USMLE Official 2019 Step 1 Experiences and Scores Thread

[libertyyne]

Lets get this started.
M2. Mid Tier everything.
Entertaining some surgical sub-specialties.

Goal 270
Happy with 245

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[neurodjent]

I have 5k matured. 20k learning(most of these are one review away from being matured) and 23 k unseen. (I have lightyear and a few sketchy decks as well). Only about 400 qs from rx @80%. And will start on uworld this unit. I am not concerned about mature vs not mature, I feel like if I can get 3-4 reviews of a card that is good enough for me. I too have been struggling to keep up with cards since my school moves fast and it is hard to deprioritize school exams. I'm planning on starting to do 4 blocks one day a week to start getting through questions and getting pace down.and maybe spend an hour a day going through old reviews. Still figuring out if I should do u world on tutor .

I agree with not caring too much about maturing cards since the card doesn't need to be matured for you to know it. I changed my review settings to have a lot more time between reviews and I also downloaded an addon that allows for more answer choices so that I can start spreading out the cards more, this seems to be working to give me more space but not decreasing my ability to recall the card.

How are you using question banks? Are you using them throughout your blocks to learn or before an exam to test your knowledge?

I will be starting uworld at the beginning of next semester on tutor mode in the subjects I have already covered in my courses. I'll do about 30 a day hoping to have 1 pass done by dedicated.

 

[libertyyne]

I agree with not caring too much about maturing cards since the card doesn't need to be matured for you to know it. I changed my review settings to have a lot more time between reviews and I also downloaded an addon that allows for more answer choices so that I can start spreading out the cards more, this seems to be working to give me more space but not decreasing my ability to recall the card.

How are you using question banks? Are you using them throughout your blocks to learn or before an exam to test your knowledge?

I will be starting uworld at the beginning of next semester on tutor mode in the subjects I have already covered in my courses. I'll do about 30 a day hoping to have 1 pass done by dedicated.

Right before exams. It's been hard consistently getting questions in considering class exams don't correlate to number of question s answered and an additional pass over class material usually provides better yield.

 

[Scrubs101]

I have 5k matured. 20k learning(most of these are one review away from being matured) and 23 k unseen. (I have lightyear and a few sketchy decks as well). Only about 400 qs from rx @80%. And will start on uworld this unit. I am not concerned about mature vs not mature, I feel like if I can get 3-4 reviews of a card that is good enough for me. I too have been struggling to keep up with cards since my school moves fast and it is hard to deprioritize school exams. I'm planning on starting to do 4 blocks one day a week to start getting through questions and getting pace down.and maybe spend an hour a day going through old reviews. Still figuring out if I should do u world on tutor .

I think you are on track to doing well.

How many news are you doing a day? Also how do you like light year? Im a little under halfway through my anki decks (30kish) so not really in a position to add another 10k onto my deck but i keep hearing really good things and im a big fan of B&B

 

[neurodjent]

Has anyone given any thought as to how they're going to approach dedicated? I'm thinking that I'll just continue my Anki reviews, do 2 blocks of uworld questions a day, and hit up B&B or pathoma if I'm weak in a certain subject. Many people read FA or watch B&B in dedicated and Zanki essentially already covers that material so it seems unnecessary to primarily focus on those materials.

 

[libertyyne]

How many news are you doing a day? Also how do you like light year? Im a little under halfway through my anki decks (30kish) so not really in a position to add another 10k onto my deck but i keep hearing really good things and im a big fan of B&B

im a feast or famine kind of person. Somedays I grind out 500-1000 new on others i just do reviews. My goal usually is to get 4 passes through the cards for a particular unit. The light year deck is more conceptual compared to zanki. Some zanki cards are very very narrow and sometimes even have multiple answers but only expects one answer from you. I find that if I go through zanki cards I should be able to blow through new cards from lightyear fairly quickly. I did 800 new light year cards the day before my exam and since I knew the answers already I scheduled them out many days ahead since i have the addon for added days. some may see my method as blasphemous or insane and I perhaps am both, but I know at the end of the day what matters to me is conceptual understanding and doing thousands of questions in simulated exams, which is the last part of my evenutal plan.

