Pathology is the most important subject in the USMLE step1. Somebody told me that more than 60% questions in USMLE step1 are related to pathology. So we should spend most time to study pathology from the very beginning of the preparation to the end.
Highly recommended books for USMLE step1 pathology subject:
Rapid Review: pathology
BRS pathology
First Aid
Goljan Audio and Notes
Kaplan note pathology
Pathology questions:
Pathophysiology for the boards and wards: Diagnosis and therapy 75 quesitons
Lippincotts review of pathology:illustrated interactive Q&A 1100 questions
Robbins and cotran review of pathology 1000questions
Underground clinical vignettes pathophysiology I, II, III 60 questions
pretest pathophysiology 500 questions
pretest pathology 500 questions
Appleton & lange review: general pathology 850 questions
pathology: review for USMLE step1 524 questions
It is always boring to read review books only. So I plan to do a lot of questions when I read review books. I can know the key points in each chapter. No matter how hard we study, we can not know everything. I told myself always focus on the key points. I can make my own flashcard based on my reading and quesiton solving. Hopeful it will help my preparation for the pathology part.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Confidence is the first thing i need
The following advice is from http://www.prep4usmle.com/forum/thread/31304/
Hey Docs,
All the best to you for your Step 1.
You know what? If you want a 99 it is possible. Just follow these simple intructions:
First of all, decide that you want a 99. I mean if you decide that you want a 95 you will get a 90, so aim for 99 and nothing less.
You are only limited by what you think. If I told you that you could never fail what would you do? Do not get frustrated easily, life has just started for you, take one step at a time and enjoy it. You have great intelligence and education and a great life in the US. How many of your countrymen can get such an opportunity?
Here is what i would do: I would sit down first for 2 hours, shut down my cell phone, and take a notepad and a pen and start answering the following questions with full honesty and sincerity:
Answer these questions, not orally, but write them down on paper. You can do this even in chinese, but your pen should not stop for half and hour, just keep on writing. Then, read it out loud. Go to the beach and stand in front of the sea and say it out loud. Read it everyday after you wake up and before you go to bed. It should permeate into your system.
Now you will start feeling more confident. You should now start studying hard.
First start by reading the first 50 pages of kaplan Q Book where they have shown you how to prepare for the test and how to answer the questions.
There is a key to studying medicine. Before opening any book, answer this question: Why am i reading this stuff? For whom am I reading this text book? What is your answer? "It is for my patients." Any single line of the book can save the patients life. So then you will get highly motivated to learn each and every line of text book.
What has to be done?
Last 3 weeks, don't just solve questions, but read all the material again.
Take B complex pills everyday......or else you will get wenickes enceph
Days before exam, solve the Kaplan Simulated and the USMLE Sample CD about 3 weeks before the exam.
Then 2-3 days for each subject. Just read Kaplan LN and nothing else, be confident, if you have read it before you are going to know the answer.
Take notes of all those things of Kaplan that you think that you cannot remember e.g. drug interactions with Cyt P450 in pharmac, side effects of lithium, etc. and write them in the diary.
Last 3 days, read no new material, just read those notes that you took and diary, also you might read certain topics that have to be memorized e.g. patho hemat, cns, kidney pharmac antiarryhythmics, anticancer, rhuematoid arthritis, behavioral sleep and stats, micro virus,etc. Do a rapid revision of those things.
2 days before exam, do USMLE Sample CD again, see photos of harrison and first aid, read diary.
Day before exam, just have fun and relax. Go for a haircut, go for a massage on the head, its so relaxing! Dont sleep in the afternoon or else you will not be able to sleep at night, do some physical activity like going for a walk, and relax with friends, watch a movie.
The morning of the day before the exam, read Kaplan Q Book 1st 50 pages where they have described the ways to answer question in the usmle.....................dont read anything on last day before exam.
Just check your orange card and passport.
Night before the exam, when you go to bed, visualise yourself at prometric and giving the exam, you are doing so great and fantastic and you know all the answers all the time...............wow that is the greatest exam of my life..................... read something that inspires you before you go to bed, ....................so that you go to sleep with positive thoughts in your mind............. the next morning awake refreshed and happy and ready to give the exam...........take 3-4 bottles of tang or vital z with you for energy. take some jelly sandwich so that you get lot of sugars, remember your brain needs glucose as sole source of energy.
Have a breakfast and take 2 tablets of vitamin B complex because you need them more today and take apples in breakfast.................one apple can stimulate you more that one cup of tea or coffee can. those of you who have a habit of drinking tea or coffee can take them to prometric as well...............
again check the orange card and passport..................................
now take the blessings of your God and conquer the exam
In the center, just take deep breaths
go to toilet before the test begins............
wash your face with water and wash your eyes and feel fresh
once you go inside the test terminal dont immediately start.............
take some deep breathes.
take the earplug and put them in your ear.
take the marker pad and then write on the pad............I am going to do
the very best. Come on You can and You will do it
surely................Nothing in this whole world can now stop
me..........Unleash my powers and awaken the giant within
...........................
now you are confident........................
then start the tutorial....................
you cant skip it but just keep on pressing the next button until it gets
over and then you will be asked your CIN no. Just type it and the exam
starts.
Read carefully and start exam. Dont worry..............
Just take the exam like you are playing a video game or computer
game,..........no big deal just routine game.......................
most important ENJOY the exam,
after the block gets over just write on the pad. Great Job Doctor, keep up
the tempo, keep up the good work , 1 block over successfully..........
DO the 1st two blocks simultaneiously without breaks.
after two blocks take a break, wash your face and eyes to prevent eye strain
and fatigue, drink some tang. and start the third block.....
after your 4th or 5th block take a meal.................dont eat too
heavy,................
and you are like 70% done.
just give the blocks and after each block write something good about
yourself...........
i used the marker pad just for that..............
This willl be the best exam that you have ever given in your
life................
Ok Folks Enjoy your life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
You already have the VISA POWER now you only need extra mileage on your
score........
if you need any help i would be glad to be of assistance
best of luck to all
i m sure everyone will do great......anyone and everyone can get a 99 because we are doctors...
Sharvil
Hey Docs,
All the best to you for your Step 1.
You know what? If you want a 99 it is possible. Just follow these simple intructions:
First of all, decide that you want a 99. I mean if you decide that you want a 95 you will get a 90, so aim for 99 and nothing less.
You are only limited by what you think. If I told you that you could never fail what would you do? Do not get frustrated easily, life has just started for you, take one step at a time and enjoy it. You have great intelligence and education and a great life in the US. How many of your countrymen can get such an opportunity?
Here is what i would do: I would sit down first for 2 hours, shut down my cell phone, and take a notepad and a pen and start answering the following questions with full honesty and sincerity:
- What do i want? (if you are honest here you would say i want a 99 because anything less than that would be a lie).
- How would i feel when i have achieved my target? (think of yourself holding your USMLE Step 1 score sheet with a 99 and you giving your friends a great party and celebrating)
- What is preventing you from getting to your goal? How long would it take for you to reach your target?
- What are the resourses that you have that will help you reach your target?
- Do you have any role models who have got similar results?
- Describe your ideal day. What is your timetable and plan for achieving your target?
Answer these questions, not orally, but write them down on paper. You can do this even in chinese, but your pen should not stop for half and hour, just keep on writing. Then, read it out loud. Go to the beach and stand in front of the sea and say it out loud. Read it everyday after you wake up and before you go to bed. It should permeate into your system.
Now you will start feeling more confident. You should now start studying hard.
First start by reading the first 50 pages of kaplan Q Book where they have shown you how to prepare for the test and how to answer the questions.
There is a key to studying medicine. Before opening any book, answer this question: Why am i reading this stuff? For whom am I reading this text book? What is your answer? "It is for my patients." Any single line of the book can save the patients life. So then you will get highly motivated to learn each and every line of text book.
What has to be done?
- Kaplan LN for: Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology, Pharmacology, Microbiology, Immunology, Behavioral Science
- Compass Anatomy/High Yield Anatomy/High Yield Neuronanatomy/High Yield Embryo/High Yield Histology
- BRS Behavioral Science
- BRS Physiology - Just the Neurophysiology.
- Goljan Patho - Very good, if you cant read it just solve questions from it.
- Kaplan Q Book and Bank
- USMLE Sample CD
- Hematology Slides from Harrison's Textbook of Internal Medicine
- Color Plates from First Aid
- Questions from Goljan patho full test
- Questions from goljan 5 star pathology
Last 3 weeks, don't just solve questions, but read all the material again.
Take B complex pills everyday......or else you will get wenickes enceph
Days before exam, solve the Kaplan Simulated and the USMLE Sample CD about 3 weeks before the exam.
