MY View

[Anonymous]

Hello All.

here is my Experience. it may sound lil diffrent from others.

I Think, this exam is not as difficult as we've made it difficult.

I read many experiences and sometimes i was excited and sometimes I felt depress after reading them.

basically this exam is very EXTENSIVE, Basic and Tiring, they tend to ask FEW things which no one Know. I saw people reading big Books, and I personally think this is not a good idea.


My exam was like this.

Little micro
Little pharma
quite a bit anatomy and biochem
Rest is patho (40-50 %)
lil bit physiology.


Micro

non of those typical bacteria and classifications.... NOT at all

mirco was mostly mixed with IMMUNOLOGY.. lets say if you get a viral infection how your immune system will respond, what vaccine does to immunity, few classic staph and strep qs, few general bacterilogy.


IMMUNOLOGY AND BASIC GENETICS IS TESTED heavly but in a very SIMPLE WAY... you dont have to be a immunologist to answer these qs, if you know the basic definations you can GRAB those so called tricky qs.

pharmacology is FAIR not that hard, easily manageble. IF i have to read again, i will never bother wth those TONS of side effects we try to learn in pharmacology. They just ask you the basic well known familiar sideeffect, for example. facial flushing with nicotinic acid, myopathy with statins, pulmonary fibrosis and dilated myopathy with Chemotherapeutic agents.

50 % of pharma was tested via s/e, a given clinical scenerio, bunch of unnecessary info and in the end what medication is causing this s/e.

mechanism of action in VERY simple LANGUAGE , like 1/2 to 1 line answer.


BIOchemistry.... MOSTLY mixed with genetics but it saw many bio qs, 10 qs on vitamins,,, molecular action of vitamins, like carboxylation, methylation etc etc

no organic BIOCHEMISTR like tca cycle, gylcolysis, stuff like that,

most of the bio qs were like, vitamins, genetic diseases, metabolic desieases. ( glycogen storage diseases, amino acid metabolism etc etc)

THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD FOR BIOCHEMISTRY IS "FIRST AID"
Not a single qs was out of first aid even tho i think i got plenty of BIOCHEMISTRY in exam.


ANATOMY:

mostly Neuroanatomy, in MOST SIMPLE way you can imagine, I remember i used to memorize all those transactions, slides, MRI of brian, to recognise structure, BUT in exam the choices are VERY distinct, even if you know which area you have to look into you can get those qs correct.

gross structure of brain is most of the time HAND MADE, so you can imagine not much details there, TESTED area is very prominent, like if they want to ask you personality changes , which part of the brain, your choices will be 4 lobes only ( frontal parietal temporal etc)

same case with CT and MRI ( I was personally very afraid of these PICTURES but in exam it was way easier then i was expecting. but the important point is, if you know the answer you know it, if not then u wont be able to figure out by looking at picture )

very lil gross anatomy maybe 5 qs , most was neuro but VERY SIMPLE.


i will say this again, the best book for neuroanatomy is FIRST AID


PHYSIO:

this is a very scary subject when you are preparing, but in exam they dont ask COMPLEX qs, just basic qs like ace will do this to kidney, PTH will act where, oxytotin action.... I MEAN TO SAY,, you DONT NEED TO SPEND HOURS LEARNING HOW TO CALCULATE RENAL PLASMA FLOW or creatine clearance,,, no calculation, most of the time they do that for you and you have to pick answer by ARROWS up or down ( THESE ARROWS USED TO BE SCARY but after exam these are the best qs, if you know what they are asking, you will find these qs simple)


PATHOLOGY... highly tested but, i personally think pathology is the CROSS road of all the subjects, every diseases got some pathology , so thats why we THINK pathology is tested HEAVILY.

gross pictures are as clear as SKY if you know what you are LOOKING at, if you dont know what to look for you wont figure out pathology GROSS/ slides, most of the qs can be solved by case description, just eye ball the pic for confirmation.

IF you know all the PICTURES of FIRST aid, you will get basic idea and MOST of the pathology pictures are given in FIRST AID.


Behavioral, was typical, doc/pt relationships. what to say what not to, i think basically there is a THEME to these qs, they are not just useless qs, they try to test your basic understanding of how to deal with DIFFRENT patient or DIFFRENT scenerios in ethical way. NO special prep for this, if you know the BASIC rules, like NEVER be RUDE, never reveal info, never say NO to patient, never try to put the patient down, no need for consent STD etc etc, patient education, what to suggest to obese ptient, what to tell a smoker things like this.

STATISTICS, MY worst subject, but most of the qs are covered by FIRST AID if you know the definations in first aid, you should be fine.



