I am Ahsan Ali, a graduate of King Edward Medical University, Pakistan (2016). I recently received my score and it came out to be 264 (one of the happiest moment of my life). The Purpose of writing this experience is to encourage people who rely solely on FA and Uworld for their Step 1 prep and to share my study schedule which lead to this score.
So let’s begin ☺
My Self assessments Stats:
• UWORLD First round – 80 percent
• UWORLD 2nd Round – 99 percent
• NBME 11 - 151/194 – offline ( took it after just one read of First aid , I just wanted to be familiar with exam pattern before I could properly embark on my journey)
• NBME 13 – 183/192 – offline ( after two reads of FA and one round Uworld )
• NBME 15 – 191/200 – offline ( after revising FA again )
• NBME 17 – 191/200 – offline ( after revising Uworld mistakes and Marked ones )
• UWSA 1 – 273 Online with 16 mistakes ( during Uworld 2nd round )
• NBME 16 – 261 Online with 11 mistakes ( during Uworld 2nd round )
• UWSA 2 – 273 Online with 9 mistakes ( after Uworld 2nd round )
• NBME 18 – 271 Online with 6 mistakes ( 1 week before exam )
Resources Used:
• First Aid (6 to 7 times)
• UWORLD (twice)
• Conard 100 cases (twice)
• Uworld Biostats Review (twice)
Extra resources:
• Pathoma ( gave it a single read at start of my prep – didn’t find it useful , so I decided to not read it again—you can read it once and decide whether you want to do it again or not)
• Snell review anatomy ( I did it for my FCPs exam for which it’s a must , but I didn’t find it useful for step 1)
• Kaplan Biostats – once at start of my prep ( considered it to be useful when I did it for the first time but after doing uworld and biostats uworld review, I didn’t find any need to do that again )
• DIT videos for Micro ( my Micro was weak so I wanted to go for another resource – watched them once )
Prep Time:
• 6 months 20 days with a gap of around 20 days in mid
• 7 days a week (no holiday) – the day remaining after taking NBMEs used to be my break time.
• 10 to 12 hours a day from my first day till the day I took my exam
Basic Mind theme:
Most of the people who have taken step 1 recommend doing Kaplan series at the start of prep but I didn’t have time for it , for me to sit in 2018 match I had to take step 1 by December 2017. So I decided to use
minimum resources and to master them to the max I could. I decided to use FA and UWORLD as my only resources. I was little afraid at that time because of the popular belief that Kaplan is necessary for scoring high (it isn’t – My score is a proof). My plan was to understand FA and Uworld and to memorize the key points and to revise them again and again until my exam and that’s what I did.
Graduation to Step 1 gap:
I graduated in 2016 and started my House job with no plan in mind to take steps, my House job ended on 31st April 2017, and by then I still didn’t have any plan for steps. Within the First week of May i was planning to take FCPS (Pakistan residency exam) so I started to Read Snell review anatomy, I Finished it by 15th May, next thing was to read First aid, again for FCPS exam, that is when my mind started changing, I started thinking if I have to read first aid why not I should take step 1 too, that was the turning point for me and I decided to sit for both exams FCPS in September and Step 1 in December.
Few pieces of Advice:
Try to build your confidence level from your first day! If I can do it you can do it too. We see all those high scores on different groups, after seeing them don’t be jealous or start thinking that they must be super geniuses etc , it’s not , you can be at that place too , just be Dedicated about your studies and have some confidence in your own abilities, take every assessment with the aim to mark all the questions right, keep your morale high , stay away from the ones who think you can’t
do it , stay away from all the negative thoughts, use every resource with the aim to climb up.
Plus Plan your study period very well, I planned every single day of my prep time from the day I took my exam date till the day I took it , I scheduled my assessments ahead of time.
Gather info from where ever you can, using lesser resources doesn’t mean you should stop discussing things and visiting FB groups etc. You should try to gather as much info as you can from multiple sources because our minds retain things better if you engage it in different ways – I used to actively follow every post in USMLE STEP 1 Prep forum except the ones which had NBME questions which I haven’t done before. And the outcome was, I did actually get few concepts in exam which I saw on group just few days before exam. Keep discussing easily forgettable things with your friends and SPs.
Study Period:
• As I said earlier I started my Prep for Step 1 on 15th May with First Aid. I started with Organ systems sequence wise (i.e. CVS) and on reading the first few pages I was pretty sure that this book is amazing, I liked the way it’s written, I basically loved it. Kept on reading it and trying to get its every concept, I did one organ system per day on my first read ( took 2 to 3 days for CVS and CNS ) and then did general part taking some more time as I found biochemistry and Micro to be somewhat tough as compared to rest of FA. I finished my First read on 13th June , took a day off and
on 15th I took NBME 11 ( as I told earlier , I just wanted to know what was lying ahead of me , I wanted to develop my thinking from the very start to fit well with the exam pattern) and scored 151/194. Then I was at a point where I was a bit confused as what to do next so I picked up Pathoma after going through different reviews , I read it in 4 days ( Honestly speaking I didn’t think that it contain any additional info except some histo images and few topics in Reproductive pathology – which are already added in FA 2018 – so you don’t have to worry about them – I decided at that time that I am not gona revise this book again – didn’t annotate anything from it as I said I couldn’t find anything new in it ). Then I picked up Kaplan Biostats, again due to what people had suggested (considered it to be useful when I did it for the first time but after doing uworld and biostats uworld review, I didn’t find any need to do that again). Then I bought Uworld Online subscription on 27th June and started doing it System wise Timed (from 1st July). Started from CVS , 60 Questions per day , I used to manage my daily schedule like ( I used to wake up at 9:00 am , after breakfast etc I used to solve one block from 10:00am to 11:00am and then used to read explanations and annotate on first aid the points I found new. (Your annotation must be very specific , You must not annotate everything written in Uworld, Try to understand the concept and then write in shortest way possible as it would save you from Frustration while revising – annotating too much does slow your revising speed and you may end up wasting days if you annotate too much )
I used to read explanations like 10 per fifty minutes and then a lil break of 5 to 10 minutes.
