Hi there! Insert giving-back-to-the-community comment here. But seriously, reading the success stories of others truly helped me achieve my goal, and I want to give back now.
Step 1 Score: 250
I will preface this with the following:
1. I attend a mid-tier medical school
2. I attended a very low-tier undergraduate institution, which did scare me when I started medical school because most of my colleagues are from great colleges.
3. My MCAT score was a 32, below average for my medical school entering class.
My Strategy
Goals
Identifying goals is really important so you know what you’re after. This should be done relatively early on, perhaps by the middle to end of MS1.
1. I was thinking about pursuing ophthalmology by the end of MS1, so my target goal score was 240+. Other specialties are still on the table for me, but this is the one that required a high score.
2. I have a girlfriend, so after 3PM on every Saturday I wanted to spend with her. We don’t see each other any other day given our schedules, so this was pre-determined blocked off time once MS2 started, and yes, even during dedicated.
3. I run a nonprofit in my spare time, so I wanted to prioritize that along with coursework and Step studying.
Summer after MS1
I spent about two weeks, couple hours a day, reading the renal and cardio sections of First Aid (just the anatomy and physiology sections), because I was weak on those. That’s it, nothing else. Enjoy the summer! (I did research abroad and chilled when I got back).
MS2
This is where plans may vary based on your school schedule/requirements. It took me about 1.5-2 months to come up with the plan below, since I was figuring out what resources worked best for me. My school doesn’t require attendance for most lectures, so I never showed up unless I had to (perhaps 2-3 lectures/week on average). No, I didn’t care to Honor courses because step 1 is 1000x more important. I only honored 3/7 courses MS2 as a result. The example below is for a day when I didn’t have class:
· 5:30-6AM: Wake up/shower/eat/contemplate life
· 6-8AM: Watch relevant Pathoma for today’s lecture content (I searched for the relevant cards in the Bro’s deck and transferred them into my active deck for the unit (so for instance, if I was learning about brain tumors that day I would search for all the cards associated with them in the bros deck and transfer them to my active Neurology deck; by the end of the unit, all the Bros cards should be in your active deck))
· 8:15-10AM: Watch podcasted lectures 2x speed, adding only salient information to my anki deck
· 10-12: Read First Aid for the relevant material (Since I used Bros, I usually didn’t need to add any new cards to the deck)
· 12-1: Lunch (Sometimes I’d drive over to the library for a change of atmosphere, sometimes I would already be there at 8AM.)
· 1-4: Bunch of Anki cards; 3 hours sounds like a lot but the cards really start to accumulate after a while when you’re in a unit (Also did Sketchy a lot)
· 4-5:00 Stuff for nonprofit, research, etc
· 5:00-5:30: Dinner
· 5:30-8: Review yesterday’s Uworld block (I didn’t’ like to review a block right after doing it, I liked reviewing it the next day). What I mean by review is add anki cards to my active deck for the unit from Uworld; took a hell of a long time, but while everyone else was only able to do 1-2 passes of Uworld, I did 4-5 passes for most of the material through anki. This set me apart from most people.
· 8-9: New Uworld block, usually 32 questions (75% of a full block). Usually timed and unit-specific, but as questions from previous units accumulated I added multiple previous blocks at once.
Fridays? Off after 6PM. Weekends? Much of the same as above, except Saturday at 3PM I was done regardless of how I felt so I could hang out with SO.
IMPORTANT POINTS:
1. Firstly, yes this is intense. But, again, I wanted to ensure a high score and really tone down the stress I’d have during dedicated.
2. Secondly, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT, that you spend time reviewing the anatomy and physiology sections of First Aid during the unit you are on. I usually spent about 2 days going through those sections at the beginning of a new unit, using the USMLERx videos and Bros deck. This is what separated me from everyone else. I was thus theoretically behind everyone else in class lectures, but it doesn’t matter since you are ahead for what matters.