My plan for this unit is complete the 2k new cards for the unit in 3 days and then keep up on the reviews for that particular section , then I just make some cards from the powerpoint or coursepack for school specific stuff and during the end of the unit try to do as many questions as I can while completing reviews for the unit. I usually add additional cards that are tangential to what I am studying and do those as well or complete the reviews that are piling up surrounding the tangential topics.

 

[libertyyne]

Has anyone given any thought as to how they're going to approach dedicated? I'm thinking that I'll just continue my Anki reviews, do 2 blocks of uworld questions a day, and hit up B&B or pathoma if I'm weak in a certain subject. Many people read FA or watch B&B in dedicated and Zanki essentially already covers that material so it seems unnecessary to primarily focus on those materials.

Keep up 500 reviews. Do u world incorrect and marked, and do an nbme exam every 2-3days. Also do the uworld incorrect anki deck I will make.

 

[Gurby]

im a feast or famine kind of person. Somedays I grind out 500-1000 new on others i just do reviews. My goal usually is to get 4 passes through the cards for a particular unit. The light year deck is more conceptual compared to zanki. Some zanki cards are very very narrow and sometimes even have multiple answers but only expects one answer from you. I find that if I go through zanki cards I should be able to blow through new cards from lightyear fairly quickly. I did 800 new light year cards the day before my exam and since I knew the answers already I scheduled them out many days ahead since i have the addon for added days. some may see my method as blasphemous or insane and I perhaps am both

 

[Epicurusall]

Gurby wya? and how about @Terence McKenna ?

 

[tealeafexplorer]

What do you all think is the ideal time for you to finish your mega anki decks (zanki/bros/lightyear)?

Half way through M2?
Right before dedicated?

I am trying to gauge when I should be done with all my anki cards for step so I can tackle Q banks like Kaplan and UWorld.

I was thinking have Zanki + pharm + micro done by winter break M2, so I can take my time doing UWorld second half M2, then incorrects during dedicated. Thoughts? That’s ~ 65 new cards a day for me until that time.

 

[libertyyne]

What do you all think is the ideal time for you to finish your mega anki decks (zanki/bros/lightyear)?

Half way through M2?
Right before dedicated?

I am trying to gauge when I should be done with all my anki cards for step so I can tackle Q banks like Kaplan and UWorld.

I was thinking have Zanki + pharm + micro done by winter break M2, so I can take my time doing UWorld second half M2, then incorrects during dedicated. Thoughts? That’s ~ 65 new cards a day for me until that time.

You only have 2000 cards left?

 

[tealeafexplorer]

You only have 2000 cards left?

I am an M1, sorry for not clarifying my man

 

[Gurby]

Gurby wya? and how about @Terence McKenna ?

Grinding hard man! After a ~4 day spell of minimal studying during Thanksgiving break, put in a 13 hour/1800 review day yesterday to break my personal best!

22k matured, 3k learning, 86% accuracy. Around 10k original Zanki cards left to learn, plus 3k worth of zankiPharm/SketchyMicro/etc. Minimal progress through the QBanks at this point...

I've been graphing out my progress as "Zanki cards left over time". Because I add so many new cards as I go, I'm not making as much progress through Zanki as it looks like I am on paper. My "new cards learned per day" is ~100, but because so many of those are new clozes I added to existing Zanki cards or whatever, I think the 73/day figure is closer to reality in terms of finishing the decks.

Kinda looks like I'm going to need to step my game up a bit based on this projection, we start dedicated in June I think. A lot of my time recently has been taken up by some research projects I'm working on, but hopefully I can step back from that and go ham on Step prep for the 2nd half of the year:

 

[medicineman1234]

Grinding hard man! After a ~4 day spell of minimal studying during Thanksgiving break, put in a 13 hour/1800 review day yesterday to break my personal best!

22k matured, 3k learning, 86% accuracy. Around 10k original Zanki cards left to learn, plus 3k worth of zankiPharm/SketchyMicro/etc. Minimal progress through the QBanks at this point...

