This post is to address some fears and misconceptions about step 3 which haunted me throughout my preparation

USMLE USMLE 1
#1

This post is to address some fears and misconceptions about step 3 which haunted me throughout my preparation. Everybody have good or bad days and score depends on many factors so never compare your chapter one with someone’s chapter five. I recently took my step 2 CK and believe me it helps A LOT in exam. Everyone should take some time to revise some notes or something. I never revised all tables.

  1. I only had 1 month to prepare and 24 days to my first day + 3 weekends in previous months. So I did Uworld once with 80 questions a day and making bullet points of things i found difficult. I am always an advocate of bullet points because you can review them close to exam. Then i did wrongs and reviewed which i got wrong even then.

  2. I did not do CCS during prep because I had 6 days gap between 2 days and I think It was best decision of my life. I did them only during gap days.

  3. I did bio-statistics step 1, step 2 CK, step 3 and Uworld subject review. This is very important because on first day you feel like its bio-statistics exam with some other questions. So do it very good and if you are weak at it, take your time and practice. I had 6 drug adds and 5 research papers. So practice them.

  4. I revised FA for micro, pharma and regretted not doing immunology because there was a lot of basic immunology questions that i didn’t revise. I would highly advise to do it too. Also if you have time. Do first aid rapid review at the end it will help a lot.

  5. Exam was not like Uworld (2nd day was similar) so most important thing to do is keep your mind open and try to recall even things that you read even in your initial days of step 1 prep.

  6. For CCS, I did pretty much everything as stated in Christi Sunira’s experience in files named,“Step 3 experience with CCS tips”. Its a life saver and I thank her so much for posting that. I highly advocate to give it a read.(https://m.facebook.com/groups/758883320883541?view=permalink&id=2006209946150866 )

  7. I took UWSA 1 5 days before 1st day with score of 207 and UWSA 2 with score of 213 3 days prior to exam. As it does not have CCS which makes 1/4 score on exam so its always under predicting.

  8. After exam i was terrified and my 2nd day was not good. It had lots of guessing but it turned out well.

Exam tests overall how clearly you know things. Very unpredictable questions its just your elimination ability. Its easiest exam if done right. So keep your mind open, trust your instincts, utilize all time you have efficiently, Don’t rely on UWSAs and don’t let someone that you have less time and they can’t understand how will you do it. You know better how you will do it.
Best of Luck everyone. Just trust yourself. You took Step 1 and Step 2 CK its like taking them again with some spice added to it.