Stress over grades in M1 and M2

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There is some minutiae that isn't relevant ever. Depends on what professors decides to forget which group of people they are teaching to. I don't mean like trivial facts about immunology or pathology. I mean like esoteric research which ties into nothing, and is never heard of again :laugh: Although rare, it does exist at times.

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Graded systems leads to competition, competition leads to ranking, ranking leads to AOA, AOA leads to dermatology, dermatology leads to...The dark side...
 
I find the false dichotomy (you either do well on the test because you memorized a ton of details without understanding or you do average on the test but have a better picture of the entire pathophysiology) hilariously misinformed.

Believe it or not, a lot of the kids that are smacking exams out of the park in your classes aren't just doing so by rote memorization. A good number of them (at least, in my school) were delving deeper than most as well, going to Robbins or other more "primary" sources to get a better understanding. To some extent, depending on how your school structures exams, simply memorizing facts/details will not get you honors in the course. Being able to tie together the various concepts (often spread throughout various lectures) into a coherent system is one of the bigger challenges, and one that I definitely felt the more successful students were able to do better.

I realize it helps some people feel better about their performances if they can incorrectly try to categorize the high achievers as simply fact-memorizers, but the fact of the matter is at least a good portion of them not only remember the silly pointless minutiae better than you, but also have a better and more rich understanding of the foundations upon which all the minutiae stand. But if it helps you sleep at night, then by all means keep telling yourself that all the honors kids are missing the forest for the trees.

Well I found this "false" dichotomy to be true with myself. Last year I would get honors, but I felt I was studying more to do well on the test, forcing me to remember unimportant facts over having a deep understanding that would follow me for a long time. Now that I do not focus on grades, I see my retention is much improved, my understanding is much better, and I'm more effectively seeing connections. You have to do what works for you.
 
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There is some minutiae that isn't relevant ever. Depends on what professors decides to forget which group of people they are teaching to. I don't mean like trivial facts about immunology or pathology. I mean like esoteric research which ties into nothing, and is never heard of again :laugh: Although rare, it does exist at times.

I agree that this kind of stuff exists, and that's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the better students are the ones who can still handle remembering a few of these stupid facts (at least long enough for the exam) while shouldering the rest of the concepts as good as anyone else.
 
No one is creating a false dichotomy--give us more credit. Obviously there are top performers who aren't just rote memorizers, but it's very possible to score high, "understand" enough to get by, but not truly understand the material. I have scored high on some exams, but I will be the first to say I didn't truly understand that particular material. There are exams I haven't done so hot on, but the concepts were solidly grounded. That said, I'm still well above average on the vast majority of exams--a meaningless ranking by the way.

As an illustration there are smart individuals who can retain tons of information, have very high GPAs, but can't break the national MCAT average of 24, although the test has its own flaws. These individuals would probably do well on the USMLE though.

I find the false dichotomy (you either do well on the test because you memorized a ton of details without understanding or you do average on the test but have a better picture of the entire pathophysiology) hilariously misinformed.

Believe it or not, a lot of the kids that are smacking exams out of the park in your classes aren't just doing so by rote memorization. A good number of them (at least, in my school) were delving deeper than most as well, going to Robbins or other more "primary" sources to get a better understanding. To some extent, depending on how your school structures exams, simply memorizing facts/details will not get you honors in the course. Being able to tie together the various concepts (often spread throughout various lectures) into a coherent system is one of the bigger challenges, and one that I definitely felt the more successful students were able to do better.

I realize it helps some people feel better about their performances if they can incorrectly try to categorize the high achievers as simply fact-memorizers, but the fact of the matter is at least a good portion of them not only remember the silly pointless minutiae better than you, but also have a better and more rich understanding of the foundations upon which all the minutiae stand. But if it helps you sleep at night, then by all means keep telling yourself that all the honors kids are missing the forest for the trees.
 
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There is some minutiae that isn't relevant ever. Depends on what professors decides to forget which group of people they are teaching to. I don't mean like trivial facts about immunology or pathology. I mean like esoteric research which ties into nothing, and is never heard of again :laugh: Although rare, it does exist at times.

