- Step1 Experience -
Hello,
My name is Saif Sharayah, I am from Jordan and I graduated from Hashemite University in May 2018.
Test date: 22nd of April, 2019
Preparation time: 8-9 months
Step1 Score: 267
First of all, you should bear in mind that everybody is different and has a certain goal.
With that being said, I am hoping that what I am going to say would benefit as much people as possible.
I would like to start by saying that the exam is certainly doable, so let’s get that out of the way.
Resources that were worth doing (In addition to firstaid, pathoma and Uworld) based on “MY” experience:
-Dr. Turcos Kaplan videos (Biochemistry)
-Sketchy Micro (Aids recall, not essential though)
-Bnb biostats’ videos followed by Uworld subject review (Can’t recommend this method enough, its
golden for biostat)
-100 Cases by Conrad Fischer (Ethics)
-Anatomy shelf notes + Kaplan Neuroanatomy videos by Dr. White (Anatomy)
-BRS physiology (Not essential if you are comfortable with the subject)
The above covered 80-85% of my test (good enough if you ask me!)
My advice here, don’t overcomplicate the process of learning with multiple resources!
Make your priority to understand First aid and Uworld.
Kaplan was very time consuming for me, if you like videos and wanted something faster, try BnB.
Haven’t tried much resources ex. I have no idea what is DIT so I can’t say whether it’s good or bad, but if I had to repeat my test, I would use the aforementioned material again. (it served me well, I must say)
Reads/Uworld: Almost 3 FA reads/Solved Uworld Almost twice (Some may need more and some may need less! it depends on YOU, not “them”)
- First read (FA + another resource “if needed” then Uworld Offline).
Let me show you an example “Cardiovascular system” Would go through FA first, let’s say I didn’t understand the physiology, I would go and read it from BRS then continue my read. Once I am done with the system from FA, I would solve its respective Uworld section offline and annotate.
Note: Use Uworld to learn not to evaluate. - Second read (FA “annotated with Uworld notes” + Uworld online)
- Third read (Assessments FA + Uworld) I began solving the self-assessments and focusing more on my weak areas during my third read + solving random Uworld questions (your goal is to be good at everything, assessments helped me locate my weaknesses so I could tackle them before the test)
Assessments: (1.5 months out – 4 days prior to the actual test) in the following order:
NBME15: 251
NBME16: 244
NBME17: 257
NBME21: 257
UWSA2: 260 (IMO the most similar to the real deal)
NBME20: 251
UWSA1: 275
You should know that assessment scores do not necessarily = Step 1 score (It’s much more than that)
But it’s the most objective tool out there to predict your score. (The point I am trying to make here, is that you SHOULD NOT BE DISCOURAGED by a bad assessment score, some may have a really harsh curve or maybe some personal/environmental factors played a role that day, so don’t stress much about it)
On my assessments, most of my mistakes were due to the lack of concentration, so I knew back then if I were to focus during Step 1 I would get a really high score, despite having lower scores at that moment. So it’s important to believe in yourself because you know you better than any assessment out there.
Just think of them as a guide to your weak areas, fix the problem and move on.
Please don’t keep on postponing your test! If I gave my test one month earlier I would’ve gotten the same result. Its more about understanding and integrating rather than memorizing. If I had my first aid with me during the test, still I would have gotten the same score. I believe that what you learn and understand early on is enough, you will peak at some point and beyond that, things will start to go downhill because there will be nothing to be added, you will be exhausted mentally and physically, emotionally drained etc… you name it! The test in my opinion was fair and not hard. Believe it or not, you’ll get some straight forward questions, it confused the heck out of me! Thought there was a trick or something, but fortunately, it was just an easy question (and there’s a good amount of those) keep in mind that you will face some experimental questions that are hard and out of nowhere (But only very few of those) What I meant to say believe in your preparation, the exam is doable (maybe easier than what you think) and just do it!
To conclude, I would like to say Alhamdullilah forever and always. Special thanks to my family, friends and everyone who has helped me throughout this journey, seriously I can’t thank you all enough!
Good luck to all of you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.