Skip to main content

USMLE step 1 Experience



Finally after 1year and 4 months of study preparation I’m sharing my study experience in this group. I was an average student during University and that cost me this long time of preparation, due to my weak basic science bases.
If you are studying for this exam for more than 1 year and feeling exhausted, depressed and stressed for it I can totally understand you but please try to put those feelings aside you and keep pushing yourself toward the end.
STUDY SOURCES:
- Kaplan books (x3 - 1 time only kaplan books along with videos and the other 2 times along with first aid and videos) and videos (x3). Even when some people say this is not important I think they are important for building concepts if you were average student and if you read them more than one time you will realize that many of the things that Kaplan books said is on the explanation of uworld answers.
- Firs Aid (x2 along with kaplan books)
- Question banks: Kaplan (I highly recommend start with kaplan bank before Uworld as the questions are asked in a more difficult way than uworld and this make you think that uworld is way easier than kaplan bank), Uworld (x1 and after that I review the wrong ones but I did not have time to review all of the incorrect ones), USMLE Rx ( I was doing only the difficult ones but I got bored as the questions are made in a very easy way)
- Pathoma book and videos (x3)
- Other sources: High Yield Gross Anatomy (only for pictures and the whole pelvis chapter), Medquest Biostatistics review (videos and some questions from the bank), Uworld biostatistics review, 100 cases from Conrad Fischer.
- Kaplan live lectures and 8 months of my prep was in center but the rest was in my country home.
ASSESSMENTS:
NBME 16 (online): 173 (7 months before my exam)
NBME 17 (online): 175 (5 months before my exam)
NBME 19 (online): 211 ( 1 month and 2 weeks before my exam)
NBME 18 (online): 213 ( 6 days before my exam)
UWAS 1 (online): 232 ( 5 days before my exam and the most predictive for me as the score was the same to the real deal)
UWAS 2 (online): 234 (4 days before my exam)
For the exam I had to travel to a neighbor country as in my country there is no prometric center, so I traveled 2 days before the exam and I was not able to study during that day. The day before the exam I had migraine and I only was able to do 1 the tutorial and one block of the free 120 questions (for me exam style questions was more similar to them than uworld and NBMEs).
Exam day (July 18th, 2018): I was the first person to reach the prometric center and this helped me as I was sited in a corner near the wall with none one going behind me to walk to the exit). I weared pants without pockets and sandals to make shorter the revision each time I went in and out from the testing room and I managed my time 2 blocks - 1 break - 2 blocks - 1 break - 1 block - 1 break - 1 block - 1 break - 1 block. When I did the tutorial I only use 4 minutes of it to test the earphones and the rest of the time was added to my break time.
Exam itself was hard and the questions were very lengthy ( 1 week before the exam I practiced doing 4 block per day and I was able to finich each block 5 minutes before but in the real exam I was rushing because of the time). Exam questions were not similar to uworld nor NBMEs but more similar to the free 120. I think the only way to get them is having clear concepts rather than memorizing uworld and NBME questions.
My score (232) is not one of those fancies 250 or 260 but I still happy with it as it match with the med specialty that I want and I plan to work harder for next exams.
Hope my experience can help to the members of this group and I want to share it with you as I got help when asking questions in this group. Study and keep working hard because it is the only way to success!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Step 2 CK Experience (280)--vvimp

• Background: Hello everyone. This is Hasan Alarouri, a Jordanian graduate of Jordan University of Science and Technology (2017). I started my dedicated preparation for Step 2 CK during my internship, and the total duration was around 15 months. Owing to how helpful this group had been during my preparation, and the rarity of experiences similar to mine (Step 2 CK prior to Step 1), I thought I’ll have to share my experience with you. • USMLE Scores: Step 1: not done yet Step 2 CK: 280 Step 2 CS: Passed • Self assessment scores: Free120: 96% (5 mistakes); 5 months prior to exam NBME 4: 6 mistakes (offline); 4 months prior to exam NBME 7: 13 mistakes (offline); 3 months prior to exam NBME 6: 5 mistakes (offline); 2.5 months prior to exam NBME 8: 279 (online; 8 mistakes); 2 months prior to exam UWSA1: 286 (10 mistakes); 1 month prior to exam UWSA2: 274 (15 mistakes); 2 weeks prior to exam • Preparation duration and hours studied each day: The total duration was 15. This was supposed ...
2 comments
Read more

My Voyage For Residency From PATIALA To PHILADELPHIA

MOTIVATION AND INTRODUCTION : The Unfortunate event of Medulloblastoma in my younger sister leading to permanent blindness despite successful surgery and chemo-radiation sparked in me a desire to become physician. Coming from a small city Dera Ghazi Khan, I entered in KEMU (former KEMC) in November 2004 and graduated in March 2010. Road to USA had never been easy. I was motivated by my parents and elder brother Adnan Khalique to reach the highest as I am the first one ever in my family who was going to become a physician and dreamed of training abroad as physician. But for me burning the boats was not an option so it had to be in this way in the form of many twists and turns till first step of success(Residency). I was looking for shortcut to settle early and was inclined toward going to Australia and that’s the reason I didn’t do any electives. After graduation I contacted my seniors in USA and Australia. I did Istikhaara for the first time in my life with a belief that Allah will...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Step 2 CK experience- 260

I’m writing this because I read about 30 or more experiences and it helped me make strategy. And I want to add mine to pass on this act of kindness. CK Score – 260, exam in mid march. Prep time – 4.5 months with 2 weeks gap so 4m effectively. I’m a recent grad. Step 1 score – 262, gave in mid sept last year. Resources - uw for ck (gold standard), did online 2.5 times. Cms all forms except family med. Nbme 4,6,7,8. Uptodate for reference. Uw step 3 for psych only. Kaplan patient safety notes. FA for step 1. Process – got step 1 score in mid October, celebrated for few days. Started ck prep in late October. Tried mtb 2 for cvs for a week, didn’t like it so started straightaway with online uw. My step 1 prep helped a lot in CK prep. Never did mtb again. Did uw first round till mid January. I also annotated new points to all uworld notes (whoever did the hard work of compiling it I send my best wishes and blessings to you, thanks a million). Revised the notes after 1st round....
Post a Comment
Read more