No one is saying memorization of minutiae is a bad thing. In fact, it's at times necessary for better understanding. But a lot of useless info is thrown into medical school and some of these are thrown into exams. There's a reason many physicians forget a lot of these details. We had a lecture overloaded with minutiae on muscle physiology and there's no way I was convinced some of that info was necessary.
 
I think there can be no winner of this argument because everyone has elements of truth to their strategy.

Think of it as a football game. Guywhodoestuff has an all around team, pass, run, great defense. He says you need to be great at it all to win. Maybe like an undefeated Patriots team. Then others have whittled it down to the essential... if you can play defense, run and have no*Turnovers then you can win. Think pittsburgh steelrrs. Other people like Notre dame figured out that maybe our offense can blow (preclinical sciences) as long as we have spectacular Step 1... or defense. Many ways to win a championship. No one formula.

Lots of the people in this forum will win the game, because we all have different goals. And that means that each persons strategy may be enough to win their game.

So learn from all the people you can and do your best. Maybe we all will do well.

Good luck!

Sorry about typing... on phone
 
I think there can be no winner of this argument because everyone has elements of truth to their strategy.

Think of it as a football game. Guywhodoestuff has an all around team, pass, run, great defense. He says you need to be great at it all to win. Maybe like an undefeated Patriots team. Then others have whittled it down to the essential... if you can play defense, run and have no*Turnovers then you can win. Think pittsburgh steelrrs. Other people like Notre dame figured out that maybe our offense can blow (preclinical sciences) as long as we have spectacular Step 1... or defense. Many ways to win a championship. No one formula.

Lots of the people in this forum will win the game, because we all have different goals. And that means that each persons strategy may be enough to win their game.

So learn from all the people you can and do your best. Maybe we all will do well.

Good luck!

Sorry about typing... on phone

Stop being logical, you son of a *****.
 
I heard this from a gen surg residency director last week, no one looks at your first and second year grades. It is just for you to help you prep for step 1.

The director said he cared about letters of rec, step 1, and third year rotation grades. That simple.
 
I think there can be no winner of this argument because everyone has elements of truth to their strategy.

Think of it as a football game. Guywhodoestuff has an all around team, pass, run, great defense. He says you need to be great at it all to win. Maybe like an undefeated Patriots team. Then others have whittled it down to the essential... if you can play defense, run and have no*Turnovers then you can win. Think pittsburgh steelrrs. Other people like Notre dame figured out that maybe our offense can blow (preclinical sciences) as long as we have spectacular Step 1... or defense. Many ways to win a championship. No one formula.

Lots of the people in this forum will win the game, because we all have different goals. And that means that each persons strategy may be enough to win their game.

So learn from all the people you can and do your best. Maybe we all will do well.

Good luck!

Sorry about typing... on phone

Okay.
 
Regardless of how you end up scoring on MS1/2 exams, it's worthwhile to try to learn as much as you can. I'm not sure what the strategy of "not caring about grades" looks like for people who go that way...if it means that you are studying and learning as much as you can in the best way you can, and trying to prioritize the most relevant details within in overarching conceptual framework that you understand well, and just avoiding super-obsessive panic attacks and keeping some balance in your life in between, then good for you. That's what I do too, and it has resulted in great preclinical grades and board scores and clinical grades. If it means you're "just trying to pass because none of this stuff actually matters," I think that's misguided. When you learn as much as you can in preclinical classes, you're laying the foundation for doing well on boards and having the decent fund of knowledge that you use on the wards. So I guess I'm in the "false dichotomy" camp. I haven't seen a lot of people who didn't care much and/or struggled a lot and did pretty crummy in the first two years suddenly become academic rockstars for the boards and third year.
 
