Will I have time to do world and kaplan?

[Blesbok]

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We take step 1 the last week of April and have about 5 weeks of no interruption prep time. I plan on starting question banks in the next few weeks, probably doing 100 questions every other weekend along with various other things (ie. FA). My question is, will I have time to go through both question banks or should I only get world and spend the rest of my time going over book material.

 

[Law2Doc]

We take step 1 the last week of April and have about 5 weeks of no interruption prep time. I plan on starting question banks in the next few weeks, probably doing 100 questions every other weekend along with various other things (ie. FA). My question is, will I have time to go through both question banks or should I only get world and spend the rest of my time going over book material.

There are about 2500 kaplan questions and 2000 world questions. You can do the math.

 

[Blesbok]

There are about 2500 kaplan questions and 2000 world questions. You can do the math.

I can do the math as far as the weeks leading up to the month before, but I am not sure how much time I will have to do questions during that month before the test. Will I find myself overwhelmed during that month if I still have the entire world question bank left and part of the kaplan bank?

 

[Law2Doc]

I can do the math as far as the weeks leading up to the month before, but I am not sure how much time I will have to do questions during that month before the test. Will I find myself overwhelmed during that month if I still have the entire world question bank left and part of the kaplan bank?

A lot of people tend to do a maximum of 100-150 questions a day. More than that is probably too much.

 

[Prop]

I tried to do both in my 6 weeks of full-time studying.
I finished Qbank, but only managed to do 20% of UW, and I studied hardcore!
I would say try to do 50-60% of both, that way You'll see a lot of different questions, and get to test a lot of concepts.
Good luck!

 

[Law2Doc]

I tried to do both in my 6 weeks of full-time studying.
I finished Qbank, but only managed to do 20% of UW, and I studied hardcore!
I would say try to do 50-60% of both, that way You'll see a lot of different questions, and get to test a lot of concepts.
Good luck!

Since each bank represents one company's view of what is high yield it is dangerous not to substantially finish one or the other -- if by bad luck you ended up seeing substantial overlap of material in that 50% of each, that means you didn't see a substantial topic coverage in each.

 

[DreamRavyn]

I don't think I would have had time to do two when I studied, and I don't particularly regret not doing two. That said, there are posters on sdn who do all of both of them. I would be more inclined to say that if the only way you can remember something is to do a question, then great, do both. But if you have pretty reasonable uptake by reading, then I think 1 should suffice, and use the money saved from not taking the other one on a nice bottle of celebratory wine/champagne/beer.

Those are my own personal feelings.

 

[AlbertConstable]

Go through most of Kaplan starting 8 weeks before the test but don't worry if you don't finish every last question. I suggest you do random sets of 50, about 150/day.

Stop kaplan at about 4 weeks left and do about 150-200 UWorld/day in random sets of 50 and make sure to finish them all 1 week before test day. At this point you would've started your formal "5 week study period" as you stated above.

1 week before you should be done with questions then review the memory-heavy/high yield stuff for the last week.

Good luck!

 

[Blesbok]

Go through most of Kaplan starting 8 weeks before the test but don't worry if you don't finish every last question. I suggest you do random sets of 50, about 150/day.

Stop kaplan at about 4 weeks left and do about 150-200 UWorld/day in random sets of 50 and make sure to finish them all 1 week before test day. At this point you would've started your formal "5 week study period" as you stated above.

1 week before you should be done with questions then review the memory-heavy/high yield stuff for the last week.

Good luck!

Do you recommend doing a lot of high yield studying while doing questions or focusing more on the questions up until the last week or two?

 

[AlbertConstable]

8 weeks left: Kaplan questions + classwork
5 weeks left: Kaplan questions + review books
4 weeks left: UWorld + review books
1 week left: Done with questions, now Highest yield review

At the beginning focus more on the review books and towards the end you want to focus more on questions. At the very end, you'll be done with questions and then just review the highest yield stuff.

Obviously there are a hundred ways to do it so you have to do what's best for you but I think this is a decent plan if you're looking for something to work from.

 

[lumbering]

I completed UW and did 1500 Kaplan questions. I think that UW is a far superior question bank, and I recommend that you not use Kaplan. Start with UW and Do 2-3 NBME exams at some point. I doubt you will find yourself needing more questions.

 

[lumbering]

BTW, I respectfully disagree with AlbertConstable. I think it is important to do questions in the week before the test. In fact, I recommend NBME exams or several back to back 50 question blocks during this time period. Time management and mental stamina are more easily improved than knowledge in the last week. Although, you should still be reviewing a high yield source during this time.