I've been graphing out my progress as "Zanki cards left over time". Because I add so many new cards as I go, I'm not making as much progress through Zanki as it looks like I am on paper. My "new cards learned per day" is ~100, but because so many of those are new clozes I added to existing Zanki cards or whatever, I think the 73/day figure is closer to reality in terms of finishing the decks.

Kinda looks like I'm going to need to step my game up a bit based on this projection, we start dedicated in June I think. A lot of my time recently has been taken up by some research projects I'm working on, but hopefully I can step back from that and go ham on Step prep for the 2nd half of the year:

Damn I ran through like 17,000 cards, but the amount I have matured is only 8,000. Jealous of that maturation %

 

[Gurby]

Damn I ran through like 17,000 cards, but the amount I have matured is only 8,000. Jealous of that maturation %

I've been doing 95% of my study from Zanki since ~11 months ago!

 

[medicineman1234]

I've been doing 95% of my study from Zanki since ~11 months ago!

Did you ever have a period of time where you forgot some mature ones? I float like 86-95% mature daily but sometimes I lose the ones that are like 2-3 months away .

 

[Neopolymath]

I've been doing 95% of my study from Zanki since ~11 months ago!

Something I regret not doing every day... I don't even know why I didn't just do it when I was aware of Zanki since day 1. Oh well.

 

[Save a life]

I've been doing 95% of my study from Zanki since ~11 months ago!

That is super impressive. I’m interested to see how you do on Qbanks and step with that foundation.

My deck must be smaller than yours - 26k total. I deleted the micro sketchy image occlusions. I’ve only matured 7k and am learning 7k, and have 12k left to go. I’m on track to at “learn” all new cards by dedicated and have maybe half the deck matured.

 

[Gurby]

Did you ever have a period of time where you forgot some mature ones? I float like 86-95% mature daily but sometimes I lose the ones that are like 2-3 months away .

Sure, of course, I forget lots of things every day! Over the course of the past year my accuracy on matures is a measly 83%, over the past month it's 86%. My average interval is 5 months.

Potentially controversial opinion: I think that in general if you are getting 95% accuracy across all cards, your intervals are too short.

The beauty of spaced repetition as a learning tool is that it forces you to focus your time/energy on material that is difficult, so you are as efficient as possible. Every time you see a card and immediately/easily know the answer, that's essentially wasted time. There was no reason for you to see that card right now - it would have been better if you had seen it 1 week later, when you were starting to forget it. This dynamic probably changes as you get closer to test day though.

Also, I think it fosters deeper understanding and stronger mental connections when you have to actually stop and think about cards, rather than blasting through at 400/hr because you remember the context cues.

That is super impressive. I’m interested to see how you do on Qbanks and step with that foundation.

My deck must be smaller than yours - 26k total. I deleted the micro sketchy image occlusions. I’ve only matured 7k and am learning 7k, and have 12k left to go. I’m on track to at “learn” all new cards by dedicated and have maybe half the deck matured.

I started out using Rx alongside classes but found that it was basically just Zanki with longer stems... Did like 20 questions and didn't really come across much I didn't know already, seemed like a waste of time to do more. I plan to come back to Rx once the material isn't as fresh in my head.

I'm only 100 questions deep in Kaplan but 82% accuracy so far. Tons of good details in Kaplan to make cards about, I find myself making like 10 anki cards per Kaplan question as I review them...

I've been a bit worried that Zanki is artificially inflating my scores since everything is based on similar resources, but we took an NBME with professor-selected questions based on blocks we had finished, and I scored ~1.5 STD above mean which I think translates to ~96th percentile. So maybe it isn't. Who knows though.

 

[USMLE_Pro]

It feels like i have to memorize 20 facts to be able to reason through something on these questions.

I love Anchorman but am sorry you feel this way. Many, if not most, students do. Usually, questions actually boil down to 1 or 2 discrete facts, max. Students generally struggle to see through the questions to these one or two facts, but can be taught to do so. I didn't get a 281 on Step 2 (or a 262 on Step 1) by memorizing more facts than other people, I did it by approaching questions extremely strategically. I'm not a genius, and I didn't study forever, I focused all my efforts on learning to outsmart the test maker. Other students can save hundreds of hours (and perform better) by switching to this mindset; I have seen them do it. It's not how you should approach clinical medicine, but is appropriate for overcoming an exam that isn't at all a good predictor of how well you care for patients.

