Alhmdulillah, all praise to Allah!
Took my exam in August and got 252! Alhmdulillah, Beyond ecstatic!
I am a 2017 graduate of Liaquat university of medical and health sciences, Jamshoro, Pakistan.
Study time: 15 months (last 6 months dedicated)
Assessments:
· NBME 1 to 12: wrong ranging from 15 to 30
· UWSA 1: 228
· NBME 15: 234
· NBME 16: 250
· NBME 17 and 19: 16 and 13 wrong (250+)
· NBME 20: 244
· NBME 21: 252
· NBME 22: 252
· NBME 24: 255 (15 days before)
· UWSA 2: 258 (A month before)
· NBME 18: 263 (5 days before)
Resources:
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Kaplan just to make a basic layout of all stuff that you are going to study, please do not waste time memorizing stuff from Kaplan.
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Uworld: Study as thoroughly you can, every detail in every corner is useful and will surely help you on the exam day.
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First Aid: Can’t stress enough on this book! ITS GOLD for STEP1. Memorize this book on your tips and your 250 is guaranteed, I bet!
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Pathoma: High yield stuff for your exam day! especially first 4 chapters!
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Uworld Biostat: A must read review for your biostat, do it in the last month of your preparation when you are done with uworld.
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Anatomy shelf notes: these are pretty helpful.
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Conrad ethics review.
Try to limit your study resources UFAP (Uworld, FA and pathoma) are the score making subject, master them, the lesser the resources, better to focus and memorize and better you will score.
Timeline:
Throughout my final year of med school use to study Kaplan, the whole year I studied Kaplan and tried to make my basic as good as I can, because I was an average student of my batch who hardly study big text book (which of course I regret ) so it took me time to gather all my basic knowledge and studied them with my final year curriculum. As soon as I graduated I started with first aid (the point where I started preparing for step 1 full time) went through it thoroughly with Boards and beyond video lectures, I also studied FA intermittently with Kaplan too as soon as I completed my FA Read, subscribed Uworld, At this time my internship (house job) of 1 year also started along with my Step 1 prep, so I had to limit my time to 4-6 hours a day, in 8 month I was done with Uworld and annotate my FA with every piece of information I found useful from UW. As soon as I was done with my first pass (72%), I gave my first online assessment (UWSA 1). That day was awful, it was my first online assessment and I had so much anxiety that I flunk it real bad and got a 228 (The assessment which overpredicts you around 15-20 points) , devastated thought of giving up , but thanks to my life saviors ParKash BachAni Love Kumar, my study group guys (we were a group of 3 people, and it helped me a lot like a lot !! try to find a good SP because it helped me pretty much, but everyone has their way of studying so it all depends on you ) who motivated me and helped me to stay put ! , I went through FA again , and meanwhile kept giving the offline NBMEs, they are not helpful to judge your exam score but they may help you with basic concepts if you are weak at ! went with my second pass of uworld (92%) completed it in a month. It was January already I was done with my uworld 1stand 2nd pass and with all the annotation in that FA, took my 2ndonline assessment name 15 got 234 I was relieved that I am making progress, at this point my strategy of studying was that whatever graph which was touching the borderline or below I use to go and study that whole portion from first aid and gave names with a 7-10 days gap (like if I was weak in 3 areas I use to study them with my annotated FA and gave another online NBME) and my scores improved next thing I know I got a 250 in 16! Kept this strategy and kept moving forward, got my exam date on 16th may in the last week when I was very near to my exam took UWSA 2 and got a 258 I was motivated , but just 3 days before the exam my exam got cancelled due to some technical issues at the Prometric. I was in hell hole because I had a flight on 18th may for saudia arabia (for pilgrimage) and I was panicking what to do either to cancel the flight and go to some other city to give my exam. Decided to go with the pilgrimage (I think it was a good decision for me, you never know !) after a month of break without studying a single thing , came back and started my preps again, went through my FA again gave nbme 23 first as soon I was back I got 234. After 15 days of memorizing each and everything from FA again which I forgot went for nbme 24 got 255! at this point got my exam date for 1st august. Just 5 days before my exam gave nbme 18 and got 263!
LAST MONTH: Just focus on what you have studied, limit your study to only your uworld annotated first aid, keep going through again and again keep reviewing your weak areas and that’s it! it will do the trick!
EXAM DAY:
Took the exam at Karachi Prometric. Had a good night sleep of 7 hours, thank god because I was so worried about that I won’t able to sleep due to anxiety! but that’s normal and make your mind that it will happen. Reached Prometric center 45 minutes before the exam. I was fresh, started my first block at 8:45 am, had severe anxiety during the first 10 questions but after that I was relaxed the whole exam Alhmdulillah! took break after each block of 5 minutes, went out washed my face came back. After 5th block my eyes were tired and there was heaviness all over my face, couldn’t focus, went for a 15 minutes break had a coffee and a sandwich, came back and did my remaining block! Overall whatever you study in your whole step 1 preparation do matters, but one thing that is your mentality at the exam day matters a lot! Try to hold your nerves and stay calm, if you think you don’t know what the answer will be then just select what is best and move on!
Exam was doable, 80-90% of your exam was from your ufap! while some WTF and some commonsense questions you have to do it by ruling out the option and stuff!
Someone said in this group previously and I followed that advice that “Do exam in a way that one question should not affect you whole block and one block should not affect your whole exam”
YOU CAN DO IT! ANYONE CAN DO IT!
Just remember consistency is the key! You have to be patient and consistent with this exam, it demands your time in order to score good, don’t get frustrated, it’s a long journey but totally worth it! Hang in there.
> Wish you all good luck!
P.S: DirtyUsmle channel on youtube also helped me a bit too with random things