Then 2-3 days for each subject. Just read Kaplan LN and nothing else, be confident, if you have read it before you are going to know the answer.
Take notes of all those things of Kaplan that you think that you cannot remember e.g. drug interactions with Cyt P450 in pharmac, side effects of lithium, etc. and write them in the diary.
Last 3 days, read no new material, just read those notes that you took and diary, also you might read certain topics that have to be memorized e.g. patho hemat, cns, kidney pharmac antiarryhythmics, anticancer, rhuematoid arthritis, behavioral sleep and stats, micro virus,etc. Do a rapid revision of those things.
2 days before exam, do USMLE Sample CD again, see photos of harrison and first aid, read diary.
Day before exam, just have fun and relax. Go for a haircut, go for a massage on the head, its so relaxing! Dont sleep in the afternoon or else you will not be able to sleep at night, do some physical activity like going for a walk, and relax with friends, watch a movie.
The morning of the day before the exam, read Kaplan Q Book 1st 50 pages where they have described the ways to answer question in the usmle.....................dont read anything on last day before exam.
Just check your orange card and passport.
Night before the exam, when you go to bed, visualise yourself at prometric and giving the exam, you are doing so great and fantastic and you know all the answers all the time...............wow that is the greatest exam of my life..................... read something that inspires you before you go to bed, ....................so that you go to sleep with positive thoughts in your mind............. the next morning awake refreshed and happy and ready to give the exam...........take 3-4 bottles of tang or vital z with you for energy. take some jelly sandwich so that you get lot of sugars, remember your brain needs glucose as sole source of energy.
Have a breakfast and take 2 tablets of vitamin B complex because you need them more today and take apples in breakfast.................one apple can stimulate you more that one cup of tea or coffee can. those of you who have a habit of drinking tea or coffee can take them to prometric as well...............
again check the orange card and passport..................................
now take the blessings of your God and conquer the exam
In the center, just take deep breaths
go to toilet before the test begins............
wash your face with water and wash your eyes and feel fresh
once you go inside the test terminal dont immediately start.............
take some deep breathes.
take the earplug and put them in your ear.
take the marker pad and then write on the pad............I am going to do
the very best. Come on You can and You will do it
surely................Nothing in this whole world can now stop
me..........Unleash my powers and awaken the giant within
...........................
now you are confident........................
then start the tutorial....................
you cant skip it but just keep on pressing the next button until it gets
over and then you will be asked your CIN no. Just type it and the exam
starts.
Read carefully and start exam. Dont worry..............
Just take the exam like you are playing a video game or computer
game,..........no big deal just routine game.......................
most important ENJOY the exam,
after the block gets over just write on the pad. Great Job Doctor, keep up
the tempo, keep up the good work , 1 block over successfully..........
DO the 1st two blocks simultaneiously without breaks.
after two blocks take a break, wash your face and eyes to prevent eye strain
and fatigue, drink some tang. and start the third block.....
after your 4th or 5th block take a meal.................dont eat too
heavy,................
and you are like 70% done.
just give the blocks and after each block write something good about
yourself...........
i used the marker pad just for that..............
This willl be the best exam that you have ever given in your
life................
Ok Folks Enjoy your life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
You already have the VISA POWER now you only need extra mileage on your
score........
if you need any help i would be glad to be of assistance
best of luck to all
i m sure everyone will do great......anyone and everyone can get a 99 because we are doctors...
Sharvil
Some great advice I found for preparing USMLE step1
These advice is cited from http://www.prep4usmle.com/forum/thread/82908/
Received my score on 1/21/2009.
Initial goal: 250+
Total prep time: 1000 hours.
IMG at an Australian medical school (UQ); MCAT=38
NBME 1: 258 (9 months out)
NBME 2: 261 (2 months out)
NBME 6: 262 (25 days out)
UW 1: 265+ (15 days out)
NBME 3: 265+ (8 days out)
NBME 4: 265+ (6 days out)
UW 2: 265+ (4 days out)
NBME 5: 265+ (2 days out)
USMLE CD: 96% (1 day out)
I did over 10000 USMLE-style practice exam questions in the following order:
USMLERx: 94%
Kaplan Qbank: 91%
First Aid Q&A step 1: 93%
UW: 88% (Random, unused, first time through)
Plus NBME + UW exams + USMLE CD + RR Goljan...
Prep material:
FA of course!! I read it cover-to-cover 3 times. However, I tend to cross-reference it when I read other books and I frequently consulted it during second year during PBL. I also annotated notes in FA when I did UW, so I was very familar with the content of this book. For every diagram/table/metabolic pathway in FA, I made sure that they were familiar to the point that I was able to to reproduce them from memory.
Anatomy: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep, USMLE Road Map Anatomy, HY Neuroanatomy.
Behavioural science: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep.
Biochemistry: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep.
Cell biology: HY Cell and molecular biology.
Microbiology: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep, Micro Made Ridiculously Simple, MicroCards.
Immunology: Kaplan notes & FA.
Pharmacology: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep, HY Pharm, Pharmacology Flash Cards (Brenner).
Physiology: Kaplan notes, BRS Physiology.
Pathology: BRS Pathology, Goljan audio, Goljan notes.
Preparation timeline:
Probably quite atypical compared to most US medical students. I initially intended to sit the exam at the beginning of third year, so I spent a month studying after second year was over. At the end of the month, I didn't feel quite ready and decided to postpone my exam till the end of third year, thinking that I would have plenty of time to study during the clinical rotations. Wrong. I only had some time during my rural rotation and psychiatry rotation to study for USMLE, but could only manage to do 1-2hr/day on weekdays and up to 8hr/day on weekends. At the end of third year, I spent a month studying hardcore again, and finally took the exam on the 26th of December. The Australian school year runs from January to November, by the way.
During second year - Read BRS Pathology and pretty much memorized the book. I love pathology so it wasn't really a daunting task for me. I also started listening to Goljan audios in first year and I was really glad that I started early. I finished Goljan audios at least three times, but I always felt that I learned something new each time.
December 2007 - Finished reading Kaplan notes (all subjects except Path) and Goljan notes for Path. 8-10hr/day. (300hr)
Jan - Nov 2008 - On and off. I did NBME1 in March and got 258(720) and was pretty happy that reading Kaplan notes paid off. However, I had only about 4 months during this time (rural and psych) where I could fit USMLE studying into my schedule, but could only manage to study about 25 hours a week. During this time, I read the supplementary material (HY, Road Map, flash cards), listened to Kaplan webprep while commuting, and did the majority of the practice questions. (400hr)
December 2008 - Did most of the NBMEs and UW assessment exams in this month. Completed UW question bank for the second time. Spent the last week just memorizing FA and doing practice questions. 8-10hr/day. (300hr)
Exam on 2008/12/26:
I started the exam at 8:30 and finished at 4:00 with 20 minutes of break time to spare. On average, I spent 45 minutes in each block and took a 20-minute break after each block (except the first block). During each break, I would drink 300mL of oolong tea or green tea to keep me awake, eat half a sandwich, go to the washroom, and wash my face so I felt refreshed and ready to tackle the next block. I thought the strategy worked quite well for me.
I thought the exam was quite a bit harder than NBME but easier than UW. It was probably comparable to UW self-assessment exams in terms of difficulty. I marked 6-7 questions each block. I thought 85% of the questions was straight-forward, 10% was tricky, and 5% was difficult.
Pathology: Not surprisingly the bulk of the exam. Around 70% of the questions were patholgy questions or required pathology integration. I thought UW covered these sorts of questions really well, so there weren't really any surprises for me. I only had around 5 questions that came with pictures of gross pathology specimens.
Anatomy/neuroanatomy: 15 questions. Most of them involved intepretation of X-rays/CT/MRIs, nothing too obscure. I even had brain CT and angiograms for structure identification. Make sure you know the brain stem and cranial nerves well.
Behavioral science: 20 questions. Half were biostatistics, and the other half were the typical "what would be the best action/response in this scenario" type of questions. I thought just reading FA or Kaplan notes was not really sufficient to answer these sorts of questions. I had almost no questions that came out of the psychiatry section in FA, except a few psychotropic medications and a question on defense mechanisms.
Biochemistry/Cell bio/Molecular bio: Geez, I noticed the trend of increasing proportions of cell biology questions in the NBME, but I never expected this many on my exam. I probably had 50 questions that fell into this category (Biochem/Cell bio). I was glad that I flipped through HY Cell and Molecular biology just a few days before the exam, because it probably helped me answer 5 questions correctly. The different kinds of receptors and intracellular signalling pathways are extremely high-yield. For metabolism, know the key regulatory enzymes and global control of metabolic processes (i.e. insulin vs glucagon's effects).
