Wow those scores are amazing! Would you mind briefly sharing your resources and how long you have been preparing for? Thank you!
Thanks
🙂
I started preparing back in mid-January (thinking about it now, I have literally only taken one day off from step studying in over 5 months, and even that one day was involuntary haha). From January to mid-April I completed Rx. I did 30 questions/day, which took me about 3-4 hrs/day on average. I don't think Rx gets enough credit, I really think it's superior to Kaplan. I read every single explanation and every First Aid page (Rx gives you screenshots of relevant FA pages with every question). It did get repetitive, I think I read the FA about macrocytic anemias at least 20 times), but I think doing that was largely the reason for my success so far. I've done about 1000 Kaplan problems, about 500 of those were done throughout M2 as study for my EOB exams. The other 500 have been scattered throughout the last few months when I had spare time. I'll probably be working through a bit more of Kaplan in the next two weeks (or one week, if I decide to move my exam), but I have no strong desire to finish it.
In mid-April after I completed Rx, we started our multisystems course, which is also when I took my first practice exams (NBME 13 and CBSE). That's also when I started UWorld, which I completed a few days ago. I don't plan on doing a second pass of UWorld, because my greatest strength is my ability to memorize, so I know that I will get many questions correct only because I remember the answer from my first pass.
I watched all of Pathoma along with classes during M1/M2. I have watched a few of the chapters again during dedicated, mostly the first three chapters and then 2 or 3 of the organ system chapters. At this point I feel like I'm not learning anything new from Pathoma so I probably won't use it anymore (it's a fantastic resource though). I watched a few sketchy micro videos during the last two years for classes, but I haven't used it at all during dedicated and I don't really feel the need to. I think it's a great resource for people who struggling with memorizing facts, though.
So I guess I have mostly been able to achieve those scores through practice questions. I was a bit nervous about relying so heavily on practice questions because it always seems like everyone else is using 500 different resources, some of which I had never even heard of until a few weeks ago (DIT, boards and beyond, Goljan). But so far I'm glad that I trusted my intuition and decided to stick with practice questions. For reference, I am a solidly average student compared to the rest of my class, and I had to work pretty damn hard to stay above average.
EDIT: oh! almost forgot. I also used the Rx videos for biochem and immunology. Basic science tends to be my weakest area, and I found those videos enormously helpful. I actually enjoy biochem questions now!
