I sat for the Step 1 in June of 2006 - got a 180/74 - so am planning on sitting again in June of 2007 to take it for a second time - thought I would share my advice, and not so much the entire experience....

I found that I could memorize all of the short-term bugs/drugs/buzzwords/ high-yield info fairly quickly, and so I just stuck to that, and Kaplan books.

My test had all of these buzzwords, facts, and high-yield things that I had expected to see, but only in the question stem. The next step was really a "step-back" and most of my questions that i struggled with involved a description of a disease, then being asked about the cell bio/ biochem/ absolutely basic mechanism of the diseases that i recognized.

I guess the best way to describe it was that instead of asking specific questions about a defined lung pathology and the intricacies of each type of tumor- i would be presented with a vague lung pathology case, and then would be asked about how GENERAL principals of inflammation or neoplasia, etc. applied to the disease state. It was like instead of being asked about specific organ system chapters in Robbins - I was asked to apply the concepts in the first 5 chapters of Robbins to each organ system.

In my second round of studying - I am focused more on WHY things are symptoms or treatments of a disease instead of just the symptoms and treatments of the disease - as well as a solid understanding of HOW physio works. Many of my physio questions not only tested my understanding or knowledge of normal and clinically-seen abnormal processes, but what it would do under non-characteristic abnormal precesses - an absolute grasp of the FUNDAMENTALS of medicine is what is needed to pass this test. Once you know in-depth basic mechanisms - you can apply them to higher level disease states.

thanks for your input & good luck in june.

That is a very beatifull and 100% true.

I think that you are on your way to pass the test in this ocasion.

Thanks for sharing your input.

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Moderator: USMLE AND Residency Forums.

Your best friend will die, we can go to war tomorrow, don't care about those things anymore just study.

Some day I will be the next Goljan/Daugherty/fissher for IMG's all over the world.

Thanks for the post, you hit upon some very key points about how not to go about studying for Step 1, and about what to do to insure a successful score. I am certain you will do very will this time, cheers!

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I used to pray and pray for a bike and never got one. Later I learned that God doesn't work that way... so I went out and stole a bike and asked God for forgiveness.

You've learnt from past mistakes, though not the best way, it works most of the time so long as you learn from the mistake... I am pretty sure that you will do well the second time around...

Good Luck

All the best! Thank you for the feedback.

thanx a lot for the tips...and good luck;im sure u will do good...GOD bless...

I'm glad people are responding so positively to my grammatically incoherent original post - but I think that it is important to not only collect all of the best review books and latest editions of everything - but to know what you need to be looking for regardless of the books you choose to review.

Thank you to all for the encouragement - we're all in it together - so good luck to everyone getting ready for the Step 1!

thank u for ur post, and hope u will do really good on next time.
just to let u know u has help me with my study.

anyone would like to share their exam experience
im takin it soon so i need some words of wisdom please