Final score: 253.
While this is not epic by SDN standards I had a step 1 of 199.
I am happy with my 54 point improvement.
That is fantastic, be proud!
So I haven't been around for a while but figured I'd share my ck experience because this forum has helped me a lot over the years. Super long post!
Got my score today. 264. I'm pumped.
Studied for 4 weeks 5 days exactly
for this beast. Took it Aug 31st, I had to take it because my permit was expiring, I would have pushed it back if I could have but I'm glad I didn't. Starting out I did about 5 hours of good studying a day, bumped it up to like 7 -10 good hours the last 2 weeks. I read other people's study guides online looking for guidance but was totally overwhelmed by the amount of studying that people did and the amount of resources they used. That was compared to friends that were like 'nobody studies for step 2, just do qbank' I just did what I felt would be most helpful and went with qbank and the resources my boyfriend had from his step 2 experience and book buying. This ended being UWorld qbank, FA CK and Secrets. I wanted to use Boards and Wards (which was the only resource I used during 3rd year, I am a huge fan) but I ran out of time. I changed my study plan like 10 times but I will outline what I actually did.
Background:
Baseline, I don't really study. Can't seem to make it happen unless the hammer is falling and I feel imminent danger. I did maybe like 150 q's total of UWorld during 3rd year even though the school had purchased the qbank for us. (I felt bad about this) And crammed the day or two before shelf's from Boards and Wards as mentioned. Excellent book. Did well on my shelf exams.
Got a 251 on Step 1 after 8 weeks studying (3 weeks part time, 5 weeks full time studying).
Study schedule for CK:
Started by doing UWorld Sim exam - got a 214 I think. Felt ok about this.
I then read through all of First Aid CK - took me 15 days. I needed a general review of everything. I did some q bank here and there during this, but not very much, maybe got through about 200 questions.
Then Q bank. I realized I would need to do like 200 questions a day for ten days to get through it. This was a very painful experience :/ I was able to do 4 full blocks a day until the end then finished the spillover. My eyes and brain were burning bad during this. I did timed tutor at the beginning, some mixed, some subject specific blocks, and then mixed timed for the second half. Average for whole qbank was 71%. Big range of % corrects per block, from like 50% to 90%. usually around 75% it felt like.
Somewhere in the middle of q banking, like 2 weeks before my test I took Form 6 CCSSA and got a 238. This form was not at all like the real thing, I read after that this was not the best form to take.
When I finished qbank I had like 6 days left. I had wanted to re-read all of FA and q bank answers and Secrets and Boards and wards but realized I didn't have time near enough at all for this. What I chose to do was take 3 days and read Secrets because I had heard good things. This felt like reading a romance novel after hard core q-banking. Some good info though.
My last 3 days I reread as much of the q bank as I could, got through about 2000 q's. Basically just reading the answer and the parts I had highlighted. I stopped at like 8:30pm the night before my test.
Exam experience:
I have been dealing with the awesome insomnia/anxiety combo for a long time now, test day was no different. The night before the test I took 15 mg of Ambien and still couldn't sleep. Got up and cried from like 3:30 to 5am. Ha. Got some support from my beau. Rested and then got up. My test was like an hour away and at 8am so I had to be out early. I felt like **** but I was like 'this is happening, get it together.' I get panic attacks so I have to take klonopin in stressful situations, I have a history of really bad timing with these so I took some before I went in and then more half way through. I was so sedated with the combination drugs/not sleeping that I legit could not keep my eyes open and was like dozing at periods during the exam. Ughhh. It sucked. Just tried to sit there and get through it.
The test itself was very challenging. Not as bad as my step 1 experience but very tough. Long, challenging question stems. Very very few short discrete questions. When I would do Uworld blocks I would finish a good ten minutes early always but on the real thing I was struggling with time, I think 2 blocks I actually ran out of time and had to guess on the last couple. A LOT of the questions were super vague. I felt like it was testing my reasoning ability more than my medical knowledge. There were a few things that were tested that I had seen third year by chance but didn't come across in FA, UWorld or secrets. Very different that UWorld in my opinion. Maybe 1/2 or 2/3 were similar and 1/2 to1/3 were these weird vague super long joints. Not like I had never seem questions like that but I had to keep re-reading questions, maybe this was also a function of being so tired, they seemed not to have a clear right answer. I had a set of 3 drug ad questions on every block I think. I was just glad to be done when it was over, felt like my score could be very low or very high, had no idea. I don't think more studying would have helped. I was glad that I just took it even though I wanted to move it. When I got home the only questions I could remember were these two basic discrete ID questions, both of which I got wrong. I didn't feel good about it overall.
Overall Impression:
I guess my study method worked. I wish I could wholeheartedly back a resource but I don't think there is a silver bullet for step 2. I did like FA CK even though it gets a bad reputation. I felt like it was a really good general review and wish I could have gone back over it. I never looked at any other general review book to compare. Secrets was pretty basic after all the studying I had done but was good to remind me a few key things. Definitely not sufficient for general review. Nothing on the test was like 'I've seen this before from ___.' which had kind of been my experience with step one qbank. Uworld has so many minor details, the probability of them being tested is low for the time it takes to try to absorb it all. I think it did definitely help with reasoning skills which seemed like half the battle on the real thing. Not as enthusiastic about Uworld qbank as most people seem to be.
Good luck to all!! I'm happy to answer questions
Thank god this is over!!!