Pharmacology: Around 25 questions. Piece of cake compared to UW. I thought FA covers pharmacology in sufficient details. As usual, emphasis was placed on autonomic pharmacology and cardiovascular medications. I had quite a few questions on pharmacodynamics too.
Microbiology: 30 questions. Make sure you know the various bacterial exotoxins and their mechanisms of action. Quite a few questions involved TB and HIV. Even West Nile virus appeared on my exam.
Physiology: 30 questions. Most involved the up/down arrows and graph interpretation. Endocrine questions are high-yield too.
I walked out of the testing centre feeling quite confident I did pretty well. I was certain I broke 260, but wasn't too sure if I was able to get 270+. Got the score last Wedneday, 276/99! I didn't even know it was possible! Needless to say, I was ecstatic!!
============================
I've compiled a Q&A from the emails and PMs I've received since last Wednesday. I'd like to thank those who emailed or PMed me and also their permission to post their questions up. I hope this answers more questions regarding my exam preparation.
Learning Resources:
Q: What edition of Kaplan notes did you use, and did you use the accompanying videos?
A: I used Kaplan notes 2004 edition. I was running out of time toward the end of my preparation so I didn't use the videos.
Q: Did the Kaplan webprep audios make a big difference where the lecture notes are concerned?
A: I wouldn't say the webprep audios were essential, but they certainly helped solidify many important concepts, especially for biochem and pharm. If time is a factor for your preparation, I would suggest doing the webprep audios only after you finish reading the lecture notes.
Q: First Aid – how much does it cover?
A: FA covered about 80% of the material on my exam, so I would definitely recommend using it as the primary resource the week before the exam. I went over the rapid review section at the end of FA the night before the exam date, and I found it quite helpful as a last-minute review.
Q: Do you think the lecture notes for biochem are okay to use without the videos?
A: I think the lecture notes for biochem are adequate to be used on its own; I didn't use Kaplan videos so couldn't comment on them. However, I would highly recommend listening to webprep for biochem. Dr. Raymon is just simply amazing; he does an excellent job integrating pathology, pharm, and biochem. However, it is still of utmost importance to memorize all the tables/diagrams/metabolic pathways in the biochem section of FA. I think it really ties the information together nicely toward the end of the preparation.
Q: For Pharmacology, do you think studying FA is enough?
A: I think FA is enough for Pharm, provided that you know the mechanisms of the drugs well. I found it quite difficult to memorize the list of clinical uses and side effects without having a solid understanding of the mechanisms, so I chose to do Kaplan notes before tackling FA, and it certainly made those things easier to memorize.
Q: Did you like the Pharmacology flash cards you used or were they too detailed?
A: I liked the flash cards, they are handy to carry around if you want to study them on the bus or during a boring lecture. It can also be conveniently used to quiz yourself, with the drug's generic name and trade name on one side, and the list of drug class, mechanism, clinical uses, side effects, route of metabolism on the other side. I don't think they are overly detailed.
Q: Despite reading Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple over again, I am still missing tons of micro questions. I dont feel like there is anyway to "master" these questions cause they often test trivia that while I know I read, I just cant recall on the spot. Although, I do think my main problem here is focusing too much on MRS and not on FA.
A: I agree with you that using FA to supplement MRS would be very helpful. It's a good idea to start with MRS in the beginning of your preparation, but toward the end, the tables in MRS and the charts in FA are the way to go. A heavy amount of rote memorization is required to master Microbiology, that's for sure. I would encourage you to focus on the classifications and lab algorithms first before you start memorizing the rest of the minutiae. (Remember: Big pictures first!) The gram positive and negative lab algorithms in FA are gold. Pay close attention to the bacterial exotoxins as well, because they frequently appear on the exam. Make sure you know these like the back of your hand. For virology, use the mnemoics in Kaplan notes to remember the DNA, +RNA, and -RNA viruses.
Q: You mentioned that kaplan and FA were not enough for behavioural and biostat questions. Any suggestion what shall I go for to cover that?
A: A lot of my friends liked HY behavioural and biostats a lot, but I have only read the first few chapters of HY BS so I can't really comment on them. I didn't like Kaplan and FA because they focused too much on the psychiatric disorders, and not so much on the "best response/action" scenario type of questions. The practice questions from UW and NBME are very good though, and I would recommend doing as many questions like those as you can, so you're familiar with the concepts. Sorry to confuse you, but for biostats, I think FA is quite sufficient, but make sure you are comfortable doing those calculations and drawing those 2x2 tables. Doing lots of biostats questions will definitely help solidify the concepts.
Q: How much do you get through a day and how do you retain that information? One of my problems is that I get through maybe 30 pages of Kaplan Biochem notes a day, and at the end of the day, while I retain the information, I find that I really didnt learn that much. Furthermore more, I tend to forget things as I go. When I do questions later on on the same subject, I forgot much of what I learned maybe 2 weeks ago.
A: Don't worry too much about having to retain everything in Kaplan notes, it's impossible and often unnecessary to try to remember some of the details. I think the primary purpose of reading Kaplan notes is to help you understand FA later on so you can memorize the facts in FA with better ease. What types of questions are you getting wrong, are they questions that require straight fact-recall or ones that require you to apply a concept? If it's the former, I wouldn't worry too much about Kaplan notes and would probably spend more time studying FA instead; for the latter, you do have to make sure you comprehend the info in Kaplan notes before moving on to FA.
Another thing I found helpful was to read the corresponding section in FA after finishing a subject in Kaplan notes. It helps solidify information right away.
Q: How many pages of FA and kaplan notes can you get through in a day?
A: I set goals to get through 100 to 120 pages of Kaplan notes every day, at the speed of 12-15 pages per hour. It depends on the subject too; anatomy and biochem were slower, whereas physiology and pharm were faster because I had done BRS physiology and Pharmacology flash cards already. I could read around 60 - 80 pages of FA in a day toward the end of the preparation, but when I first started, it was painfully slow. I could remember spending an entire day just studying the embryology section, which was only a few pages long but very memory-intensive. But once you start remembering the mnemonics and are familiar with the content, the speed goes up quite quickly.
Question banks:
Q: Did you do questions after each subject during your initial read, or did you skip questions altogether until after you completed your first read?
A: Thanks for raising this point as I probably didn't make it very clear in my post. I started doing questions after reading all of Kaplan notes, BRS path and phys, Goljan notes, and most HY books that I mentioned. The only book that I was still reading after I started doing questions was FA.
Q: When you say you did 10000 questions, do you include the book questions or any other questions?
A: I only counted the questions in USMLE format.
UW (2000) + Kaplan practice tests (2000) + Kaplan Q-bank (2000) + FA Q&A (1000) + USMLERx (did ~2000) + NBME 1-6 (1200) + UW self-assessment 1&2 (400) + Goljan RR Path questions (100) = 10700
I didn't count BRS questions or questions in Kaplan notes because they were not always in board format.
Q: Did you do robbins review of path? Was USMLERX useful?
A: I didn't do Robbins, and I wouldn't recommend it either. USMLERx was okay in terms of helping me memorize some details that I wouldn't have paid attention to in FA, because this Q-bank is basically based on the material in FA.
Q: Would you say that a particular question bank or all the 3 question banks that you did do cover all the usmle questions (=subject matter) that you were asked?
A: I would say UW was the most high-yield of them all. USMLERx and Kaplan Q-bank have been known to test minutiae that are not necessarily high-yield info. These 3 question banks combined definitely covered more than any one of them alone. As I mentioned in my post, only 5% of questions on my exam were things I had never encountered before, so doing tons of questions was certainly helpful for me.
Q: I am dedicating a solid 8 hours everyday to question banks (I time myself), but my scores are not improving. What can I do?
A: I would recommend going over the explanations in more detail, making sure you really understand what the question is asking. Don't skip the explanation for questions you answered correctly; you can learn a lot by reading about why the other choices are wrong. It can take a very long time when you first start doing it this way, but after a while, if you learn from your mistakes, you will not get the same type of question wrong again. When I first started doing questions, it often took me 40 minutes to do 50 questions, but an hour to read the explanations and annotate notes into FA. However, I learned a lot from the explanations in UW, probably just as much as the questions themselves. It's easy to feel frustrated when you first start, but with time, I'm sure your accuracy rate will improve. Good luck.
Q: I am quite frustrated with questions that test minutia details, e.g. "Which of the following can be found in bacterial endospores?" (Answer is dipicolinic acid) I had never seen anything like that and I had to flip through pubmed to get the answer. Are these questions worth remembering?
A: I'm not trying to discourage you here; although dipicolinic acid is probably a trivia type question, it was actually mentioned twice in FA, so I'd actually still remember it. Sometimes the strategy is to eliminate the other answer choices if you couldn't recognize the right answer. For example, if other choices are peptidoglycan and mycolic acid, you know they just can't be right.