TL;DR focusing too much on memorization is just as bad of a choice as milk.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Just now seeing this thread... sup.

Looking forward to battling through this process with you homies on here. Just like the good 'ol MCAT days.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I started out using Rx alongside classes but found that it was basically just Zanki with longer stems... Did like 20 questions and didn't really come across much I didn't know already, seemed like a waste of time to do more. I plan to come back to Rx once the material isn't as fresh in my head.

I'm only 100 questions deep in Kaplan but 82% accuracy so far. Tons of good details in Kaplan to make cards about, I find myself making like 10 anki cards per Kaplan question as I review them...

I've been a bit worried that Zanki is artificially inflating my scores since everything is based on similar resources, but we took an NBME with professor-selected questions based on blocks we had finished, and I scored ~1.5 STD above mean which I think translates to ~96th percentile. So maybe it isn't. Who knows though.

Do you do your questions only for the systems that you have covered in class? I started out doing questions by stuff I already covered but switched to doing completely random questions about a month and a half ago, my percent dropped from 82% down to mid 50s but now I can consistently break 60% which I'm proud of but have no idea if that's where I should be lol. I'm hoping it means I'm on the right track because it is a lot of stuff that I haven't seen yet. Using Rx mainly as a learning tool, I ram home some COMQUEST just for funsies on timed/random for timing practice, and then mix in some Kaplan for more material/question approach practice.

I have about 20k new Zanki cards to do before April (reset my deck before the semester and then had to take a zanki break during our neuro course). Currently cranking out 200 new a day and doing all the reviews because if I can get to 12k by Jan 1st then I only have to do 100 new a day next semester and I'll still finish before dedicated. I want to get through all of Sketchy Micro/Pharm by the new year and am concurrently doing those cards right now. If I want to consider surgical subs I need to do pretty well on COMLEX too so I do 10 OMM cards a day lol.

I still haven't decided how I'm going to approach dedicated outside of keep up on the Zanki reviews and hammer Uworld/practice tests. I am thinking about starting Uworld in February and doing 2-3 40 timed random sessions a week and then going through the block the following day while making Anki cards off of my incorrects/stuff I didn't know.

 

[Gurby]

Do you do your questions only for the systems that you have covered in class? I started out doing questions by stuff I already covered but switched to doing completely random questions about a month and a half ago, my percent dropped from 82% down to mid 50s but now I can consistently break 60% which I'm proud of but have no idea if that's where I should be lol. I'm hoping it means I'm on the right track because it is a lot of stuff that I haven't seen yet. Using Rx mainly as a learning tool, I ram home some COMQUEST just for funsies on timed/random for timing practice, and then mix in some Kaplan for more material/question approach practice.

I have about 20k new Zanki cards to do before April (reset my deck before the semester and then had to take a zanki break during our neuro course). Currently cranking out 200 new a day and doing all the reviews because if I can get to 12k by Jan 1st then I only have to do 100 new a day next semester and I'll still finish before dedicated. I want to get through all of Sketchy Micro/Pharm by the new year and am concurrently doing those cards right now. If I want to consider surgical subs I need to do pretty well on COMLEX too so I do 10 OMM cards a day lol.

Yes, I only do practice questions for systems I have finished in Zanki. Doing QBanks on full random at this point feels inefficient to me.

The way I see it, Zanki/Bros/LY/etc don't have any magic or secret info - they are just tools to improve your efficiency.

If you went through UWorld+Kaplan+Rx and made Anki cards for every factoid you didn't know, you'd probably end up with an almost identical knowledge base to somebody who did Zanki+QBanks. The difference is that you would have spent 1000 hours making cards, while the Zanki user spent that time getting more passes through the material instead.

I think using a QBank as a primary learning resource will probably work fine, you'll just spend a lot of time learning material and making cards that you wouldn't have had to make if you had done the corresponding Zanki decks first.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I think using a QBank as a primary learning resource will probably work fine, you'll just spend a lot of time learning material and making cards that you wouldn't have had to make if you had done the corresponding Zanki decks first.