Regardless of how you end up scoring on MS1/2 exams, it's worthwhile to try to learn as much as you can. I'm not sure what the strategy of "not caring about grades" looks like for people who go that way...if it means that you are studying and learning as much as you can in the best way you can, and trying to prioritize the most relevant details within in overarching conceptual framework that you understand well, and just avoiding super-obsessive panic attacks and keeping some balance in your life in between, then good for you. That's what I do too, and it has resulted in great preclinical grades and board scores and clinical grades. If it means you're "just trying to pass because none of this stuff actually matters," I think that's misguided. When you learn as much as you can in preclinical classes, you're laying the foundation for doing well on boards and having the decent fund of knowledge that you use on the wards. So I guess I'm in the "false dichotomy" camp. I haven't seen a lot of people who didn't care much and/or struggled a lot and did pretty crummy in the first two years suddenly become academic rockstars for the boards and third year.

what is an academic rock star as far as boards and 3rd year?

Anyway, I think there are many more shades than "doing crummy" and "rock star"... what if you got 15 points less on step 1 than a "rock star" and half as many 3rd year honors as the AOA guy... well, that's doing well well to match in like 80% of the medical specialties out there.

Not everyone is into derm or needs to match at mass gen.

Also, I keep hearing people say "I've never seen it done" never happened etc.

What type of sample size are you saying? How many people have you seen all their grades from 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year, match results, step 1, step 2 and also test by test scores and effort level (I.e. you know how much they study or if they slack off). Im amazed how many people you guys have determined are successful or not just a year into residency (or are some still in med school)?

Seriously though, is your sample size like 5, 10, 50?
 
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From my perspective, I'm serious when I say I don't know what "not caring about grades" would look like in practice. I never understood why people worried a lot about whether the pass line was 65 or 70...can you really adjust your studying that perfectly so that you'll get a 66 rather than a 71? In my world, you're either doing your best within reason and sanity or you're not (and my reason and sanity has a lot of room for enjoying your life, eating decent meals, and sleeping), however that turns out for you in terms of scores. And I think doing your best to learn the material is worthwhile and pays off in the end, in my experience.

And with regard to sample size, I guess I'd ask the same question. I know the people I know, at my school, in my class, and you know yours. In my class, about the same proportion of people get clinical honors as got preclinical honors, and they seem to be largely the same people. Is your experience very different? There's this meme that goes around here that you can "not care" for the first two years and then suddenly ace your boards and be a clinical whiz and get the residency of your choice, and that doesn't fit with the reality I see. Does it for you?
 
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Well, they probably won't be seeing a dermatologist. And when your children have acne or your parents have some kind of skin issue ("trite" or not) then they will likely be just as thankful for that dermatologist as other patients are for their "real" doctors.

I understand where you're coming from and actually agree with you to some extent, but your thinly veiled righteousness isn't going to do you any favors.

(sent from my phone)

Lol except that in some areas there are so few dermatologists that most of the derm is handled by family docs who likely did not get like a 280 on their step 1.

Which is by no means a slam on dermatologists. Dermatologists save lives every day, no primary care doc could ever reach their expertise on the zebras and the more complicated manifestations of common derm problems, and I totally respect that some people bust ass in med school to become a snazzy specialist and have a nicer life later. But I'm just saying, we can't all be that guy, and neither side of the coin is "better" than the other. It's just all a matter of priorities.
 
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From my perspective, I'm serious when I say I don't know what "not caring about grades" would look like in practice. I never understood why people worried a lot about whether the pass line was 65 or 70...can you really adjust your studying that perfectly so that you'll get a 66 rather than a 71? In my world, you're either doing your best within reason and sanity or you're not (and my reason and sanity has a lot of room for enjoying your life, eating decent meals, and sleeping), however that turns out for you in terms of scores. And I think doing your best to learn the material is worthwhile and pays off in the end, in my experience.

And with regard to sample size, I guess I'd ask the same question. I know the people I know, at my school, in my class, and you know yours. In my class, about the same proportion of people get clinical honors as got preclinical honors, and they seem to be largely the same people. Is your experience very different? There's this meme that goes around here that you can "not care" for the first two years and then suddenly ace your boards and be a clinical whiz and get the residency of your choice, and that doesn't fit with the reality I see. Does it for you?

I don't think "not caring" is good. No one has made that argument in this thread. I think people were asking if you could have average preclinical grades and do well. I think it's possible.