11:00 to 2:00 – 30 explanations
2:00 to 3:00 – break for Lunch
3:00 to 4:00 – another 10 explanations
4:00 to 5:00 – Nap
5:00 to 7:30 – 20 questions and their explanations
8:00 to 10:00 – 15 to 20 pages of FA. I followed this routine for almost whole of my prep period.
( I made a strategy like Uworld CVS had 253 questions and that is 4 days to finish CVS from Uworld , I divided FA CVS chapter into 4 parts too so that I could finish both of them together) – followed this policy till my first round of uworld ended (due to the same reason both things stayed fresh in my mind). Sorry I took a lot of your time explaining my daily schedule but people do find it difficult to manage as I read about many chaps asking for “how to manage 60 questions per day etc “
I finished my First round on 18th of August (took around 48 days ) and revised FA ethics and biostats chapter and did Conard 100 cases and Uworld biostats review and took NBME 13 on 25th and scored 183/192. By that time I was confident; I knew it that I can do it,
But then I had to take a break for my FCPs study, break lasted till 15th September)
I resumed my study by revising First aid in 12 days and took NBME 15 on 27th and got 191/200. My confidence kept on building up after every NBME but I wanted to reduce my mistakes further. I
started doing my uworld mistakes and marked questions (total 540 mistakes and 600 marked ones), I did them 100 per day until 10th October and took NBME 17 offline and score 191/200 again, I was happy, I was satisfied, every day my hopes were getting higher, when I started prep I just wanted to get some score above 250 but at this point I wanted to break records, not at a single point I let myself down. From 12th October I started to do Uworld again this time 80 questions per block (RANDOM TIMED MODE) as I didn’t have to annotate anything this time, followed this schedule for a week and took UWSA 1 and scored 273 with 16 mistakes, from the next day I kept on doing uworld and took NBME 16 a week later and scored 261, I knew it that I was going in right direction, my assessments scores established my faith in FA and Uworld. During my Uworld 2nd round my aim was to mark not a single question wrong from total 2489 questions, Believe me it was that aim which kept me at this low level of mistakes , I ended uworld with 99 percent correct ( 22 out of 2489 ) on 18th November. Revised biostats Uworld review and Conard 100 cases and took UWSA 2 on 19th and scored 273 ( 9 wrongs ) , read its explanation during the following 2 days.
I planned my last 14 days and started FA revision on 23rd of November , I did nothing except FA , I used to listen Heart sounds from easyauscultations.com daily at night until my exam day . Took NBME 18 on 29th November and scored 271 (6 mistakes) – I took this NBME very seriously in nearly identical environment as compared to actual exam. Revised remaining FA until 3rd of December. On 3rd and 4th I revised Uworld pics and tables (3500 of
them) did them at around 300 per hour as I didn’t have much time and listened to heart sounds on 4th night and slept, travelled for 8 hours the next morning, I was making myself tired so that I can have a sound sleep but I couldn’t, I went to bed at 10 and was not able to sleep till 12, I took zolpidem 10mg and slept for 6.30 hours ☺
EXAM DAY:
I woke up at 6.30 am, got fresh and offered prayers and had breakfast. I was pretty relaxed and confident that I had prepared the max I could and had proper sleep too. I told myself that I have to perform well today, I have to nail it.
I reached exam center at 8:00 am and after security checks etc and lil guidance session I was in there sitting in front of my designated computer.
After I started my exam, I was shocked on seeing first 7 questions, at the moment I thought I was not gona make it, all my confidence shattered for a moment but I gathered my courage and decided to review those questions in the end (you too don’t worry on facing such a situation, those questions were tough but not that much, it was just like my mind was starting up mby) I reviewed those questions in the end and ended up marking all of them “Right”
I took a break of 5 minutes after every block (I used to literally rush from there with excitement thinking that my misery was gona end that day, take few bites of chocolate, few sips of red bull and pulpy orange, rush to washroom (micturate even if you don’t have your bladder full as u wouldn’t like to solve blocks if you start getting that reflex).
Took a break of 20 minutes after 5th block, offered prayer and sat for a while and then again rushed to solve the remaining blocks.
I came out of the Exam center with the feelings that I have nailed it , I felt the same as I felt after taking NBME 18, after 2 days my excitement began to fade away as I started to remember few questions which I thought I had missed. I counted 12 of them. I tried to keep myself busy in different things but still I wasn’t able to dodge that insecure feeling, its normal for you to have those feelings, just Trust your NBME scores.
Conclusion of my whole experience is: choose your Resources wisely, if you think your basics are too weak then you may go for Kaplan, if you think you understand first aid well then you can skip Kaplan, in the end it all depends on you, my experience is just an example. Follow your NBME scores, if you are doing well with First aid and Uworld only you may plan your period like mine but if your scores are not getting up to the mark then do consider another resource.
Goodness is something which finds its way back to you, so always try to help people if you have the capacity to do so, believe me it will find its way back to you.
In the End I would like to express my gratitude to my Family, Friends and everyone who helped me reach this point especially Dr.Muhammad Ajmal M.D Internal medicine (University of Chicago, Illinois) who had been my constant support and Motivation throughout my study period.
Thank you everyone for reading my experience and Good Luck, May you all end up getting your desired scores Ameen. ☺
Comments
Post a Comment