Oh I don't use it as a primary learning source. Sorry I didn't explain that well. I'm using it as basically a guide through FA. Reading FA seems so inefficient to me, I honestly probably won't even use it much except to reference stuff occasionally. That might be blasphemy but I don't see how useful it would be to me seeing as Zanki and Rx essentially are FA and then some.

 

[Gurby]

Oh I don't use it as a primary learning source. Sorry I didn't explain that well. I'm using it as basically a guide through FA. Reading FA seems so inefficient to me, I honestly probably won't even use it much except to reference stuff occasionally. That might be blasphemy but I don't see how useful it would be to me seeing as Zanki and Rx essentially are FA and then some.

Doing QBank questions on material you haven't learned yet, feels like using it as a primary learning resource to me?

I also haven't really touched FA and don't plan to. Maybe I'll skim through it at some point in dedicated to refresh or see if there are holes in my knowledge.

 

[fldoctorgirl]

I do 10 OMM cards a day

What deck are you using for this?

 

[sunshinefl]

What deck are you using for this?

Interested too.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

What deck are you using for this?

It's a Savarese deck, mixed with a bunch of cards someone I know in the class ahead of me put in there from OMM practice questions he did. I have no idea where he found it honestly, but he swore by it and he destroyed COMLEX so I'm trusting him with it.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

It's a Savarese deck, mixed with a bunch of cards someone I know in the class ahead of me put in there from OMM practice questions he did. I have no idea where he found it honestly, but he swore by it and he destroyed COMLEX so I'm trusting him with it.

I can second that the Savarese deck is great. It’s not good enough to do well on hardcore class exams, but’s it’s great for establishing a baseline. It’s also reallly good for cumulative exams. I used it on our cumulative final at the end of the year and performed really well. Used it again this year with the same result.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[libertyyne]

I love Anchorman but am sorry you feel this way. Many, if not most, students do. Usually, questions actually boil down to 1 or 2 discrete facts, max. Students generally struggle to see through the questions to these one or two facts, but can be taught to do so. I didn't get a 281 on Step 2 (or a 262 on Step 1) by memorizing more facts than other people, I did it by approaching questions extremely strategically. I'm not a genius, and I didn't study forever, I focused all my efforts on learning to outsmart the test maker. Other students can save hundreds of hours (and perform better) by switching to this mindset; I have seen them do it. It's not how you should approach clinical medicine, but is appropriate for overcoming an exam that isn't at all a good predictor of how well you care for patients.

TL;DR focusing too much on memorization is just as bad of a choice as milk.

How sure are you that your fund of knowledge was not also superior to the other 90 percent of test takers in addition to your test taking abilities. I would be more inclined to listen if your company didnt have a 8K per 40 hour cost associated with these magic beans you are claiming work.

 

[libertyyne]

Anyone else have a bear of a time getting back into the grind mindset after taking a few days off? It always takes me soo many days of ramp up before I am back at where I want to be. Any suggestions?

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Anyone else have a bear of a time getting back into the grind mindset after taking a few days off? It always takes me soo many days of ramp up before I am back at where I want to be. Any suggestions?

 

[medicineman1234]

How sure are you that your fund of knowledge was not also superior to the other 90 percent of test takers in addition to your test taking abilities. I would be more inclined to listen if your company didnt have a 8K per 40 hour cost associated with these magic beans you are claiming work.

I asked him/her that and they said it could be true. But they said their peers studied harder/knew more minutae. It's all subjective, but this is how I view it:

An average joe who keeps up with zanki and finishes uworld +/- another bank likely isn't going to score below 240. Since the average medical student gets a 229 without putting in those hours and doing many banks on top of that. Now may the zankier be """inefficient""" in relation to their peers? Who knows. But that confidence in putting in the hours and covering huge swaths of information on a regular basis I imagine is pretty nice. I can't imagine retaining anything over the course of more than 4 months without spaced repetition. I'd say it is much more likely for an average joe to get an above average score doing that than coming in with a much lower knowledge base and suddenly developing godlike test taking skills that surpass all knowledge gaps.

