11-13-2007, 01:21 AM
Hi friends!
Sorry I left a lot of "blanks" but I had to drive 3h the night before to the center and drive back after the 9 hour monster! First of all I want to thank all the good wishes and the excellent companionship that I have received from a lot of members in this forum. Elbamaritza, Mira, pyschotic, Roh, Ar, Actinrna, Doyoudig, DrJiggy, Doc_heart, lynna, Ximfoom, zephyr, dendrite, and many many others whose discussions and knowledge really help you learn and practice. Thanks for all the posted questions, they do help a lot. Thanks to all of you!!!
Will try, as I said, to keep connected. For those of you who asked yes, I am done with Step1 and CS, this is what was left for me.
Here is my strategy for those of you who were asking:
I studied 2 1/2 to 3 months full time, about 8-12 hours per day, at home, not too far away from my Step1 b/c I wanted to keep my Step1 knowledge fresh mostly pharmacology. Don't have children but am married. Took time off from work to do this full time b/c I wanted to make sure to pass this test on my first attempt...
My books were: FA, Kaplan 2006 (I uploaded and posted them in the resource thread), made written notes and then started (didn't finish) re-doing the notes on the computer. Used for reference lippincott pharmacology, intern guides from a friend (personal from his training program I mean)
UW for 2 months, and did at least 150 questions per day. I created all the exams with all the questions available (about 50 exams total) in mixed/tutor half of them and mixed/timed the other half to make sure that I was not going to miss the "newer" questions aas they would appear as "unused". This strategy lets you finish UW in approx 20 day. Every two days I would create exams on the wrong questions in timed mode always and would take one day of wrong questions (tried to do "older" exams so I wouldn't remember right away the wrong questions that I just had done, the idea was to see whether I was able to learn from my mistakes) Anything that I "failed" twice was re-written in my notes and marked those were my "weaknesses". Closer to my exam I was still doing questions in timed mode as I said about 300 per day. My cumulative score was 65% started in the mid 50's ended in the 70's. My weaker areas are psychiatry, opthalmology and oncology my strongest are neurology, behavioral and pediatrics.
Made notes of it in the computer while doing the tutor modes (you have to type them but it's possible, sorry I have a mac so I don't know how this can be done in a PC) you will have to type the notes some what "blinded" because the exam screen will block your vision but it can be done. Thank God and thanks to my teacher for my typing classes in high school! Reviewed them every day. Ended with 60 pages of as pyschotic said "facts" only facts not the entire explanation. Example "Tourette is associated with OCD" of "Bulimic patients do bad when admitted". So just do that don't try to write books just facts things you need to know. And emphasize on whatever they say is high yield mark it so you can distiguish them in your notes also.
3 weeks ago (some of you know my exam was supposed to be on the 6th) did the NBME3 score 480, was kind of dissapointed but alsto that day I had been sick and was really tired, so took if for what it was and learned one thing: "you can't go to the exam being tired because you don't perform to your best". So, knowing that once I get stressed I can't sleep more than 5 hours but I would feel exhausted I decided to "adjust" myself by going to bed at 12 and waking up at 6am, so on the day of the exam slept until 7 aand I felt great I'd slept an extra hour!
Look the other forms off-line more to learn than to assess myself. Made sure to go through the 2007/2008 CDs from USMLE in detail. I discussed them with pyscotic and mira (the 2007 as I mentioned before) and did the 2008 on my own. Score on those were 40/38/34 and 34/38/32 a week before the exam. Did the pdf and didn't do ANY audio stuff as most members had said that you can sometimes answer the questions without listening to the audios (which was the case for my second one). No problems with freezing as other people but both audios were at the end of the block and as I said I had no problem with timing. Advice, everytime the block opens check the last question, if you have audio do it and them go back. Most freezing problems are because you have two windows opened (the 2 min warning and the audio) and you don't see the time one that you are supposed to click....That is what USMLE says on the site.
Although I downloaded most of the videos I ended-up not having time to watch more than a couple of neuro and a couple of cardio. Goljan audio, I did most of it, I would say 1-19 audios. I used it more to reinforce knowledge and get "last minute high yields" rather than directly learn from Goljan (altough you ALWAYS learn from Goljan). Even while I was driving the night before my test, I had Dr. Goljan with me listening to him (on my ipod connected to the car). I hold a lot of respect for Goljan!
Visited the forum on daily basis at hours at which I knew that Mira, Elba, Roh, DrJiggy, Xinfoom, doyoudig, Dr_heart, zephyr, dendrite, lynna, and newer members were here to discuss actively and to learn a lot from them. In that respect I did study with a team and each of you my dear friends are my team. I do hold a lot of respect for them; Elba never giving up with bringing new and very good questions, mira and lynna also. Discuss them guys, and do remember even if they ask on a question "what is the next best management" do practice to say this is "X" so, the next best management is.... This reinforces your ability to make diagnosis. Same the other way around when you see the "the most likely diagnosis" also think treatment is this, diagnosis is this, next step/gold standard is this...I learned from our dear Jovana (where are you?...) that more than just giving an answer you have to use your brain to think what can/can't be, if you don't know the answer right away you can always think and chose the best educated guess.