Q: What did you annotate into first aid? Only qbank questions? I find some of the Micro Qbank questions extremely tedious and testing pHD like material. How can I tell if its important? Or is it all completely important?
A: I only annotate information that I consider "high-yield". As you do more questions, you'll soon know what types of questions tend to show up over and over again; these are the ones that are high-yield.
Take Micro for example, they often give you a clinical presentation of an infectious disease, then ask you for the most appropriate antibiotics. These require a two-step process (Presentation - Bug - Antibiotics), and are guaranteed to be on exam. If they want to be mean, they can ask you about the side effect of the most common antibiotics used. These questions require a three-step process (Presentation - Bug - Antibiotics - Side effects), and are less common than the type of questions above. Things that aid in the laboratory diagnosis or things that have to do with treatment (for example, HIV gene products and antiviral drugs that target these products) are also extremely high-yield. Ignore the weird trivia type of questions that have no clinical correlation.
I agree that Micro Qbank questions can sometimes be a bit annoying, but that doesn't mean the real exam is like that. I found that FA covers > 90% of the Micro questions on my exam, so make sure you know FA well and don't get too discouraged by the low-yield questions.
Q: About doing usmleworld 2X: did you find that helpful even though you already did the same questions once?
A: I did UW again one month apart. I don't think there's much benefit doing it again right after you finish it first time through, but a month gives you enough time to test if you really understand the materials tested, and not because you memorized the questions and answers. For me, the second time helped me increase my speed as I was more comfortable dealing with long question stems (but that could be an effect of having seen the questions before as well).
Q: When should I do UW again?
A: I would recommend doing UW again as close to the exam date as possible, while still giving yourself enough time to go over FA again and do the rest of the NBME forms. I went through UW the second time 3 weeks before my exam; I did 350 questions every day to simulate the exam length and build up my stamina. When I finished, I still had 2 weeks left to review the material that I mentioned above.
Q: When did you really start feeling comfortable with the material?
A: I probably started feeling comfortable with the material after I finished Kaplan notes and had done 2000+ questions. By that time, I knew my strengths and weaknesses and knew what to focus on in order to get the most out of the review process. For example, after doing some questions, I realized I had a lot of trouble with neuroanatomy, and so did HY neuroanatomy for 2 weeks, which seemed to effectively remedy the problem. Besides, as you do more questions, you soon realize the amount of information that FA actually covers. The questions also help you remember the material in FA more easily.
Q: Any advice on test-taking strategies?
A: One thing I found really useful from doing tons of questions is that on the real exam, I could often read the question stem and predict what type of question they were going to throw at me. I would also recommend coming up with your own answer in your head before you look at the answer choices; reading the other answer choices (distractors) before committing to a response can be confusing, especially when you're not very certain of your answer to start with. Of course, if you really have no idea what the question is getting at, reading the options first while using the process of elimination is often helpful.
Received my score on 1/21/2009.
Initial goal: 250+
Total prep time: 1000 hours.
IMG at an Australian medical school (UQ); MCAT=38
NBME 1: 258 (9 months out)
NBME 2: 261 (2 months out)
NBME 6: 262 (25 days out)
UW 1: 265+ (15 days out)
NBME 3: 265+ (8 days out)
NBME 4: 265+ (6 days out)
UW 2: 265+ (4 days out)
NBME 5: 265+ (2 days out)
USMLE CD: 96% (1 day out)
I did over 10000 USMLE-style practice exam questions in the following order:
USMLERx: 94%
Kaplan Qbank: 91%
First Aid Q&A step 1: 93%
UW: 88% (Random, unused, first time through)
Plus NBME + UW exams + USMLE CD + RR Goljan...
Prep material:
FA of course!! I read it cover-to-cover 3 times. However, I tend to cross-reference it when I read other books and I frequently consulted it during second year during PBL. I also annotated notes in FA when I did UW, so I was very familar with the content of this book. For every diagram/table/metabolic pathway in FA, I made sure that they were familiar to the point that I was able to to reproduce them from memory.
Anatomy: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep, USMLE Road Map Anatomy, HY Neuroanatomy.
Behavioural science: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep.
Biochemistry: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep.
Cell biology: HY Cell and molecular biology.
Microbiology: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep, Micro Made Ridiculously Simple, MicroCards.
Immunology: Kaplan notes & FA.
Pharmacology: Kaplan notes & Kaplan webprep, HY Pharm, Pharmacology Flash Cards (Brenner).
Physiology: Kaplan notes, BRS Physiology.
Pathology: BRS Pathology, Goljan audio, Goljan notes.
Preparation timeline:
Probably quite atypical compared to most US medical students. I initially intended to sit the exam at the beginning of third year, so I spent a month studying after second year was over. At the end of the month, I didn't feel quite ready and decided to postpone my exam till the end of third year, thinking that I would have plenty of time to study during the clinical rotations. Wrong. I only had some time during my rural rotation and psychiatry rotation to study for USMLE, but could only manage to do 1-2hr/day on weekdays and up to 8hr/day on weekends. At the end of third year, I spent a month studying hardcore again, and finally took the exam on the 26th of December. The Australian school year runs from January to November, by the way.
During second year - Read BRS Pathology and pretty much memorized the book. I love pathology so it wasn't really a daunting task for me. I also started listening to Goljan audios in first year and I was really glad that I started early. I finished Goljan audios at least three times, but I always felt that I learned something new each time.
December 2007 - Finished reading Kaplan notes (all subjects except Path) and Goljan notes for Path. 8-10hr/day. (300hr)
Jan - Nov 2008 - On and off. I did NBME1 in March and got 258(720) and was pretty happy that reading Kaplan notes paid off. However, I had only about 4 months during this time (rural and psych) where I could fit USMLE studying into my schedule, but could only manage to study about 25 hours a week. During this time, I read the supplementary material (HY, Road Map, flash cards), listened to Kaplan webprep while commuting, and did the majority of the practice questions. (400hr)
December 2008 - Did most of the NBMEs and UW assessment exams in this month. Completed UW question bank for the second time. Spent the last week just memorizing FA and doing practice questions. 8-10hr/day. (300hr)
Exam on 2008/12/26:
I started the exam at 8:30 and finished at 4:00 with 20 minutes of break time to spare. On average, I spent 45 minutes in each block and took a 20-minute break after each block (except the first block). During each break, I would drink 300mL of oolong tea or green tea to keep me awake, eat half a sandwich, go to the washroom, and wash my face so I felt refreshed and ready to tackle the next block. I thought the strategy worked quite well for me.
I thought the exam was quite a bit harder than NBME but easier than UW. It was probably comparable to UW self-assessment exams in terms of difficulty. I marked 6-7 questions each block. I thought 85% of the questions was straight-forward, 10% was tricky, and 5% was difficult.
Pathology: Not surprisingly the bulk of the exam. Around 70% of the questions were patholgy questions or required pathology integration. I thought UW covered these sorts of questions really well, so there weren't really any surprises for me. I only had around 5 questions that came with pictures of gross pathology specimens.
Anatomy/neuroanatomy: 15 questions. Most of them involved intepretation of X-rays/CT/MRIs, nothing too obscure. I even had brain CT and angiograms for structure identification. Make sure you know the brain stem and cranial nerves well.
Behavioral science: 20 questions. Half were biostatistics, and the other half were the typical "what would be the best action/response in this scenario" type of questions. I thought just reading FA or Kaplan notes was not really sufficient to answer these sorts of questions. I had almost no questions that came out of the psychiatry section in FA, except a few psychotropic medications and a question on defense mechanisms.
Biochemistry/Cell bio/Molecular bio: Geez, I noticed the trend of increasing proportions of cell biology questions in the NBME, but I never expected this many on my exam. I probably had 50 questions that fell into this category (Biochem/Cell bio). I was glad that I flipped through HY Cell and Molecular biology just a few days before the exam, because it probably helped me answer 5 questions correctly. The different kinds of receptors and intracellular signalling pathways are extremely high-yield. For metabolism, know the key regulatory enzymes and global control of metabolic processes (i.e. insulin vs glucagon's effects).
Pharmacology: Around 25 questions. Piece of cake compared to UW. I thought FA covers pharmacology in sufficient details. As usual, emphasis was placed on autonomic pharmacology and cardiovascular medications. I had quite a few questions on pharmacodynamics too.
Microbiology: 30 questions. Make sure you know the various bacterial exotoxins and their mechanisms of action. Quite a few questions involved TB and HIV. Even West Nile virus appeared on my exam.
Physiology: 30 questions. Most involved the up/down arrows and graph interpretation. Endocrine questions are high-yield too.
