USMLE Plan: Go from 247 to 255 in 2 weeks?

[StraightOuttaBrooklyn]

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Aloha,

Wondering if I can get some input from some people on my tentative plan for the final two weeks (which will be as of tomorrow) - I guess this is a bit of a panic post. I'm aiming for a 255 or better.

Here's where I stand currently

NBME/UWSA
5/15 - nbme 12 - 220 (480)
5/20 - uwsa 1 - 243 (570) - did not get overly excited due to overprediction of UWSA
6/05 - uwsa 2 - 243 (570) - did not get overly excited due to overprediction of UWSA
6/06 - nbme 13 - 234 (530) - took this to be a sign of improvement
6/11 - nbme 15 - 243 (580) - happy with the score, but nbme 15 overrepresented my relative strengths so staying grounded.
6/25 - nbme 16 - 247 (590) - happy with the score, but staying grounded as much of the incorrect are things I have forgotten from when I started.
NBME17 - tomorrow
NBME18 - one week from tomorrow

UWorld 1st Pass: 70% Correct (5% Unused) I did not do on random mode, used it to learn the material - some random blocks here and there, but mostly ALL-Allergy/Immunology, or Pharmacology-Cardiovascular, etc. I typed extensive notes up (in an excel file) for everything I got wrong, and also for most of the marked questions if I found it was really tricky or there was some major knowledge gap for me in that question.

UW 2nd Pass: currently at 12% complete, 88% correct (ALL-ALL, completely random/mixed blocks)

The Final Countdown: Each day will be brought to a close with 2-3 hours of ANKI for hammering away minutiae (think the adverse reactions in the FA Pharm chapter, celiac trunk, vessels inside the abdominal and pelvic ligaments, HLA associations, tumor markers, paraneoplastic syndromes, autonomic drug targets and side effects, neurotransmitter changes in psych disorders, FA Rapid Review, etc.) Likewise, I have marked All Micro, All Pharm, All Biochem, All Immuno on Firecracker as "Urgent" ~4900 flashcards, so I plan to do about 300-400 scattered throughout the day each day during breaks (bathroom, lunch, etc) and hoping some "new and neat" things I have missed will "stick". Where Pathoma is listed, it will be a 2nd pass for some chapters, 3rd pass for others and please note it says read pathoma because I'm definitely not watching it again this close to the test - notes are all typed up for each chapter, reads quickly.

Okay so here's the day-by-day:

T-14: NBME 17; review topics for incorrect questions in Pathoma/FA. SketchyMicro Parasites, RNA Viruses. SketchyPharm Antivirals

T-13: 3 UW Blocks (Random) Timed mode w/ review of only incorrect. Read Pathoma Ch1, 3, 7 (General, Neoplasia, Vascular Path).

T-12: 3 UW Blocks (1. Infectious Dz, 2. Biochem, 3. Pharm (Mixed) Read Pathoma Ch8, 9(Cardio/Respiratory) and f/u in FA. Review all SketchyMicro for lung infections discussed in Pathoma (not exhaustive, just another place to throw in some micro review) SketchyPharm Anti-Arrythmics, Anti-Histamines, Anti-Lipids.

T-11: 3 UW Blocks (Random) Times mode w/ review of only incorrect. Read Pathoma Ch12,14 (Renal, Male Repro) and f/u in FA.

T-10: 3 UW Blocks (1. Micro, 2. Micro, 3. Pharm (Mixed) Read Pathoma Ch15, 13 (Endo, Female Repro) and f/u in FA. Review all organ systems embryology/congenital path in FA, and review chromosomal/genetic disorders, gestational pathology, emergencies, and physiologic changes in pregnancy, drugs to avoid in preggo, and Torches.

T-9: 3 UW Blocks (Random) Times mode w/ review of only incorrect. Read Pathoma Ch2, 18 (Immuno, MSK) and f/u in FA

T-8: 3 UW Blocks (1. Infectious Dz, 2. Biochem, 3. Pharm (Mixed) Read Pathoma Ch4,5,6 (Hemostasis, RBC, WBC). F/u w/ review in FA and review SketchyPharm Anti-Neoplastics.

T-7: NBME 18 Review topics for incorrect questions in Pathoma/FA. SketchyPharm Antibiotics review and review Microbiology Ch of FA. Review sports injuries & dermatomes, spinal level of reflexes. Brachial Plexus at Bedtime & LumbarPlexus lullabies.

T-6: 3 UW Blocks (1. Micro, 2. Micro, 3. Pharm (Mixed) Read Pathoma Ch10,11 (GI, Liver/Pancreas/GB) and f/u w/ Review in FA.

T-5: 3 UW Blocks (1. Micro, 2. Infectious Dz, 3. Pharm (Mixed) AIDS DAY - review HIV (virology, serologies, tests/labs, pharmacology, all opportunistics and dx/tx of opportunistics), review SketchyMicro DNA Viruses, Childhood Red Rashes, and SketchyMicro Fungi, SketchyPharm anti-Fungal, and Fungal Histologies.

