Well I guess I put this off for long enough. I just wanna say first and foremost, THIS EXAM IS PASSABLE!! Trust me when I say this! I guess I'll just start at the beginning...

This was my 3rd attempt at taking the Step 1. The first time I took it, I didn't "stress" about it. I saw people I knew passing and even though I knew they were studying hard, it didn't really click for me and I kinda just took it easy, studying ~5-6 hours a day, going to the movies or hanging out with friends when I wasn't in the mood to study, etc.....Well reality kicked in and I got a 61 on my first try.

The second time was just about a year ago. I had been studying for it for 5-6 months, but was also doing my clinical rotations so again, 5-6 hours a day, and still taking time off here and there to do whatever....71.....

Let's just say I learned my lesson. After I finished up my cores, I moved in with some family in a city where I knew absolutely no one! No friends, no family close to my age, etc....I'd go for the occasional parties with my family but they're all physicians and so were all their friends which was good motivation for me to see that there is a life (actually a pretty good life) after all these hurdles...

Now, to the studying......I started studying in July. I went through the Kaplan books for Physio & Biochem/Genetics. For Patho, I bought Rapid Review Pathology by Dr. Goljan and went through the book twice while listening to his audio lectures. I read Lange for Immunology since it was a weak point of mine & for Pharm, I made a flash card for EVERY SINGLE drug in First Aid, Kaplan Qbank, & USMLEWorld!

I finished going over the books by around mid-end September. While doing the books, I was also doing Kaplan Qbank which I found was a great learning tool, not representative of the actual test, but great for learning material you may have missed while reading books. I also watched a lot of the Pass Program videos but only the Physio parts...After finishing all the books, I spent all of my time doing questions. I did every question I could find for Step 1! Any website that had any free q's, I did 'em. Any text book that came with a CD that had Q's, I did 'em. I must have done around 8000 q's by the end of it!

If anyone wants the sites or programs for q's, just let me know and I'll be happy to help! Anyways, I also did USMLEWorld. I went through each and every explanation, flagged q's that I was having trouble with and q's that I had guessed the answers for. That way I could go back and do those again later on. I also wrote quick, 1-2 sentence explanations into a notebook for most answers where I just needed to know 1 fact to get it right. I also got the Goljan 100pg HY which I printed out and had bound at Kinko's into a book. Read from it every night for over a month. I took almost all of my notes in FA adding to the sections that I felt needed a little more information. Anything I had trouble with remembering, differentiating or just remembering an equation to, I made a flash card. In the end, I had about 800 flash cards but they were worth it!

My last 2 weeks, I went for sheer volume of questions. I would try and do atleast 150-200 a day, as well as spend a few hours going through Tommy’s HY Q’s & Goljan’s 100pg HY notes….All the while, using FA as my reference since I had added so much to it.
I think that about covers how my studying went. The day before my test, I studied. I know everyone says that you should take the day off but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I figured I had studied months for this test, why should I take a day off before I take it? Might as well just wait till after and take a few weeks off…..

Now, onto my actual exam day experience……….
I woke up and made myself a nice, yet light breakfast before going to the test center. I got to the Prometric center on time, but I guess there were a lot of people taking various tests that day because I sat in a waiting room for almost 45 minutes before they even registered me as being there. They then sat me at a station right next to the door which I promptly complained about and they were nice enough to move me closer to the back of the room….Then, after starting my test, the guy that was sitting in the cubicle next to me must have been really nervous because he kept tapping his feet. I let it go for a while but once it got real loud and annoying, I just reached over and told him to stop…
The test itself wasn’t hard at all! I had 1 question that was supposed to be one of the new audio/video media question which was easy to do just by reading the question, but when I clicked on the media button, all it showed was an xray….
Pathology - The pathology questions were pretty straight forward. USMLEWorld prepared me very well for them. I had a few sleep apnea questions that caught me off guard but they were really easy also. Rapid Review was amazing and even felt like lots of the questions were right outta there.
Anatomy – Also straight fwd, mostly upper and lower limb nerve lesions and muscle innervations.
Neuro – This was the one section I was terrified of but was actually really easy as well. I had a picture of a brain, and arrows pointing that asked me where Broca’s area is. Had a cross section asking where Alzheimer’s has an effect. And another cross section asking where Wilson’s had an effect. 2 Spinal cord transection questions, one was asking about temperature sensations, other was asking fine touch & proprioception.
Biochem – Had a few cycles where you had to name the enzyme at certain locations. 2-3 Lysosomal storage diseases and the enzyme missing. Few vitamin q’s but they were real easy, just basic deficiency’s. Lots of q’s on B12 and folate including H&E & lab values. Again, easy q’s.
Physio – All of the physio q’s were 2-3 step questions that wound up asking about path or pharm.
Pharm – Diagrams, diagrams, diagrams!! They take an easy question and try and confuse you with diagrams. Just know the FA diagrams in the pharm section cold! The rest of the pharm q’s weren’t too bad. FA was enough. Lots of antibacterial, fungal, & protozoal q’s. Couple on HIV/AIDS. Lots of cancer meds too. The rest were a various mix of the most common meds used in the various systems…
Behavioral – This was the section that got me! I really thought I did good on this but I guess not….I didn’t have a single question on defense mechanisms! It was all ethics! Also, I had atleast 5 questions on HMO’s! I think those were the ones that got me….
Molecular – I left this last on purpose. FA is NOT enough! I had a lot of questions on DNA, RNA, cells, organelles in cells, receptors, drugs and the receptors they work on, hormones and the receptors they work on, ect…..I’d suggest BRS Molecular but I’m not sure since I didn’t use it.

So my final score after all that torture?
211/88!

Just wanna say thanx to everyone on here and Good Luck to everyone who's studying!!! I'll see you guys on the Step 2 pages!!

First of all congratulations, I know your torture because I am on the same page but my last exam was a 73. I am sorry but what exactly is the rapid review?

Rapid Review is a text book thats written by Dr. Goljan. It's pretty much his Kaplan notes he gives out, but instead in a text book. I found it at Barnes & Noble by my house. Very Very helpful book to have!

congratulations!
yes, please... would appreciate your help on sites and programs for q's...
am at the very first step... am clueless...
thanks so much.
email add: riannecortez@yahoo.com

congratulations on accomplishing a long hard road, and getting a fantastic score to boot.

__________________

congratulations to you. pls i would apprecaite it if u could help me with the site and programes too. i also fail the exam twice and am trying to take it the thrid time .thank u

Thanx everyone! PM's sent to riannecortez & oyin

thank u so much e92er, God bless u

Congratulations on your passing score! Thanks for the detailed account of your experience. If you could please send me the links to the questions/programs that you have, I'd really appreciate it.
Jwls29@hotmail.com
Thanks so much.

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firstaidteam.com - Home of the FA/USMLERx Team
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