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Step I
#1
M1 here on winter break.  What can I do to optimize my studying to maximize my Step I score?  Should I use my summer off to study?  Do I need all of the resources (USMLE World, Pathoma, Sketchy, First Aid, Brosencephelon/Anki?) or are there others I need too or instead?
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#2
Don't study over the summer. I'd try to find some relevant research, because as the years go on you'll have less time to devote to that. You're also early enough you could get involved in some basic science if you're UFAP is essential. If your school does Micro M2 year, I'd do sketchy along with that. I think both Sketchy mirror and pharm are excellent and would at the minimum use them along with classes.

One thing I'd recommend, and something everyone that I know in my class that broke 260 did, is work through USMLERx Qmax Step 1 or whatever their qbank is called. You'll hear lots of people say it's not as good as UWorld. Well, it isn't. But it's super useful to expose yourself to the vast majority of First Aid, so your "first pass" will actually be your second pass, because you see the actual pages from FA in the answer sections when you do Rx. I'd recommend it, and there's often discount codes available. Kaplan qbank is a waste of time/money--you're better off doing Uworld a second time.

Re: Bros Deck, I used a pre-made deck during my dedicated period and ended up having to bail, and I spent too much time on it. Anki is wonderful, but just make sure if you're gonna use that, use it during class and plan to be done with it and basically just reviewing by the time dedicated comes around. Reviewing that many cards can be time consuming, and don't underestimate just how much time 2 blocks of UWorld and reviewing them thoroughly can take.

If I could do it again, I would have not phoned in M2 year so hard and studied much harder that year. I would have done Rx qbank (I worked like 300 questions and just got lazy). I bought and did every NBME and I think that helped a ton with endurance and I would do that again. The day of the real thing I could have easily done 2 more blocks--near zero test fatigue. 245-250 here (so like, 3rd lowest score on these neurosurgery forums), so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Happy to answer any specific questions if you have any more.
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#3
(12-26-2016, 11:41 PM)dispo Wrote: Don't study over the summer. I'd try to find some relevant research, because as the years go on you'll have less time to devote to that. You're also early enough you could get involved in some basic science if you're  UFAP is essential. If your school does Micro M2 year, I'd do sketchy along with that. I think both Sketchy mirror and pharm are excellent and would at the minimum use them along with classes.

One thing I'd recommend, and something everyone that I know in my class that broke 260 did, is work through USMLERx Qmax Step 1 or whatever their qbank is called. You'll hear lots of people say it's not as good as UWorld. Well, it isn't. But it's super useful to expose yourself to the vast majority of First Aid, so your "first pass" will actually be your second pass, because you see the actual pages from FA in the answer sections when you do Rx. I'd recommend it, and there's often discount codes available. Kaplan qbank is a waste of time/money--you're better off doing Uworld a second time.

Re: Bros Deck, I used a pre-made deck during my dedicated period and ended up having to bail, and I spent too much time on it. Anki is wonderful, but just make sure if you're gonna use that, use it during class and plan to be done with it and basically just reviewing by the time dedicated comes around. Reviewing that many cards can be time consuming, and don't underestimate just how much time 2 blocks of UWorld and reviewing them thoroughly can take.

If I could do it again, I would have not phoned in M2 year so hard and studied much harder that year. I would have done Rx qbank (I worked like 300 questions and just got lazy). I bought and did every NBME and I think that helped a ton with endurance and I would do that again. The day of the real thing I could have easily done 2 more blocks--near zero test fatigue. 245-250 here (so like, 3rd lowest score on these neurosurgery forums), so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Happy to answer any specific questions if you have any more.

Is 245 low?!?  What's normal?
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#4
(12-27-2016, 04:45 AM)wut Wrote: [quote pid='35' dateline='1482810084']
245 low?!?  What's normal?

[/quote]

250 is the new 200
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#5
Take all the materials you plan to cover, divide the # of pages, # videos, # questions, # prac tests, etc. by the number of days you have in your dedicated period, minus the number of days you would like to have free for a second pass. That should give you a rough idea of how hard you have to go to cover the material you would like. Shoot for 1-2 practice tests every 7-10 days.

Stick to UFAP + practice NBMEs + any resources that helped you in preclinicals. Your dedicated period is not the time to tinker with Anki, outline NTCC, etc. if you've never used them before. If you really took the time to consolidate your studying in preclinicals, you would know which resources are best to come back to. If you didn't, just stick to UFAP.

