I just sat the USMLE Step 1 yesterday.
I graduated in May and had 3 months dedicated prep. Took a few days off during that time but not many! Would wake up early and try and study for most of the day.
Tried a few times throughout medical school but got very discouraged by the questions on Uworld, especially for biochemistry.
Prep this time around:
Pathology: Pathoma
Micro: Sketchy Micro
Biochem: Pixorize
Pharm: Sketchy Pharm
Biostats, ethics, and all the rest: brief read of FA
Question bank: UWorld
I know people say to memorise FA and I read through it once but retained nothing. UWorld is much better at help retaining facts, but I couldn’t do Uworld without learning and that’s where Pathoma and the other resources came in.
I tried Anki but it just didn’t suit my learning style! I’m a visual learner and thus stuck to my pictures, picked up and retained things so much faster. It doesn’t really create a deeper understanding, so I’m not expecting 260+. But my main aim was to pass well.
I only completed 65% of UWorld, should have probably done more but I’ve been studying for 3 months non-stop and just wanted to be done with it.
UWSA1: 231
UWSA2 (5 days out of exam): 237
I’m hoping for a 240, its not the best result in the world but its good enough! Seeing everyone get over 260 when they post here is so great and so inspiring, but I really had to just know where to draw the line and say, this is good enough! My life and mental health have to be prioritised, sticking it out for another month, finishing Uworld, etc, just didn’t seem worth it to me, especially if there was no guarantee of a better score.
All in all, this is an exam I’ve been afraid of for YEARS and I spent three months studying for it and I’m pretty sure I passed easy. Which is going down as a success in my book!
Good luck to everyone sitting it! I always thought it was not doable, an 8 hour exam. But it totally was, partially because I’ve been putting so many hours in anyway. I finished an hour early! I literally just felt like I was doing Uworld, which was quite nice and comforting. It is totally doable. Just gotta sacrifice a little bit of time.
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