Why use anything BUT first aid

[Med4ever]

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Hey, I have been noticing that all the questions I have been doing, from various sources have there answers in first aid. Can anybody give me a reson to use other material at all, or wont just memorizing first aid for 4 weks assure u a kick a$$ score?

 

[BrooklynDO]

Hey, I have been noticing that all the questions I have been doing, from various sources have there answers in first aid. Can anybody give me a reson to use other material at all, or wont just memorizing first aid for 4 weks assure u a kick a$$ score?

Simply because sometimes, seeing things written a slightly different way may bring out something you did not know, or did not happen to notice... or did not connect or whatever... yea its all in there, but not always in the best way to retrieve it for every person

 

[giznut12]

Last year when I asked a couple of student that just took the boards what they would do differently in preparing for the boards....they all said they would have spent more time with first aid and less time with other sources because there were several questions on the exam that they missed just because they didn't have first aid memorized. I started off studying with a variety of sources but now have confined myself to FA, goljan's new path book, and qbank.

 

[Med4ever]

I agree i wasted 2 days reading kaplan pharm and tried the q bank questions and got rocked cuz i just didnt know some need to know facts, plus reading sucks. FA FA FA all the way now.

 

[BrooklynDO]

I agree i wasted 2 days reading kaplan pharm and tried the q bank questions and got rocked cuz i just didnt know some need to know facts, plus reading sucks. FA FA FA all the way now.

sometimes i think one was written for the other... I dunno, im gonna reread kaplan again, coz i just FA and I dunno what to think from the questions in qbank (there were many that werent in fa but were in kaplan...) So maybe read both at the same time? I dunno

 

[AlexRusso]

My strategy for my 5 week study time is to read kaplan, HY, BRS during the 1st 3.5 - 4 weeks and go over the relavant FA section once I'm done w. each topic. Last week is strictly FA and Qbank for the second time through. I wanna have those memorized as much as possible. Most people at my school that I spoke with that took the test last year said that if they had to do it again they would concentrate on memorizing FA.

That being said, I think FA is to dense and disorganized that if you just used that to study you would wind up glancing over a lot of the stuff in there and not even realize that it was in there. You need other sources to focus your attention. i.e. I often find myslef writing stuff down in Fa only to later realize that it was in there but just on a different page.

 

[sunflower2020]

i.e. I often find myslef writing stuff down in Fa only to later realize that it was in there but just on a different page.

How true is that!!!

I think that FA is in a very bad format for memorization. The info is great but the format needs improvement.
I can't tell you how many times I have read it and I still miss questions straight from there. Usually I can kind of "visually remember" pages from a book after going through it a few times but with FA it's different. 🙁

 

[doc05]

trying to memorize first aid is a fool's errand. It is best to use multiple sources for each discipline and do several thousand questions. 4-6 weeks x 12 hours/day is ideal.

 

[sunflower2020]

The questions are a given, that is actually the most important part of preparing for the test 😎 .
However, I think that in the last week or so one source is important. To know very well and be able to refer to in your mind when you are under pressure.

 

[DrQuinn]

I took the COMLEX Step 1 several years ago (um... 2000? 2001? Cant' remember), and I used multiple sources... and actually didn't use First Aid that much at all. MANY people in my class just went by First Aid alone. I heard almost all my classamtes say that "Apparently they looked at FA and threw that in the trash and said they wouldn't test from that." Of course they were being sarcastic but they said they wished they had used other sources.

I glanced through first aid but it was not my main study source... I used the Kaplan USMLE books (1999 version). I ended up scoring 99%.

I think its best to use as many different sources as possible. I think it helps bring the synapses together in your brain better than one source.

Q, DO