For example, I knew that in states of severe starvation, red blood cells could only use glucose (rather than ketone bodies) as a source of ATP, but I never thought about why that was.* My other big mistake was that I didn’t reinforce the material I was learning. Even though I did well in school, I was not equipped with the knowledge or skills necessary to do well on Step 1. When I had my first individual session with Alec, I realized right away that I didn’t have a solid pathogenesis to presentation foundational understanding. My confidence was totally shaken up and that’s when I started looking for help. On top of that, I felt like I had already gone through all these different Step 1 resources. How could this have happened? I always scored average or above average on block exams in school. I clicked on the results and saw a 168! I was in total panic mode. One week before my dedicated study period, I took my first NBME exam. Needless to say, that theory came crashing down fast. My theory was that if I got through all the material from First Aid, Pathoma, Sketchy, and DIT during preclinical years, I could easily review the material a second-time during dedicated study period and be able to recall everything for Step 1. So if I had an upcoming endocrine exam, I would do about 40 UW endocrine questions the weekend before – I finished about 25% of the qBank by the time I got to my dedicated study period. The weekend before I had a block exam, I would do the respective UWorld questions. I also bought the Doctors In Training course and finished all the lecture videos by the end of second year. Starting second year, I added Sketchy Medical as a visual aid to help memorize pharmacology and microbiology topics. My Initial Approach/Mistake: Sprinting Through Contentĭuring my preclinical years, I would essentially memorize from lecture PowerPoints and read through the accompanying sections in First Aid and Pathoma. So, if I had to give a welcome letter to medical students preparing for Step 1 I would advise: I wasn’t using the right approach during my preclinical years and had to essentially play catch up in my dedicated study period. As a disclaimer, I definitely wouldn’t recommend trying to study for Step 1 in 2 months. I’ll go through in detail how I was able to improve my score by 60 points in 2 months. My Step 1 journey was long, challenging, and exhausting. Should I read all of First Aid by the end of first year? Should I go through UW twice? Should I get through the Doctors In Training videos before my dedicated study period? These were just some the questions that crossed my mind, as I talked to other students about their strategies (I realized soon enough that the answer to all my questions was no). I quickly recognized that I needed to start studying for Step 1, I just didn’t know how. On the first day of medical school, I opened up my welcome letter from an upperclassman who gave the following advice: It’s never too early to start studying for Step 1. Welcome Letter: Never Too Early to Start Step 1 Studying (the RIGHT way) Here she shares her mistakes she made prior to her dedicated study period, as well as what she did right in improving her score by so much in such a short period. Here is the story of a student who went through something similar, but turned around her approach to improve her USMLE Step 1 score by 60 points in 2 short months. So many of them try to go through multiple “passes” of First Aid, UW, Sketchy, etc., only to figure out that they haven’t achieved mastery of anything, and have way too little time to cover too many subjects. Every year, innumerable students approach/begin their dedicated Step 1 study period, only to realize that their preparations are woefully inadequate.
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