I walked out of the testing centre feeling quite confident I did pretty well. I was certain I broke 260, but wasn't too sure if I was able to get 270+. Got the score last Wedneday, 276/99! I didn't even know it was possible! Needless to say, I was ecstatic!!
============================
I've compiled a Q&A from the emails and PMs I've received since last Wednesday. I'd like to thank those who emailed or PMed me and also their permission to post their questions up. I hope this answers more questions regarding my exam preparation.
Learning Resources:
Q: What edition of Kaplan notes did you use, and did you use the accompanying videos?
A: I used Kaplan notes 2004 edition. I was running out of time toward the end of my preparation so I didn't use the videos.
Q: Did the Kaplan webprep audios make a big difference where the lecture notes are concerned?
A: I wouldn't say the webprep audios were essential, but they certainly helped solidify many important concepts, especially for biochem and pharm. If time is a factor for your preparation, I would suggest doing the webprep audios only after you finish reading the lecture notes.
Q: First Aid – how much does it cover?
A: FA covered about 80% of the material on my exam, so I would definitely recommend using it as the primary resource the week before the exam. I went over the rapid review section at the end of FA the night before the exam date, and I found it quite helpful as a last-minute review.
Q: Do you think the lecture notes for biochem are okay to use without the videos?
A: I think the lecture notes for biochem are adequate to be used on its own; I didn't use Kaplan videos so couldn't comment on them. However, I would highly recommend listening to webprep for biochem. Dr. Raymon is just simply amazing; he does an excellent job integrating pathology, pharm, and biochem. However, it is still of utmost importance to memorize all the tables/diagrams/metabolic pathways in the biochem section of FA. I think it really ties the information together nicely toward the end of the preparation.
Q: For Pharmacology, do you think studying FA is enough?
A: I think FA is enough for Pharm, provided that you know the mechanisms of the drugs well. I found it quite difficult to memorize the list of clinical uses and side effects without having a solid understanding of the mechanisms, so I chose to do Kaplan notes before tackling FA, and it certainly made those things easier to memorize.
Q: Did you like the Pharmacology flash cards you used or were they too detailed?
A: I liked the flash cards, they are handy to carry around if you want to study them on the bus or during a boring lecture. It can also be conveniently used to quiz yourself, with the drug's generic name and trade name on one side, and the list of drug class, mechanism, clinical uses, side effects, route of metabolism on the other side. I don't think they are overly detailed.
Q: Despite reading Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple over again, I am still missing tons of micro questions. I dont feel like there is anyway to "master" these questions cause they often test trivia that while I know I read, I just cant recall on the spot. Although, I do think my main problem here is focusing too much on MRS and not on FA.
A: I agree with you that using FA to supplement MRS would be very helpful. It's a good idea to start with MRS in the beginning of your preparation, but toward the end, the tables in MRS and the charts in FA are the way to go. A heavy amount of rote memorization is required to master Microbiology, that's for sure. I would encourage you to focus on the classifications and lab algorithms first before you start memorizing the rest of the minutiae. (Remember: Big pictures first!) The gram positive and negative lab algorithms in FA are gold. Pay close attention to the bacterial exotoxins as well, because they frequently appear on the exam. Make sure you know these like the back of your hand. For virology, use the mnemoics in Kaplan notes to remember the DNA, +RNA, and -RNA viruses.
Q: You mentioned that kaplan and FA were not enough for behavioural and biostat questions. Any suggestion what shall I go for to cover that?
A: A lot of my friends liked HY behavioural and biostats a lot, but I have only read the first few chapters of HY BS so I can't really comment on them. I didn't like Kaplan and FA because they focused too much on the psychiatric disorders, and not so much on the "best response/action" scenario type of questions. The practice questions from UW and NBME are very good though, and I would recommend doing as many questions like those as you can, so you're familiar with the concepts. Sorry to confuse you, but for biostats, I think FA is quite sufficient, but make sure you are comfortable doing those calculations and drawing those 2x2 tables. Doing lots of biostats questions will definitely help solidify the concepts.
Q: How much do you get through a day and how do you retain that information? One of my problems is that I get through maybe 30 pages of Kaplan Biochem notes a day, and at the end of the day, while I retain the information, I find that I really didnt learn that much. Furthermore more, I tend to forget things as I go. When I do questions later on on the same subject, I forgot much of what I learned maybe 2 weeks ago.
A: Don't worry too much about having to retain everything in Kaplan notes, it's impossible and often unnecessary to try to remember some of the details. I think the primary purpose of reading Kaplan notes is to help you understand FA later on so you can memorize the facts in FA with better ease. What types of questions are you getting wrong, are they questions that require straight fact-recall or ones that require you to apply a concept? If it's the former, I wouldn't worry too much about Kaplan notes and would probably spend more time studying FA instead; for the latter, you do have to make sure you comprehend the info in Kaplan notes before moving on to FA.
Another thing I found helpful was to read the corresponding section in FA after finishing a subject in Kaplan notes. It helps solidify information right away.
Q: How many pages of FA and kaplan notes can you get through in a day?
A: I set goals to get through 100 to 120 pages of Kaplan notes every day, at the speed of 12-15 pages per hour. It depends on the subject too; anatomy and biochem were slower, whereas physiology and pharm were faster because I had done BRS physiology and Pharmacology flash cards already. I could read around 60 - 80 pages of FA in a day toward the end of the preparation, but when I first started, it was painfully slow. I could remember spending an entire day just studying the embryology section, which was only a few pages long but very memory-intensive. But once you start remembering the mnemonics and are familiar with the content, the speed goes up quite quickly.
Question banks:
Q: Did you do questions after each subject during your initial read, or did you skip questions altogether until after you completed your first read?
A: Thanks for raising this point as I probably didn't make it very clear in my post. I started doing questions after reading all of Kaplan notes, BRS path and phys, Goljan notes, and most HY books that I mentioned. The only book that I was still reading after I started doing questions was FA.
Q: When you say you did 10000 questions, do you include the book questions or any other questions?
A: I only counted the questions in USMLE format.
UW (2000) + Kaplan practice tests (2000) + Kaplan Q-bank (2000) + FA Q&A (1000) + USMLERx (did ~2000) + NBME 1-6 (1200) + UW self-assessment 1&2 (400) + Goljan RR Path questions (100) = 10700
I didn't count BRS questions or questions in Kaplan notes because they were not always in board format.
Q: Did you do robbins review of path? Was USMLERX useful?
A: I didn't do Robbins, and I wouldn't recommend it either. USMLERx was okay in terms of helping me memorize some details that I wouldn't have paid attention to in FA, because this Q-bank is basically based on the material in FA.
Q: Would you say that a particular question bank or all the 3 question banks that you did do cover all the usmle questions (=subject matter) that you were asked?
A: I would say UW was the most high-yield of them all. USMLERx and Kaplan Q-bank have been known to test minutiae that are not necessarily high-yield info. These 3 question banks combined definitely covered more than any one of them alone. As I mentioned in my post, only 5% of questions on my exam were things I had never encountered before, so doing tons of questions was certainly helpful for me.
Q: I am dedicating a solid 8 hours everyday to question banks (I time myself), but my scores are not improving. What can I do?
A: I would recommend going over the explanations in more detail, making sure you really understand what the question is asking. Don't skip the explanation for questions you answered correctly; you can learn a lot by reading about why the other choices are wrong. It can take a very long time when you first start doing it this way, but after a while, if you learn from your mistakes, you will not get the same type of question wrong again. When I first started doing questions, it often took me 40 minutes to do 50 questions, but an hour to read the explanations and annotate notes into FA. However, I learned a lot from the explanations in UW, probably just as much as the questions themselves. It's easy to feel frustrated when you first start, but with time, I'm sure your accuracy rate will improve. Good luck.
Q: I am quite frustrated with questions that test minutia details, e.g. "Which of the following can be found in bacterial endospores?" (Answer is dipicolinic acid) I had never seen anything like that and I had to flip through pubmed to get the answer. Are these questions worth remembering?
A: I'm not trying to discourage you here; although dipicolinic acid is probably a trivia type question, it was actually mentioned twice in FA, so I'd actually still remember it. Sometimes the strategy is to eliminate the other answer choices if you couldn't recognize the right answer. For example, if other choices are peptidoglycan and mycolic acid, you know they just can't be right.
Q: What did you annotate into first aid? Only qbank questions? I find some of the Micro Qbank questions extremely tedious and testing pHD like material. How can I tell if its important? Or is it all completely important?
A: I only annotate information that I consider "high-yield". As you do more questions, you'll soon know what types of questions tend to show up over and over again; these are the ones that are high-yield.
