This will contain many grammatical errors... typed it up at 4am after reviewing embryo and feeling lost haha.
SUMMARY:
Plan to do Uworld at very beginning of study period - months 1-3 alongside my readings to learn key concepts.... then use it again during month 8 to relearn key concepts and test my knowledge.
Months 1-3 - Use UWORLD during first 3 months to get early exposure to key concepts and know how to apply concepts that I am learning. Do Uworld blocks after each full subject from kaplan notes. Finish a good portion of Uworld this way.
Months 4-5 - Attend Falcon reviews Months 4-5 to solidify concepts and fill in the gaps... during this period switch to kaplan qbank just to keep re-inforcing concepts.
Months 6-7 - Review what I learned at falcon while doing qbank questinos and then move over to FA alongside Qbank and finish it all up
Month 8 - Do Uworld all over again every question.. this time it will be used to test my knowledge. 4 months and 3000 questions later there's no way I'll remember too many answers and if I remember concepts ... well that's a good things.
This way I'll get to go over the most important key concepts a second time and I allow for a break in between. If did Uworld twice back to back otherwise I would probably remember too many answers.
Everyone seems to say Uworld is where they learned everything from so why not do it twice and use it to learn from twice alongside FA?
FULL VERSION
So I have at least 30-40 friends who I've spoken to who took the exam already and the concensus seems to be that they only knew basic concepts and didn't know ANYTHING until they started doing Uworld and then they started learning everything from uworld and every week their NBME's started sky rocketing.
So I was thinking.... all this reading and doing pointless questions from the beginning.... why not implement a strategy to use Uworld twice and use it effectively.
THE PLAN: 8 month period
Months 1-3
1) Watch Kaplan videos while making and then read the notes while having first aid open beside me as well so I can see if I need to add anything to FA to help understand it later on since I won't be using kaplan notes again.
2) Then after do Uworld questions after each book is complete to solidify the info and learn how they want you to think about the info. Do about 100-150 questions after each subject and I'll be about half way through UW after my first read of the books.
- The plan is not to use the qbank to test my knowledge, but use it to learn from and use it to learn how to apply concepts to the style of questions that will be asked.
- This will help me think at the right level in terms of knowing how to read the info so I can apply it and what details to pick out. This will be better then aimlessly bashing 450 pages into my head.
After this I could either finish off some more UWorld questions if I have time, or I could do a quick 2 week skimm of First Aid.
Months 4 and 5
1) During months 4 and 5 I will be taking a Falcon Review course.
- Having already read kaplan I will have a solid foundation and can focus on driving home high yielf concepts and I can use these 7 weeks as my "second read"
- Having done Uworld questions and knowing how to think about questions and knowing how questions can be asked, I'll be able to adjust my learning style so that at Falcon I can study efficiently and pick out the details I saw being picked out during Uworld.
- During this time I'll stop Uworld and begin Kaplan Qbank, just doing small amounts of questions alongside my daily falcon lectures.
Month 6
- Review everything I learned at Falcon and touch up topics I felt weak in
- Obviously will do some NBME's all along the way to know how my performance is
- do more kaplan qbank questions and use them to asses myself
Month 7
- First Aid - complete read plus DIT videos to help with FA
- Finish up all of Kaplan Qbank - this will help me to keep reviewing what I know
- At this point I should have gone over the material 2-3 times and done a couple reads of all first aid sections and be ready for the final push
Month 8
- This is when people usually start Uworld for the first time and learn so many new concepts and have to beat them in, I will be doing Uworld a second time this time (never completed it all the first time, just enough to get some major concepts)
- Having done Uworld 4 months ago I shouldn't have too many exact answers just memorized and having done about 2000+ Kaplan questions in between should make it so that these questions look all brand new again.
- This way I'm doing a lot of good questions to assess how much I know and at the same time, I'll be reinforcing the major concepts from Uworld, and having learned a lot of them the first time around I won't have to struggle as much and make as many annotations into FA since I will remember a lot of the concepts.
