Study plan? How to use USMLE World?

[footcloud]

Hi, I would appreciate if someone could rate my study plan.

I have until early August to do the exam. I will have 2 weeks before the test to study. The rest of the time, I will be working full time and taking 2-3 hours per day to study, maybe a bit more on weekends. Most of my study time so far is reading First Aid and listening to Goljan on commutes (2 lec/day).

My resources:
-listen to Goljan once, read transcripts
-go through First Aid once (define all terms, understand), then go through twice for memorization, then just target areas after that
-do Kaptest once
-do USMLE World twice

I was just wondering when to do USMLE World. Kap test would definitely keep me busy for a month, but I wonder if it's too late to introduce USMLE world into my study plan one month before the exam. Is that too late? I feel like I'm wasting it though if I use it too early when I haven't even gone through First Aid or Goljan enough and I would have memorized answers when I do it a second time (but is that necessarily a bad thing?)

Thanks!

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[DocDanny]

You're working a full time job in medical school?

I've never heard of such a thing. Is it research? To pay the bills?

 

[DocDanny]

SO I take the test June 30th. I am starting to get worried.

My average on USMLE World has actually gone DOWN in the past few days. I am now at a 44%.

This is just my first run through of USMLEW. But I know that the average is unacceptable. I just don't know what else to do.

How worried should I be?

And I plan on doing the questions a second time. What is a good average to expect then?

 

[HTxFrog]

Well how worried you should be really depends on what you are hoping to score. What else have you done besides UWorld to study?

 

[DocDanny]

First Aid- Doing my second run through now.
Goljan Audio- Finishing them next week.
BRS Path- With each chapter
MMRS- Completed this. My best section, at ~70
RR Biochem- Plan on doing this after I finish my 2nd run through of FA

I only want to do internal medicine. So 205-215 should be good. 220 would be perfect.

School only got out a few weeks ago. I've been studying for 3 weeks. I have 2.5 weeks to go.

 

[HTxFrog]

You should be ok for 205-215. I read RR biochem. and I don't think it is really high yield enough for this late unless you feel particularly weak in that area and even still I don't know that it would be high yield. Its 200 pgs I think so it'll take probably a couple of days. You would be better served reading RR Path or First Aid for the amount of time you would spend reading biochem. in my opinion. As an alternative, I really like Kaplan medessentials biochem/cell molec. as a supplement to first aid. It would take you way less time. If you are near a bookstore you could take a look at it. Other than that your plan seems good. I'm highly partial to RR Path over BRS but if you've already been using that its definitely considered a good book and its shorter. Good luck!

 

[DocDanny]

footcloud, my thread got merged with yours. Just so you know.

To answer your question, I'd get USMLEWorld NOW, and do as MUCH as possible.

 

[badasshairday]

UWORLD random timed 48q. Read everything in the explanations, even the wrong answer choices for many of the questions (ie. micro/biochem, you can't see that stuff enough, helps hammer it in).

I beleive UWORLD is the absolute best most efficient use of your time.

UWORLD is King.

Followed by FA/Goljan, which in my mind are tied for second.

Everything else is, whatever. And unecessary.

 

[footcloud]

Thanks for the replies! Yay I'm actually getting replies after the merge =)

I'm doing summer research for residency applications etc. I just want a pass on this, don't need a high score. I'm just worried it'll be inaccurate when I actually do the real hardcore USMLE world and get questions right just because I memorized the answers, and not because I really know it. Or does it matter?

Like wouldn't it just be 2000 facts that I memorized whereas FA has SOOOO much more facts than that?

I did get it now and did some questions. Doesn't seem significantly different from Kaptest. Kaptest has references to FA though, which UWorld doesn't. Or does it and I'm just not finding it?