USMLE step 1 257, post-game analysis

[beezybuttermilk]

Just wanted to share my experience studying for step 1

Currently an MS3, I took my Step 1 in mid June, got my score back during my second week of pediatrics rotation in July, scored a 257.

I gave myself 8 weeks of dedicated, and here's the breakdown of my study habits during that time:

Test banks (~3-4 hrs/day)

• UWorld (1.5 runs), 40-80/day
• Rx Qmax (1 run), 80-120/day

Anki decks (~500-1000 cards/day, 3-4 hrs/day)

• Brosencephalon's FA deck
• Bro's pharma deck
• Anki cards created from UW and Rx qbank

Videos/Books (~2 hrs/day)

• Pathoma
• Boards and Beyond
• Sketchy

Practice Tests in chronological order:

• NBME 13 (219)
• NBME 15 (236)
• NBME 16 (234)
• UWSA 1 (256)
• NBME 17 (225)
• NBME 18 (240)
• UWSA 2 (254)
• NBME 19 (232)

My actual score was higher than any of my practice test scores, so that came as a really nice surprise.

I managed my day to day schedule during that time with google calendar. Here's what a typical week looked like:

Summary:

• Averaged about 8-9 hrs of studying every day.
• Prioritized question banks and anki
• Creating my own anki cards off of UW and Rx questions helped immensely
• Instead of reading and annotating FA, I used Brosencephalon's decks and clipped screenshots of FA into my own anki cards.

• NBMEs were NOT good predictors for my actual performance
• UWSAs were

Other things to note:

• Exercise/lifting really helped me blow off steam
• So did spending time with friends during the day and watching lengthy YouTube videos of Nietzsche and Jordan Peterson lectures alone at night (edit: lol).
• I had more than enough sleep every night - no classes, no other obligations, nothing mandatory to wake up early for
• I honored half my classes in pre-clinicals, and passed/high-passed the rest.

Hope this helps.

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[HybridEarth]

Thank you for posting this! Would you be willing to share how you prepared for Step during M2? Or did you wait until dedicated?

 

[beezybuttermilk]

Thank you for posting this! Would you be willing to share how you prepared for Step during M2? Or did you wait until dedicated?

I started Step prep in December with Kaplan Qbank. ~20-40 questions/day, mostly microbiology and biochem questions (topics from MS1) for review. When Spring semester started, I began to do Kaplan questions by the subject we were currently covering in class. For example, during our system's pathology units, I'd do 20 or so questions per day over the respiratory system while our class was covering respiratory pathologies, then move on to cardio, GI and etc... So for most of second semster of MS2, each day I'd do 20 questions of micro/biochem or 20 questions of the current topic in class (or both for a total of 40/day).

I'd scribble handwritten notes from these questions, and by the time I finished Kaplan Qbank (around the end of March), I ended up with five 70-sheet college ruled notebooks completely filled with my illegible scribbles on everything from Kreb's cycle to obstructive vs restrictive airway diseases. The process of writing down notes from the Kaplan questions may have helped me review and put to memory certain topics, but at this point I realized I probably needed to create a more legible way to review my notes - hence the anki cards for UW and Rx later on.

I also did the corresponding Brosencephalon anki decks by subject as we covered them in class. I'd cover about 60-90 new cards every day, so this was nowhere close to finishing each deck (i.e., cardio, cardio path, cardio pharm, respiratory, respiratory path, etc...) given the ~2 week period our class would spend on each system.

So for most of second semester of M2, I tried to integrate my step-prep into the topics I had to cover for class. I also used Pathoma and B&B to study for classes. The quality of our school's lectures were generally subpar to those from Pathoma or B&B. In fact, by April, nearly everything I used to study for class consisted of everything EXCEPT lecture materials (mostly the step-prep resources as mentioned). It was only until two or three days before each test (we had tests roughly every 2 weeks) when I would run through all the class lecture videos at 3x speed to cover all my bases.

I started UWorld around the beginning of April, one month until the end of MS2, doing 40-80 questions per day. It took me about a month and a half to complete my first pass. Instead of resetting my test-bank for a 2nd pass. I just decided to redo all the questions I missed or marked. This took me another 2 weeks during dedicated, and gave me enough time to complete one pass of Rx Qmax by my test date.