Take Micro for example, they often give you a clinical presentation of an infectious disease, then ask you for the most appropriate antibiotics. These require a two-step process (Presentation - Bug - Antibiotics), and are guaranteed to be on exam. If they want to be mean, they can ask you about the side effect of the most common antibiotics used. These questions require a three-step process (Presentation - Bug - Antibiotics - Side effects), and are less common than the type of questions above. Things that aid in the laboratory diagnosis or things that have to do with treatment (for example, HIV gene products and antiviral drugs that target these products) are also extremely high-yield. Ignore the weird trivia type of questions that have no clinical correlation.
I agree that Micro Qbank questions can sometimes be a bit annoying, but that doesn't mean the real exam is like that. I found that FA covers > 90% of the Micro questions on my exam, so make sure you know FA well and don't get too discouraged by the low-yield questions.
Q: About doing usmleworld 2X: did you find that helpful even though you already did the same questions once?
A: I did UW again one month apart. I don't think there's much benefit doing it again right after you finish it first time through, but a month gives you enough time to test if you really understand the materials tested, and not because you memorized the questions and answers. For me, the second time helped me increase my speed as I was more comfortable dealing with long question stems (but that could be an effect of having seen the questions before as well).
Q: When should I do UW again?
A: I would recommend doing UW again as close to the exam date as possible, while still giving yourself enough time to go over FA again and do the rest of the NBME forms. I went through UW the second time 3 weeks before my exam; I did 350 questions every day to simulate the exam length and build up my stamina. When I finished, I still had 2 weeks left to review the material that I mentioned above.
Q: When did you really start feeling comfortable with the material?
A: I probably started feeling comfortable with the material after I finished Kaplan notes and had done 2000+ questions. By that time, I knew my strengths and weaknesses and knew what to focus on in order to get the most out of the review process. For example, after doing some questions, I realized I had a lot of trouble with neuroanatomy, and so did HY neuroanatomy for 2 weeks, which seemed to effectively remedy the problem. Besides, as you do more questions, you soon realize the amount of information that FA actually covers. The questions also help you remember the material in FA more easily.
Q: Any advice on test-taking strategies?
A: One thing I found really useful from doing tons of questions is that on the real exam, I could often read the question stem and predict what type of question they were going to throw at me. I would also recommend coming up with your own answer in your head before you look at the answer choices; reading the other answer choices (distractors) before committing to a response can be confusing, especially when you're not very certain of your answer to start with. Of course, if you really have no idea what the question is getting at, reading the options first while using the process of elimination is often helpful.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Prepare USMLE step1 with a balanced life
I am inspired by a lot moms including the following one.
This story is cited from http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/MedicalCareer/31184094.html
I think she is right. We need a balanced life when we prepare USMLE. Otherwise it is going to be tougher, when we do residency.
Sorry, I can't type Chinese here. I got the OK score, not the dream 99. But
I'm happy.
Prepare time: 1 year (full time work with a two-year old boy, 2-3hr weekday,
no study on weekend, I gave weekends to my boy, took off 5 weeks before
test)
Score/date: 223/93 3/28/2008
UW: 6 months, 50-70%, average 60%
Books: Because I'm old graduate (>10year) I went over some text books for
better understanding and detail. Not just for the exam, I think that will
help me in future medical practice.
Katzung and Trevor's Pharmacology: Examination and Board Review: a lot of
detail. I like this book because it gives good physiology and phathology
background.
Lippincott's Illustrated reviews: Biochemistry Good book if you hate
biochemisty when you were in school. Good illustration for genetic disease.
Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease read once at the begining
with BRS pathology. Not neccessary for the test. But again for me, an old
graduate, it helped me to remember things with good background information
and gave me confidency somehow.
BRS and Goljan pathology: BRS 1time Goljan 2 times. I did the second time
along with UW, FA. I liked that combination.
Kplan notes: only for neuroanatomy, biostatistcs and behavior. As an old
graduate, I started with Kplan and found out it's so dry and boring to
remember. That's one reason I went to textbooks for pharmacolloy and
pathology and biochemistry.
Mirobiology: Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple: great book
Immunology: FA and UW. All things mentioned in FA I went to the chapters in
Janeway's 'Immunobiology'. Again, the textbook helped me to remember those
dry and boring test points.
NBME form1:490 (1month ago)
form4: 510(4days ago)
Lessons: Should do th FA+UW+Goljan combantion earlier. I only did that in
last 5 weeksand found myself a little short of time. But I didn't pospone
the test because I felt myself in deep anxiety, just wanted to end it soon.
Do NBME early and should downloaded them. The online paid one is good to
do the evaluation and let me where's the weak point. The downloaded should
be used to review. I got several exactly same questions during the real
test.
Feelings after test. UW is the must. Do every question and truly
understand what it ask. That's enough for the test. Sure you will get some
questions from nowhere. Oh, bother, stick the basic. For many moms doing
the test, don't give away all your life to the test. I thought that before
. And I figure out that if I cann't handle work, exam and family at same
time now I won't survive the residency year in the future. Spend time with
your family and your baby, keep good communication with your spouse. Even
if he is very surppotive, he still has his needs and thoughts. When you
are with your family, don't think your test. When my son was just one
year old, he can tell if I was concentrated on him or not. If my thoughts
went away or I wanted to read when he was playing, he would be whining
more and ask more time or even threw away whatever I was reading. If I was
truly involved in playing with him, he would actually be reasonalble and
need less time and both of us would be happy. I would be less stress and
have better efficiency in study. Don't ignor the brain power of a infant
or toddler. That little brain actually works.:) If you have an easy baby,
lucky you. That's not the case for me. That's why I gave all weekends to
him, took him to gymboree class, park, playground, zoo....Kid's happiness
is so simple and pure, why not let them have it when they can. I would say
that we can not compare the happiness of getting 99 in usmle with that in a
toddler's smile. For those who don't have kid, try to finish the test
before they come. Kid are amazing creatures. They give you endless love,
joy and WORKS.
Good luck for everyone! Thanks for everyone posted here. I've been silient
from the beginning. I got a lot of good information from here. I'm moving
to the step 2.
This story is cited from http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/MedicalCareer/31184094.html
I think she is right. We need a balanced life when we prepare USMLE. Otherwise it is going to be tougher, when we do residency.
Sorry, I can't type Chinese here. I got the OK score, not the dream 99. But
I'm happy.
Prepare time: 1 year (full time work with a two-year old boy, 2-3hr weekday,
no study on weekend, I gave weekends to my boy, took off 5 weeks before
test)
Score/date: 223/93 3/28/2008
UW: 6 months, 50-70%, average 60%
Books: Because I'm old graduate (>10year) I went over some text books for
better understanding and detail. Not just for the exam, I think that will
help me in future medical practice.
Katzung and Trevor's Pharmacology: Examination and Board Review: a lot of
detail. I like this book because it gives good physiology and phathology
background.
Lippincott's Illustrated reviews: Biochemistry Good book if you hate
biochemisty when you were in school. Good illustration for genetic disease.
Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease read once at the begining
with BRS pathology. Not neccessary for the test. But again for me, an old
graduate, it helped me to remember things with good background information
and gave me confidency somehow.
BRS and Goljan pathology: BRS 1time Goljan 2 times. I did the second time
along with UW, FA. I liked that combination.
Kplan notes: only for neuroanatomy, biostatistcs and behavior. As an old
graduate, I started with Kplan and found out it's so dry and boring to
remember. That's one reason I went to textbooks for pharmacolloy and
pathology and biochemistry.
Mirobiology: Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple: great book
Immunology: FA and UW. All things mentioned in FA I went to the chapters in
Janeway's 'Immunobiology'. Again, the textbook helped me to remember those
dry and boring test points.
NBME form1:490 (1month ago)
form4: 510(4days ago)
Lessons: Should do th FA+UW+Goljan combantion earlier. I only did that in
last 5 weeksand found myself a little short of time. But I didn't pospone
the test because I felt myself in deep anxiety, just wanted to end it soon.
Do NBME early and should downloaded them. The online paid one is good to
do the evaluation and let me where's the weak point. The downloaded should
be used to review. I got several exactly same questions during the real
test.