UWorld is bar none the best resource out there to improve your score. Treat it as a textbook, NOT as a test-taking tool that is predictive of anything. UWorld has far more information in a single location than any other resource for this test. If you take the time to read the correct *and* incorrect answers, you'll see a lot of information, lists, diagrams, etc. that can't be found anywhere else. UWorld took me at first about ~3-4 hrs per block to go through, closer to ~2 hrs per block only later on. I did the entire bank untimed and in tutor mode.

In a nutshell, what I did was do an entire pass of DIT before I started anything else. Whatever section was covered in DIT, I annotated into my book of First Aid, and then followed it with the corresponding video in Pathoma. Lots of reps of the same information. I started questions after that.

In retrospect, I wish I had ditched DIT and started questions from the day one. I "convinced" myself that I had to do a first pass of at least DIT before starting questions, in order to "score well" on the question bank. Not worth it. I ended up only finishing ~70% of the question bank. I scored in the 250s (the exact average of all my NBMEs put together). I think making at least enough time to go through FA + UWorld 1-1.5x would have been a better strategy.

I wouldn't recommend studying beyond your dedicated period, but I come from a curriculum that didn't permit that scheduling wise. We were given 6 weeks of dedicated time to prepare. I was ready by week 4, wish I had scheduled 4.5, and wanted to shoot myself by 5.

As dispo said, I also phoned it in the majority of my preclinicals and regret not going harder. That's where the best scorers and frankly the best at this profession are made.
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#6
Definitely agree with all that was mentioned by smithers (Is there a way to tag other users on this forum? On the other we could just use an @ sign, but that doesn't look like it works here). I felt the same way about "needing a first pass before diving into UWorld." You have to trust that, no matter what type of learner you think you are, doing questions WILL make you better at taking the real thing and reading the incorrect answer explanations is necessary to get the most out of UWorld. There is a lot of great info in there that teaches you about topics that may not have a dedicated UWorld question.

With regard to me saying that I just made a 245-250: I was mostly joking because it seems like everyone on the internet is 250+, the most recent Charting Outcomes has the average of matched NSG applicants at 249, and I have the lowest score of my classmates also applying to neurosurgery. Didn't mean to sound like an asshole or shit on anyone with a similar or lower score!
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#7
(12-27-2016, 05:47 PM)dispo Wrote: Definitely agree with all that was mentioned by smithers (Is there a way to tag other users on this forum? On the other we could just use an @ sign, but that doesn't look like it works here). I felt the same way about "needing a first pass before diving into UWorld." You have to trust that, no matter what type of learner you think you are, doing questions WILL make you better at taking the real thing and reading the incorrect answer explanations is necessary to get the most out of UWorld. There is a lot of great info in there that teaches you about topics that may not have a dedicated UWorld question.

With regard to me saying that I just made a 245-250: I was mostly joking because it seems like everyone on the internet is 250+, the most recent Charting Outcomes has the average of matched NSG applicants at 249, and I have the lowest score of my classmates also applying to neurosurgery. Didn't mean to sound like an asshole or shit on anyone with a similar or lower score!

@dispo so far as I know tags work using the @sign.  I tested it and got a notification that someone referenced me.

I'd have to check, but last I recall the average accepted USMG was 240ish +/- 5.  I forget when the last charting outcomes etc. was published.
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#8
@socrates I didn't see a notification for this one. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but where on the site did you see a notification? Was it in the form of an email? Maybe I need to update my settings...

So here's the link for the most recent Charting Outcomes in the Match for U.S. Allopathic Seniors (2016). Neurosurgery starts on page 99, but this doc is way better handled as a downloaded PDF. The average Step 1 for USMGs that matched into neurosurgery was 249. While this sounds terrible if you're below this average, they also show a breakdown based on 10 point ranges, and once you hit 231, you're more likely to match than not. 221-230 had 11 applicants match and 11 applicants not match. 

Just providing the information here. I think we can all agree Step 1 is super important but plenty of people match every year without 250+
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#9
(12-26-2016, 08:26 PM)guest Wrote: M1 here on winter break.  What can I do to optimize my studying to maximize my Step I score?  Should I use my summer off to study?  Do I need all of the resources (USMLE World, Pathoma, Sketchy, First Aid, Brosencephelon/Anki?) or are there others I need too or instead?

If you haven't started studying for step 1 yet you're gonna have a bad time.  Source: see user name
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#10
The latest charting outcomes is 249.
We are tied second only to plastics @ 250 this year.
Dermatology is also at 249
Ortho and ENT are 248
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