I am willing to write a very much detailed

Got my result yesterday!
I am willing to write a very much detailed(more than 5k words) experience to help everyone out in this group as reading experiences helped me a lot to get back on track.
I need your suggestions. I need to know what you guys want me to write in detail. What part of the preparation you find most difficult or what part of study usually other experiences don’t focus on. This will help me to get in insight what you guys need.
• Why do I believe I am a perfect candidate to write this experience?
Background: I was a bottom 25% of my class during my UG. Barely passed 2ndMBBS with Grace Marks (which is the major portion of Step 1). I am not bragging about myself here. I am writing this because I know not everyone preparing for step 1 is from the top 10% of the class. Not everyone struggling with basics had read awesome author books during Undergraduate. I am writing this so that people like me can relate to it and can get an insight that everything is possible with the right guidance and dedication.
• This was me in 2017. Didn’t know the difference between Bacteria/Virus/Fungus/Parasites (not kidding, they were all just the same bugs for me), DNA/RNA Replication was Nightmare, Macrophage/Neutrophil/Granulocytes were all the same for me. Simple mechanisms of CVS/RS/Endocrine were demanding. Had a hard time understanding Biochemistry correlations. Neuroanatomy felt like climbing the Mount Everest. Pharmacology, ah. Adrenergic and cholinergic were just 2 rhyming words for me. Mechanisms of Antimicrobials and antineoplastic were totally unknown to me till now.
Getting a passing score or 220 was a great achievement for me at that time.(self-talk)
• During my journey as I started clearing more and more concepts and getting better at it, I felt an obligation towards people like me who come from nothing, know nothing.
For me, if I knew the proper approach to UW&FA. And when to do what and all, I would have got a better result for sure.
In this Step 1 world filled with so many resources to use, if I would have a mentor who would have just told me “What NOT to do, rather than what ALL to do” it would be very very helpful in saving precious time.
Just writing my experience for this exam briefly here.
Exam Date: May 2nd, 2019
Score: 248
Duration of Preparation: Aug2017-May2019 (1 Year & 10 Months, with last 5 months Dedicated - 10-13 hours per day)
Resources:
 Kaplan 2017 (Biochemistry, Anatomy, Physiology, Pharmacology. I really didn’t know anything, thus wanted to start it from the scratch)
 UW Online 2018-19 ( In my detailed version I will explain how to use it properly)
 FA 2017, 2018 & 2019 (This is the key. But people don’t use it properly. You need to read between the lines. Team FA has done a wonderful job to narrate all HY Facts under one roof.)
 Pathoma (Must, Period.)
 Sketchy Micro (Must if your basics are weak. If you are good at Micro don’t waste time learning all photos, there is so much HY you need to do apart from Micro. They usually ask easy, HY stuffs from FA only)
 100Cases+Kaplan BS (Must if you are an IMG)
 UW Biostatistics (You should do it, apart from YouTube videos)
 Google Images and YouTube
 USMLE FORUM Pages
Struggle: I don’t want to brag about it here, as everyone preparing for this exam is going through the toughest time in their life. Mine was much harder than one might guess as I prepared my entire MBBS curriculum during those 22 months.
Scores:
 NBME 13 - 215 (Dec 18)
 NBME 15 - 230 (Jan 19)
 NBME 16 - 225 (Jan 19)
 NBME 12 - 238 (Early Feb 19)
 NBME 11 - 237 (Early Feb 19)
At this stage, my block was ending (Dec-Feb) so I started asking many people online on the forum, they suggested to me that this is my peak. You should give the Step 1 or you might go downhill. But deep inside, I knew I deserve better than this. I trusted on myself and extended my block and decided to give my FA a “Thorough Read”. This was different than just reading FA passively.
It took me 40 days to finish FA once.
Then I gave Online NBME 17.
