This is a Follow up post from December 11, 2019
HOW I USED MASTER THE BOARD STEP 3
As I already mentioned, I have taken Step 2 in September 2016 and step 3 last month in November 2019, more than 3 years later. When I was doing UW for the FIRST TIME, my main objective was to get all the basic knowledge needed for step 3. I didn’t do it subject wise. Because it skewed your reasoning skills going through the questions per subject. Therefore do UW with set of mixed questions. When reviewing the questions, Annotate any pearls or new concept in the MTB, while reading about it in the book. You will need to make good use of the book indexes at the end of the book. I have used Google, YouTube, UpToDate, Medscape, the AHRQ ePSS App as supplemental material as needed. Yes, the first time you do UW is very time consuming, but that is when you learned the most.
After finishing with all the questions that you have done wrong and before resetting the UW to do it a second time, Review the entire MTB. If you annotate well, you will realize that you have already read about 70% of the Book when you were doing UW for the first time. I have used the Book to target my weakness
HOW I PREPARE FOR THE CCS
I have used UW. I have told myself to learn these 90+ cases so well that if there any questions come from them in the exam, I will be able to answer them. When I finished with you UW CCs for the first time, then I started doing the 101 CCS case interaction online, while repeating UW CCS again.
HOW I ADDRESS MY WEAKNESSES FROM THE ASSESSMENT EXAMS FROM UW AND NBME
As you can see, I didn’t pass or do well in any of my assessments exam. But I have a good assessment of my weakness. My weaknesses were, Pediatric, OBGYN, Psych and Biostats. I wanted to turn my weaknesses into strengths for the exam. To Address them, I have used every resources available to me, so if I failed the exam I would not find any negligence in my part OR reasons to blame myself for not doing enough. TRUST ME, IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN TWO UNADRESSED WEAKNESSESS, YOU WILL FAIL THE EXAM, BECAUSE OF THE INTEGRATIVITY OF THE EXAM AND THE WEIGHTED AVERAGE PER QUESTION. This is how I address my weaknesses:
Pediatric and OBGYN: I have done all the interactive and reading cases in UW, CCS cases.com, crush step 3 CCS( from the Forum file). I have done Both questions in both AMBOSS and Kaplan. I have read both subjects AGAIN from MTB.
Psychiatry and social stuffs: I have done all the questions in both AMBOSS and Kaplan. I have read both subjects AGAIN from MTB.
Biostatistics: I have done the UW biostatistics review 2-4 times and I get faster with each repeat. I have done all the questions in both AMBOSS and Kaplan. These two were very helpful, giving me a different perspective on some subjects, especially how the interpret the P-value, Null hypothesis and so on. I have also watch these 3 YouTube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75pQPB1RF50, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMI9UuNqoGI&t=700sand this one about biases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6dlA8kgmQM.
HOW I USED NBME EXAM 4&5 AND THE FRED MCQs BEFORE DAY 2
Before day 1 I review all the foundations questions from NBME 4&5 and the free question set on the Usmle.org website. Before day 2, I review all the advanced clinical questions NBME 4&5 and from uslme.org
Overall that what I had to do pass the exam. When reading this post, keep in mind that I have taken step 2 CK 3 years ago. I have completed 8 months of Internal Medicine Residency training, working on average 38 Hours/week (three -12hrs shift alternating with four-10 hours shifts). My total preparation time was 8 months. Sometimes I am able to study at work.
Again if you recently passed step 2 CK or you are part of an IM/FM residency training you probably won’t need to all that. BUT NO ONE KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN YOURSELF; SO DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO PASS THE EXAM. IT’S THE LAST ONE