Mustafa Alkharsan USMLE Step 3 Experience
(My USMLE Step 3 experience Part 1 : Preparation and resources)
Hello all,
I hope everyone is well in this group. I am not sure how this post would be useful for you as my
experience is not that different from others that already have been shared , however, I committed
myself to share my experience with this useful group hoping to be beneficial somehow. By
sharing my experience I am not recommending to follow the plan I used rather sharing an
experience to learn from mistakes I had had and giving ideas that might enhance your own plan.
I took my CK more than one year ago and since then I planned to take USMLE step 3 ASAP. As
expected, I could not devote full time and my preparation had been interrupted many times. First
lesson to learn from my experience is do not take long time to prepare for the USMLE step 3 and
take the exam as soon as possible after CK. the longer the preparation you take the more
interruption you face and more stress you get, and I do not believe it enhance your score.
My preparation was using UWORLD only, as it was in CK, and nothing else. First round I used
online version with a SP. we used to finish one to two blocks per day system wise and timed
mode, around 5-6 hours/day, then go over the wrong answers and skim the right choices. Also, I
used my long note from CK too. It helped me alot. I think CK note played a big role in my success.
My second round review was after a month or so of time off. I had to do externships in different
places and time management was not easy. I found myself as starting over again, I forgot many
things I suppose to know from first review. This feeling stressed me out and affect my
concentration. I used offline version of UWOLRD and did it system wise this time (on opposite to
many others who do offline system wise first then online random mode when get close to the
exam day!). I timed myself and tried to do 2 blocks/day at least.
For biostat I used UWORLD biostat and went over it with my SP. I found it is useful to go over the
concept of statistic with SP and trying to explain it to each other.
CCS, Do as many cases as you can. I did it with different SPs. I did only 2-3 cases/ day, depend on
the SP availability. However, I stopped doing cases during my second review and I think that was
not a smart thing to do. CCS cases is a skill you start to forget with time, you need to keep doing it.
I did UWORLD intractive cases once during my first review, and did CCSCASES.com few days
before my exam first day and in between the two days. I have not had the time to do the practice
cases in uworld.
During the week/10 days before the exam day, after I took the first assessment test, I started
reviewing my CK/Step 3 notes more than doing questions ( this is very very imp.)
My scores in UWSA 1 and 2 were close to each other. Honestly I do not remember what were the real score close to 220!
I will share my exam days experience on different post! Good night