Honestly, I think if you budget your time well, you can do both - do well in the class and on the boards....with robbins reading thrown in to boot.
our school has a system where they test us every 6 weeks. In that 6 week block, they give us assigned readings from robbins and tell us to knock ourselves out (of course, there's lectures to attend.........but I haven't been to a single lecture yet since all the material is already in robbins, plus we have a scribe service so I can read them later at my own time)
Basically, I have been treating it like a job. I get up at 8, read from from 9 to 6 (with an hr for lunch) and then chill for the rest of the night (weekends off the first 3 weeks out of the 6)
I also use other sources to 'amp' myself up for the actual robbins reading. For example, for neoplasia, I would first read BRS, then Rapid Review, do the questions on webpath and various other question sources where you can filter tests to suit your subject material (I have a LOT of those – questions are key to hammer concepts in). While I am doing this, I would takes notes and compile everything.
Once I feel like I have a good grasp on the chapter, I break out big daddy robbins...........it essentially then becomes a review of sorts with details thrown in. I take my own notes/highlight from there, add them to the notes from BRS/RR/question sources........and then to test myself, use the robbins Qbook, which I think is absolute pure gold!
This method has been working out great in every possible way. On our first test, I got 3 points lower than the highest score.......I still have my nights free (except the week before the test).........and most importantly, I transfer the relevant info from my notes into First Aid, basically annotate the crap out of it......this way, come shelf time, I just have to use my first aid and not bother with anything else (something I have been doing since first year.......that book is screaming for dear life now.........it worked for the first yr shelfs………..lets hope it pays off for the boards)
Ultimately, like I said above, it comes down to time management.........if you sit down for 7 - 8 hrs a day (like a job basically - obviously this implies that you cant go to lecture), hammer thru BRS/RR/questions and then follow up with Big Robbins.........you should be golden............not to mention it will help you for the boards..........
Cheers,
Knight
P.S. Before someone replies saying that I am a crazy gunner for doing all this........I have spent every night free to do anything I want during the first 4 weeks in our test block…….with weekends………honestly, that whole routine doesn't really take that long to do………you just have to sit and do it…..
..........and there's always webpath.....
