Step 1 - Dont know where to start

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Piglet2020

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Hi everyone, I'm an incoming MS2 and I take step 1 next year (scared). I dont know where to begin in terms of prep b/c there's a lot of resources out there. From experience, which resources are a must and how do you set your schedule for studying? (Really lost, panicking this summer...)

Also, where can I find the dates for 2020 Step 1? I checked the website but didn't find specific dates.


Thanks!

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Step 1 is offered several times per week at any prometric testing center. You should aim to sign up ideally at least 2 months in advance, but in a pinch you can get a spot in a couple of weeks.

A lot of people recommend Zanki, but it takes a lot of work (at least an hour per day) and if you skip days, your reviews pile up and you get stuck, so if you're not the type of person who can commit 1-2 hours per day to doing flashcards, then this might not be the right thing for you. I didn't use it at all.

The most commonly used resources are UWorld (essentially required), First Aid (also basically required), Pathoma, and Sketchy Micro. I honestly think that a year out is too long to really take advantage of Step 1 specific studying, but you can definitely reinforce material that is both important and board testable by watching the pathoma videos during the correlated block in school and following along with the manual and perhaps annotating first aid. Some people do one pass of UWorld during second year (I did not). I would recommend going through the bacterial portion of Sketchy Micro during your microbio/ID block and then again during or right before dedicated as it's incredibly helpful (the virus/fungi/parasites... not so much imo).

Relax, it'll be fine!
 
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I second WedgeDawg's suggestions. If you're still ~12 months away just leisurely do pathoma and sketchymicro. Sketchymicro in particular can actually be fun to watch and if you start dedicated studying with the majority of sketchymicro already under your belt (AKA memorized) you're already in a solid spot.

Save uworld questions and hardcore first aid review for actual dedicated time. Chances are you will forget the minutia if you study those things too early.
 
You can also do other q-banks during the year before you touch uworld. It really boils down to how many questions you go through for those astronomically high scores
 
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Step 1 is offered several times per week at any prometric testing center. You should aim to sign up ideally at least 2 months in advance, but in a pinch you can get a spot in a couple of weeks.

A lot of people recommend Zanki, but it takes a lot of work (at least an hour per day) and if you skip days, your reviews pile up and you get stuck, so if you're not the type of person who can commit 1-2 hours per day to doing flashcards, then this might not be the right thing for you. I didn't use it at all.

The most commonly used resources are UWorld (essentially required), First Aid (also basically required), Pathoma, and Sketchy Micro. I honestly think that a year out is too long to really take advantage of Step 1 specific studying, but you can definitely reinforce material that is both important and board testable by watching the pathoma videos during the correlated block in school and following along with the manual and perhaps annotating first aid. Some people do one pass of UWorld during second year (I did not). I would recommend going through the bacterial portion of Sketchy Micro during your microbio/ID block and then again during or right before dedicated as it's incredibly helpful (the virus/fungi/parasites... not so much imo).

Relax, it'll be fine!

A lot more than 1 hour per day lol. My reviews alone take 2 hours if I am really dedicated and not taking breaks.
 
A lot more than 1 hour per day lol. My reviews alone take 2 hours if I am really dedicated and not taking breaks.
Yep zanki will take 3-4 hours per day if you start in during m2. I am a fast reviewer (500-600 cards/hour) but 100+ new cards per day still takes a lot of time to learn
 
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Yep zanki will take 3-4 hours per day if you start in during m2. I am a fast reviewer (500-600 cards/hour) but 100+ new cards per day still takes a lot of time to learn
I can only review ~300/hour and my friends consider me very fast. So for most it’s an even larger time commitment.
 
Hey guys, I’m an incoming MS1 who’s never done Anki before... dumb question, but how do I download the Zanki/ AnkiKing deck?
 
Hey guys, I’m an incoming MS1 who’s never done Anki before... dumb question, but how do I download the Zanki/ AnkiKing deck?

