MD & DO Review for Summer of M1 - where to start?

[Osteosaur]

---

Members don't see this ad.

So I decided to spend most of my summer of M1 just relaxing. I would like to maybe begin board review.

Do you guys have any advice for a good place to start with COMLEX and USMLE review? The resources my school gives is so peppered with information learned in M2 its hard to really get a good refresher.

 

[AhmedJ]

I just came across this free crash course being offered by Amboss. May be it is of some use to you. Take the AMBOSS High-Yield Summer Crash Course

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Zanki.

 

[Frogger27]

Zanki.

Or light year. Start unsuspending subjects you’ve already done. Calculate out how many cards/day until the start of M2 and do that many. Shouldn’t take long per day but you’ll thank yourself later when step studying comes as you’ve built up a nice, mature anki deck

 

[Osteosaur]

I've done well with Anki.

For Zanki is there anything else to know? Is it enough to just grab the Zanki deck from /r/medschoolanki and go?

And are there any different considerations for COMLEX?

 

[Goro]

So I decided to spend most of my summer of M1 just relaxing. I would like to maybe begin board review.

Do you guys have any advice for a good place to start with COMLEX and USMLE review? The resources my school gives is so peppered with information learned in M2 its hard to really get a good refresher.

Start with the stuff you're mostly likely to be rustiest on, which would OMSI Fall semester, then segue into Spring semester material.

 

[knope321]

If you're not doing anything else, I would play around with what works for you. Get both zanki and LY. The key is that you have to be able to really do the spaced repetition and keep it up! I could not do this during MS2, so while I looked at all the zanki cards, I couldn't recall so much because I did not keep up.

I tried to study over the summer while doing research. I plugged through zanki biochem, but couldnt keep up once MS2 hit. I had to hit it hard in dedicated because my knowledge base was so fragmented.

I also did Rx questions and read first aid on things I was rusty on (aka cardio). Tbh, this was also not helpful because I just didn't have the knowledge base to really understand the questions and FA was just a soup of facts. I wish I had rewatched BnB instead.

I'd maybe start with questions as a guage where you are.

Best of luck!!!

 

[feathersMD]

Sketchy Micro/Pharm

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Depends on if you got a good education from your school in the basic science stuff like biochem or immuno. If you did then I agree with Sketchy Micro/Pharm, if you didn't then do BnB videos for basic sciences while going through FA

 

[rball]

Depending on how far out you are from step and how well you know the material, I think you have to be cautious with zanki.

Zanki is a really deep dive into the fundamentals that is meant to be worked on and matured alongside classes. If you’re less than 10 months or so out, I don’t think it is necessarily the best way to go and I would recommend going through first aid for sections you’ve covered and then do practice questions each day from Rx or Kaplan to truly understand the material.

Otherwise zanki will take up too much of your time to really do it properly and get the most out of it. If you’re > 10-12 months out and can see yourself committing to at least 3-4 hours reviewing flashcards each day (not including new material and new cards you have to do), and still having time to do thousands of practice questions prior to dedicated, then it can work.