HERE WE GO!! Step 1/Level 1 in DETAIL what I did to prep!!
Overview
Compared to other people I’ve talked to I don’t think this is a very traditional board study schedule, but it more than worked for me and got me a score I am ecstatic about so I wanted to share!! I waited until I got my score back to create this post.
I’ll start with what my original goals were … finish Anki, watch all of Boards and Beyond, Pathoma, and Sketchy micro and pharm, read First Aid, and do a pass of Uworld and one pass of my Uworld incorrects (goal was to finish all this between January 3-May 23).
My dedicated started April 20 and ended May 23. I had just under 5 weeks and I think this was plenty of time considering I started studying in early January. If I was to do it over again I might have made dedicated shorter, about 4 weeks, considering I had ample time during the semester to study. Definitely consider your school’s curriculum (aka how much free time you will have during the semester) when deciding how long your dedicated will be!
I quickly learned I personally could not do all of that and have time for anything else (ie. working out, short breaks, etc.)… so I adjusted to what I felt like would get me the most points on test day.
Note this is only what I did during semester 4/dedicated (January 3-May 23) I also used many of these resources alongside some of my coursework during other semesters.
Watch my Youtube video based on this blog post for more explanation on my strategy!!
What I ended up doing/not doing:
Pathoma: No Pathoma (except chapters 1-3, 3 days out from my exam, SO HIGH YIELD.) Wish that I had done more of Pathoma, but 85% of it I had already seen during other semesters.
Boards and Beyond: Watched Boards and Beyond for my weak units. Probably watched about 50% of it throughout semester 4, I probably watched about 30% of it throughout other semesters, but I relied more heavily on the other video resources.
Sketchy: Watched all of sketchy micro and pharm once during semester 4. Watched 85% of it once throughout my other semesters. Watching sketchy once in semesters 1-3 and again in semester 4/dedicated is ideal!! The images stuck with me much more after my second pass.
Uworld: Did all of Uworld once and redid my flags/incorrects which was around 1,700. I flagged anything that I didn’t feel confident on or got incorrect.
Anking: Did not finish the Anking deck- had about 3K cards left. Stuck with Anki until about 4 weeks out from dedicated. I did not continue to do my Anking cards after that point. More on this in my Youtube video.
Anki: I continued to do some anki cards that I made from practice exam and Uworld questions that I got incorrect. I only started making Uworld incorrect cards during my second pass of my flags/incorrects. I had trouble keeping up with even those cards, so I ended up doing most of them (about 450 cards) two days before my exam.
First Aid: Did not even open First Aid after I finished content review pretty early on in Semester 4, it sat in a corner of my room most of dedicated. I annotated it throughout my other semesters, but never went back to my notes. Once I realized I wouldn’t be going back to First Aid during the semester, I stopped annotating because it took a lot of extra time when compared to just watching the videos. This resource was amazing during the semester but once dedicated came around I was only doing things for active recall.
Pixorize: Wasn’t planning on using this resource but it was so helpful to remember biochem pathways and pathology. DEF recommend! They have cards in one of the Anking decks! This was one of the few video resources I utilized during dedicated because I realized I was getting biochem questions wrong because of my lack of knowledge. Biochem was one of my lowest sections throughout board prep and I ended scoring well in it on test day, thanks to doing a bit of content review and focused Q banks on it!
HyGuru: Another resource I used during dedicated was HyGuru Dr. Damania’s videos on how to be an effective test taker were so helpful. These videos were gold for me, even though I only watched a few because time was of the essence in dedicated. Most of the time when I looked at WHY I was getting answers wrong it was because I wasn’t interpreting the questions well even though a lot of the time I understood the content being tested. His courses helped with understanding HOW to answer questions. I wish I would have watched his videos during winter break or early January. He is an amazing resource and also offers 1 on 1 mentoring if you want guidance based on your specific situation.
Assessments
I took 4 NBMEs, 2 diagnostics through our school, Uworld 1, Uworld 2, Free 120, and the AMBOSS free self-assessment. I took my first self-assessment in February and then my second assessment 7 weeks out from exam day. My score didn’t increase by very much for a LONG time, but it went up about 20 points towards the end of dedicated. My actual score was higher than any of the self-assessments I took. I took my last NBME 10 days before my exam. I scored 13 points higher on the actual exam than on my last NBME. Uworld 2 was most predictive for me, which I took a little under a week out from my exam date, but I still scored 5 points higher on the real exam.
I’m glad I started taking assessments before dedicated, because it helped mitigate some of my fears.
If you take a practice exam and you don’t score where you want to be…. it’s OK!!!! Think about it..
THIS is how you can assess if your study methods are working!! It’s totally ok to not be where you want to be, just adjust your strategy accordingly, focus on your weak points, and continue taking diagnostics and you will see your score go up!! BUT… if you wait too long to take a practice exam, you won’t know if what you are doing is or isn’t working. If, on the other hand, you score well, then great keep doing what you are doing. If it doesn’t go well stay positive and adjust! Isn’t it better to assess how you are doing, find your weak spots, and know if you need to adjust your strategy than it is to push off knowing that information? Take a practice exam!!
On days when I took NBMEs or practice exams I would review them completely on the same day I took them (or get through at least half of the review if I was tired and finish first thing the next morning).
Content Review vs. Practice Questions
Basically, I did as much content review as I could before dedicated. During dedicated I pretty much only did questions. I did anywhere from 100-130 a day. I would either do 3 blocks of 40 questions or split them up and do 80 questions in the morning and 40 in the afternoon. A few weeks out from my exam date I started using accessory qbanks because I realized I would be finishing my incorrects/Uworld flags before my exam date. I would do targeted qbank blocks at night. I would do questions for MSK, Repro, Heme/Onc etc switching the topic each night. This fit into my total of 100-130 questions per day.
Doing this number of questions and really reviewing them took me ALL day. When I first started doing questions in January it would take me multiple hours to review 30 question blocks 🤪… you will move faster once you get used to using Uworld and the other qbanks and by your second pass you’ll go really fast!
A lot of resource like videos/review books were helpful as I learned material along with my coursework, but during dedicated I was more focused on applying concepts aka doing questions. I also felt like the extra 2 hours to do videos/read my notes in First Aid were better spent on my free time to stay balanced.
If you feel like you are getting questions wrong because you don’t know the content it could be helpful to continue content review during dedicated, but if your content base is strong enough then I personally think focusing on doing practice questions is the way to go. Talk with your advisor or a trusted resource to figure out your exact strategy.
SO if we are talking about dedicated specifically, my schedule was do as many questions per day as I could and make Anki cards for my incorrects. That was basically it, I did use a few videos here and there, but dedicated itself was mainly question based for me! ALSO, even though I made Anki cards for my incorrects I didn’t do them until the day before Step 1, I clicked through about 400 of them. Not sure if that was a good strategy, I think ideally I would have been able to keep up with them every day, but it was what ended up happening for me!
Final thoughts
This whole post isn’t exactly advice, I just wanted to share what worked for me. I know everyone is different and some people watch every board review video three times and read First Aid twice. I recommend trying different resources/study methods throughout med school so that by the time 4th semester comes around you feel like you have a solid study strategy that works for you!!
Lastly don’t compare yourself. I felt like I wasn’t doing as much as some other blogs I was referencing, but I could see my score increasing and I just trusted myself. I ended up surpassing my goal score by A LOT. What I did more than worked for me and if I could go back I would trust even the small increases I saw happening with my score and not worry about “not doing enough.”
YOU GOT THIS! I’m always a DM away if you need anything! Love!!
None of this is sponsored and all of it is just true blue what I did and didn’t do!! 🙂