Look, it's impossible to go to one of over a hundred med schools, experience one curriculum, know less than a few dozen stories and some how extrapolate a universal law about success. I recommend everyone do their best and work really hard, but saying AOA or die, or that a person can't improve... I don't buy it. Yes, the same people who get honors during M1/2 tend to during clinicals, but it isn't a rule, and maybe 10-20% make a move because they are better at clinicals than basic sciences. Just like MCAT scores tend to correlate with step 1, its a correlation and not a rule. I don't pretend to set up rules for all 100+ med schooUstinov tens of thousands of students just because of a few dozen stories.
 
I think one of them stated something in its discussion along the lines of students making a conscious choice (in the P/F) program to either aim to do really well and aim to just pass. And the students who aimed to do really well had similar findings as the graded system students. This comes back to what I was saying in my previous post -- no matter what system you're in, if you're a particular type of student (ex. high-achiever), you will do the same thing no matter where you go.

If you read it more carefully, you'll see that it was saying that UVA had "cumulative honors" for the top 20% at the end of two years (i.e. not true pass-fail). Some people aimed for cumulative honors and others did not. The ones who strove for cumulative honors reported that they were more stressed while the ones who did not consciously aim for cumulative honors said they were less stressed. This system was not recommended by the committee that recommended changing to pass-fail and was only added to appease some department chairs who wanted to recognize excellence. Under the reasoning that such a system adds unnecessarily to student stress, UVA dropped the cumulative honors system after two years and finally had a true pass-fail system. The point here is not whether you'll do the same things no matter what system you're in, but how stressed you feel and whether that benefits you.

Besides that, I won't address any of the shortcomings of the papers, including being single-institution, comparing different years' students, using surveys, etc.

There are limitations of any study - the question is whether they're enough for a reasonable reader to doubt the conclusions. Here is a multi-institution study: Reed, D. A. et al. Relationship of pass/fail grading and curriculum structure with well-being among preclinical medical students: a multi-institutional study. Acad Med 86, 1367–1373 (2011). Across seven medical schools and twelve campuses, they found that students under 3+-interval grading had greater stress, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, burnout, and were more likely to consider dropping out compared to peers at pass/fail schools. Although it's somewhat hard to account for differences in entering student ability, the authors also concluded that "most medical schools in this study had similar mean USMLE Step 1 scores, although grading scales varied across campuses" so "transitioning to pass/fail grading during the
first two years of medical school is unlikely to adversely affect students’ academic achievement."

Comparing different years' students is fallacious if there is a time trend for a given outcome caused by outside factors. I'll grant that Step 1 scores tend to increase ever so slightly every year. It's not going to be that significant though in the absence of other curricular reforms. These studies were at schools that didn't reform significant parts of their curricular content, only the assessment policy, during the study.

There's nothing wrong with using surveys. Surveys are the best way to get at subjective psychological metrics like anxiety and burnout. The studies are complemented by objective data like course exam scores and step 1 scores that are not self-reported.

And I would argue that the approach to Step 1 is quite different from the approach to classes. You can do poorly in class and do well on Step 1 or you can do really well in class and still do well on Step 1. And vice versa. This, again, has very little to do with the school's curriculum or grading system. It comes down to the individual student and their study habits.
Exactly right. That's why schools that switched to pass-fail found no difference in step 1 scores. The difference is in student well-being. There might also be a difference in the learning environment (e.g. group cohesion or perceived goals).

This is stupid. Cramming isn't restricted to schools with a grading system or people who want to do well on an exam. Especially considering the number of excellent resources we have at our fingertips (ex. Pathoma, Gojan, etc), I would be willing to bet that most people in med school get the "big picture" just fine.
I never said that. I said the continuous emphasis on performance metrics makes cramming economically worthwhile, more so than a system in which task/competence mastery was the primary goal.

Haven't looked at the paper, so I'll refrain from commenting. Again, just to point out, there are multiple limitations of this study as well, especially using a survey to assess satisfaction.
I'm really curious how you would assess satisfaction other than asking people if they were satisfied.