Throughout a weekend I discussed with Roh and other members (back at the end of sept) the questions that Dr Jiggy posted. More than anything those are good to see what is high yield and how things can be asked. That is it; so don't try to look for the "right" answers rather REINFORCE the knowledge because all that tells you is that "they like to ask about that"
Good luck and will keep you posted
Best
BDJ
Sorry I left a lot of "blanks" but I had to drive 3h the night before to the center and drive back after the 9 hour monster! First of all I want to thank all the good wishes and the excellent companionship that I have received from a lot of members in this forum. Elbamaritza, Mira, pyschotic, Roh, Ar, Actinrna, Doyoudig, DrJiggy, Doc_heart, lynna, Ximfoom, zephyr, dendrite, and many many others whose discussions and knowledge really help you learn and practice. Thanks for all the posted questions, they do help a lot. Thanks to all of you!!!
Will try, as I said, to keep connected. For those of you who asked yes, I am done with Step1 and CS, this is what was left for me.
Here is my strategy for those of you who were asking:
I studied 2 1/2 to 3 months full time, about 8-12 hours per day, at home, not too far away from my Step1 b/c I wanted to keep my Step1 knowledge fresh mostly pharmacology. Don't have children but am married. Took time off from work to do this full time b/c I wanted to make sure to pass this test on my first attempt...
My books were: FA, Kaplan 2006 (I uploaded and posted them in the resource thread), made written notes and then started (didn't finish) re-doing the notes on the computer. Used for reference lippincott pharmacology, intern guides from a friend (personal from his training program I mean)
UW for 2 months, and did at least 150 questions per day. I created all the exams with all the questions available (about 50 exams total) in mixed/tutor half of them and mixed/timed the other half to make sure that I was not going to miss the "newer" questions aas they would appear as "unused". This strategy lets you finish UW in approx 20 day. Every two days I would create exams on the wrong questions in timed mode always and would take one day of wrong questions (tried to do "older" exams so I wouldn't remember right away the wrong questions that I just had done, the idea was to see whether I was able to learn from my mistakes) Anything that I "failed" twice was re-written in my notes and marked those were my "weaknesses". Closer to my exam I was still doing questions in timed mode as I said about 300 per day. My cumulative score was 65% started in the mid 50's ended in the 70's. My weaker areas are psychiatry, opthalmology and oncology my strongest are neurology, behavioral and pediatrics.
Made notes of it in the computer while doing the tutor modes (you have to type them but it's possible, sorry I have a mac so I don't know how this can be done in a PC) you will have to type the notes some what "blinded" because the exam screen will block your vision but it can be done. Thank God and thanks to my teacher for my typing classes in high school! Reviewed them every day. Ended with 60 pages of as pyschotic said "facts" only facts not the entire explanation. Example "Tourette is associated with OCD" of "Bulimic patients do bad when admitted". So just do that don't try to write books just facts things you need to know. And emphasize on whatever they say is high yield mark it so you can distiguish them in your notes also.
3 weeks ago (some of you know my exam was supposed to be on the 6th) did the NBME3 score 480, was kind of dissapointed but alsto that day I had been sick and was really tired, so took if for what it was and learned one thing: "you can't go to the exam being tired because you don't perform to your best". So, knowing that once I get stressed I can't sleep more than 5 hours but I would feel exhausted I decided to "adjust" myself by going to bed at 12 and waking up at 6am, so on the day of the exam slept until 7 aand I felt great I'd slept an extra hour!
Look the other forms off-line more to learn than to assess myself. Made sure to go through the 2007/2008 CDs from USMLE in detail. I discussed them with pyscotic and mira (the 2007 as I mentioned before) and did the 2008 on my own. Score on those were 40/38/34 and 34/38/32 a week before the exam. Did the pdf and didn't do ANY audio stuff as most members had said that you can sometimes answer the questions without listening to the audios (which was the case for my second one). No problems with freezing as other people but both audios were at the end of the block and as I said I had no problem with timing. Advice, everytime the block opens check the last question, if you have audio do it and them go back. Most freezing problems are because you have two windows opened (the 2 min warning and the audio) and you don't see the time one that you are supposed to click....That is what USMLE says on the site.
Although I downloaded most of the videos I ended-up not having time to watch more than a couple of neuro and a couple of cardio. Goljan audio, I did most of it, I would say 1-19 audios. I used it more to reinforce knowledge and get "last minute high yields" rather than directly learn from Goljan (altough you ALWAYS learn from Goljan). Even while I was driving the night before my test, I had Dr. Goljan with me listening to him (on my ipod connected to the car). I hold a lot of respect for Goljan!
Visited the forum on daily basis at hours at which I knew that Mira, Elba, Roh, DrJiggy, Xinfoom, doyoudig, Dr_heart, zephyr, dendrite, lynna, and newer members were here to discuss actively and to learn a lot from them. In that respect I did study with a team and each of you my dear friends are my team. I do hold a lot of respect for them; Elba never giving up with bringing new and very good questions, mira and lynna also. Discuss them guys, and do remember even if they ask on a question "what is the next best management" do practice to say this is "X" so, the next best management is.... This reinforces your ability to make diagnosis. Same the other way around when you see the "the most likely diagnosis" also think treatment is this, diagnosis is this, next step/gold standard is this...I learned from our dear Jovana (where are you?...) that more than just giving an answer you have to use your brain to think what can/can't be, if you don't know the answer right away you can always think and chose the best educated guess.
Throughout a weekend I discussed with Roh and other members (back at the end of sept) the questions that Dr Jiggy posted. More than anything those are good to see what is high yield and how things can be asked. That is it; so don't try to look for the "right" answers rather REINFORCE the knowledge because all that tells you is that "they like to ask about that"
Good luck and will keep you posted
Best
BDJ