USMLE Sketchy material that is not in FA???

[youngmanMD]

Been seeing some material in Sketchy micro that is NOT in first aid
how high yield are those topics that aren't in FA but are in sketchy micro? Should I even bother with them?

Thanks everyone in advance

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[Aerus]

First Aid is NOT a comprehensive list of what you need to know for Step 1. Sometimes, it's easy to treat First Aid like the knowledge bank where test-makers will draw questions from. The truth is that it's just an outside resource compiled from the experience of test-takers and test-makers on what topics commonly show up. New information is being added every single year to it.

SketchyMicro is honestly not that long, so it doesn't hurt to just know what it covers. There will most likely be micro questions testing you on information that's not covered in FA or SketchyMicro when you take Step 1.

 

[humblethinker]

I would think you can eliminate the wrong choices based on FA micro knowledge if you get a question that is directly related to a micro concept not in FA but only in Sketchy

 

[Aerus]

I would think you can eliminate the wrong choices based on FA micro knowledge if you get a question that is directly related to a micro concept not in FA but only in Sketchy

There's also the possibility that more than one of the choices will be not in FA either if the concept itself isn't. Why take that chance when the concept is already neatly packed into the sketch?

 

[humblethinker]

There's also the possibility that more than one of the choices will be not in FA either if the concept itself isn't. Why take that chance when the concept is already neatly packed into the sketch?

I think its worth considering the opportunity cost of the proposed situation. The question is....is it worth it to spend hours watching sketchy when in reality, its not likely you will encounter many questions where multiple answer choices were never mentioned in FA. Additionally, there is definitely a strong argument to be made that hours of passive video watching are not nearly as efficient as doing more and more practice problems. I dont understand the hype surrounding all these video resources....at some point diminishing returns kicks in and you would be better off applying what you know to novel contexts (practice problems) rather than watching another set of videos from another company. There are infinite resources and they all more or less help us get to the same point....yet, step scores dont increase all too much because increasing hours of passive learning does not mean you will score higher than if you reallocated that time into more mind stretching active learning processes.

 

[Aerus]

I think its worth considering the opportunity cost of the proposed situation. The question is....is it worth it to spend hours watching sketchy when in reality, its not likely you will encounter many questions where multiple answer choices were never mentioned in FA. Additionally, there is definitely a strong argument to be made that hours of passive video watching are not nearly as efficient as doing more and more practice problems. I dont understand the hype surrounding all these video resources....at some point diminishing returns kicks in and you would be better off applying what you know to novel contexts (practice problems) rather than watching another set of videos from another company. There are infinite resources and they all more or less help us get to the same point....yet, step scores dont increase all too much because increasing hours of passive learning does not mean you will score higher than if you reallocated that time into more mind stretching active learning processes.

Whoa calm down with the strawman

I don't think anyone here disagrees that doing practice problems is the absolute best way to improve your score after establishing a knowledge base, but the topic at hand is whether it's worth memorizing the extra details in the sketch that you're ALREADY learning. The answer is yes because you're not using an extra resource or spending more time watching a video and you're not dedicating anymore time to passively learning since the video is already being watched. The concept is already there.