Feelings after test. UW is the must. Do every question and truly
understand what it ask. That's enough for the test. Sure you will get some
questions from nowhere. Oh, bother, stick the basic. For many moms doing
the test, don't give away all your life to the test. I thought that before
. And I figure out that if I cann't handle work, exam and family at same
time now I won't survive the residency year in the future. Spend time with
your family and your baby, keep good communication with your spouse. Even
if he is very surppotive, he still has his needs and thoughts. When you
are with your family, don't think your test. When my son was just one
year old, he can tell if I was concentrated on him or not. If my thoughts
went away or I wanted to read when he was playing, he would be whining
more and ask more time or even threw away whatever I was reading. If I was
truly involved in playing with him, he would actually be reasonalble and
need less time and both of us would be happy. I would be less stress and
have better efficiency in study. Don't ignor the brain power of a infant
or toddler. That little brain actually works.:) If you have an easy baby,
lucky you. That's not the case for me. That's why I gave all weekends to
him, took him to gymboree class, park, playground, zoo....Kid's happiness
is so simple and pure, why not let them have it when they can. I would say
that we can not compare the happiness of getting 99 in usmle with that in a
toddler's smile. For those who don't have kid, try to finish the test
before they come. Kid are amazing creatures. They give you endless love,
joy and WORKS.
Good luck for everyone! Thanks for everyone posted here. I've been silient
from the beginning. I got a lot of good information from here. I'm moving
to the step 2.
How to get Kaplan Qbank and Usmle world Qbank
文章来源:
http://www.gxfw.com/viewthread.php?tid=98796&extra=&page=4
考试复习资料可以在电驴上找到
http://lib.verycd.com/2007/01/01/0000133963.html
我和老婆都是湘雅98级的现在，在seattle正准备step one！
希望多多湘雅的同学走出来！
关于考试资料step one的王道是（个人看了大量前人经验，及阿三论坛後总结）：
Kaplan Lecture notes + first Aid （一般要看4偏）
外加题库（总计4000+）
Kaplan Qbank+Usmel World Qbank
这样一般人，能step one 90左右，满足做为IMG去match才不会处于下风。
Step two同样。。。
关于Kaplan Lecture notes + first Aid资料，Emule上全都有，你只要在下载安装emule后在搜索里面找就能找到。
另外，如果你经济有问题可以在ebay上买到阿三们刻录的DVD
一般包括Kaplan Lecture notes + first Aid
题库（总计4000+）
Kaplan Qbank+Usmel World Qbank
D版的就不行了，自由老实买了（国内信用卡是可以用的）
http://www.kaptest.com/Kaplan/Ar ... E_step1_qbank1.html
http://www.usmleworld.com/step1QbankMain.asp
http://www.gxfw.com/viewthread.php?tid=98796&extra=&page=4
考试复习资料可以在电驴上找到
http://lib.verycd.com/2007/01/01/0000133963.html
我和老婆都是湘雅98级的现在，在seattle正准备step one！
希望多多湘雅的同学走出来！
关于考试资料step one的王道是（个人看了大量前人经验，及阿三论坛後总结）：
Kaplan Lecture notes + first Aid （一般要看4偏）
外加题库（总计4000+）
Kaplan Qbank+Usmel World Qbank
这样一般人，能step one 90左右，满足做为IMG去match才不会处于下风。
Step two同样。。。
关于Kaplan Lecture notes + first Aid资料，Emule上全都有，你只要在下载安装emule后在搜索里面找就能找到。
另外，如果你经济有问题可以在ebay上买到阿三们刻录的DVD
一般包括Kaplan Lecture notes + first Aid
题库（总计4000+）
Kaplan Qbank+Usmel World Qbank
D版的就不行了，自由老实买了（国内信用卡是可以用的）
http://www.kaptest.com/Kaplan/Ar ... E_step1_qbank1.html
http://www.usmleworld.com/step1QbankMain.asp
ECFMG for beginners
文摘引自:http://blog.wenxuecity.com/blogview.php?date=200902&postID=46360
新手入门第一课必读: |
| [打印] |
How to prepare USMLE step1--1
自己从医学院毕业也快十年了.虽然不学临床,但拿的的确是医学学士学位.
因为对现状不满,希望改变,所以才起了考BOARD的想法.生活不能按步就班,否则我也不会到这里.
有奋斗才有收获.目前,决心已定,顿觉心里豁然开朗.如果,只有一条路,就拼了.如果没有路,就自己走出一条路.
第一步先收集一些考试资料.看看自己在知识上离考试还有多远.
第二步要报名.确认的确可以考,心里踏实.
第三步要努力读书.贯彻到每一天,这样日子才不会痛苦.
下面是我收集来的别人的考试经验,我觉得很有价值,就收录了.
文章来源:http://www.gxfw.com/viewthread.php?tid=98796&extra=&page=4
做点贡献，我考医生执照用过的参考书(step 1) 2006-06-10 23:23:44
写在前面
在考试的时候，尤其是开始准备的时候，没有什么信息，所以走了不少弯路，买了不少没用的书，作了不少没用的题，花了不少宝贵的时间，所以想总结一下，为以后的同学们铺垫一下，也算我没有白白花了这些钱，呵呵。列的书目，是按照重要程度罗列的。
我建议同学们买当年最新版的First Aid，因为这本书的重要性太显著了。其他的书都是在ebay上拍的二手书，价钱便宜很多。
另外我不建议同学们去买刻在CD上的kaplan notes，或者网上所谓破译的qbank题库，看起来一点感觉也没有，不利于学习和记忆。这个钱是不能省的。
1. First Aid，这本书是USMLE考试的圣经，每个要去考试的同学，手头上都应该有一本。书里不光提供了考试的纲要重点（有些记忆方法真的是很实用），而且介绍 了整个考试的过程，细节非常详尽，甚至提到了考试当天吃东西的注意点，呵呵。仔细看一遍，对于后面的计划，安排都会有很大的帮助。考试前最后一到两周，可 以把这本书的知识点再浏览一遍。
2. Kaplan notes (Anatomy, Behavioral Science, Biochemistry, MicroBiolog/ Immunology, Pharmacology, Pathology,Physiology)，一共七本，一般买的时候会附送一本qbook，850个问题。这套书一般是外国学生的必备，覆盖了考试的基 本知识点，条理清晰，容易阅读。是kaplan上课的时候的教材，所以不公开出售，一般都是在ebay上买used books，很多是全新的翻印版，一般价格在450元左右。同学们如果看书比较爱护的话，还可以在考试以后再卖掉。
kaplan官方网站出售的一种四本一套的，好像叫做home study，内容简单一些，用的人不是很多，反响也不好，不推荐。
有了上面这套notes，其实已经很够了，单就这套书未必还能背下来呢。但是网上经常说只看kaplan不会超过85分，我心里很忐忑，所以又照着first aid后面的评级陆续购买了一些其他的书，大多数钱是冤枉花掉的，买个心安吧。
3. Qbank: 在Kaplan官方网站上定购，2000道左右的题目，从简到难各种层次都有，是step1最经典的练习题，建议在最后两道三个月做，然 后重复做一遍，考前一个星期，再把错的题目看一遍。不要因为作的时候分数不好而沮丧，这个题目和真正考题还是有区别的，只是用来巩固知识点的，不是用来模 拟测验的。
4. NBME: 这个是最接近真实成绩的模拟考试，网上可以购买，有两个form，考前一个月做一个，可以大致知道自己的实力，和我的真实成绩确实很接近。我没有胆量在考试前一个礼拜做，怕万一做得不好，呵呵。
5. Robbins Pathology： 1100个问题。我非常喜欢这本书，有质量很好的彩色插图，讲解也很精彩，有的时候很幽默。题目几乎覆盖了pathology所有的方面，还联系到了生 化，遗传，微生物等。在step1中，pathology的重要性非常突出，所以这本书对于提高成绩，全面知识，起到了很好的作用。就是非常耗时间，比实 际考试要求要高，好几次几乎放弃，呵呵。
6. WebPath: step1 非常注重考察对于图片的诊断能力，所以光看kaplan notes在这方面是有欠缺的，webpath是一个网站专门提供各种病理切片，包括一些正常解剖图片和微生物图片。
7.BRS pathology: Yes, pathology again! 病理是step 1的兵家重地，怎么样学习都不过分。kaplan的病理条理清晰，便于记忆，但是展开得不够，所以可以用比较罗索细节的BRS做一下补充，这本书的呼声很 高，其实我觉得没怎么好，所以只是用作back up.