You should take the time to read the sidebar on r/medicalschoolanki (especially the FAQs) and then watch the AnKing tutorial videos on YouTube if you’ve never used Anki for anything. All decks can be downloaded from links in the MS Anki Reddit sidebar.
 
Yep zanki will take 3-4 hours per day if you start in during m2. I am a fast reviewer (500-600 cards/hour) but 100+ new cards per day still takes a lot of time to learn

How long per day would Zanki take if you started day 1 of M1 and literally did it every single day up to step 1?
 
Hi everyone, I'm an incoming MS2 and I take step 1 next year (scared). I dont know where to begin in terms of prep b/c there's a lot of resources out there. From experience, which resources are a must and how do you set your schedule for studying? (Really lost, panicking this summer...)

Also, where can I find the dates for 2020 Step 1? I checked the website but didn't find specific dates.


Thanks!
The wise Dawg gave outstanding advice. I'd just like to add the Boards and Beyond looks like a very good resource as well.

I'm not a fan of Firecracker or Lecturio.
 
How long per day would Zanki take if you started day 1 of M1 and literally did it every single day up to step 1?

Going into my 2nd year and started Zanki day 1. I've been doing 50 new cards a day since I started and am on track to finish all 30k cards (Zanki + lolnotacop) by mid-March 2020. With 50 new cards a day, it'll eventually top out at ~600 review cards a day (my max interval is 200 days). Without distractions I can do 300 cards/hour so this comes out to be around 2.5 hours a day of Zanki. However, if you get the app on your phone and work on it in small chunks during the day like waiting in line, grabbing a bite, in between sets at the gym, you could cut this down to an hour 45 minutes probably. It's definitely been a gigantic grind and many of my friends have dropped it along the way. I know maybe 10 people that started it day 1 of med school and only another guy and myself are still consistently doing it every day. It really sucks when you're cramming for an exam the next day and you still have to take precious time to finish your review cards. It equally sucks finishing your exam and you don't want anything to do with medicine but you still need to finish your review cards. But I can say it's been soooo worth it. One time a doctor a few of us were shadowing asked us what virus caused a "blueberry muffin rash" and I automatically could answer CMV (could have been rubella as well). The other students were like "how did you remember that, that was 4 months ago" but really it's only because of keeping up with review cards. Feel free to PM me if you have any further questions!
 
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Step 1 is offered several times per week at any prometric testing center. You should aim to sign up ideally at least 2 months in advance, but in a pinch you can get a spot in a couple of weeks.

A lot of people recommend Zanki, but it takes a lot of work (at least an hour per day) and if you skip days, your reviews pile up and you get stuck, so if you're not the type of person who can commit 1-2 hours per day to doing flashcards, then this might not be the right thing for you. I didn't use it at all.

The most commonly used resources are UWorld (essentially required), First Aid (also basically required), Pathoma, and Sketchy Micro. I honestly think that a year out is too long to really take advantage of Step 1 specific studying, but you can definitely reinforce material that is both important and board testable by watching the pathoma videos during the correlated block in school and following along with the manual and perhaps annotating first aid. Some people do one pass of UWorld during second year (I did not). I would recommend going through the bacterial portion of Sketchy Micro during your microbio/ID block and then again during or right before dedicated as it's incredibly helpful (the virus/fungi/parasites... not so much imo).

Relax, it'll be fine!
How did you learn First Aid if you didn't use Zanki?
 
Seconding the people who say doing qbanks during the year!

I am also a proponent of doing a leisurely pass through sketchy pharm summer before M2.
 
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How did you learn First Aid if you didn't use Zanki?

Q banks + control F in First Aid for anything you don't know. The key with anki is spaced repetition. There are more ways than one to skin a cat, it just so happens that Zanki is very very effective.
Seconding the people who say doing qbanks during the year!

I am also a proponent of doing a leisurely pass through sketchy pharm summer before M2.

Sketchy Pharm is low key pure gold. I don't think it gets nearly the amount of love that it should.
 