OK now, in terms of preperation:

I THINK most of us OVER PREPARE ourselves and in the end we are not able to revice the basic stuff and lose many straigh forward qs.

i would recommend these sources if you know these sources, you will score VERY VERY VERY well


LEARN FIRST AID INSIDE OUT...... as many times as possible, think of first AID as your girlfriend or boy friend, try to spend as much time as you can, try to understand FIRST aid very well ( 85 % of exam is from first aid ) I know sometimes it is very hard to read first aid, when you dont know the concept and you just try to memorize stuff, but believe me this exam is all about memorization ( 80% straight forward FACt based knowledge presented or hidden in CLINICAL setting.

Second sources is KAPLAN NOTES... whatever is missing in first aid you will find it in kaplan , i would say ALL the genetics and Immunology is in kaplan notes, if you know kaplan IMMUNO/GENTICS well, you will ACE this topic.


THIRD and final source is GOLJAN BABA, he Simply RULES, whatever he says you will see that in exam in some way shape or form. GOLJAN AUDIO LECTURES and HIS HIGHYIELD NOTES ( 36 /44 pages), this is a LETHAL combination. and if you read his PATHOLOGY notes also, you wont miss many qs in exam , thats guarenteed.


MCQ source.... KAPLAN q bank, it simply rules, exam qs are way easier then kaplan q bank, but this q bank prepares you in such a way you wont imagine it until you go into exam .

your FEAR of difficult qs goes away after doing KAPLAN Q BANK ( LIVE not printed version)
most of the immunology and genetic qs were exactly asked like they ask you in kaplan q bank, choices are diffrent concept same.




anyway lemme sum up all this..


FIRST AID AND GOLJAN HIGHYIELD (36/44 pages ) is a MUST, it doesnt matter what or where you read other stuff from.

JUST MEMORIZE these stuff and you will Lend in 80's easily,by memorize means JUST memorize it, not just know it. we all tend to review few topics here and there but forget to memorize and in exam we regret, ops i saw this in FA but i cant recall it now


in my opinion if someone wants to score a VERY good score ( something in 90's)

1)just pick kaplan notes/ lecctures in immunology/genetics , read or listen to it 2-3 times.

2) FIRST aid

3) PATHOLOGY Goljan 5 days audio lecture +plus notes and HY 36/44 pages ( you can skip pathology from kaplan notes, no need to do it twice from 2 diffrent sources)

4) Try to study with someone, in person or on line or phone etc etc, if you study with a group you will remember a lot.

5) do not study for too long ,3-6 months at the most depending upon your stamina,one shouldnt wait for YEARS, coz your knowledge will not improve like this.To pass or score high in these exam , one NEED A SOLID INTENSE REVIEW for 3 months+/- 3 months) to pass you may need 2 readings, to score HIGH you will require 3 readings from the same source.





Most exam qs resembles NMBE test , 45 dollar test ( many of you dont know, almost 40 % of my NMBE 45 doolar test was from usmle released ITEMS or past retired NBME qs) in exam also MANY of these retired /released qs were tested in a diffrent way, not a excat qs but same FACTS ( concept was the same)



I "M not trying to convay a message that this exam is EASY or piece of cake, what i am trying to say here is, READ READ READ but READ appropriately. Read exam related Stuff, try to get an idea how they ASK qs by doing EXAM type of qs ( for eg Q bank or Retired qs/ NBME qs ). Dont waste time in reading or solving MCQ's which are not exam TYPE.

Q bank should be the a MAJOR source of MCQ, if you know Q bank concepts , which is way too much for Real exam you will ACE the exam




I will end my lenghty posting with this note:
WHATEVER SUBJECT/source/book you read learn the basics first, by basics i MEAN easy simple straight forward stuff, some people including myself used to think , BASIC means go deep into every minor details, Nope basic means, BASICS... simple and easy information, no need to remember HI-FI details, and the most important thing is you got to be able to RECALL your knowledge in exam. If you cant recall the fact based knowledge, then it is USELESS. I dont think you need a concept of everything , somethings can be learned by SIMPLY MEMORIZING the fact just for exam purposes


like everyone else,I dont know how did i do in my exam , but i guess most of the topics in exam,i was thinking I have read or seen this concept somewhere,unfortunatly i wasnt able to RECALL all the info in exam and lost many qs ( hey thats part of the deal , this is the whole reason why i am writing this lenghthy note , to prevent others from doing the same mistake which i DID for myself )

Good luck to you all :P

*** This is just my View of the exam , others may have a diffrent View.

[Anonymous]

Dear Apple,
You advice is one of the best advice I've ever read and it definitely clears up my doubt and misconception about the exam. Thank you so much for your generous sharing your view about the exam. Wishing you a great score.