8. Appleton @ Lange's Review: 1200个问题。这是我做的第一本练习集，错的一塌糊涂，呵呵，后来第二遍再做，还是错的很厉害，非常挫伤自尊心，对自己有信心的同 学，有时间的话不妨试试看。个人觉得这本书覆盖的知识点很细腻，一些容易被忽略的但是重要的东西，会被提醒到。
9. NMS, 这本书非常不推荐，主要是格式和正式考试完全不同，问的问题也很奇怪冷僻，做起来就是浪费时间，答案很啰嗦。但是配合本书的电脑考试软件还是不错的，大约 1000个问题。界面很舒服，题目也比较临床，灵活，我一般在吃早饭，午餐休息的时候，打开笔记本做一个block，感觉比较轻松。
10. Board simulator Series on CD-ROM： 和ＮＭＳ一样，纯粹作为放松联系，还是不错的。770个问题。
11. High Yield 系列： 因为First Aid评价很好，而且因为kaplan在Embryology上的讲解很松散，所以买了这一本，还翻过朋友的Gross Anatomy，很精简，读起来比较有成就感，插图比较粗糙。Embryology在真实考试中所占比例非常小，而且问到了，一般也答不上来，因为肯定要 忘记的，所以不用花很多功夫，只要在几种常见的先天畸形的演化上理解吃透就好了。这个系列其他的书，我觉得如果有了kaplan notes就没有必要买，如果没有notes，光看这个是肯定不够的。
12.Underground Clinical Vignettes: 这套书也是因为FA反复推荐，后来发现编者是同一个人，呵呵，过分。不是题目，是一个个案例，非常浅显，一般看过书以后都能知道，真实考试不会这么简单 的。我买了以后很后悔，全新的又再卖出去了，还赚了几块钱，嘻嘻。
13. REA: 一个朋友送的，所以看了看，非常落伍的题目，不推荐。
加起来的话，我大概一共做了5000道左右的习题。记得刚开始复习的时候，网上说做到8000以上的习题，95以上就没问题了。我自己的感觉是，习题不在量多，而是要记住，我情愿把一本书做两遍，也不愿意把两本书各作一遍。如果不能真正巩固知识，追求数量，是没有意义的。
补充
有朋友提到了Goljian notes，我有他的讲课mp3，在走路去学校，或者去买东西的时候，还有晚上睡觉前听。说实话，听的时候可能觉得很有意思，听过之后也就忘记了，就当作 补充，调剂可以，千万不要专门花时间去弄这个，看kaplan notes最重要。但是他有一套自我测试题，180道的，可以做做，还是不错的。
Good luck to everyone!
因为对现状不满,希望改变,所以才起了考BOARD的想法.生活不能按步就班,否则我也不会到这里.
有奋斗才有收获.目前,决心已定,顿觉心里豁然开朗.如果,只有一条路,就拼了.如果没有路,就自己走出一条路.
第一步先收集一些考试资料.看看自己在知识上离考试还有多远.
第二步要报名.确认的确可以考,心里踏实.
第三步要努力读书.贯彻到每一天,这样日子才不会痛苦.
下面是我收集来的别人的考试经验,我觉得很有价值,就收录了.
文章来源:http://www.gxfw.com/viewthread.php?tid=98796&extra=&page=4
做点贡献，我考医生执照用过的参考书(step 1) 2006-06-10 23:23:44
写在前面
在考试的时候，尤其是开始准备的时候，没有什么信息，所以走了不少弯路，买了不少没用的书，作了不少没用的题，花了不少宝贵的时间，所以想总结一下，为以后的同学们铺垫一下，也算我没有白白花了这些钱，呵呵。列的书目，是按照重要程度罗列的。
我建议同学们买当年最新版的First Aid，因为这本书的重要性太显著了。其他的书都是在ebay上拍的二手书，价钱便宜很多。
另外我不建议同学们去买刻在CD上的kaplan notes，或者网上所谓破译的qbank题库，看起来一点感觉也没有，不利于学习和记忆。这个钱是不能省的。
1. First Aid，这本书是USMLE考试的圣经，每个要去考试的同学，手头上都应该有一本。书里不光提供了考试的纲要重点（有些记忆方法真的是很实用），而且介绍 了整个考试的过程，细节非常详尽，甚至提到了考试当天吃东西的注意点，呵呵。仔细看一遍，对于后面的计划，安排都会有很大的帮助。考试前最后一到两周，可 以把这本书的知识点再浏览一遍。
2. Kaplan notes (Anatomy, Behavioral Science, Biochemistry, MicroBiolog/ Immunology, Pharmacology, Pathology,Physiology)，一共七本，一般买的时候会附送一本qbook，850个问题。这套书一般是外国学生的必备，覆盖了考试的基 本知识点，条理清晰，容易阅读。是kaplan上课的时候的教材，所以不公开出售，一般都是在ebay上买used books，很多是全新的翻印版，一般价格在450元左右。同学们如果看书比较爱护的话，还可以在考试以后再卖掉。
kaplan官方网站出售的一种四本一套的，好像叫做home study，内容简单一些，用的人不是很多，反响也不好，不推荐。
有了上面这套notes，其实已经很够了，单就这套书未必还能背下来呢。但是网上经常说只看kaplan不会超过85分，我心里很忐忑，所以又照着first aid后面的评级陆续购买了一些其他的书，大多数钱是冤枉花掉的，买个心安吧。
3. Qbank: 在Kaplan官方网站上定购，2000道左右的题目，从简到难各种层次都有，是step1最经典的练习题，建议在最后两道三个月做，然 后重复做一遍，考前一个星期，再把错的题目看一遍。不要因为作的时候分数不好而沮丧，这个题目和真正考题还是有区别的，只是用来巩固知识点的，不是用来模 拟测验的。
4. NBME: 这个是最接近真实成绩的模拟考试，网上可以购买，有两个form，考前一个月做一个，可以大致知道自己的实力，和我的真实成绩确实很接近。我没有胆量在考试前一个礼拜做，怕万一做得不好，呵呵。
5. Robbins Pathology： 1100个问题。我非常喜欢这本书，有质量很好的彩色插图，讲解也很精彩，有的时候很幽默。题目几乎覆盖了pathology所有的方面，还联系到了生 化，遗传，微生物等。在step1中，pathology的重要性非常突出，所以这本书对于提高成绩，全面知识，起到了很好的作用。就是非常耗时间，比实 际考试要求要高，好几次几乎放弃，呵呵。
6. WebPath: step1 非常注重考察对于图片的诊断能力，所以光看kaplan notes在这方面是有欠缺的，webpath是一个网站专门提供各种病理切片，包括一些正常解剖图片和微生物图片。
7.BRS pathology: Yes, pathology again! 病理是step 1的兵家重地，怎么样学习都不过分。kaplan的病理条理清晰，便于记忆，但是展开得不够，所以可以用比较罗索细节的BRS做一下补充，这本书的呼声很 高，其实我觉得没怎么好，所以只是用作back up.
8. Appleton @ Lange's Review: 1200个问题。这是我做的第一本练习集，错的一塌糊涂，呵呵，后来第二遍再做，还是错的很厉害，非常挫伤自尊心，对自己有信心的同 学，有时间的话不妨试试看。个人觉得这本书覆盖的知识点很细腻，一些容易被忽略的但是重要的东西，会被提醒到。
9. NMS, 这本书非常不推荐，主要是格式和正式考试完全不同，问的问题也很奇怪冷僻，做起来就是浪费时间，答案很啰嗦。但是配合本书的电脑考试软件还是不错的，大约 1000个问题。界面很舒服，题目也比较临床，灵活，我一般在吃早饭，午餐休息的时候，打开笔记本做一个block，感觉比较轻松。
10. Board simulator Series on CD-ROM： 和ＮＭＳ一样，纯粹作为放松联系，还是不错的。770个问题。
11. High Yield 系列： 因为First Aid评价很好，而且因为kaplan在Embryology上的讲解很松散，所以买了这一本，还翻过朋友的Gross Anatomy，很精简，读起来比较有成就感，插图比较粗糙。Embryology在真实考试中所占比例非常小，而且问到了，一般也答不上来，因为肯定要 忘记的，所以不用花很多功夫，只要在几种常见的先天畸形的演化上理解吃透就好了。这个系列其他的书，我觉得如果有了kaplan notes就没有必要买，如果没有notes，光看这个是肯定不够的。
12.Underground Clinical Vignettes: 这套书也是因为FA反复推荐，后来发现编者是同一个人，呵呵，过分。不是题目，是一个个案例，非常浅显，一般看过书以后都能知道，真实考试不会这么简单 的。我买了以后很后悔，全新的又再卖出去了，还赚了几块钱，嘻嘻。
13. REA: 一个朋友送的，所以看了看，非常落伍的题目，不推荐。
加起来的话，我大概一共做了5000道左右的习题。记得刚开始复习的时候，网上说做到8000以上的习题，95以上就没问题了。我自己的感觉是，习题不在量多，而是要记住，我情愿把一本书做两遍，也不愿意把两本书各作一遍。如果不能真正巩固知识，追求数量，是没有意义的。
补充
有朋友提到了Goljian notes，我有他的讲课mp3，在走路去学校，或者去买东西的时候，还有晚上睡觉前听。说实话，听的时候可能觉得很有意思，听过之后也就忘记了，就当作 补充，调剂可以，千万不要专门花时间去弄这个，看kaplan notes最重要。但是他有一套自我测试题，180道的，可以做做，还是不错的。
Good luck to everyone!
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