Don't remember if I ever posted here but here is my brief experience. Took my test April 2015 got a 255. I took about 6 practice tests and my score landed between my last two practice tests (~250 about 2 weeks prior and 262 a few days prior).
Practice Tests: More important than the score is the trend (at least until the very end). Saved the newer tests for closer to test day. I don't think you gain anything by taking tons of tests but 4-5 i think is good spaced out over your study time.
Resources: Med School Tutors 3 month study schedule, BRS physio, pathoma, FA, UW x2
Overall: Realize that step 1 is a test about understanding. Remote facts won't reward you much. The test is about making things as complicated and confusing as possible through graphs, wording, tables, etc. As you study focus on the why and how rather than memorizing that stupid basal ganglia movement schematic in FA. Know the basics but don't obsess over the crap. The exception to this is biochem, micro, and pharm. These subjects are much more fact based so do whatever it takes to hammer it all in. I personally had a 3 day rotation that I started about half way into my studying after I had made flash cards and through FA / etc.. My morning 8am-11am was devoted to micro or pharm flash cards, or drawing bchem pathways. So morning session was just reviewing facts. Less is often more. Trying to learn everything will hurt you. Having all the facts swimming in your head won't help you pick out the answer. Being confident in what you know is much better. Part of taking the test for me was ruling out answers. There were so many questions I did not know about things I had not seen or only saw in class. But answer choices were things I knew well so I could often give myself a 50:50.
Regrets: Face your demons early. I hated pharm and procrastinated it. Target your weaknesses ASAP! its hard to improve on your strength but you can bring up your weaknesses much easier.
Test Day: Felt horrible and pissed after. Felt so much harder than practice tests with much less easy / free questions. Was a real challenge to push through praying that the next section would be better which never came. I felt like I knew 80% of practice questions and maybe 1/3 of the real test. Didn't feel like I failed because I knew how well I did on my practice tests and was confident in that.
