Skip to main content

Step 1: 257

Step 1: 257
NBME 13: 184 (6 months before) without UW
NBME 15 (offline) 236 (1 month before)
UW first and only pass: 72%
USMLE Rx: 68%
BoardVitals qbank: 83%
UWSA1: 251 (3 weeks out)
UWSA2: 241 (10 days out)
Free 120: 81%
Materials:
Kaplan LN 2016, videos 2014
DIT 2015
FA express videos (waste)
Boards and beyond (bought subscription) (best resource I could hear Dr Ryan's voice answering questions)
Qbanks
Kaplan online (got a free subscription due to hurricane Maria): physio; anatomy; behavioral;
UW: one round started subject wise but added every subject as I went through FA and finished random
RX/BoardVitals: subject wise time on to improve stamina; BV very useful for cardio ; ethics and anatomy, RX useful for micro and pharma
Other resources
Anki: found out about this 4 months before but just used last 2 weeks (mistake): lolconatops micro; shelf notes for anatomy and Lightyear (BNB) for everything else,
100 cases Conrad Fisher
GOLJAN audios and book (last two months)
Pathoma (I liked it but I found BnB better)
BRS physio
If you are looking for a post about taking the exam after 6 months and just know FA and UW; please scroll down; my journey started on January 2017; studied up to march 2017 and had to stop due to many health issues; got pregnant and had an horrible pregnancy but somehow I managed to keep doing some questions from pastest qbank; started studying again on October 2017 and studied until delivering my baby on Dec 8th; then I had a pelvic fracture and was bedridden four months; I thought on give up but after considering I can't imagine doing anything else and as I am already living here in US due to marriage I had to take the chance and do this. (yes I am another old graduated; mom and housewife); at that time took NBME 13 after 4 months without studying and failed (184); I felt so sad but a friend of mine old graduated like me matched on IM last year with 213 on step 1; I decided to keep pushing; at that time a friend recommended BNB, and I started quizzing FA with SP; I started UW and didn't take any assessment until I decide I was ready; did some old Nbme but got 65 wrong on Nbme 3 (2 months before) i was crushed; I thought I knew stuff; I was expecting 20 wrong or somebut my advisor told me not to do old nbmes because the questions are weird; I focused on BNB fa UW and other qbanks on test day I took propanolol 20 mg; I was calmed; got out 1.5 hours before time; I was feeling confident; I can say the 2 most important resources were BNB (the questions are good; that was the best invested money), and Anki; I didn't do other Nbme because my advisor told me why are u losing 4 hours taking an assessment if you have to reinforce things; I focused on forgettable list from FA; and watched 3 first chapter of pathoma.
I can say I didn't do anything special; I knew I was able to get 230 by myself but God wanted to give me 257; I praise him and give him all the glory!
And yes: we; the old graduated moms; stay at home or working wives can do it!
Things i would do different: not doing Kaplan; repeating BNB and start Anki from the beginning

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

MRCS PART A – EXPERIENCE

DURATION OF STUDY – 3.5-4 months (with work )  Pattern of study  Paper 1 ( Basic sciences )  Anatomy – Emrcs with NASA khan notes ( best part about these notes are he copied all the colourful pics from Snell’s anatomy along with emrcs theory ) . Make small pics for imagination of anatomical relationship .... A big chunk of questions are from anatomy , this needs to be done in a crystal clearway .. Physiology – raftry with emrcs  Pathology – raftry few topics and emrcs Pharma and micro – emrcs  I read raftry for physio complete twice , patho and micro once only  Biostatistics – emrcs  For basic sciences reading emrcs with its theory is more than enough with few references from text books to make the concepts clear  Fawzia sheets for paper one is very very very important , somehow in every session of this examination RCS is putting almost 50-60% paper from these sheets ... Don’t leave them .... Read them at least three times .... Pape...
4 comments
Read more

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