Step 1 BOARDS study tactics - please help

[city girl]

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Hey guys,

Needless to say I want to blow this out of the water. Thanksgiving break I think is a good time to capitalize. I've already purchased USMLE world and have First Aid.

Do you think I should jump into 1rst year stuff since that seems way old. Or should I hit Path right now since that will be the majority of the exam.My path exam scores thus far are "okay" not stellar. To be explicit I'm talking mid 70's to low 80's. (Bummer, I know.) Our school only gives us 1 month to study for the boards after MS2. I want to spend my time as efficiently and effectively as possible.

 

[Perrotfish]

I think Thanksgiving is going to go towards the classes I never really got down in the first place: meaning embryo and especially micro. Neuro and physio are runners up but I don't really have time for them quite yet (maybe winter break). I feel like I learned path (at least the Path we've had so far) pretty well the first time so there's no point in reviewing until closer to the test.

 

[city girl]

yah good point. embryo might be a good place to start for me also then get into path.

 

[Dral]

If you're starting this early, a good approach is to work on USMLE world and use the answers to annotate FA (if it's something that FA doesn't cover).

Also, make a schedule as soon as you can. This is very important for that last month you have to study (My schedule was specific enough to cover what I'd be doing basically every hour of every day). It wouldn't hurt to make a more general schedule now.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

My two suggestions would be (1) take a nice actual break over Thanksgiving or (2) if you're going to study something, study for your 2nd year courses since you state your grades are low/mediocre.

Any perceived "advantage" you get by studying for step 1 over Thanksgiving is going to be negligible. An actual break would help you prepare for the final stretch of the semester. Additionally, studying for your actual coursework would be more beneficial in the short term (ie do better on upcoming finals) and equally beneficial (ie not much) for boards studying.

 

[shivasHeroLike]

why not take an assessment exam, then whichever u got the lowest on = u study first.


otherwise, if i had to pick a subject - it'd be behavioral science over thanksgiving.

its light on the reading & still allows for a good vacation time.

 

[coldweatherblue]

I'm gonna hit physio a little over thanksgiving, but we have a huge set of ms2 exams coming up so mostly I'm just studying path/pathophys/micro/pharm all that good stuff..

 

[badasshairday]

I think your best bet is to just study for your final exams. During winter break, you should do some step 1 studying, if that is what you want to do.

Might as well bust your butt for your Path final now, so you can review it later.

Also, I think embryo is worthless to study for, especially this early. It is low yield, and I think it is better to memorize that crap just before your exam.

 

[badasshairday]

double post.

 

[Perrotfish]

BTW I've heard you don't want to use USMLE world this early, since you want that question bank at 0% used when you start the 6 week cram session before the exam.

I've heard from a couple of people that if you want to start early, start with either Kaplan or USMLE Rx. Just a thought

 

[Themistocles]

I think Thanksgiving is going to go towards the classes I never really got down in the first place: meaning embryo and especially micro. Neuro and physio are runners up but I don't really have time for them quite yet (maybe winter break). I feel like I learned path (at least the Path we've had so far) pretty well the first time so there's no point in reviewing until closer to the test.

I too was thinking of redoing micro, I'll probably try to read some of made ridiculously simple. The 'zu Bentrup blitzkrieg' didn't really do much for my long term memory.

 

[smiley737]

BTW I've heard you don't want to use USMLE world this early, since you want that question bank at 0% used when you start the 6 week cram session before the exam.

I've heard from a couple of people that if you want to start early, start with either Kaplan or USMLE Rx. Just a thought

Yeah, I would agree, if you're going to start early w/a question bank, start with USMLERx and save World for closer to exam time. USMLERx most closely aligns w/First Aid, so it'll help you solidify what's in that book (and knowing what's in First Aid is very high yield)

 

[city girl]

hey guys, i already purchased the year long subscription for usmle world. i only heard about usmle rx after i shelled out the ~$500 bucks. my other fear is freaking out in the 6 week period before boards because i'm not accustomed to that level of difficulty. were people who bought the usmle world year long subscription able to get through ALL the questionsin the 6 week period before the test date? for those of you who have experience with usmle world and usmle rx, do you think it would be detrimental to my preparation to jump into usmle world without usmle rx? thanks!

 

[city girl]

there are 2080 questions in the usmle world right now.

 

[bola]

I don't have experience with USMLERx, but I suggest that if you're worried about being freaked out by USMLE world close to exam time you can start it 8 weeks out or even 12 weeks out, while you're still taking regularly classes - you can do 20 questions/night just to get familiar with it (although I personally feel you don't learn too much from these) and then pick up the pace as the exam time gets closer. If you're doing 2 sets of 48 questions per day during ur 6 week prep you shd be able to complete the all of the questions easily and even go back over ur wrong answers.

You can also try Kaplan during the school year if you want. Don't let the money you spent on UWorld convince you into using it up before actual prep time.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

there are 2080 questions in the usmle world right now.

I finished all of USMLE world and ~80% of Kaplan during my 6 weeks of studying.

I would strongly recommend holding off on USMLE world...I think using it now would be a waste of your best study resource.

 

[GZA]

I assume it will piss less people off asking this "im too stupid to use search" question here rather than starting a new thread.

I've surmised that First Aid, UW qBank, and Goljan path are the must haves for step 1, but what is the consensus around here?

I'm an ms2 taking the boards next spring, and I have been holding off for 2010 FA, but I would like to study it this winter break. Should I wait or buy 2009?

Thanks everyone,

 

[PistolPete]

If you haven't purchased the First Aid book yet, I'd wait until the 2010 version comes out. According to Amazon, it publishes January 8th. If you really want to study from it over winter break, just find a copy of the 2008 or 2009 online somewhere and use it for the 2-3 weeks before the new one comes out.

 

[nogolfinsnow]

I assume it will piss less people off asking this "im too stupid to use search" question here rather than starting a new thread.

I've surmised that First Aid, UW qBank, and Goljan path are the must haves for step 1, but what is the consensus around here?

I'm an ms2 taking the boards next spring, and I have been holding off for 2010 FA, but I would like to study it this winter break. Should I wait or buy 2009?

Thanks everyone,

My advice is to not study over winter break. In 3 years you'll be working over winter break while all the students are on vacation. Enjoy the vacation while you still get it. Studying now will be incredibly low yield because anything you happen to memorize while digesting Christmas dinner will be long gone by the time May rolls around, and you'll just have to memorize it again. Just focus on learning the material to the best of your ability for now until the test gets a little closer.

My resources were the same you listed with UWorld as by question bank and I also used BRS physiology, an easy refresher read. I think it's good you have a limited number of resources, people tend to get spread too thin when they get a resource for each subject, and it detracts from doing questions, which is really where the money is.

 

[mq123]

Studying over Thanksgiving break? 😱 I didn't even think about it, especially considering we had a block exam on Wednesday, so that meant NO guilty feelings over not studying over the break. For once in a long time, I traveled without school books, and it felt odd but awesome, too.

And I don't regret my decision 🙂. Those 4 days were such a great rest from all the craziness that is 2nd year...

I think for me, winter break will be the time to start thinking about pulling out year 1 stuff...