Suggested 4 month study schedule for Step 1?

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ravupadh

ravupadh

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Hey all. My school requires us to take Step 1 by May 24th of next year so I'm planning on starting studying in mid-late January. For some reason Step 1 study schedules seem to be rare unlike MCAT study schedules. Are there any tried and tested 4 month study schedules anyone can suggest? I'd prefer ones that of course use FA and Goljan Rapid Review or Pathoma. I've heard of firecracker but I'm not too sure of how legit it is.
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4 months? Read first aid 10 times, read rapid review twice and go through uworld/incorrects and usmlerx. Watch pathoma 3 times. 260 guaranteed
 
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Lol silly me for ever expecting legitimate advice from this forum. I'm done here. This website has been as useless as tits on a boar to me.
 
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ravupadh said:
Lol silly me for ever expecting legitimate advice from this forum. I'm done here. This website has been as useless as tits on a boar to me.
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What have you been doing to the farm animals...........? 😱 :uhno:

The ass screams for help :help: as he "beats off" it :beat: which makes him one happy :banana: :wideyed:
 
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ravupadh said:
Hey all. My school requires us to take Step 1 by May 24th of next year so I'm planning on starting studying in mid-late January. For some reason Step 1 study schedules seem to be rare unlike MCAT study schedules. Are there any tried and tested 4 month study schedules anyone can suggest? I'd prefer ones that of course use FA and Goljan Rapid Review or Pathoma. I've heard of firecracker but I'm not too sure of how legit it is.
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I think the more appropriate question is, will you have school during that time period? Because regardless of what you may want to do, you'll be very limited with the amount of time your classes and school exams will require.

I'll assume that you have school and don't have 12 hrs a day to study step exclusively. If you don't have then psai is kinda right, do FA as many times, do uworld twice, and pathoma atleast 2-3 times.

But if you have school, that's not possible. So I'd suggest studying the relevant sections of FA and pathoma for the block that you're doing at school. Several people at my school, myself included, started devoting the first 2 - 3 hrs of our day to exclusive usmle studying after spring break.

Other things you can do are that you can get microcards and pharm cards and start doing 5 cards each everyday. But if you do have 4 months of exclusive studying, then honestly the MAX you need is 8 weeks. Maybe 10 if you really stretch it. You will burn out otherwise. In 10 weeks, uworld can be easily done twice, FA can be done 3-4 times, and pathoma can easily be done 3 times. Also keep in mind, people plateau at some point. What everyone else was saying (in a rather sarcastic way) was that 4 months is unnecessary (atleast 4 months of exclusive prep with no school).
 
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cyanide12345678 said:
I think the more appropriate question is, will you have school during that time period? Because regardless of what you may want to do, you'll be very limited with the amount of time your classes and school exams will require.

I'll assume that you have school and don't have 12 hrs a day to study step exclusively. If you don't have then psai is kinda right, do FA as many times, do uworld twice, and pathoma atleast 2-3 times.

But if you have school, that's not possible. So I'd suggest studying the relevant sections of FA and pathoma for the block that you're doing at school. Several people at my school, myself included, started devoting the first 2 - 3 hrs of our day to exclusive usmle studying after spring break.

Other things you can do are that you can get microcards and pharm cards and start doing 5 cards each everyday. But if you do have 4 months of exclusive studying, then honestly the MAX you need is 8 weeks. Maybe 10 if you really stretch it. You will burn out otherwise. In 10 weeks, uworld can be easily done twice, FA can be done 3-4 times, and pathoma can easily be done 3 times. Also keep in mind, people plateau at some point. What everyone else was saying (in a rather sarcastic way) was that 4 months is unnecessary (atleast 4 months of exclusive prep with no school).
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I think this works for AMGs, for imgs it can sometimes take them more than a year, especially if they start studying after graduation.
 
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NeedToStudy said:
I think this works for AMGs, for imgs it can sometimes take them more than a year, especially if they start studying after graduation.
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Wow 365 days of studying for Step 1, yikes! Should be getting a 280 with that amount of time.
 
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NeedToStudy said:
I think this works for AMGs, for imgs it can sometimes take them more than a year, especially if they start studying after graduation.
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Are you an IMG? Even if you are, you're ridiculously wrong. The reason why most IMGs take 6+ months to study is because they have several false misconceptions. Instead of sticking with uworld + FA combination, they somehow believe that they need to set a "foundation" first. And that's why they start using Kaplan resources. Which are very detailed and just unnecessary! They think that because they did their basic sciences 4 or so years ago, they don't remember anything. Well guess what...I did biochem two years ago, I didn't remember any of it either and had to teach myself all over again from FA. Also, I know 20 or 30 IMGs who just finished their mbbs in May and have started studying for the USMLE. I lived on the other side of the world for 19 years. And most of my frineds from back there ask me for advice, and I tell them to stay as far away frmo kaplan as possible. Ofcourse you'll need months and months of prep if you read something that is as extensive as Kaplan (and in the process a lot of them just get burned out and are just wasting time lol...).