Now I'm confused. Wasn't one of your arguments earlier that P/F schools value internal motivation while graded systems value external motivation (that whole internal vs. external thing you had on your list). Now, you're arguing that external motivation is good? How is using wanting to do well on Step 1 as an external motivation not the same as using wanting to do well on an upcoming exam as an external motivation?

Knowing that Step 1 is coming up is a kick in the rear for most students to stay on track, whether there are graded exams along the way or not. You say that someone who is "not self-regulated (I still don't understand what the heck that really means) will procrastinate because the rewards of studying now are far off and uncertain" -- um, isn't that describing P/F schools where the only thing that matters is Step 1, which comes at the end of two years, compared to graded systems with frequent exams? Who's more likely to procrastinate -- someone who doesn't have to really worry about anything for two years or someone who has graded exams coming up every month? I would argue it's the former.
I did say internal motivation was good. I wasn't saying that external motivation was good or bad. I was saying that the kind of external motivation that Step 1 provides is less strong in the sense of less immediate gratification. It kind of sits in the background for most of your preclinical education as a thing you know you should kind of be working towards. But doing well on step 1 is not going to motivate you to stay up to 2am studying before one anatomy exam instead of going to sleep at midnight. You simply don't know that it'll make a difference because step 1 is so far away in time you can't get much concrete feedback. In that sense, I consider step 1 a scaffolding kind of external motivation, one that points you in the right general direction for you to apply your internal motivation. In your words, it keeps you on track. It's like a bunch of railroad tracks that's only going slightly downhill (it'll become steeper the close you get to Step 1 time). You're the train. You still need fuel to get to your destination in time.

Yes I was describing P/F schools. You got it. My point was that the P/F system rewards people who can self-regulate their learning, while a graded system reduces those rewards by compensating with external regulation.

No. Just no.

Then you and I have different definitions of what true mastery means.
Ok. :shrug:

Also, why the heck are you making things black and white? Why can you ONLY understand the concepts or ONLY memorize minutiae without knowing concepts? That's a very idiotic way to look at things.
I'm not. I never said that. You're pretty rude. I won't say you're idiotic. I think you don't understand much of what I'm saying though. Or you intentionally misrepresent what I say as a rhetorical strategy.

Thanks for the study/survey. I'll consider it more seriously when larger-scale studies come out confirming this. At the moment, there isn't convincing evidence that one system is "better" than the other.
I think that's a good attitude. We do need more evidence-based medical education. You should go into it.

No, it's just as silly as saying that graded schools promote competitive and maladaptive behavior.
Ok. :shrug:

Thanks for reiterating that you don't think derm is an altruistic field :)rolleyes:). At least, not as altruistic a field as whatever you're planning on going into.
You have no idea what motivates people to come to med school, let alone decide which field they want to pursue.
[/quote] Christ. Fine. You really like to stretch what I say, don't you. I'll go ahead and just say what you want me to say. I hypothesize that students who choose dermatology espouse less-altruistic beliefs regarding health care compared to those who choose a primary care specialty. See Jeffe et al. Primary Care Specialty Choices of United States Medical Graduates, 1997--2006. Academic Medicine. 2010;85(6):947-958.

Many of your assumptions about me are incorrect. I don't plan on going into a field I consider more altruistic than dermatology. I don't go to a true pass-fail school. I don't go to a school where there is a dichotomy between mastering material and doing well on tests. And our administration is great and takes these concerns and evidence seriously, unlike you do. I'm not denigrating anyone, but unfortunately you perceive it that way.
 
A piece of advice I heard my first and second year that turned out to be very true: z-scores equal board scores. While preclinical grades don't mean much per se (except for AOA), I don't know anyone who barely passed for 2 years and then threw down a 260 on boards. For me, my average z-score correlated absolutely perfectly with my step 1 score.
 
A piece of advice I heard my first and second year that turned out to be very true: z-scores equal board scores. While preclinical grades don't mean much per se (except for AOA), I don't know anyone who barely passed for 2 years and then threw down a 260 on boards. For me, my average z-score correlated absolutely perfectly with my step 1 score.

