u/Manoj_Malhotra

I was really lazy and only studied for 3 and a half weeks for my Step 1 and still passed.

I am an American med student and my schools exams were based on NBME. I averaged about 200-280 new uworld questions a day and 40-120 incorrect questions a day. My uworld averages started at 48% and by the end of the entire Qbank it was 65%. I did complete the entire Qbank. I did every NBME form between 26 and 33 and new 120.

(Here are my scores for NBME forms, 51% on 26, 55% on 27, 58% on 28, 65% on 29, 69% on 30, 79% on 31, 78.5% on 32, 83% on 33, 78% on free 120).

I studied for about 12-14 hours a day, slept for 6.5 hours a night, and went to the gym 5 times a week for 45mins to an hour. I also lost about 6 pounds, unintentionally. I obsessed over my incorrects, did anki for them repeatedly using https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1H-Y0hyF4ApAVZywr3nB2D0kpMD3_TZ91/edit?slide=id.p1#slide=id.p1 I would also obsess over any answer choices I didn't know in the nbme forms like pull up the relevant Boards and beyond slides. If I had more time I would've done the same for the uworld questions. I would review my nbme forms right after doing them and then I would do 2 more blocks of uworld incorrects. This was a huge pain in the beginning but I got used to it by the end because the endurance it gave me for the real thing did help. I would recommend this tbh. Do an extra 80 of uworld incorrects right after an nbme form. Learn how you handle that many questions in an 7-8 hour time frame.

I did not actually touch first aid, even tho I have the book. And tbh, that's probably my main regret. I also didn't really do any mehlman, either. It was just Uworld, NBME forms, and incorrect relevant flash cards on Anking.

I do not recommend this method of studying. Because my school’s pre-clinical exams were P/F, I didn't really care to do much beyond passing, but I think I wouldn't have needed to grind as hard or for as long if I actually tried during my preclinical years.

Night before the exam, I got only 4 hours of sleep, according to my sleep tracker. I went in started like 20 minutes early, ran out of time in one block, and had to guess on some questions. I flagged about 97 questions out of the total 280, in Uworld and NBME I was flagging about 30% of the questions for context. For me personally, I think the material was close to the practice NBME forms, but I was also at a heightened level of anxiety.

My school gave us plenty of time to do dedicated but I only did the last 3 weeks of that 8 week window. I highly regret that, because I wasted precious time that could have been used to spend more time with my loved ones. I am trying to do better in the future.

Anyways I have my neuro shelf exam in a week lol and my IM shelf in another month and a half, and I am only half way through the neuro uworld and a fifth of my way through IM's insane thousand questions. Wish me luck if you can. and good luck to everyone on their grind.