What to do during M2 to get ready for Step 1?

[gman33]

For all that have been through this, what did you do during M2 to get ready for step 1? I just finished M1 and while I did fine in my classes, I feel that my retention of information is pretty low. The further I get away from stuff, like most people, I start forgetting.

Did anyone do periodic review of material? I felt like I barely had time to learn everything in my courses and this will probably get worse next year. That being said, I'd be willing to sacrifice some course study time, if it would mean I could do better on the Step.

Any thoughts or strategies would be appreciated.

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[Vonsmack]

The best thing you can do as an M2 to get ready for boards is to master M2 material. This will make review 100% easier. Reviewing anatomy and physiology is pretty important to fully understand the pathology and pathophysiology, so I would recommend that before each system. Get a path review book like BRS or RR and follow it along with the course basically for familiarization. Qbanks can be expensive for the year long subscription, but look for deals through your school. We had a Kaplan guy come and offered us a good "buy it today" deal for a 9 month Qbank, and I think it has helped.

 

[Whats_up_doc]

For all that have been through this, what did you do during M2 to get ready for step 1? I just finished M1 and while I did fine in my classes, I feel that my retention of information is pretty low. The further I get away from stuff, like most people, I start forgetting.

Did anyone do periodic review of material? I felt like I barely had time to learn everything in my courses and this will probably get worse next year. That being said, I'd be willing to sacrifice some course study time, if it would mean I could do better on the Step.

Any thoughts or strategies would be appreciated.

For M2 the best advice I can give you is to practice practice practice QUESTIONS for PATHOLOGY. I used two question books: Robbin's Review of Path and Lippincott's Review (Rubin). I used Robbin's to test if I understood the material. Rubin's is easier. Get BRS Phys and make annonations from Rapid Review Pathology. Listen to Goljan throughout the whole year. Hang out in SDN and read the USMLE experiences thread. Luck favors the prepared...

 

[EBI831]

i'd say that when you do pathophys don't just do pathophys...get your hands on first aid for the organ systems and brs phys. as mentioned above, read phys before each section and then again before each test (it's practically the same thing as pathophys for cardio, endo, and pulm) . read the embryo and anatomy review in organ systems but dont be hardcore into memorizing all the details (trust me somehow you'll absorb it). read the pharm drugs at the end of organ systems and learn them and go over the relevant flashcards (this is outside of your regular pharm class since my school is not systems based) as for micro and immuno (classes that at my school we take second year), i'd go hardcore with micro the first time around...learn it and then i just did a refresher every month or so...flashcardexchange has some good card sets with all first aid/ and micro made ridiculously simple flashcards...go through the like 400 of them while watching tv at your own pace....even if it's like 15 a night. trust me, it helped. immuno, is something you can easily pick up again. honestly, doing this + reading Robbins and rapid review path this school year helped me tremendously in class and when boards study time rolled around ...i found that i had mucho free time b/c i'd already studied everything (except like biochem and cell bio) while studying path. so i had time to do lots of different question books and just refresh during boards studying. Also first aid organ systems has all the stuff in regular first aid for the most part so you don't really have to even touch regular first aid til boards (except for micro, immuno, biochem, etc if you wanna get a head start)
*You'll get neuroanatomy again if you just read high yield neuro during your neuro section of path. Also, read high yield behavior during your psych section of path. But, I can't stress enough that when you are reading all of these it isn't to memorize it all but just to supplement. When I used that mindset, I found that i got through the stuff easily and quickly.

 

[kryptik]

awesome thread, am in same situation as the OP. thanks for the suggestions above

 

[scube]

board simulator series or other cheap paperbased questions around test time. 2 birds one stone. improves your board/ class scores.

 

[kdburton]

Best way to do it is to learn the stuff really well during M2, but in addition to doing that I think you can also get ahead of the game by doing a few things (which may also help you learn the stuff really well in the first place). Forget about whatever physiology book your school uses (unless they use Costanzo's big book) and read Costanzo's Physiology book cover-to-cover if you haven't aready done that. You will likely use BRS Phys when you study for the boards which is simply a condensed version of this book containing the essential physiology for the boards.

Next you should listen to Goljan's audio with whatever path you're doing (if you're in organ systems this works out nice since it will spread it out over the year). Do it passively at the gym and if you've got long drives or something. Overall the goal should be to have listened to him a couple times before the end of the year just to get an understanding of everything the way it should be taught while you're in med school (which is usually not the case in my experience). Don't worry about taking notes and all that stuff, just do it when you're out for a run or whatever, save the concentrated Goljan studying for boards prep after M2. At this same time you can start thinking about what path book you'd like to use for prep and maybe use that long with your classes as well.

Find out what subjects aren't taught well at your school by talking to upperclassment who have taken Step1 and know where everyone had a general weakness. Consider doing some light reading on these subjects throughout M2 to get a good understanding of them but not necessarily to memorize. Kaplan videos/lecture notes (and I assume their book series) seems to do a good job of explaining subjects that weren't well taught at my school since Kaplan, in general, gives you more than you need to know just so that you can understand the material (which will make it easier to memorize in the long run).

