drowning in Step 1 info - thevoice17583

[ArchivalUser]

Hi all,

I need some studying advice. I'm taking my STEP1s in July. I'm in a US medical school and I've done well through medical school but now I just don't feel like I know how to prepare. I'm trying to figure out how to study for this test. I think I need something with structure (that worked well for me for the MCAT) but when I've contacted Kaplan and other test prep companies they say their programs are usually for IMGs. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks to all who respond

[ArchivalUser]

kaplan is also for US student

[ArchivalUser]

as a US med student.. you must have not only taken the SAT and MCAT to get where you are now.
Meaning that you are familiar with standardized testing and are probably going through an abjective period which is most likely temporary.
The preparation that you have gone through medical school is more than adequate for you to take the USMLE as the tests are USMLE-Oriented.
There is no arcane methods to prepare for the boards, all you need is some good review books and knowing that you have a short preparation period, I would suggest you to chose among the following collections:
- BRS physiology
- BRS pathology/ Rapid Review pathology (RR is a little longer than BRS)
- High Yield collection for most subsequent subjects as well as Kaplan notes.
- First Aid which is generally read around the end of the preparation

this is the ' typical' course that an IMG would follow, however in your case.. a quick FA review with a subscription to USMLEWORLD would suffice.
Most of my friends in US medical schools prepared with FA and UW.. some added a book or two for their weak subjects..
hope it helped.

[ArchivalUser]

Hi I am img, and it is real. the way that my country face qs is different than here and they show how deal with this. you can do it if you want, but maybe you dont needed. be arround for a few and check here with people from here. try to get the books and try. some of thoses couse are expensive. just try.

[ArchivalUser]

Antrax, what did you mean by ' the way in your country they face qs is different'??
did you mean that during medical school? as most IMGs have 'subject-oriented' exams during there medical school careers while US med students are introduced to USMLE type questions from day 1 in med school...
or did you mean that USMLE level of difficulty is lower in the US? I am saying this as I have heard various humors claiming that taking the USMLE in the USA would add points to your scores as US med students have a short period to prepare for the test(usually a couple of months) as well as the fact that USMLE needs to weed out IMGs.
Can not claim whether any of it is actually true or not.

[ArchivalUser]

Kalyanova....in my country we have the same test. it is one test that you have to take when you want to make a residence.( like here) but we can't take it until we finish medical school. the test is equal in difficulty, and we spend time studing. when I said different it is not about which one is more difficult or easy. it is about that English is no our first language. so they tauch us some buzz world.in that way we dont have to spend time (some time) in traslated qs that we dont understant at first... on other hand there are a lot of diseases that are more common in sub develop country that here are rare. in my country there is a lot TB and our AID px died fromTB pneumonia while here is pneumocitis( we dont see that too much in my country). so when you are making thoses couse, they focus the class in diseases that are common here. people that are in school here maybe dont needed it too much becouse-I think- they said it in regular class. beside this US is a cosmopolitan country. you see here all kind of diseases. all kind of people japanese, jews, indian, latin, irish. diseases that in undeveloped country like mine,you only see them in books, and we have a lot of diseases there that maybe you never see here. remember that we have arround one minute per qs. when you are immigrant foreing student, our language count. we spend more time reading Qs than US native do....so we have to deal we time and language at the same time....I hope you understant my point when I said to you that maybe you dont need it, but the realliy is that the answer is inside of you...god bless you.