Since STEP 1 is pass/fail now, a lot of students may procrastinate their studying (aka me). This might work for some people but might not work for others. I must warn you, some people can work a lot faster and are better at cramming. If you are not one of those people, I do not suggest that you follow my schedule or you will fail. My schedule included long 8 hour study days closer to the exams and a lot of stress so if you will not thrive with this environment, DO NOT ATTEMPT. Obviously if the test was scored, I would have studied way differently to get the highest score possible. However, if you slack, you will NOT PASS. I do believe that they made STEP harder.
I am here to tell you about how I studied for STEP 1 (and yes, I did pass on my first attempt). I liked that I studied closer to my test date and not from day 1 because it kept it fresh in my head and reviewing something for a second time is much much easier than doing it during the first time so it was a breeze. I know some are consistent with Anki thru M1/M2 year but I believe that would have been determinantal to my score because I would've simply forgotten.
Disclaimer: I did change my date from the end of May to beginning of June because I felt that I needed the extra few weeks to be comfortable. There is no shame in needing more time.
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Thoughts on STEP 1 overall:
1) I was surprised at the lack of buzzwords. Out of the whole test, I maybe saw only 2 or 3 questions that utilized the buzzwords that we learned
2) There were a lot of questions about risk factors of diseases
3) Most of the questions were not straightforward. They would give you symptoms, you have to know what disease, and then they'll ask the mechanism of the medication that they should use. Yes, I know its confusing and like a fourth order question
4) This test was not properly represented by UWorld questions. I thought that the format of the questions and answers were very different
5) UWorld does not prepare you for the length and duration you need for this exam
6) On my test, 90% of the questions were huge paragraphs. I know some people have said otherwise but this is my experience.
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Resources I used:
- Pathoma: I watched all of the Pathoma videos
- B&B: I only used for tough concepts. For example, I struggled with neuro and learning the strokes so I went and watched B&B videos (a lot more in depth so I only watched them for neuro and psych)
- Anki: I unlocked all of the cards for the Pathoma, B&B, Sketchy Micro, and Sketchy Pharm videos and did them every day (For me personally, I was doing around 2000 anki cards a day but my speed was around 4 sec/card so if you're slower, you should start earlier).
- UWorld: I attempted questions every day to start understanding trends that they might use and to fill in learning gaps. They have great explanations that help you understand concepts better. According to Reddit, they USWA1 and USWA2 exam are close representations of STEP but for me, I didn't think they were.
- YouTube: Just search up highest yield drugs, topics, concepts, biostats, and other things you do not understand. These random videos really helped.
- NBME Practice Tests: I bought 2 of the NBME practice tests and attempted them. They give you a % of how likely you are to pass STEP if you take it within a week which might be very inspiring or demoralizing depending on where you are. On Reddit, most people say that this underestimates your score but I would take that with a grain of salt and take your score for what it is. Their question explanations are also not as good as UWorld's but are decent.
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How to review practice exams/questions:
- If I was confident in an answer and knew it, I would not waste time and review it because of the limited amount of time I had.
- If I struggled with a question and still got it right, I would look at why the other answers were wrong and why mine was right.
- If I had no clue about a question, I would read the whole explanation and screenshot the UWorld explanation to a word document which I could review later. I would watch videos if I still didn't get it
Its important to be honest about what you know and what you don't know in a scenario like this where every question matters.
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Study Schedule:
March 20th - I started lightly studying for STEP starting spring break
April 8th - CBSE Day - Required NBME by the school where we have to get a certain score in order for the school to think we're capable of taking STEP. By this date, I had finished 4/8 sections of Pathoma only.
April 29th - I had finished all sections of Pathoma and started UWorld.
May 13th - I finished watching Sketchy Micro (mind that I had already done 1/4th of it for my previous unit so I did not re-watch those videos) while doing UWorld
May 16th - NBME Practice
May 29th - NBME Practice
May 30th - I finished 1/2 of Sketchy Pharm (what I thought was important)
June 1st - USWA1
June 5th - USWA2
June 8th - I took my STEP 1
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By the end:
100% Pathoma, 100% Sketchy Micro, 50% Sketchy Pharm, 5% B&B with Anki
I took 4 practice exams in total:
- May 16th (NBME), May 29th (NBME), June 1st (UWA1), and June 5th (UWA2)
I finished 26% of UWorld ~950 questions averaging exactly a 50%
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