Frankly, since this is just a few months of my life anyway, I'll take the "safe" route even if someone who is smarter than me can outscore me on less work or I happen to lose a vacation or 2 for being "inefficient"

 

[Lawpy]

View attachment 242851

I somehow came across an interesting variation:

 

[libertyyne]

View attachment 242851

Thanks. I will change my desktop background to this, shia is usually the answer to most of life's questions.

 

[libertyyne]

I asked him/her that and they said it could be true. But they said their peers studied harder/knew more minutae. It's all subjective, but this is how I view it:

An average joe who keeps up with zanki and finishes uworld +/- another bank likely isn't going to score below 240. Since the average medical student gets a 229 without putting in those hours and doing many banks on top of that. Now may the zankier be """inefficient""" in relation to their peers? Who knows. But that confidence in putting in the hours and covering huge swaths of information on a regular basis I imagine is pretty nice. I can't imagine retaining anything over the course of more than 4 months without spaced repetition. I'd say it is much more likely for an average joe to get an above average score doing that than coming in with a much lower knowledge base and suddenly developing godlike test taking skills that surpass all knowledge gaps.

Frankly, since this is just a few months of my life anyway, I'll take the "safe" route even if someone who is smarter than me can outscore me on less work or I happen to lose a vacation or 2 for being "inefficient"

They way I am thinking about this test is

1)You need a baseline of facts - (zanki, class performance)
2)You need to be able to understand the big picture (lectures, pathoma, bnb, goljan,books)
3)You need to be able to apply the big picture and facts to novel situations (mcat skills,qbanks)
4)And you need to have good test taking abilities (mcat skills, qbank)

Your degree of mastery of 1-4 will probably land in different deciles. If you are missing any one of those you are in all liklihood limiting your top to 230+-10.

All of these are necessary to do well on the exam , and all of them play a role in bumping your score up every decile. You can be stronger in one vs the other , but that will not make up for your short comings in other areas leading to a score ceiling.

 

[Aerus]

Gonna post an update here for myself (and others I guess?).

Goal this Winter Break is to finish the rest of the systems for my curriculum so that I have the rest of the school year until dedicated as "extra dedicated". How I study for each system is to just go through the Pathoma and SketchyPharm/Path for it, then start doing Qbanks. I will supplement with Boards and Beyond to cover anything that these two resources don't.

After Winter Break (assuming I'm done with all my systems studying), I'm going to:

1) Start hammering Zanki in every day. I started Zanki but have not been consistent with it at all because my curriculum keeps us so busy and there's very little time to do flashcards when we're learning the curriculum material, the boards material, and trying to have a life. But if I take advantage of the three weeks off, I'm confident I can learn the material for the remaining systems during that time and be free to focus on flash cards until dedicated begins.

2) Do Qbanks every single day along with Zanki. I'm going to try to finish most of Kaplan and Rx by mid to end of January and start Uworld at the end of January or beginning of February.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Since this seems to be a theme of this thread (I dig it):

Goal Score: I just don't want any doors closed (except crazy competitive stuff like NSG or derm... no interest) so I'm shooting for 240+. The most competitive thing I am kinda interested in now is Gen Surg. But if I did IM I'd want a good hospital to do residency in too, ya know? I'll reassess after I take that first NBME... Hoping to hit it in the first couple weeks of dedicated so I can move my goal up a little bit (aim high, fall short & still hit a good score type of thing.)

Zanki Plan: I was late to the Zanki train, so I'm using xmas break to K/O neuro Zanki & keep up with reviews. I've been doing 200 new/day lately (only works for a couple days, then I need to chill one day to just do review so it doesn't get too overwhelming), so if I can keep up with that I might throw in something like renal or GI over xmas break too. I've been annotating Pathoma & extra details from Zanki into First Aid (which I'm just using as a "Master Notebook" only for reference when my dumba** forgets stuff in the future.) The end goal for Zanki is, before dedicated, to have Zanki Pathology, Zanki Pharmacology, & either my 3rd pass of Pepper Micro or first pass of the Lolnotacop microbiology deck completed. I don't plan on trying to do any of the basic sciences Zanki (year 1) - I'm only going to reference material when I need it from first aid (w/ the exception of biochemistry & immunology, which I have been trying to chip away at.)