T-4: 3 UW Blocks (1. Biochemistry, 2. Micro, 3. Pharm (Mixed) Review all biochemistry pathways, cell-cycle regulation, JAK/STAT, MAP-Kinase.

T-3: Do the free 150 USMLE Questions. Moar biochemistry and genetic disorders, metabolism. Glomerulonephritidies, Breast, Ovarian, Testicular Tumor Histopathology images. Bone Tumor Histopathologies. Neurocutaneous Syndromes, Lysosomal Storage Disorders #tissuepapermacrophages, Glycogen storage disorders, Brain Tumor Histopathology, Rule of 4's review, Retina Images from FA. Fluid shifts/osmolarity changes. Renal Tubule Disorders.

T-2: FA Rapid Review, FA Equation Review (Stats/Epi, Cardio, Respiratory, Renal). FA Psych.

T-1: Beach Day "light studying" - FA Ethics/Behavioral/Milestones, Pathoma Dermatology. Review Poisonings/Toxins (I wrote up a spreadsheet based on the list in FA explaining the pathophysiology of presentation and MOA of the antidotes)

T-0: Exam ---> Crying.

I would love if people would please chime in and share your thoughts on this tentative plan of mine. I have no idea if I what I've laid out here is self-defeating or not, well-structured use of time for the final two weeks, so please chime in and let me know what you think 🙂

 

[StraightOuttaBrooklyn]

Bump please

 

[Kazaki]

I just started dedicated so I don't know if this is going to be any use but how did NBME 17 go? Use that score to predict your actual step 1 score because the older the NBME, the less errors you can make to get a good score. for EXAMPLE (these are not actual figures) 25 wrong on NBME 12 might be a 220, but 25 wrong on NBME 18 might be 248. Some people on SDN are saying that NBME 18 is overkill and your score will probably drop, some people say that its a good representation of the current exam, so I don't know if you should do 18. Good luck!

 

[Adjet]

It might be a little too late in the game, but I personally feel that a 2nd pass of uworld is an inefficient use of time if you have taken good notes the first time around, because you are not increasing your exposure to new concepts. If you have the will, I would rip through Kaplan Qbank in tutor, with a focus on areas that you feel less comfortable in. Some of the 'hard' questions are annoying, but there were a couple concepts tested on my exam that weren't emphasized in uworld/FA.

 

[plasmodium]

247 to 255? You're already in 250+ range and the rest is going to be determined by your test day performance. Whatever you've been doing is working, so your best strategy would be to simply continue doing it until test day. By continuing to do what you've been doing for another 2 weeks you'll be solidifying a 240+ score and giving yourself an even better pre-test chance at scoring 250+.

If you have the will, I would rip through Kaplan Qbank in tutor

I cannot even begin to explain how bad of a decision this would be. Starting a QBank arguably as challenging and even more meticulous than UWorld with 2 weeks remaining? 2 weeks from now he would be freaking out that he hasn't finished or learned all of Kaplan.

Don't change a thing, OP. Just stay on track and continue to study however you've been studying. My only advice would be that, for any questions you continue to get wrong on NBMEs or in UWorld that aren't simply due to not knowing the information, but because you changed an answer, or picked the wrong choice of a 50/50 situation, you need to start to really think outside of yourself to figure out why you are making those poor in-the-moment decisions. Getting to the bottom of why you are getting questions wrong that you ordinarily wouldn't be getting wrong may bump your score up a couple of points on test day.

 

[StraightOuttaBrooklyn]

247 to 255? You're already in 250+ range and the rest is going to be determined by your test day performance. Whatever you've been doing is working, so your best strategy would be to simply continue doing it until test day. By continuing to do what you've been doing for another 2 weeks you'll be solidifying a 240+ score and giving yourself an even better pre-test chance at scoring 250+.


I cannot even begin to explain how bad of a decision this would be. Starting a QBank arguably as challenging and even more meticulous than UWorld with 2 weeks remaining? 2 weeks from now he would be freaking out that he hasn't finished or learned all of Kaplan.

Don't change a thing, OP. Just stay on track and continue to study however you've been studying. My only advice would be that, for any questions you continue to get wrong on NBMEs or in UWorld that aren't simply due to not knowing the information, but because you changed an answer, or picked the wrong choice of a 50/50 situation, you need to start to really think outside of yourself to figure out why you are making those poor in-the-moment decisions. Getting to the bottom of why you are getting questions wrong that you ordinarily wouldn't be getting wrong may bump your score up a couple of points on test day.

Unrelated: Ironically, I spent 3 hours studying plasmodium today - I will not get any questions wrong about Malaria on Step 1. Banana gametocytes all day!

Totally agree about Kaplan QBank - definately not going near that at this point.

I scored a 237 on NBME #18 today - particularly annoyed about that. I think a big thing for me is going to be stop second-guessing myself, or really figure out a way to get a sense of if I should be second guessing myself on a particular question - I'd say the split is about 40/60 where 40% of the time I change to a correct answer, 60% I change correct to wrong - still, 40% is not trivial either.

The description I provided above of my plan for the next 13 or do days is roughly what I've been doing - mix of Pathoma/UW/FA, Anki'ing, SketchyMicro & SketchyPharm.