Don't get FA and start annotating it during M2, because you really don't know what board worthy I don't think until you start doing practice questions and reading review books. On the other hand theres no loss if you decide to breeze over the FA chapter on whatever subject you're studying for an upcoming test to see what FA stresses as important (which is likely to be important on your module test as well). Concentrate on understanding the material as well as possible, making as many conenctions as possible, and not so much trying to memrozie all the cytokines and cluster designations right now. Thats the stuff you can cram in when you're really studying for the boards.


This will all make life a lot easier in the long run as long as you follow one rule... If you're trying ot study for the boards along with M2 classes then you must not let boards studying get in the way of studying for class. I'm barely even studying for some of the most recent classes because I still remember everything well from learning it well the first time. If you learn it well the first time you'll be surprised by how much you retain. On the flip-side if you have the ability to learn the M2 material well and still have plenty of free time then feel free to puut in that extra work needed to nail the boards. When people say "don't study until school is done" they either say that because (1) they didn't have time (2) they did it at the expense of learning class material which is coming back to bite them in the ass. Even if you don't retain 100% of what you learn early in your studies, theres definitely a positive relationship b/t how much you put in and how high your score will be

 

[metallo]

I highly recommend becoming familiar with board review materials early in 2nd year, but make sure you're using them as supplements and not as primary resources. As other posters have said, listen to whatever Goljan audio corresponds to what you're doing in class. Also, I think it's good to start using First Aid early. Most people in my class were using it by October or so of 2nd year. It most likely won't go into enough depth for your school exams, but it gives you a good overall outline of each discipline/organ system and can be good for review.

MY #1 PIECE OF ADVICE: buy a question bank (I recommend USMLE World) and start doing questions as early as possible. I got World toward the end of January and used it for the second half of the year, and my grades on school exams were definitely higher as a result. If I could do it again, I would have bought it at the beginning of 2nd year, even though that would have been pretty expensive. You can choose to do questions on particular subjects or organ systems (or both, i.e. Micro of the GI system). I wouldn't do random sets until you're either done or almost done with 2nd year.

Oh, and a disclaimer... I don't take Step 1 for another three weeks, so I can't vouch for the efficacy of the above just yet.

 

[kdburton]

I highly recommend becoming familiar with board review materials early in 2nd year, but make sure you're using them as supplements and not as primary resources. As other posters have said, listen to whatever Goljan audio corresponds to what you're doing in class. Also, I think it's good to start using First Aid early. Most people in my class were using it by October or so of 2nd year. It most likely won't go into enough depth for your school exams, but it gives you a good overall outline of each discipline/organ system and can be good for review.

MY #1 PIECE OF ADVICE: buy a question bank (I recommend USMLE World) and start doing questions as early as possible. I got World toward the end of January and used it for the second half of the year, and my grades on school exams were definitely higher as a result. If I could do it again, I would have bought it at the beginning of 2nd year, even though that would have been pretty expensive. You can choose to do questions on particular subjects or organ systems (or both, i.e. Micro of the GI system). I wouldn't do random sets until you're either done or almost done with 2nd year.

Oh, and a disclaimer... I don't take Step 1 for another three weeks, so I can't vouch for the efficacy of the above just yet.

WHile I agree that getting a question bank early on and doing questions will not only help with school, but will help with overall board prep - I think that USMLE World is probably the gold standard based on everything I've read and everyone I've talked to. In other worlds you're going to want to have "the best" set of questions to prepare you for the boards in that crunch time. In the case that you decide to buy a question bank I would lean towards something else. Kaplan's Qbank is supposedly pretty good as well (I haven't used it, heard it was a little too picky). And another one, USMLE Rx, from the makers of FA is supposedly another good way to familiarize yourself with First Aid since it refers to sections in the book. It also has over 3000 questions I believe, so theres plenty to go around for 2nd year if you just want to pound out questions. I'd save USMLE World till when you're really studying

 

[gman33]

Thanks for all the great advice.
I go to a school that has a systems based curriculum.
It seems that the general consensus is to try to learn the material in your courses as well as you can, but at the same time review the corresponding physio, biochem, anatomy and whatever else might be relevant.

We have access to the Exam Master qbank at my school. I guess I can use that during the year and then buy something (USMLEWorld) to prep hard with during my focused time. I don't mind paying for the year subscription, but it seems like it might be a better idea to save this until I get through most of my courses.

Any other ideas would be welcome. I'm sure there are a lot of students in my same position who could benefit from this advice.

 

[scube]

Thanks for all the great advice.
I go to a school that has a systems based curriculum.
It seems that the general consensus is to try to learn the material in your courses as well as you can, but at the same time review the corresponding physio, biochem, anatomy and whatever else might be relevant.

We have access to the Exam Master qbank at my school. I guess I can use that during the year and then buy something (USMLEWorld) to prep hard with during my focused time. I don't mind paying for the year subscription, but it seems like it might be a better idea to save this until I get through most of my courses.

Any other ideas would be welcome. I'm sure there are a lot of students in my same position who could benefit from this advice.

i agree with you on saving world for the end. you could also look into doing one of the easier banks thru the year. usmleconsult, rx or paper based. i cant stress enough how much just doing those questions help. i did that thru the year and it has made a huge difference. I have only needed to study 3 -5 hours a day to get close to my goal. which means I have enjoyed my summer.