Winter Semester: I've only been using Robbins practice questions for class because we are tested straight out of Robbins so... ya know. Drink the Kool Aid right? I'd like to complete 2 QBanks before dedicated (Kaplan & UWorld. Kaplan first, then UWorld.) A rough estimate (based on ~2300 Kaplan & 2000 UWorld questions) says if I do 34 questions/day from January 1 to may 10th (end of our winter semester) I will complete both QBanks. I also plan on keeping up with Zanki reviews, & if I have any time, hopefully catching up on any organ systems I missed during fall semester (renal & GI - neuro should be done over xmas break.) I plan on making my own little Anki deck for incorrect answers for QBanks that I'll keep up with. If this ends up being too many questions/day I'll reassess. Not trying to burn out in February. Maybe only do Kaplan once or something if that's too much, then K/O UWorld during dedicated.

Dedicated: Second pass of UWorld & (hopefully) many NBMEs is all I know I'm going to do right now. I get 2 weeks of 80%(ish) dedicated (my school decided to implement a 2 week crash course for clinical rotations that requires you be on campus a couple hours a day right at the end of the semester) & 4 weeks of pure dedicated based on my circumstances; so a total of "6" weeks.

OMM (lol.): At the most, I'll try to keep up with Savarese. I usually just catch up on all the reviews I haven't been doing for the past few months before exams. I need to be better about this though. I guess. I think keeping up with this will make that brief period between USMLE & COMLEX a lot less stressful though. If you have the green book memorized already it should be Gucci, right?

 

[AnimalCrackers]

Joining in on the fun! I'm taking it in April, less than 130 days away (it just hit me that I'm only 4 months away and that's CRAZY)

Goal Score: 261 (this was actually the number from my first race, which I won)
Happy With: 245 (this is the number one of my mentors told me I need to at least get if I want to do residency at her school)

Primary Resources:

• Kaplan QBank / UWorld the week before exams
• Zanki
• Sketchy
• Pathoma
• Golijan audio (my running playlist)
• Boards and Beyond
• Looking at lecture slides
• FA 2019

Dedicated:
I'll figure out more of this over winter break. I don't have a true dedicated as we have morning classes almost all the way until our exam.
UWorld, all of the NMBE's, Kaplan qbank, Zanki (hopefully will have matured all the cards by then). Sketchy/pathoma videos I'm weak on, and Golijan audio when I work out

 

[getfat]

Can we take a poll on how many questions we are doing at this point?

Currently planning on a June/July test date.Taking ~ 40 questions per day of USMLE-Rx.

I'm worried i'm a little too focused on boards very early in the process. Most of my day entails board prep and not exactly class itself.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I'm worried i'm a little too focused on boards very early in the process. Most of my day entails board prep and not exactly class itself.

Same. My reasoning is that my rank really isn't going to change much, my grades haven't really dropped that much (less than 5% per exam) and my school only reports quartile on our MSPE so as long as I don't drop out of my current quartile then I honestly don't care. I do a minimum of 120 questions a week. I was at 40 a day but I want to finish sketchy pharm and micro 1x by next semester so my current schedule is alternating questions with Sketchy and then doing class the rest of the day. When we get to break I will probably keep that schedule because I have some research I need to hammer out before the new year and will replace class studying with that.

@Gurby when you do questions are they timed? Or do you do tutor?

 

[libertyyne]

Same. My reasoning is that my rank really isn't going to change much, my grades haven't really dropped that much (less than 5% per exam) and my school only reports quartile on our MSPE so as long as I don't drop out of my current quartile then I honestly don't care. I do a minimum of 120 questions a week. I was at 40 a day but I want to finish sketchy pharm and micro 1x by next semester so my current schedule is alternating questions with Sketchy and then doing class the rest of the day. When we get to break I will probably keep that schedule because I have some research I need to hammer out before the new year and will replace class studying with that.

@Gurby when you do questions are they timed? Or do you do tutor?

have you finished sketchy before?

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

have you finished sketchy before?

Micro yeah, and about a 1/3 of pharm. I’m just trying to get one run through if both before the new year.