SUMMARY:
Plan to do Uworld at very beginning of study period - months 1-3 alongside my readings to learn key concepts.... then use it again during month 8 to relearn key concepts and test my knowledge.
Months 1-3 - Use UWORLD during first 3 months to get early exposure to key concepts and know how to apply concepts that I am learning. Do Uworld blocks after each full subject from kaplan notes. Finish a good portion of Uworld this way.
Months 4-5 - Attend Falcon reviews Months 4-5 to solidify concepts and fill in the gaps... during this period switch to kaplan qbank just to keep re-inforcing concepts.
Months 6-7 - Review what I learned at falcon while doing qbank questinos and then move over to FA alongside Qbank and finish it all up
Month 8 - Do Uworld all over again every question.. this time it will be used to test my knowledge. 4 months and 3000 questions later there's no way I'll remember too many answers and if I remember concepts ... well that's a good things.
This way I'll get to go over the most important key concepts a second time and I allow for a break in between. If did Uworld twice back to back otherwise I would probably remember too many answers.
Everyone seems to say Uworld is where they learned everything from so why not do it twice and use it to learn from twice alongside FA?
FULL VERSION
So I have at least 30-40 friends who I've spoken to who took the exam already and the concensus seems to be that they only knew basic concepts and didn't know ANYTHING until they started doing Uworld and then they started learning everything from uworld and every week their NBME's started sky rocketing.
So I was thinking.... all this reading and doing pointless questions from the beginning.... why not implement a strategy to use Uworld twice and use it effectively.
THE PLAN: 8 month period
Months 1-3
1) Watch Kaplan videos while making and then read the notes while having first aid open beside me as well so I can see if I need to add anything to FA to help understand it later on since I won't be using kaplan notes again.
2) Then after do Uworld questions after each book is complete to solidify the info and learn how they want you to think about the info. Do about 100-150 questions after each subject and I'll be about half way through UW after my first read of the books.
- The plan is not to use the qbank to test my knowledge, but use it to learn from and use it to learn how to apply concepts to the style of questions that will be asked.
- This will help me think at the right level in terms of knowing how to read the info so I can apply it and what details to pick out. This will be better then aimlessly bashing 450 pages into my head.
After this I could either finish off some more UWorld questions if I have time, or I could do a quick 2 week skimm of First Aid.
Months 4 and 5
1) During months 4 and 5 I will be taking a Falcon Review course.
- Having already read kaplan I will have a solid foundation and can focus on driving home high yielf concepts and I can use these 7 weeks as my "second read"
- Having done Uworld questions and knowing how to think about questions and knowing how questions can be asked, I'll be able to adjust my learning style so that at Falcon I can study efficiently and pick out the details I saw being picked out during Uworld.
- During this time I'll stop Uworld and begin Kaplan Qbank, just doing small amounts of questions alongside my daily falcon lectures.
Month 6
- Review everything I learned at Falcon and touch up topics I felt weak in
- Obviously will do some NBME's all along the way to know how my performance is
- do more kaplan qbank questions and use them to asses myself
Month 7
- First Aid - complete read plus DIT videos to help with FA
- Finish up all of Kaplan Qbank - this will help me to keep reviewing what I know
- At this point I should have gone over the material 2-3 times and done a couple reads of all first aid sections and be ready for the final push
Month 8
- This is when people usually start Uworld for the first time and learn so many new concepts and have to beat them in, I will be doing Uworld a second time this time (never completed it all the first time, just enough to get some major concepts)
- Having done Uworld 4 months ago I shouldn't have too many exact answers just memorized and having done about 2000+ Kaplan questions in between should make it so that these questions look all brand new again.
- This way I'm doing a lot of good questions to assess how much I know and at the same time, I'll be reinforcing the major concepts from Uworld, and having learned a lot of them the first time around I won't have to struggle as much and make as many annotations into FA since I will remember a lot of the concepts.
