When is the right time to start studying for the Step 1?

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Unzbuzzled

Unzbuzzled

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I'm a US medical student about to go into my second year. I already bought First Aid and I've started watching pathoma (what a great lecturer Dr. Sattar is!). I am thinking about getting the year-long subscription to UWorld just so I can get a head start now. But every time I ask my classmates what I should be doing to study, they just call me a gunner and say not to worry about it until January or at least until M2 year starts. I don't know what I want to do as a career yet, but I want to keep my options open, and that means doing well on the Step 1. My wife is also pregnant, so I'm stuck in Chicago for the summer with nothing but easy clinical research to do. So...

When did you guys start studying for the Step 1?

How did you guys structure your studying, especially during the school year?

What are the best study aids that have helped you the most?

Thanks in advance!
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honestly, ur entire med school career. just pay attention in class and truly understand everything instead of memorizing..thats the way to get the 260
 
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Unzbuzzled said:
I'm a US medical student about to go into my second year. I already bought First Aid and I've started watching pathoma (what a great lecturer Dr. Sattar is!). I am thinking about getting the year-long subscription to UWorld just so I can get a head start now. But every time I ask my classmates what I should be doing to study, they just call me a gunner and say not to worry about it until January or at least until M2 year starts. I don't know what I want to do as a career yet, but I want to keep my options open, and that means doing well on the Step 1. My wife is also pregnant, so I'm stuck in Chicago for the summer with nothing but easy clinical research to do. So...

When did you guys start studying for the Step 1?

How did you guys structure your studying, especially during the school year?

What are the best study aids that have helped you the most?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

It's never too early to start, but starting really early might not yield too big of a difference score-wise if your board-prep is solid.

Anyway, if you want to optimize your chances of getting a good score, start as early as possible...
 
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Unzbuzzled said:
I'm a US medical student about to go into my second year. I already bought First Aid and I've started watching pathoma (what a great lecturer Dr. Sattar is!). I am thinking about getting the year-long subscription to UWorld just so I can get a head start now. But every time I ask my classmates what I should be doing to study, they just call me a gunner and say not to worry about it until January or at least until M2 year starts. I don't know what I want to do as a career yet, but I want to keep my options open, and that means doing well on the Step 1. My wife is also pregnant, so I'm stuck in Chicago for the summer with nothing but easy clinical research to do. So...

When did you guys start studying for the Step 1?

How did you guys structure your studying, especially during the school year?

What are the best study aids that have helped you the most?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

They call you a gunner before encouraging you not to study...that's the oldest trick in the gunner book.
 
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The summer before M2 year, review all your M1 material board-style, and relax, take a vacation, study at night. That's what I did.

I go to a DO school, and it is not enough to just know the school material. You can be the top student and not even pass if you don't do any board-specific studying.

The question you got to ask yourself is, how long do you think it would take you to go through UWorld, First Aid, and Pathoma?
 
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alisepeep said:
honestly, ur entire med school career. just pay attention in class and truly understand everything instead of memorizing..thats the way to get the 260
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Completely agree. I didn't really start using First Aid until my dedicated five weeks. But I studied like crazy these past two years and did extremely well 2nd year.

If you have a solid understanding of everything you learned (especially in path/pharm/phys) you'll kill boards because you'll only need a couple weeks to bring it all together after M2 year.
 
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normtheniner said:
If you have a solid understanding of everything you learned (especially in path/pharm/phys) you'll kill boards because you'll only need a couple weeks to bring it all together after M2 year.
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Very few people are able to do this. I've been studying since 1st year and can barely break 240, and I'm one of the top students in my class. You're saying 2 weeks of studying to break 260? I'm sure it's been done, but most people can't do it.
 
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definitely start early. What's nice about starting early is that you can go at your own pace. it's easier to learn the material when you're not feeling rushed/pressured. I've heard people say that there's no point because you'll forget stuff. That's definitely true unless you take the time for spaced repetition. Personally for me, I started micro/pharm early and even though it was difficult to remember in the beginning, I found that it became really easy later on.

your goal during dedicated study time should be review/questions and not learning anything new. there's definitely people out there who can do it in 6 weeks, but you can make it a lot easier on yourself if you start some light studying now. you won't be as stressed pulling 12-16 hour study days.
 
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I would do questions banks starting with the beginning of second year, in our school this also corresponded with the beginning of systems based learning so I would just do all of the questions pertinent to that system. Helped with exams and with the USMLE. I would recommend USMLERx... lots of Q's for pretty cheap.

Survivor DO
 
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so as a DO student starting second year in a few weeks, what do you recommend for COMLEX and USMLE prep?

I heard the COMLEX questions are pretty out there...
 
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HoboCommander said:
Very few people are able to do this. I've been studying since 1st year and can barely break 240, and I'm one of the top students in my class. You're saying 2 weeks of studying to break 260? I'm sure it's been done, but most people can't do it.
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I look at 260 as a whole other level and yeah it'd probably take a lot more time to get to that level. My statement is referencing if you're trying to go 240+.

I didn't really start studying for boards until after second year ended (I will disclose that I had a cumulative pharm final that I spent five weeks studying for during our last test block). I baselined at 205-208 prior to my study period on NBME's. After 3-4 weeks NBME 11 and NBME 15 both had me at 242 and 245 respectively.

I thought the real thing was extremely hard so I'm hoping my two NBME's weren't a fluke. We'll see on July 10th....
 
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normtheniner said:
I look at 260 as a whole other level and yeah it'd probably take a lot more time to get to that level. My statement is referencing if you're trying to go 240+.