 

[FindersFee5]

Can we take a poll on how many questions we are doing at this point?

Currently planning on a June/July test date.Taking ~ 40 questions per day of USMLE-Rx.

I'm worried i'm a little too focused on boards very early in the process. Most of my day entails board prep and not exactly class itself.

Doing about 40 per day too from Kaplan and Rx, using just questions from blocks I've covered. I started with feeling that the questions had a lot of low hanging information I wasn't grasping, but as I've added more baseline knowledge I feel like that's starting to fade and I'm getting a better hold on everything.

When are y'alls test dates/dedicated, and when do you plan on taking the CBSE?

I start dedicated in march for exam in May, probably going to take CBSE a couple weekends before start of dedicated.

 

[Gurby]

@Gurby when you do questions are they timed? Or do you do tutor?

I do them on tutor mode and go 1 by 1 through them: I take my time trying to reason through a question, and then make my Anki cards or look up additional info immediately afterwards while I'm still "in the zone" for that question. It feels disruptive to come back to review a question 20 minutes later.

This is my plan for my first QBank at least - going through it slow and methodical seems best since really I'm using it as a learning resource more than anything else. I plan to definitely do UWorld on timed full random blocks of 40 when I get there. I may or may not do my 2nd QBank timed, will see when I get there!

 

[JooceMan137]

I'm wondering what your opinions are based on what you've heard on wether doing two passes of UWorld is a good idea? I plan on finishing USMLE Rx and Kaplan before dedicated, but I was going to save UWorld for dedicated.

 

[alprazoslam]

They way I am thinking about this test is

1)You need a baseline of facts - (zanki, class performance)
2)You need to be able to understand the big picture (lectures, pathoma, bnb, goljan,books)
3)You need to be able to apply the big picture and facts to novel situations (mcat skills,qbanks)
4)And you need to have good test taking abilities (mcat skills, qbank)

Your degree of mastery of 1-4 will probably land in different deciles. If you are missing any one of those you are in all liklihood limiting your top to 230+-10.

All of these are necessary to do well on the exam , and all of them play a role in bumping your score up every decile. You can be stronger in one vs the other , but that will not make up for your short comings in other areas leading to a score ceiling.

Only really need b n b on stuff you are super weak on. I used for stats since our stats teacher was at least two SD below average ability to teach

 

[FindersFee5]

I'm wondering what your opinions are based on what you've heard on wether doing two passes of UWorld is a good idea? I plan on finishing USMLE Rx and Kaplan before dedicated, but I was going to save UWorld for dedicated.

That was my plan too. Have heard a decent number of mixed opinions on this, but I have like a 7 week dedicated and I think I could work through UWorld and then another pass of flagged questions if I do ~2 blocks a day.

 

[JooceMan137]

That was my plan too. Have heard a decent number of mixed opinions on this, but I have like a 7 week dedicated and I think I could work through UWorld and then another pass of flagged questions if I do ~2 blocks a day.

Thanks for the input. I read somewhere that doing a bigger variety of questions is better than using the same Q banks twice. Plus I feel that i'd just have the answers memorized on my second round of UWorld. It seems doing a second pass of flagged questions would be good.

 

[FindersFee5]

Thanks for the input. I read somewhere that doing a bigger variety of questions is better than using the same Q banks twice. Plus I feel that i'd just have the answers memorized on my second round of UWorld. It seems doing a second pass of flagged questions would be good.

I don't think I'll have them memorized (for some reason my memory on question is really bad, I'll get out of a test and remember like 2 questions), but yeah, trying to see more questions is my goal. With Rx, Kaplan, UWorld, and NBMEs, I should have seen around 7500 - 8000 unique questions by the time I take step.

 

[Epicurusall]

Does anyone feel like this year is particularly gunnery?

Maybe it is like this every year and SDN + select classmates are all doing so much. It just seems to me that if you aren't maturing Zanki and doing 3 qbanks you're behind and not going to do as well.

Could it be possible that doing all this will still achieve 255+/260+ with maintaining 90th percentile or higher?

Or do you all think we will see a shift upward this year in average score and downward shift in percentiles?