3. Thirdly, don’t make your own anki cards for First Aid/Pathoma. I got misdirected by an upperclassman (who I later found was trying to make others look bad on rotations to make himself look good/honor) to make my own cards, and I stopped in January of MS2 and just did Bros. Looking back, I wish I had done Bros from the beginning; would have saved so much more time.
Dedicated (6 weeks, 3 days)
By the time dedicated rolled around, I had gone through everything in so much detail that I felt ready. The only things I hadn’t gone through were biochemistry and micro. I’d finished 70% of Uworld by the time dedicated started (about 71-72% average), with biochem and micro making up the majority of questions I hadn’t done yet. I reset the deck so that I could have a good mixture of questions. I cannot stress enough the importance of doing Uworld during MS2, I’d say this was the major reason I got the score I did.
I picked ONE classmate to study with, who has become a very close friend of mine. Too many people spoil the cooking. We followed an identical schedule every day; he had only done 10-20% of Uworld and did not read most of First Aid by the time dedicated rolled around, but it still worked out for him (he got mid 240s). Clearly, there are many ways to approach MS2 but I definitely felt less stressed during dedicated because of my strategy.
Typical study plan:
· 5:30-7AM: Anki (I usually did maybe like 20-30 cards from two different body systems; remember I already had pristine anki decks with Bros + Uworld combined for each body system)
· 7-8: Shower/eat/contemplate life/get to library to meet up with study partner
· 8-10: Two blocks Uworld, timed random
· 10:15-12: Review Uworld
· 12-1: Sketchy Micro/Pharm (I planned it out so that if I spent an hour a day I’d easily finish all of sketchy by my test)
· 3-8: Review one body system
· 8-9: Biochem (Bros is great for this)
· 9-10:30: Get home, relax, maybe a little anki
The basic strategy was to ensure that I went through each body system twice, at least. I spent about 1-2 days per body system and then moved on to another. I was fluid about it. If I needed to spend more time on cardio because I sucked on it for Uworld/NBMEs, I did that. Don’t be so rigid about the schedule in terms of new content you are trying to learn; you’ll find that your strengths and weaknesses change. Focus on the weaknesses without forgetting the strengths (anki is great for this).
Took one practice test at the start of dedicated, then one every Saturday. Saturday 8-whenever was the test, and then I was off the rest of the day and hung out with my girlfriend. Sunday I reviewed the test all day with my study partner and made a plan for the week in terms of what body systems I wanted to cover and specific topics within those.
Day 1 dedicated: UWSA1 = 245. I knew this overpredicted, but I was still happy.
End of Week 1: UWSA2 =239.
End of Week 2: NBME 13 = 230
End of Week 3: NBME 15 = 236
End of Week 4: NBME 16 = 236
End of Week 5: NBME 17 = 252 (felt like I, by luck, knew most of the material in this test)
End of Week 6: NBME 18 = 242.
Free 120 (3 days before): 86%
Day Before Test
Just reviewed high yield stuff like lymph drainage by 3pm. My girlfriend got me a massage package so I went to that and got a nice dinner after.
Test Day
I kept a routine for each practice test that I maintained for the real test. Peanut butter sandwich, apple, two granola bars, water, and coffee. Ear plugs with headphones over them.
The actual test felt okay, my feeling was that I was going to perform between NBME 17 and 18. The test was very similar to NBME 18, but my feeling immediately after was more like NBME 17. I marked about 50% of the questions (I am a liberal marker and I wasn’t worried about that, since I did the same for all my practice tests), and I didn’t have time on any block (except like 1 for 2 minutes) to review them (again, typical for me).
Breaks: I am a huge believer in deep breathing and staying calm, and it’s the reason I did well on test day:
After block 1: 5 minute deep breathing at desk
After block 2: Get up and eat a granola bar
After block 3: 5 minute deep breathing
After block 4: Lunch
After block 5: 5 minute deep breathing
After block 6: Went outside and walked around, I had a good amount of break left
I hope that this has helped some of you all figure out what your plans are for Step 1. It’s quite the journey, but my strategy worked well for me and, at least for the dedicated portion, my study partner as well. I never thought I’d score high enough to pursue my dreams, but now anything is possible!