 NBME 17 - 248 (Early-Mid March 19) (First time I crossed 240. Felt confident. Started believing in myself. Kept on giving NBME every 1 or 2 weeks)
 UWSA 1 - 258 (Mid March 19) (I was on cloud 9. Took a week-long unplanned break during my Birthday week. A big-time no-no. Biggest mistake anyone can make during the dedicated it a break of more than a couple days)
Came back from the trip and that wall of self-confidence was shattered. Felt hopeless. Felt that now getting even 230 is hard. I felt that I forgot all the stuff I did until now. Those all sacrifices till now went in vain. Gave me a full day to get together. And decided to give NBME 19, which at that time was said to be hardest and under predictor.
 NBME 19 - 242 (End of March 19)
Whoa, all the self-doubts were gone in a single second. At first, I didn’t believe that this is my score. After a week-long break during the dedicated, without studying any single page I gave the toughest exam. That made me super-duper confident, now I knew I would get 240+ any day anytime.
Started solving older NBMEs. (I would suggest against it, as newer ones are available now and NBME 5, 6, 7 which I did had on average 20 nice questions. Everything else was very much outdated. So do it if you have time, it will help you built a mindset to solve the questions)
 NBME 5, 6, 7 - 245-250 (April 19)
By this time, I started doing the FA one final time with my method. Which again took me 35 days to finish a read🙄 (Quality > Quantity)
 NBME 20 - 250 (5 weeks out) (Yes, I crossed 250 in NBMEs)
 AMBOSS - 265 (5 weeks out) (*Lol🤐)
 NBME 21 - 246 (4 weeks out)
 NBME 22 - 257 (3 weeks out) (I was euphoric)
 UWSA 2 - 258 (2 weeks out) (I was now calm, very calm. I knew it now I am a 250+ student at least. I would get 250ish anyday. I now knew it’s gonna be worth it)
 NBME 18 - 248 (less than 1 week out) (I made many silly ones. #Rationalization :grinning: ) (You can still trust “the18”)
This last few days, I did ECG, Heart Sounds, X-Ray/CT for which I made UW Flashcards and revised Biostatistics.
Was left with 3-4 days. As I started my final read 35 days back before the test, I had some doubts about my memory. So cleared them by reviewing ONLY the HY facts from FA.
 FREE120 - 111/120 (93%) (A day before the exam. I solved it briefly, read few volatile topics, took the rest day off)
Gave the official on next day with full confidence. Gave my all in. Got 248 after a 3 week long wait period.
Post Score thoughts:
 Anyone can do it with dedication and persistence.
 Use NBMEs just to assess how prepared you are, don’t make false hopes/don’t get nervous based on the NBME scores.
 Don’t be afraid to delay the exam.
 Start believing in you, you know yourself the best.
 Don’t take more than a couple day break during dedicated. (After you know you have got this)
 Don’t compare with others. Their journey is different than yours.
 Don’t let anyone tell you, you didn’t study till now so you can’t do it.
 Be willing to give up all the distractions and all the extraneous unnecessary things for this. It will be worth giving up outings/movies/parties and what not.
 Also, you will get some question for which only people who has read nice authors and has read throughout the MBBS will only be able to answer. So a man with no knowledge can’t just get 275 in 2 years.
 If you have got a dream, protect it, Period.
 Last but not the least, all buddies preparing for step 1 right now, reading this right now, if you are going through a hard time in life, just thank yourself & be grateful that you didn’t give up till now. And always remember, Hard Work Pays Off.
At last, I want to thank my study partners for their constant support. The best thing you can do is find a study partner who scores similarly in tests. Thank you Neel Parikh & Amrin Kharawala. And, thank you Sir Abhinav Sinha for the motivation. You will do great. :slight_smile:
So I am willing to write it in detail, I am willing to dissect USMLE STEP 1 for you guys.
Just let me know what do you find most difficult?
Just add the options you want me to write about. But please go through all options once to prevent duplication.
(Don’t send a personal message, just comment your problem in Comment Box. If I get time, I will try to answer it in detail)
As I have added Poll, can’t add an image of my score. So if you are in doubt of the authenticity of this experience and score, just open the link below.
https://drive.google.com/open…
Thank you for reading this long one.