USMLE Please rate my study plan

[Foot Fetish]

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I'm finishing up M1. I will be taking Step 1 sometime in June 2018, so I am ~13.5 months out. My goal score is a 260, and I think I'm the type of person who needs a long and methodical path to get there. I've been making my own Anki cards for classes since Day 1, so I figured using Brosencephalon's Anki deck would be a good segue into board prep. I started it a few weeks ago and am about ~13% done (not moving as fast as I would like, which I attribute to school taking up too much of my time, but I plan to ramp it up this summer. So, here is the plan:

• Today - 9/1/2017: Primary content learning / review phase: Effectively "memorize" FA by completing Brosencephalon's Anki deck while concurrently watching Pathoma + SketchyMicro (I've already watched several chapters of pathoma plus >50% of Sketchy) and consulting FA2017 as needed.
  
  
• 9/1/2017 - 11/15/2017: Complete USMLE-Rx
  
  
• 11/15/2017 - 1/15/2018: Complete Kaplan QBank
  
  
• 1/15/2018 - 3/15/2018: Complete all NBME's (as a learning tool, not assessment)
  
  
• 3/15/2018 - 5/15/2018: UWorld (first pass)
  
  
• 5/15/2018 - ~6/15/2018 (dedicated): Uworld (second pass)

Throughout all this, I would be keeping up with my Anki reviews, keeping a log of all the questions I got wrong in the Qbanks, and reading FA as needed.

Thoughts?

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Save the nbme's for dedicated. They're not really a learning tool at all. They're more useful for simulating a test environment and highlighting weak areas. Also, don't waste your time with the earlier nbme's. 15-19 or even 16-19 is all you really should do.

Overall your plan is very (extremely) ambitious and probably not realistically achievable but no harm in making a goal and going for it

 

[Foot Fetish]

Save the nbme's for dedicated. They're not really a learning tool at all. They're more useful for simulating a test environment and highlighting weak areas. Also, don't waste your time with the earlier nbme's. 15-19 or even 16-19 is all you really should do.

Overall your plan is very (extremely) ambitious and probably not realistically achievable but no harm in making a goal and going for it

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I've heard mixed reviews about the older NBME's. Apparently they're not reflective of the current exam, and the available "answer keys" contain a lot of errors. It might be a waste of time trying to hunt down the correct answers.

And yeah, I realize the plan is pushing the boundary of what is possible, especially these next four months wherein I hope to effectively pre-learn all of the M2 material independently...Like you said though, no harm in trying.

 

[mw18]

I echo the sentiments about the NBMEs. Even in dedicated time, it's a pain to look up the answers to just the wrong ones. Let alone looking up the answers to more wrong ones (because you won't be in dedicated time) or the right ones that you weren't sure about. Question banks come with the answers right there with explanations, and will be more than sufficient. Plus, when you are in dedicated time, you'll have no unfamiliar material to really see where you're at except UW-self assessments (and the consensus is to take them with a grain of salt).

 

[Foot Fetish]

I echo the sentiments about the NBMEs. Even in dedicated time, it's a pain to look up the answers to just the wrong ones. Let alone looking up the answers to more wrong ones (because you won't be in dedicated time) or the right ones that you weren't sure about. Question banks come with the answers right there with explanations, and will be more than sufficient. Plus, when you are in dedicated time, you'll have no unfamiliar material to really see where you're at except UW-self assessments (and the consensus is to take them with a grain of salt).

Do you think I should "save" UWorld until the end or start is sooner? This seems to be a point of contention among med students.

 

[mw18]

Honestly I think that depends in how you use it. If you are taking the time to truly learn the material and then upon seeing it again you know the answer because you know the concept, then I could see it being valuable. It's just more time with the best information. But if you have familiarity and maybe remember the trick that led to you being wrong or right the first time, but don't understand all aspects of the question; I could see that leading to a false sense of security and a lack of understanding ultimately. So there are two checks to this issue if you want to do UW early, one is to make sure you are truly learning it as you go (maybe an anki deck of the important info in explanations and other answer choices), and another is that if you're in dedicated and you realize that this is happening you need to remedy it. I think that if you get through Rx and Kaplan before dedicated, you'll be absolutely fine to start UW for the first time in dedicated time.

 

[Gorne]

That's quite the plan you got there. I don't know of anyone that has gone this hard, I'm curious to see how you do.

 

[Foot Fetish]

That's quite the plan you got there. I don't know of anyone that has gone this hard, I'm curious to see how you do.

Thanks. I go to a true P/F school, so I am planning on disregarding class as much as possible next year while still passing. This year I focused pretty much exclusively on classes and did really well, so I no longer feel the need to "prove myself." Next year will be a major paradigm shift for me. Q-banks everyday.

 

[ridethecliche]

I'm a second year that arguably underperformed for most of second year and I'm trying to make up for it during a long-ish dedicated period. That said....

Even if you don't do class-ish, the folks I've talked to that I know have done well have usually done content and gotten it down pat and then moved onto doing questions as they come closer to an exam or quiz. Q banks aren't really the best way to learn content from the get-go.

Also make sure that the qbank approach will work for your tests. My institution has two main courses 2nd year: one works perfectly for independent study + qbank while the second class will drop you like a bad habit if you ignore class materials because the instructors write the exams and don't use NBME material.