Hi everybody,
I have been studying for step 1 since 4 months ago and I studied subject by subject.I studied Kaplan book and I'm doing usmle world tests now and my average score is 45% .This score doesn't change from start of doing all new tests. I want badly to icrease my score .I tried diffrent ways but it dosn't work and I'm depressed because of it .I think my studies aren't useful at all .Would you please help me.
Thank you in advance.

You are correct - It appears nothing is sinking in. So I would suggest you change what you are doing - use a different set of books and do the NBME test#1 to see where your weak areas are at. Next try a learning specialist to find out why you are not not retaining material.

I will recomend you to stop doing new questions, yes you heard me right stop doing new USMLE WORLD. Go back and reread ALL of the explanations of the questions you have done and try to "UNDERSTAND" the concept behind the question.

How many questions you have done so far?
Try to see what are your weak areas and try to review those areas.
A good idea is to take the NBME 1 to see where you stand.

Theres a group of students taking the test by march-may, you may want to post questions that you dont understand or concepts you want to go over them.

Also a member recently post that her cum.% was 44 and when she took the test here is what she wrote:

i finished world with the exact same percentage..got a 176/72.this was back in october..if you have 3 months left you should be ok..but dont take it too soon..i thought i was good to go..i had 350 on nbme 3 and 370 on nbme 4 and 410 on nbme 2..but it was only good enough for a 72/176..so go in OVER prepared.

Just focus, work hard, review and try to understand t6he concepts.

GOD Bless and keep reviewing

__________________
Moderator: USMLE Step 1 Forums, USMLE Step 2 Forums,USMLE Step 3 Forums.

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

if you're studying for 4 mths, i really dont think it would be a good idea to change books. when you say subject by subject, is that only for general principles or also for path and pharm? (i hope not) if i were you, i would go through all notes again (repetition is key in step1) and since you're familiar with the topics, strive to get an understanding rather than rote memory. annotate your FA and do more questions. study from questions rather than testing yourself. For assessment use NBME and hit the notes again on weak areas for the third time. good luck.

__________________
Discharge status: Alive but w/out permission
SJSM'09