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Talha Munir: Journey of an IMG to reach 250+




First of all I want to thank Allah Almighty for achieving my goal. I have been an average student in my medical years and never in a million years i thought i would even take steps let alone score 252.
And typing a review was just as much unlikely for me to do ( my friends will attest to that)but just to give back to the online community which helped me so much i am writing this. Hopefully it will help someone score more and achieve their desired schedules.
Sources Used (From most important to least one)
1) Uworld (For Step 1 & Biostats review) , FA 2017 ,KAPLAN NOTES 2016
2) Kaplan Videos
3) Pathoma videos and Book
4)Board and beyond videos for Biostats and epidemiology
5) 100 Cases by Conrad Fischer
6) FA express videos (All)
Lets dive into how I prepared for my exams . It took me 11 months after completing my house job to prepare for them. Before I started I didn’t have enough concepts about subjects that meant i had to start from scratch. For that i started kaplan and kaplan videos. Kaplan was the one thing that worked for me . I usually did find myself going back to the basics when i didn’t understand any topic. In 3 months i did finish my first read of kaplan with pathoma videos and then i started First aid. Giving it a quick read in a month i was ready to buy uworld. I finished uworld first time in 3 months with 79% average.
Then i gave nbme 13 to assess how is my preparation i scored 242 (2 months before exam)
This gave me confidence in what am i studying and how am I studying it .
Other scores :
NBME 16 : 252 (~ 2 Months)
NBME 19 : 236 (~ 2 Months)
NBME 15 : 244 (~1.5 Months)
NBME 17 : 252 (~1.5 Months)
UWSA1 : 273 (~1 Month)
NBME 18 : 252 ( 10 Days)
UWSA 2 : 264 ( 3 Days)
UW 1st Round : 79.6 %
UW 2nd Round : 96.7 %
Fast forward to may, i was ready to give my exams but ramzan was just starting
So I scheduled my exam for 20th june
In the last 2 months I made it my routine to do blocks of uworld and nbme online .
In retrospect i should have opted for some other Q bank because I remembered most of my mcqs from UW
So 2nd read of uworld was not helpful in my opinion.
Nbme was something that was very predictable for me especially nbme 18
I did go for free 120 at prometric centre and scored 88%
The point of free 120 at prometric centre was to get familiarise myself to the environment of test which was a good decision .I was very nervous on the day i had to give free 120 than i was at the day of actual exam. At exam day i was calm and not worried at all which in my opinion helped me a great deal .
A day before exam my main goal was to get sleep. Because in all the reviews everyone stressed on how important is a relaxed brain is.I did manage to get 7 hours of sleep in .
Woke up fresh and ready .
Reached prometric and was very ready mentally.
Time was enough.Did each block in 45-50 minutes.Took 10-20 min breaks after every block and there was no need to manage my time attentively .
When i left exam hall a big block was lifted and i felt relieved.
Time to wait for result was filled with anxiety thoughts of what if did crossed my mind on daily basis but i tried my best to keep myself calm .
Some advices I want to give from my experience :
1) Find Your own way to study , dont follow anyone blindly.DESIGN YOUR OWN PATH.
2)You have to be fair with yourself and know how strong are your basic knowledge. For me Kaplan was much more essential than even FA, because it helps setting the stage, it gives you the understanding of the materials. Everybody is saying here that Step 1 is not knowing but understanding and I can’t emphasize it enough how much it is the truth! FA is NOT for Studying it is for reviewing the basic stuff . Use it carefully , if you are aiming for high scores then dont think that FA is all you need (Maybe FA is enough for some people who already knew basic stuff but it wasnt for me)
3) Many have said that going through UWORLD twice is recommended but personally I think that as long as you do it properly and without rushing for the first time, a 2nd bank might be a better investment (I did uword twice but now I regret it . Extra qbank might be a better option)
4)Don’t give up on your dreams no matter what everyone says. Your dreams and hard work defines you and keep praying. Allah will never waste your hard work.
BEST OF LUCK !!!!

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