This Wednesday I got my score and I’m very happy with it. I thought it would make sense for me to share my schedule, since I had no idea how people with this score range would get it when I was preparing for the exam. To be honest, I didn’t really think I would fall in this range.
Study time: 9 months (originally planned to be 6.5 months but exam date postponed twice due to COVID)
Step 1 score: 256
Goal for Step 2 CK: 250s-260s
ASSESSMENTS
NBME7=243(6 months out)
UWSA1=267(5 months out)
NBME6=281(4 months out)
NBME8=269(3.5 months out)
UWSA2=273(one week before exam)
Free120=92.5% (one week before exam)
SOURCES
UWorld Step 2 CK
Amboss (qbank+library)
CMS forms (all of them, including the old ones)
UWorld Step 3
NBMEs(all of them, including the old ones)
Online Med Ed videos
Anki (WiWa deck and my self-made deck)
SCHEDULE
I started studying in September, taking it easy and watching online med ed videos as an introduction for a month. In the meanwhile I did the Wiwa deck on anki for 1-2 hours every day. (this continued till the exam day)
Then I started solving UWorld right away with one block per day and finishing it in 2.5 months. I always did mixed subjects but I couldn’t do it timed for the first half of it, since I was not able to be on time. The breakpoint for my timing was when I changed how I read the questions. Previously I’ve always read them from start to finish for Step 1 but it didn’t for work me in Step 2. So I read them in this order: 1-last sentence of the question 2-answer choices 3-the whole question. This way you can already eliminate some answer choices as you read the question and it saves time. My first pass was 79%.
After being done with my first pass, I did all the CMS forms(offline) quickly for more than a month. I did them quickly with a pace of 200-300 questions a day. I highly advise you to check them.(prefer new ones over the old ones but do them all if you have enough time) Acknowledge the takeaway point of each question and memorize it, most of it is very high yield. Then I took NBME 7 as my first assessment in January and it was 243.
I also did Amboss qbank before starting my second pass and realized that Amboss library is very comprehensive and useful. I used it all the time after this point whenever I wanna search for stuff. It was basically my Google for USMLE since then. The qbank is also a great choice if you have extra time on top of doing 2 passes of UW2. Some of the level 5 difficulty level questions are very low-yield or they try too hard, please try to recognize and ignore them. Other than that, most questions are good quality.
I started my second UW pass, doing 2 blocks per day. My average was 92%. At this point I was gonna take the exam but it got cancelled due to COVID.
After the cancellation, I wanted to do something extra and picked UW3. I didn’t do it like UW2 but quickly scanned the questions and answered them, reading only the high yield stuff I didn’t know in the explanations. Not sure if it directly benefited, but I can definitely say that it helps you to acquire a different clinical perspective and feel more confident about CK.(Since Step 3 questions are much longer and detailed.)
When I was done with UW3, there was maybe a month till my exam, so I wanted to focus on UW2. I did all my marked and incorrect ones in my last month, not doing much other than that. (keep in mind that doing flashcards is a routine) At this point I could do them without really thinking (and this is what you need for the real thing.) The last day I took it easy, only reviewing stuff like heart sounds and ECGs from Amboss library.
The real thing is just something else. I don’t think anyone could walk out of that exam and say ‘yeah I just nailed it’. For me, a good portion of it felt like guessing and mindlessly clicking stuff.(and I never felt that way while studying) There was no way for me to know if I aced it or bombed it at the time, I wouldn’t be surprised if I got 20 points lower than my current score.
Hope this helps. Feel free to ask anything under this post so everyone can see the discussion, I won’t be replying to DMs.
Edit: oh duh, I forgot to mention how much I studied daily. Most days would fall between 6-9 hours. It got worse during the first month of the quarantine(2-3 months before the exam) and some days I didn’t even study, while others it was just 3-4 hours. As the exam approached I fortunately picked up my pace again.