What to expect just starting UWorld?

[Handinhand]

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Hi guys, I was hoping I could get some advice from people more experienced with Step 1 than I am. I am an M2 MD student, and have just signed up for Step 1 on June 7th, which will give me one month of study time after my classes end in early May.

I just bought UWorld however, and in my curiosity, sat down and tried to go through some questions. I've done about 200 random questions over the past week, and am hovering around a 50%. I am curious if this is normal or not? I've studied with Pathoma and FA during 2nd year course work, and felt like I was learning the material well; there are just so many questions on material that I've not seen in my course work or was only a minor detail of first aid.

What kind of improvements can realistically be made with studying? I know I have a lot of time left to prepare and study, I just wasn't expecting to be this deficient in so much material that wasn't covered in my course work.

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[notbobtrustme]

Uworld is tough and 50% is usually normal for a given block. It's a great learning tool though, so keep plugging away at it.

 

[Apoplexy__]

I go by systems or subject instead of all random off the bat. It seems really difficult to effectively go through a 1st run of UWorld doing all random, since you'd have no idea what to study in FA/Pathoma/Goljan before doing your questions, and annotating would take much longer jumping all around FA. I think you get drastically less out of UWorld the less prepared you are in that subject. Plus, if you do all Heme or all Biochem, then you really understand how those questions are tested as a whole, and get to hammer down that block of knowledge. Personally, I'm afraid that if I did all random, I wouldn't be effectively remembering my mistakes and learning from them.

As far as practical advice: Comb through FA, looking up every single word or concept you don't know (even just on Google). With any concepts in FA that you find yourself learning from FA (as in, seeing it effectively for the first time), supplement with another book and take the time to really learn the background of that topic. This sounds painstaking, and it is; it took me 12 hours to get through the 50 pgs of Biochem in FA. Complete a block of FA before you do that corresponding UWorld block. Always annotate the UWorld questions into FA before doing more (annotating takes me 2x as long as the Q's themselves on average). Taken from a guy on here that scored 250-260: Read every explanation+learning objective of every question, unless you knew the question perfectly and got it right. In that case, at least just read the learning objective.

there are just so many questions on material that I've not seen in my course work or was only a minor detail of first aid.

Yeah, this is really a big point. I feel like my course work left out a ton of stuff...I'm having to self-teach a good amount with Google/Wiki and non-FA review sources. Don't be afraid to take the time to do that. And I've really found that FA marginalizes very HY one-liner points for the sake of aesthetics. It's amazing how you can read something in FA, get a Q wrong on UWorld, then go back to FA and see the answer right there without you remembering it being there at all. UWorld really freakin hammers some things (Collagen synthesis, Sickle Cell disease, Turner's syndrome) sometimes to the degree of detail not in FA, but the good news is that at it appears if you know FA like the back of your hand then you can score very high despite those non-FA questions.

 

[Fatalis]

all the above advice is awesome!
To the OP, when you log into uworld; read the last sentence of the 1st paragraph " use it as a learning tool not an assessment of knowledge".
I agree with kirbymiester; do the questions by subject, that way you know what areas you are weak on.

 

[ulikedaggers]

@kirbymiester interesting that you picked out collagen/HbS/Turner's for your examples of things UW really hits on. My school's curriculum put pretty heavy emphasis on those 3 topics when they were covered so maybe the curriculum here is better than I thought it was.

 

[Apoplexy__]

@kirbymiester interesting that you picked out collagen/HbS/Turner's for your examples of things UW really hits on. My school's curriculum put pretty heavy emphasis on those 3 topics when they were covered so maybe the curriculum here is better than I thought it was.

Haha nice!

 

[AlmostAnMD]

We've finished cardio organ systems and so far I've had two questions about digoxin. Neither of them were answerable based off what we learned in class. I forget what one question was but the other required knowing that digoxin toxicity involves interfering with sight. I then looked right at my notes and that information was found nowhere.

That kind of stuff happens on about 5% of my questions. What's really frustrating is it's usually about something I felt I knew very well, then there's information that pops out of nowhere and I'm like, "what? ok..."

 

[ulikedaggers]

We've finished cardio organ systems and so far I've had two questions about digoxin. Neither of them were answerable based off what we learned in class. I forget what one question was but the other required knowing that digoxin toxicity involves interfering with sight. I then looked right at my notes and that information was found nowhere.

That kind of stuff happens on about 5% of my questions. What's really frustrating is it's usually about something I felt I knew very well, then there's information that pops out of nowhere and I'm like, "what? ok..."

That's in FA 😉

 

[Ionian]

use it as a learning tool not an assessment of knowledge".

Great advice to ensure a pass. Or less than a 230. I've only used it to assess knowledge after I learned something cold.

And the >90% I get on it makes it waste less of my time "learning" from a question bank, and actually using it to practice.

 

[notbobtrustme]

Great advice to ensure a pass. Or less than a 230. I've only used it to assess knowledge after I learned something cold.

And the >90% I get on it makes it waste less of my time "learning" from a question bank, and actually using it to practice.

that has nothing to do with how you score. People score 50% on Uworld and go on to blow Step 1 out of the water while others score super high and do average on the test.

 

[notbobtrustme]

We've finished cardio organ systems and so far I've had two questions about digoxin. Neither of them were answerable based off what we learned in class. I forget what one question was but the other required knowing that digoxin toxicity involves interfering with sight. I then looked right at my notes and that information was found nowhere.

That kind of stuff happens on about 5% of my questions. What's really frustrating is it's usually about something I felt I knew very well, then there's information that pops out of nowhere and I'm like, "what? ok..."

yo, if you didn't learn that in school, that's concerning. Vision problems (yellow haze) is a cardinal sign of digioxin toxicity.

 

[Ionian]

that has nothing to do with how you score. People score 50% on Uworld and go on to blow Step 1 out of the water while others score super high and do average on the test.

I'm sorry. Clearly you are a *****.

 

[Fatalis]

And the >90% I get on it makes it waste less of my time "learning" from a question bank, and actually using it to practice.

 

[Apoplexy__]

And the >90% I get on it

I'm sorry. Clearly you are a *****.

 

[Fatalis]

I'm sorry. Clearly you are a *****.

Does not agree with you= a *****. Sound logic!

 

[Ionian]

Does not agree with you= a *****. Sound logic!

😀