That's accurate in only that if you do very well in pre-clinicals, you're likely to do very well on the boards. However, if you do very well in pre-clinicals, you're likely extremely motivated, hard working, and intellingent, so you would obviously do well on boards.

In my class, it seems like the people that did well throughout 1st and 2nd year, and did well on the shelf exams, also did very well on Step 1.

However, the guy that scored the highest on Step 1 in our class was someone that barely passed second year. He said that he stopped studying class material, and only did Step 1 studying on the material that was covered in class. He ended up with a 260 something. I don't remember the exact number. Oh yeah, he also just finished up his PhD research in a year and a half. N=1, but it proves that it's not always accurate.
 
That's accurate in only that if you do very well in pre-clinicals, you're likely to do very well on the boards. However, if you do very well in pre-clinicals, you're likely extremely motivated, hard working, and intellingent, so you would obviously do well on boards.

In my class, it seems like the people that did well throughout 1st and 2nd year, and did well on the shelf exams, also did very well on Step 1.

However, the guy that scored the highest on Step 1 in our class was someone that barely passed second year. He said that he stopped studying class material, and only did Step 1 studying on the material that was covered in class. He ended up with a 260 something. I don't remember the exact number. Oh yeah, he also just finished up his PhD research in a year and a half. N=1, but it proves that it's not always accurate.

This kind of proves the point though. My experience echoes that of many other posters: pre-clinical success leads to Step 1 success. That doesn't mean that you can't "just pass" and then rock Step 1. However, that is not the norm. You could be the exception, but most likely, you will not be. Therefore, it is probably a better strategy to worry about your grades. I don't believe you need to stress yourself out or burn out, but I think it is important to do the best you can in your pre-clinical courses. It will pay off.

While I know that pre-clinical grades themselves don't matter, I think the whole idea to not worry about them is going a bit too far. Don't stress out if you aren't honoring everything, but I don't think it's a good strategy either to just say, "oh well, I'm focusing on Step 1." Is that the real reason you aren't doing well? Or are you not learning the material that you need to learn? I know not everything taught is relevant, and that many things you will never remember nor need again. However, I think there is a risk in just dismissing things you think aren't important.

The best strategy is not to come to SDN with this. The best strategy is to talk to upperclassman and see how pre-clinical grades and Step 1 scores correlate at some schools. As several posters on here have noted (and it's true at mine too), it's a good bet that if you get good grades, you will get a good Step score. It's not black and white, but it's a pretty strong pattern.
 
This kind of proves the point though. My experience echoes that of many other posters: pre-clinical success leads to Step 1 success. That doesn't mean that you can't "just pass" and then rock Step 1. However, that is not the norm. You could be the exception, but most likely, you will not be. Therefore, it is probably a better strategy to worry about your grades. I don't believe you need to stress yourself out or burn out, but I think it is important to do the best you can in your pre-clinical courses. It will pay off.

While I know that pre-clinical grades themselves don't matter, I think the whole idea to not worry about them is going a bit too far. Don't stress out if you aren't honoring everything, but I don't think it's a good strategy either to just say, "oh well, I'm focusing on Step 1." Is that the real reason you aren't doing well? Or are you not learning the material that you need to learn? I know not everything taught is relevant, and that many things you will never remember nor need again. However, I think there is a risk in just dismissing things you think aren't important.

The best strategy is not to come to SDN with this. The best strategy is to talk to upperclassman and see how pre-clinical grades and Step 1 scores correlate at some schools. As several posters on here have noted (and it's true at mine too), it's a good bet that if you get good grades, you will get a good Step score. It's not black and white, but it's a pretty strong pattern.

I agree with this 100%. My school told us the samething all along as well. I think most ppl ignored the administration when they told us that, but I still tried to take it to heart. My goal was always to honor everything, but if I missed it honoring I wasn't too hard on myself. I ended up with with like 67% honors and 33% HPs during the 1st 2 years and did well on Step 1. I personally think all that studying helped me a lot on Step 1, especially in filling in the gaps of First Aid. I'm sure some ppl don't need to study as hard during M1 and M2 years and then just manage to study super hard for Step 1 at the end to do well. I always considered myself average intelligence compared to other med students and assumed it was my work ethic that made me score much higher than average. I just used that same philosophy during the 1st 2 years and it paid off. If I had done bad at Step 1, at least I would have known I tried my absolute hardest.