The point is, if those guys actually spent 8 - 10 weeks of solid FA + uworld + pathoma studying, they will be golden. They already have atleast 3 more years of clinical experience. They've already managed the patients that we read about in books. They have far more clinical exposure than us. Their argument that they don't remember any basic science which they did 4 years ago is crap. FA has some 200 pages of basic science that can be learned in 4 days....They over estimate how much basic science we know before studying for step. No body knows the basic science lol. I mean heck....I didn't remember any of the enzyme names of the glycolysis pathway...and I'm a biochem major -_- Unfortunately I don't know a single IMG who has scored less than 250 🙁 And those are the people I get compared to by my parents who are under the impression that "everyone gets a 260". Ugh...all the kids who got that 260 took 3 - 5 months to study for this -_-
 
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My point is, if they stick to FA + uworld + pathoma, they can pull off that 260 with 10 wks of studying. I mean sure they can spend 6 months and read robbins and kaplan and establish their "basics" and get the same 260+, but it's really not that efficient in terms of time.
 
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This thread is ridiculous. 4 months? And getting PO'd for telling the truth about how ridiculous that plan is?
 
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cyanide12345678 said:
Are you an IMG? Even if you are, you're ridiculously wrong. The reason why most IMGs take 6+ months to study is because they have several false misconceptions. Instead of sticking with uworld + FA combination, they somehow believe that they need to set a "foundation" first. And that's why they start using Kaplan resources. Which are very detailed and just unnecessary! They think that because they did their basic sciences 4 or so years ago, they don't remember anything. Well guess what...I did biochem two years ago, I didn't remember any of it either and had to teach myself all over again from FA. Also, I know 20 or 30 IMGs who just finished their mbbs in May and have started studying for the USMLE. I lived on the other side of the world for 19 years. And most of my frineds from back there ask me for advice, and I tell them to stay as far away frmo kaplan as possible. Ofcourse you'll need months and months of prep if you read something that is as extensive as Kaplan (and in the process a lot of them just get burned out and are just wasting time lol...).

The point is, if those guys actually spent 8 - 10 weeks of solid FA + uworld + pathoma studying, they will be golden. They already have atleast 3 more years of clinical experience. They've already managed the patients that we read about in books. They have far more clinical exposure than us. Their argument that they don't remember any basic science which they did 4 years ago is crap. FA has some 200 pages of basic science that can be learned in 4 days....They over estimate how much basic science we know before studying for step. No body knows the basic science lol. I mean heck....I didn't remember any of the enzyme names of the glycolysis pathway...and I'm a biochem major -_- Unfortunately I don't know a single IMG who has scored less than 250 🙁 And those are the people I get compared to by my parents who are under the impression that "everyone gets a 260". Ugh...all the kids who got that 260 took 3 - 5 months to study for this -_-
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If you don't mind me asking what score did you get? And yes to answer your question I am an IMG.

I'm afraid to say I don't agree with you. Setting a foundation is critical. While First Aid is good it can't really substitute for actual books. I mean without some knowledge you'll just be memorizing words in First Aid. As for the clinical rotations the truth is a lot of rotations for IMGs are basically crap. My own rotations consisted of me taking histories and shadowing the doctor. And that was for the good ones. For many rotations we basically stood around doing nothing. In some cases the professor had no interest in teaching and didn't want us to show up at all.

Many AMGs say that studying for step 1 begins on the first day of medical school. What many people call their "study" period is really just a review period of knowledge they already have. So for IMG's who didn't get the american medical school experience I'm afraid to say that a lengthy study period is necessary.
 
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I'll let you know what score I get in 2 months 😛 But again...as every other IMG out there, you're over valuing this so called "foundation". You cannot finish 5 years of medicine and not have a "foundation". Like I said, I have plenty of friends who finished their mbbs this year, I can ask them any random question, and they'll give me one hell of a differential. Heck...many of them have knowledge that is far superior to mine. It's just a mental block all IMGs have because everyone they know has followed a certain route...which is ofcourse doing those lengthy kaplan books to set the "foundation".

Again, the stuff that needs to be straight up memorized applies to both IMGs and AMGs. Our "foundation" of knowledge does not include that DQ2/DQ8 is associated with celiac, or that DR5 is associated with hashimotos or what the side effects of all of those drugs are. Those tables of information must be memorized by everyone, IMGs and AMGs alike, there is little to no understasnding involved in 30-40% of FA. As for the rest of FA, if you actually read FA, you'll see that most of the things that require an explanation, usually have an explanation. If it doesn't, wikipedia it. Or better yet, since you're an international, piracy laws don't quite apply to you, just download DIT or Pathoma. Those resources will set the foundation and plug in the missing gaps. Again, you're doing what every IMG does. It's not your fault. Everyone around you has programmed you into thinking that somehow y'all don't have a "foundation" to take the USMLE. Take an NBME, if you score above 180 - 190 , you have a foundation and you need to memorize FA and learn everything in pathoma. Why do I say 180? Thats the 50th percentile score of my school in an NBME that we took in late March. About 65% of my class failed that NBME in March 🙂 But guess what...those same kids take the real deal 3 months later in June and average 240 🙂 (and school goes on until May.... )

If we only had to "review" and had our "foundation" already, 65% of a top 20 ish would not be failing 3 months prior.
 
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Even if you haven't touched first aid before your dedicated studying period, isn't 8 weeks enough to study FA, UWorld, and Pathoma at the minimum?
 
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A good thorough first pass of FA + Pathoma together takes about 20-25 days. FA alone can be killed in 2 weeks on the first pass (35 or so pages a day), but you'll retain about 50-60% (you'll know about 70-75% of the material at the 2nd pass, and maybe 80 - 85% at the 3rd pass). The third pass can be done in a week before the exam.
 
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