother with an additional path resource.
Molecular bio type stuff - I felt like a had a bunch, but maybe it wasn't that much, but it stuck out because it was tricky. I just told myself these were probably experimental and moved on (I'm sure some of them were real but it's easier to keep confidence up that way)
Micro - not as difficult as uworld, 1 question about a MOA for a drug mentioned in First Aid but the MOA is not in there; no virus questions
The
anatomy was the one thing that stuck out as difficult - I think a year of clinics was helpful for me especially for getting comfortable with looking at imaging, especially neuroimaging, because I didn't really learn anatomy well during MS1 yr. My only suggestion for this is to browse the various websites that people have posted on here to get comfortable with CTs of neck, abd, pelvis, heart, brain.
I feel like overall probably 90% of material came from First Aid/Uworld - if you really understood what was there. 5% seemed like random stuff that most people would not know or would remember from pre-clinical yrs or were probably just experimental questions. Maybe 2 questions I got only because of remember random facts of pre-clinical years. Clinical yr helped for recognizing diseases/disorders and for imaging, otherwise no real advantage to having clinics before step 1. I probably got better at taking standardized tests though after a year of shelf exams.
My advice for what it's worth: Read FA at least 2-3x (especially for those sections requiring more memory). Don't commit yourself to other resources but use them as needed to better understand sections that don't make sense to you or areas of Uworld that you are doing not so great in. Choose an additional resource for pathology (pathoma is great, I also think BRS is fine, but Goljan is too long for a dedicated study period). Do Uworld questions and a few practice tests to see where you are at and get comfortable with timing.
Don't listen to everyone who says UWSAs overestimate (my real score was in between, some of my friends did better than UWSA and some did worse but not more than 10 pts worse than their best). Also don't feel the need to do NBMEs unless you have lots of extra time or just want to do them. I chose not to take these because I figured my time would be better spent just studying since I had done 2 UWSAs and figured even if they DID overestimate, my score would be fine enough. Maybe if I was in a position to move my test date back and was shooting for like a 260 I would take them, but I couldn't push my date back because of electives so I didn't want to stress myself out with a bad NBME score right before the real thing.
Cheers to 2013 