As for 3rd year grades, that's a completely different story. In my experience so far, hard work does not correlate very well with good grades haha. Third year grading is subjective and BS.
 
Well I found this "false" dichotomy to be true with myself. Last year I would get honors, but I felt I was studying more to do well on the test, forcing me to remember unimportant facts over having a deep understanding that would follow me for a long time. Now that I do not focus on grades, I see my retention is much improved, my understanding is much better, and I'm more effectively seeing connections. You have to do what works for you.

You haven't taken step 1 yet bro. Come back when you get that 250+.
 
You haven't taken step 1 yet bro. Come back when you get that 250+.

i'll send you a copy of my score report when i get it.

Also I'm amused that people in this thread naturally assume we are barely passing because I don't harp on minutiae. I actually do above average.
 
i'll send you a copy of my score report when i get it.

Also I'm amused that people in this thread naturally assume we are barely passing because I don't harp on minutiae. I actually do above average.

I never said you were barely passing. The reason I called you out is b/c you are preaching your technique as if you have seen the results come in already. You don't know what step 1 is going to be like and you don't know if your decision to look at the big picture instead of the smaller pieces will pay off in the end.

On the flip side, there are people in my class with 3.9 GPA's that couldn't buy themselves a 240, much less something in the 250's or 260's. Shows how hard getting that kind of a score actually is, and how inflated the SDN population actually is.
 
i'll send you a copy of my score report when i get it.

Also I'm amused that people in this thread naturally assume we are barely passing because I don't harp on minutiae. I actually do above average.

That's because on sdn there are only 2 types of students: AOA and those who don't care about grades (slackers).

There's also only 2 possible board scores: 250+ and barely passing.
 
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250 is the new 230.
 
If you don't match into Derm/Plastics, then you wasted 4 years of medical school [/sdn].
 
I never said you were barely passing. The reason I called you out is b/c you are preaching your technique as if you have seen the results come in already. You don't know what step 1 is going to be like and you don't know if your decision to look at the big picture instead of the smaller pieces will pay off in the end.

On the flip side, there are people in my class with 3.9 GPA's that couldn't buy themselves a 240, much less something in the 250's or 260's. Shows how hard getting that kind of a score actually is, and how inflated the SDN population actually is.

I don't see anywhere in my post that states that my methodology will garner a high step score. I just found throughout my year and a half in school, that when I looked at the small pieces that I almost always lost sight of the big picture. What's worse is that I would almost immediately forget the "smaller pieces" that you refer to. And if you look again at my posts you'll see that I actually agreed that oftentimes "smaller pieces" do actually help remember the big picture. I've found that the minute details espoused by my professors to actually detract from my knowledge. However, whenever I study pathology I find myself always going to Robbin's or Rapid Review for clarification or for smaller pieces that will make the big picture easier to remember.
 
I never said you were barely passing. The reason I called you out is b/c you are preaching your technique as if you have seen the results come in already. You don't know what step 1 is going to be like and you don't know if your decision to look at the big picture instead of the smaller pieces will pay off in the end.

This is obviously a poor proxy for step 1 performance, but I took a similar approach to M1 as Fire and I've started doing the Kaplan Qbank as part of my class/boards studying. The only categories I've been doing extremely poorly on are those filled with minutiae that I will freely admit that I never learned well the first time (i.e., anatomy, pharm, and micro) - only well enough to pass. Outside of those things, however, I do fine and am scoring above Kaplan's reported average for the questions I've done thus far. The good news is that stuff is easily learnable since you just have to sit down and memorize the material. It's not like any of it is deeply conceptual.

