USMLE Step 1 Experience Isma Nusrat Javed (Score 254)

MY STEP 1 EXPERIENCE 254

“I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them." ― Pablo Picasso

GRADUATION YEAR (2013), Done with STEP 2 CS & STEP 1

Exam : July 23,2014
Score report : Aug 13,2014
Preparation time : 8 months

Resources Used:

1) Kaplan Lecture notes (for all subjects except pathology)
2) Pathoma for pathology (Excellent study tool; enjoy it with it’s lectures)
3) Kaplan video lectures (for all subjects except pathology)
4) First Aid( annotate all important points on it,I found it really boring but it’s elixir for STEP 1)
5) 100 cases by Conrad Fischer

Additional books (optional)

1) BRS physiology
2) High yield Neuroanatomy
3) High yield Biostats
4) High yield Cell and molecular biology (few topics)
5) Goljan audio lectures

Q banks:

1)U world (most important study aid,do it thoroughly,ONLINE mode is recommended)
2)Kaplan Q bank (Solved it offline)
3) Usmle Rx (incase one has time, helps with retaining First Aid points)

ASSESSMENTS:

NBME 2,3,4,5,6,7,11,12,15 (solved offline on a periodic basis to gauge my learning)
ONLINE exams
NBME 13 250 (2 weeks out)
NBME 16 250 (1 week out)
UWSA 1 263 (3 weeks out)
UWSA 2 265 (2 weeks out)REAL DEAL 254

IMPORTANT

1) Number of reads does not count. Do 1/2 good reads thoroughly and make concepts.
2) Annotate every important point on First Aid. It is time consuming but is fruitful ( I tried to stay
away from First Aid as much as I could but ended up doing it anyway)
3) FA & Uworld ( most important but not a substitute for knowledge base,do Kaplan lecture notes )
4) Solve as many questions as possible ( I loved solving questions from whatever source I could get
my hands on)
5) Exam day is the most important. Stay calm & manage time(I got a bit stressed in 1 or 2 blocks
and got very simple questions wrong in agony)
6) There will be ups and downs during the preparation. Try to relax and enjoy the journey.
All the best!

Isma Nusrat Javed

Comments

Step 1: 250

Alhamdulillah!! Got my result today 😊 I wasn’t very active in groups but I would always read everyone’s experiences as they motivated me and pushed me further. I hope my experience helps someone too. I would also go through the questions posted by the wonderful people in this group to clear concepts. I didn’t give myself any score target, I wanted to give my best in the preparation and just give the exam in the month I had planned When I started my preparation, my concepts of the basic science subjects were very weak and Step 1 felt like an insurmountable, daunting task! But let me assure you that it’s doable. There are thousands of people who do it every year, you can do it too! Preparation: Total duration 9 months Dedicated period 4 months Study sources: UFAP (It’s GOLD!) Started with Pathoma videos and book. Watched Kaplan videos for Biochemistry, Immunology, Neuroanatomy. While going through these sources I would read the corresponding parts from FA to familiar...

MY Step 2 CK Experience 284 Medhat Farwati

Dear (future) Doctors, I am Medhat Farwati, a Syrian graduate from Aleppo University, Faculty of Medicine. Hereby I share with you my experience with Step 2 CK. 1. Score: 284 2. Self-assessments: UWSA 1: 273 (2 months out) UWSA 2: 276 ( 1 week out) NBME 7: 277 (1 week out) NBME 8: 280 (3 days out) 3. Preparation time: After I was done with Step 1, I moved to the US as a postdoctoral research fellow. As such, I realized it is going to be challenging to navigate my research du ties, US rotations, Step 2 CS exam, and Step 2 CK preparation. Collectively, the actual preparation time for CK was 12 months with an average studying time ranging from 4 hours a day for the first 10 months to 8 hours a day for the last 2 months prior to my exam. 4. Materials used: UW Step 2 CK (x3) UW Step 3 (x2) Kaplan Q bank (x1) Internal Medicine Essentials Q bank De Virgilio (surgery textbook) Up to date and Medscape Google, YouTube, and Siri 😊 UW Step 2: Your baseline. Most people preparing for CK rega...

Step 1: 253

How I moved from getting 230s on my NBMEs to scoring 250+ on the real deal in 1.5 month LONG POST I have read a lot of experiences during my preparation of this exam, it’s only fair to give back to the people going through this grueling journey, take whatever helps you and leave the rest, remember everyone is different and what might worked for me may not work for you I will talk pre-dedication period briefly and just mention the resources I used and and assessments, I will mainly focus on my mistakes and what I did to change my results during the dedication period >Pre-dedication period study material (March - August with alot of on/off periods) -Sketchy Micro x1 -BnB x1 (highly recommend it —> Dr Jason Ryan hands down is one of the best) -FA x2 (first time with BnB and Pathoma videos, second read with first round of UW) -UW x2 (first round - Offline, second round - Online) -Pathoma x1 -Sketchy Pharm - some videos not all -Other resources: Kaplan videos (...

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