I didn't really start studying for boards until after second year ended (I will disclose that I had a cumulative pharm final that I spent five weeks studying for during our last test block). I baselined at 205-208 prior to my study period on NBME's. After 3-4 weeks NBME 11 and NBME 15 both had me at 242 and 245 respectively.

I thought the real thing was extremely hard so I'm hoping my two NBME's weren't a fluke. We'll see on July 10th....
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Hope you did well. I'm taking mine very soon.

FutureDO2016 said:
so as a DO student starting second year in a few weeks, what do you recommend for COMLEX and USMLE prep?

I heard the COMLEX questions are pretty out there...
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I took the COMLEX and I think I did pretty well on it, so I'll bite. First of all, the questions themselves are very fair and studyable. The fact that half my exam was micro was a little weird, but they were fair questions and I was well prepared for micro and their biological warfare questions.

You would study the COMLEX the same as the USMLE. UWorld is your most important resource and FA second. I used COMQuest for the OMM parts of the exam, and every obscure question I saw on COMQuest had its same concept show up on my exam.

DO schools don't really cover much pathology, so expect to master that on your own. I did Pathoma and Robbin's question book. The rest I learned with UWorld.

I also went through anatomy books, and ethics books. Those can be either easy points if you've prepared for them, or very hard if you haven't. There are several medical law questions on the COMLEX.

To study for the USMLE, same as COMLEX except no OMM. The question style is different but the covered material is very similar.
 
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HoboCommander said:
Hope you did well. I'm taking mine very soon.



I took the COMLEX and I think I did pretty well on it, so I'll bite. First of all, the questions themselves are very fair and studyable. The fact that half my exam was micro was a little weird, but they were fair questions and I was well prepared for micro and their biological warfare questions.

You would study the COMLEX the same as the USMLE. UWorld is your most important resource and FA second. I used COMQuest for the OMM parts of the exam, and every obscure question I saw on COMQuest had its same concept show up on my exam.

DO schools don't really cover much pathology, so expect to master that on your own. I did Pathoma and Robbin's question book. The rest I learned with UWorld.

I also went through anatomy books, and ethics books. Those can be either easy points if you've prepared for them, or very hard if you haven't. There are several medical law questions on the COMLEX.

To study for the USMLE, same as COMLEX except no OMM. The question style is different but the covered material is very similar.
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How does a medical school not cover much pathology? My second year was loaded with pathology and didnt see many questions on usmle or comlex that weren't covered in class at some point. Guess I am trying to say is maybe its relative to the school you attend. First Aid, Uworld, Comquest is all I think you need for the comlex if you have studied hard your first two years.
 
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OneTripAcross said:
How does a medical school not cover much pathology? My second year was loaded with pathology and didnt see many questions on usmle or comlex that weren't covered in class at some point. Guess I am trying to say is maybe its relative to the school you attend. First Aid, Uworld, Comquest is all I think you need for the comlex if you have studied hard your first two years.
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I suppose it depends on the particular school. My school did mention most of the pathology, in the same way that FA mentions some topics, ie. just a mention. Very little integration or explanation of pathology. You should not have to use UWorld or Pathoma at all except as optional review.

I did well on the COMLEX so I'm not complaining, I just think it's bad advice to just tell people to focus only on their school cirriculum for people going to a different school. Case in point, only 3 people from my class of 140 gets over 240 on the USMLE any given year, compare that to Mayo whose AVERAGE score is 240. Advice that works for Mayo students may not apply to those who go to my school.
 
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amconteh said:
Try this:
http://blog.think2x.com/2011/08/31/the-think-twice-strategy-guide-for-usmle-step-1/

Its a little overboard but hey if you have time for it.
I would say don't waste Uworld at the moment.
Try signing up for USMLE RX(good for getting familiar with FA) or Kaplan
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I'm against the mindset of "saving" UWorld until dedicated studying. One of the most frequent complaints/regret that I've read on SDN is "I wish I had started UW earlier". Also, many people say use UWorld as a learning tool.

Thus, I strongly recommend using UW throughout your MS2 school year to prepare for your exams (especially if you have subject NBME exams). Some of the top scorers on this forum did that & it worked out for them.
 
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HoboCommander said:
I suppose it depends on the particular school. My school did mention most of the pathology, in the same way that FA mentions some topics, ie. just a mention. Very little integration or explanation of pathology. You should not have to use UWorld or Pathoma at all except as optional review.

I did well on the COMLEX so I'm not complaining, I just think it's bad advice to just tell people to focus only on their school cirriculum for people going to a different school. Case in point, only 3 people from my class of 140 gets over 240 on the USMLE any given year, compare that to Mayo whose AVERAGE score is 240. Advice that works for Mayo students may not apply to those who go to my school.
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Hobo (it's funny actually calling someone that name), how did you find out the average score for certain schools? I didn't think that that information was shared.
 
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I was looking at practice questions and it seems like I haven't learned much of the stuff that is on the board exams as the questions primarily involve micro, path or pharm and that's M2 stuff.

I guess reviewing physiology, anatomy, biochem, embryology, neuro and immuno would be good to do, but I'm in lazy summer mode haha
 
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g8orlife said:
Hobo (it's funny actually calling someone that name), how did you find out the average score for certain schools? I didn't think that that information was shared.
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The average for my school is shared with the students, and it is compared to the national average. Not sure how to view other schools' specific scores tho.
 
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Etorphine said:
do you have any evidence to back this up, in the form of quotes from these other high scoring posters? I think the proof might be in the pudding.
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Luckily, I bookmarked some (b/c I def wouldn't spend hours to reread thru these threads) , so I'll c/p some now.
 
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