I understand what you're saying and obviously there's no way to know until The Score comes in, but with some exceptions my personal knowledge base as assessed by Kaplan doesn't seem to be harmed by "poor" (= consistently below average) class performance in M1. I think this is ultimately a difficult discussion to have because we don't know what is covered in each course at each school. If you attend a school where nearly all of the material taught in class is boards-relevant, then there will obviously be a high correlation between step 1 score and pre-clinical performance. If you attend a school where that isn't the case (which seems to be my situation, at least for M1), the correlation is likely much weaker since you probably don't see much ROI on step 1 scores as your pre-clinical performance improves.

inb4 n=1, "lol take step 1 first," etc.
 
Kaplan in general tests lower yield minutiae. UWorld is more illustrative of STEP like questions.
 
Kaplan in general tests lower yield minutiae. UWorld is more illustrative of STEP like questions.

This is true. Also, I would point out to Nick that, for better or for worse, very little M1 course material is boards-relevant at any medical school.
 
This is true. Also, I would point out to Nick that, for better or for worse, very little M1 course material is boards-relevant at any medical school.

It depends on your school's schedule. I had physiology, immunology and microbiology in my second semester of first year - all were extremely high yield for STEP 1. I had gross anatomy and biochemistry/genetics/cell biology in my first semester. I'd agree that the level of detail I had to learn for my first semester courses for M1 was extreme overkill for STEP 1.
 
This is obviously a poor proxy for step 1 performance, but I took a similar approach to M1 as Fire and I've started doing the Kaplan Qbank as part of my class/boards studying. The only categories I've been doing extremely poorly on are those filled with minutiae that I will freely admit that I never learned well the first time (i.e., anatomy, pharm, and micro) - only well enough to pass. Outside of those things, however, I do fine and am scoring above Kaplan's reported average for the questions I've done thus far. The good news is that stuff is easily learnable since you just have to sit down and memorize the material. It's not like any of it is deeply conceptual.

I understand what you're saying and obviously there's no way to know until The Score comes in, but with some exceptions my personal knowledge base as assessed by Kaplan doesn't seem to be harmed by "poor" (= consistently below average) class performance in M1. I think this is ultimately a difficult discussion to have because we don't know what is covered in each course at each school. If you attend a school where nearly all of the material taught in class is boards-relevant, then there will obviously be a high correlation between step 1 score and pre-clinical performance. If you attend a school where that isn't the case (which seems to be my situation, at least for M1), the correlation is likely much weaker since you probably don't see much ROI on step 1 scores as your pre-clinical performance improves.

inb4 n=1, "lol take step 1 first," etc.

Good post. The nice thing about this is that we'll all know who was right within the year. Then someone can bump this thread and we'll know if people like fire/nick do okay or not. And whether or not the AOA dominate all minutia approach is the only way to succeed.

Good luck.
 
Kaplan in general tests lower yield minutiae. UWorld is more illustrative of STEP like questions.

No doubt - but I'm saving Uworld for actual boards study time. ;) So I'll just have to wait and see how that turns out.

This is true. Also, I would point out to Nick that, for better or for worse, very little M1 course material is boards-relevant at any medical school.

Definitely agree with you there. Our M1 year consisted of anatomy (which seems to be fairly low yield), biochem/cell bio/genetics (lol), physio (which gets repeated in pathophys), general path (which seems pretty low yield/repeated in pathophys), and micro. Micro is probably the only course in that sequence that is tested with any sense of consistency.

Beyond pathophys the only second year courses we had were neurobio and pharm. Pharm is obviously pretty high yield. Don't know about neurobio, but I imagine most of it will be repeated once we get there in pathophys.
 
As an aside, so I dont have to start my own thread. How many answer choices are there for questions on the real stepI? Or is it variable?

On tests I feel like I get like 50% of stuff right b/c of process of elimination and hoping that wont go away on the real boards b/c they have 15 choices or something.
 
As an aside, so I dont have to start my own thread. How many answer choices are there for questions on the real stepI? Or is it variable?

On tests I feel like I get like 50% of stuff right b/c of process of elimination and hoping that wont go away on the real boards b/c they have 15 choices or something.

You can get microbiology questions where the answer choices are A through N.

Most questions have 5 answer choices, but it's highly variable.
 
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