Hello, infrequent poster here but thought I'd share my experiences. I took my exam on 5/4, received score back last Wednesday. For background, I attend a mid/low-tier US school. Since I was undecided about residency, I just wanted to score a 240+ to keep my options open. For waaaaay far back background, I got a 32 MCAT for med school, decided to retake, and only got a 31. It still bugs me to this day (but back then it was devastating.) This time around, I just wanted to do well enough to have options.
Leading up to dedicated: First year, watched lectures and reviewed everything 2-3x, but otherwise didn't do anything special. Second year, I used BRS Physiology, Sketchy Micro, Pathoma, and 1/2 of FA. I also purchased DIT, skipped doing their primer videos, but did their "Part 1" question series consistently. My school gives us an NBME exam at the end of second year, but I'm not sure what number it was. Scaled score on that was 210 entering dedicated, weakest area was probably pharm. I also honored about half the blocks in med school, but often felt I was just binging and purging information.
Dedicated: I had roughly over 5 weeks to prepare. I would try to do 1-2 44q Uworld blocks every morning using timed random mode. Then I'd review every single question, right or wrong, reading the entire answer. This part took hours in the beginning, but got better over time (for the last ~100 questions or so I was really losing steam and used timed tutor mode jut so I wouldn't be tempted to not review them afterward.) Once you're sure you can complete 44 q's in one hour, I think this is a pretty viable way of using Uworld. I had separate notebooks for Uworld notes since I found that annotating into FA when they don't give you pages numbers was way too time-consuming. For the first 20 days or so I'd also do 12-15 DIT videos daily. I used their study guide to take notes along with the videos. I did not have time to also use FA during this time. For my lunch "breaks" I began watching sketchy pharm and quickly noticed an improvement there. After DIT's program, I reviewed Pathoma (second pass), read FA, kept up Uworld, and also was able to rewatch every single Sketchy Micro video and finish Sketchy Pharm (although neuro was still rolling out). This was the most challenging part of the study period for me. I absolutely HATED reading through first aid and I didn't finish my 1.5x pass through it honestly until the last few days before my exam. My last few days were spent doing a third pass through Pathoma (book only now), rereading my Uworld notes, and rewatching Sketchy pharm videos.
I only took one practice exam throughout this entire period since I heard you couldn't really review them. I wanted to know I was on track, but I personally felt that I needed to keep studying more so than I needed to see score improvements. I took NBME 17 maybe just under a month into dedicated, scored 243. Uworld 70% if that matters.
Real thing: 245.
First block was the hardest just because I couldn't focus on reading any of the words. Don't let that bother you. After the first block, you'll fall into a groove. Learn whether you can do blocks back to back or if you need short breaks in between (like I did.) I thought question difficulty was comparable to Uworld/I didn't feel like I was being asked too many outrageous things.
Major takeaways: Learning styles and what you've covered prior to study period will really shape your schedule. If it wasn't obvious, I'm an audiovisual learner with a huge procrastination streak. For this reason, dropping money on DIT, Sketchy, and Pathoma was the right choice for me. Without it, I'm not sure I would have gotten through everything while paying attention to the right things. I also found DIT's quizzes really helpful and helped with my "active" learning. This is also the reason Uworld is so highly recommended, since otherwise just doing FA/Pathoma you can trick yourself into thinking you've done a lot when you understand very little. I also purchased a subscription to Cramfighter (schedule app), which moderately lessened my anxiety levels. Other tips? It's okay to do whatever you need to do in order to get yourself to finish Uworld. I talked to people who liked to go by systems, even though that's not the prevailing wisdom (unless you do systems throughout MS2 and then reset and do random for dedicated). I personally listened to music, ate snacks, and generally did not listen to advice to "simulate test taking conditions" since otherwise I'd be completely miserable. Timed tutor mode is excellent once you have the timing down. Also, I didn't really start board prep until around January, and even then only a few hours every week. That's okay. Studying for classes counts as board prep. My two highest sections on Step 1 were in Heme/Onc and MSK/Skin/CT and they happened to have been covered last in school. Board prep will be easier to do during dedicated when you have no other distractions and 5 weeks is more than enough time to do it in. Other people in my class only used 4 weeks and also found that it worked well for them.
Lastly, to all my fellow procrastinators out there: do whatever it takes to get yourself to make and stick to a plan. I had a friend who'd text me nearly daily and we kept each other accountable. Cramfighter helped for me, DIT majorly helped for me, especially for long-forgotten topics like biochem. I thought going into my study period that I'd also fix my sleep schedule and start a fitness routine but those were tall asks. I studied from 10am-2am, didn't work-out, ate and slept well though, and it was fine. I was able to correct it in my last week, experimenting with melatonin doses. Woke up well-rested but nervous on test day, as to be expected. You can tackle that stuff later; prioritize studying now. No one likes to study for 10-12 hours a day, but it'll be over soon. Something that really stuck with me was when an MS4 told me "This is only one month of your life. Don't look back on this time with any regrets."
Good luck!