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First Aid is a great resource for the basics, that is one book you should know inside out until you puke.

UWorld is a fantastic test bank that I thought was right on the money for Step 1 questions. In fact, some questions were almost verbatim.
 
When should one ideally start UWorld? Beginning of 2nd year or only during dedicated? Im if you have a first pass of it throughout M2, then the questions wont really be new to you during dedicated. Also is Uworld mostly just questions or does it also teach?
 
When should one ideally start UWorld? Beginning of 2nd year or only during dedicated? Im if you have a first pass of it throughout M2, then the questions wont really be new to you during dedicated.

Depends. I know people that finished Zanki before dedicated and only did UWorld in dedicated to tie it all together and crushed it, I also know people who started in March before dedicated and did it all the way up to their test.
Also is Uworld mostly just questions or does it also teach?

It's just questions with explanations, but UWorld is the most valuable board resource known to man. It is essentially a textbook in question form.
 
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Q banks + control F in First Aid for anything you don't know. The key with anki is spaced repetition. There are more ways than one to skin a cat, it just so happens that Zanki is very very effective.


Sketchy Pharm is low key pure gold. I don't think it gets nearly the amount of love that it should.
Depends. I know people that finished Zanki before dedicated and only did UWorld in dedicated to tie it all together and crushed it, I also know people who started in March before dedicated and did it all the way up to their test.


It's just questions with explanations, but UWorld is the most valuable board resource known to man. It is essentially a textbook in question form.

Wait I forgot, there was a more comprehensive deck that included Zanki plus some micro/pharm decks. Forgot the name. Was it lightyear?
 
Wait I forgot, there was a more comprehensive deck that included Zanki plus some micro/pharm decks. Forgot the name. Was it lightyear?

I think you're talking about the anKing deck, which is just Zanki. A reddit user redid all the tagging, and included the lolnotacop micro deck. So it's still Zanki, just more like a Zanki 2.0
 
I think you're talking about the anKing deck, which is just Zanki. A reddit user redid all the tagging, and included the lolnotacop micro deck. So it's still Zanki, just more like a Zanki 2.0

Yeah I found it here. not sure if this is excessive or anything but it looks really comprehensive with cool youtube videos
 
AnKing is just a marketer really. The deck he made is just zanki + existing decks.
 
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Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! I've been using Anki for MS1 so I think I'll try ZANKI when MS2 starts.

Is this the correct ver for Zanki? MedSchool + Anki
Not sure which of these decks you should download.
 
How did you learn First Aid if you didn't use Zanki?

I actually didn't "cover to cover" First Aid. I did UWorld 2.5 times, did 80% or so of Pathoma, read FA in depth for like the basic sciences (biochem, immuno, protein stuff, etc) and then skimmed chapters/looked up stuff when I needed to. I probably made a total of 300-400 anki cards for random facts that I needed to memorize (stuff like causes of ATN or what different cell markers meant). UWorld was the bulk of my studying material.
 
I had a similar situation. I also wanted to search for my preparation and I did not know how to get the resources. But I have a friend who is currently taking online classes from Lecturio. She told me there is a 20-25% discount on the subscription too. She gave me a link where I can find discount codes. I think I am going to start there and see if it works out. They have 10 days of a money-back guarantee. I can cancel my subscription if I don't find it useful but I a definitely going to try it out once. Link for discount code: Lecturio Coupon 2019 (25% OFF) Verified Discount Coupon.
 
I had a similar situation. I also wanted to search for my preparation and I did not know how to get the resources. But I have a friend who is currently taking online classes from Lecturio. She told me there is a 20-25% discount on the subscription too. She gave me a link where I can find discount codes. I think I am going to start there and see if it works out. They have 10 days of a money-back guarantee. I can cancel my subscription if I don't find it useful but I a definitely going to try it out once. Link for discount code: Lecturio Coupon 2019 (25% OFF) Verified Discount Coupon.

If even the Lecturio shills speak english this poorly, I'd be pretty worried about their service.
 
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