[Anonymous]

Hey Fruits. Great advice. I'm planning to take Step 1 next year and all I can say is it's really hard! I'm sure glad I read your messages. Anyways, good luck in your score and happy holidays.

[Anonymous]

thank u MR apple.I'M grateful to u 4r advice.can u please inform where i can find nbme retired Qs.thank u.

[Anonymous]

hi
thanks a lot for writing your exam experience.I am just reading FA as much as i can and kaplan notes but many people laugh at me this is not enough for me.and plus i am doing Q bank. what do u say?please help me.

[Anonymous]

i wud say let them LAUGH.

After exam you will laugh @ them :P


See the problem is this, we try to read the most difficult things we can find, and we just OVERWHELM ourselves with too much irrelevant knowledges, when you are in exam you got to RECALL everything in 60 seconds, if you can do that you will be able to do very well, if u cant recall then you will lose that POINT.


to tell you the truth, I was in your shoes few days ago, Didnt believe the importance of first aid ,i read it once or twice but i didnt SORT it out as you suppose to be, and i think i paid the price by missing some EASY qs.

another way of thinking is this, think of yourself as a FETUS and First AID is like a PLACENTA, without placenta fetus is nothing :P
fetus need a placenta to be ALIVE.

DO not read anything from here and there, coz chances are you will not remeber these kind of BIT and PIECE knowledge in exam, you may get 2-3 qs right but you will end up wasting too much time during your prep by looking here and there in computer sites.( forums are good but on line genetics and other sites are wastage of time)

whatever is there in KAPLAN, if you know that, you will definately score HIGH.

think of this way, if u cant solve a genetics or immunology qs from kaplan notes then you wont be able to solve that from any other sources, SIMPLE RULE.

kaplan people are PROFESSIONAL they know how usmle make these exams, and they teech you right around these exams.
its like if you have a chronic PULMONARY problem, most likely you will CONSULT a PULMONOLOGIST not a primary care physician



my observation was, most of the genetics or immunology qs were revolving around definations, like they tell you long history of this and that, they mixed this with that and in the end , they will ask you, WHAT did they do? or what will be the outcome, so in other words if you understand the basics( definations and ABC of genetics , you should be able to solve many qs)

WORRY ABOUT EASY QS, dont waste your energy for hard qs, hard qs gonna be hard for everyone, but if u miss easy qs, then it may HARM you more then the hard qs.

to pass this exam i guess one need around ( roughly)200 qs correct.
most of the exam is MANAGEABLE, you may get about 50-75 qs, which may seem to be very difficult, but again rest of the exam is simple everyday knowledge wich is written in everybook, why dont FIRST grab the EASY qs and then worry about the difficult. UNFORTUNATELY most of us start in reverse direction, we start worrying about 50-75 difficult qs and miss the most easy qs which are greater in number.


lemme give you another example, i had around 10 qs on vitamins, i read vitamins from kaplan , night before exam i reviewed vitamins / BIOCHEM from first aid, and i was shocked to see almost all the qs in vitamins were from FA( translocation, carboxlation, methylation) so in other words in 15-20 minutes review of vitamins i was able to get 8/10 vitamins qs correct.

almost 80% of anatomy qs were straight from FA. now imagine the size of kaplan anatomy and FA... if you get 80% from Fa then it means its REALLY high yield book.

SO the bottom line is COMBINATION of KAPLAN NOTES and FA is the BEST combination for every subject

for patho Go for GOLJAN if you have time, if not then just review HY 36 pages.


word of caution, for every subject just try to knwo the EASY stuff first, most likely you will get the basic definations more often then those deeep concepts.


ONE MORE THING..... most of us are foriegn graduates? we study for these exam mostly after graduation from medical school, WE THINK they want us to know everything about every disease, but in reality this is nto the case.. STEP one is the exam for upto second year medical student, they dont expect at this level to know everything about DISEASES, they expect you to knwo the basics of diseases not the DEEEEP clinical or reserch kind of info, if they will ask you the treatment of disease, most likely it will be the FIRST line of TREATMENT or DRUG of choice or CONTRA-INDICATION, nothing more then that



to step 1 hey i saw your few postings , you are on the right track, keep it up, CONCEPTs are the same qs may differ

I dont know where you get NBME, someone gave it to me, it should be somewhere around one of these on line forums dr frankie etc( there are 2 sets, one is NBME retired and other is NBME self test)

[Anonymous]

hmmm finally i recieved my result

I scored 88/219


Wish you all the best and Good Luck