Post by Admin on Apr 29, 2014 22:40:06 GMT -5
Salamo Alaikom everyone
My step 1 result came out yesterday of 233
I wanted to share my experience as a sign of gratitude for how much this group has helped during my prep
First of all allow me to introduce myself; my name is Magdi Atef Zordok and I am a graduate from Zagazig University, Egypt Class of 2011.
I started my test prep on August 2012, I know it sounds like a long time but I had to work hard on my ER and Surgery rotation during my internship year, plus I spent about two months working as a junior cardiologist as Kobry El Kobba Military Hospital.
Lets start with the study material
I wasn't a great fan of Kaplan because I simply lose focus when I watching a long video, and I thought I would be better off studying from the sources and trying to explain to myself. I am not trying to push you away from Kaplan, a lot of people scored high using it but it didn't work out for me. So I used:
high yield for gross and neuroanatomy
100 cases by conrad fischer for ethics
lippincott for pharm, and biochemistry
Microbiology made ridiculously simple for micro
lippincott for immunology
Goljan for pathology
and used other text books as Davidson for the medical topics
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY IS FA (first aid).
This group has been very helpful in providing links to almost all of the study material.
Here's how I studied.
I started with studying FA for the first time. FA is amazing book but it's very condensed and concentrated that you will need the other books fore-mentioned or Kaplan (which ever makes you feel comfortable) to break it down. It's also packed with tiny little bits and pieces of information that you may feel tempted to skip on but trust me DON'T, as these may be very frequently tested.
After I was done with my first read I did DIT 2012. Some may think of it as a waste of time but I thought it was a good first review to go over the very important points and point out some of the most frequently tested topics.
Then I did UW offline and I printed out the questions I thought were challenging and I put them into a binder and organized them according to topic.
I also forgot to mention that you should unify a source for studying; to me it was FA so everything that was extra I found somewhere ( DIT or UW or Kaplan or any of the other texts) I added by a sticky note to FA so that you would save time and bring all the info you need together at once.
I then went over FA for the second time and this time after I have added the extras.
After that I did UW online, one thing about UW online, IT'S AMAZING!! It might seem like too much info but it's very informative and it explains why the correct answer is so and why any wrong answer you were tempted to choose is wrong in a very concise way; so try to keep its subscription until the day of your exam.
After I was done with that I went over the wrong answers and the questions I marked.
Then I subscribed to Kaplan Q bank. Now that was very difficult and sometimes very depressing as it may seem like a whole new syllabus and gives you so much information you may not even know where to add in FA, but it is very close to the difficult kind of questions that may show up on the exam. One thing I could have done better was to redo the Q bank after I finished it.
After I was done with kaplan and UW I printed out my performance on the different subjects on both Q banks and I stuck it on the wall and I set a cut off point of about 75% to know what subjects I was weak at to really focus on during my review. That was about a month and a half before my exam.
So I went over FA with special attention on my weaknesses and then after I was done with FA in each subject I would redo the UW question related to that subject (I wanted to use Kaplan as well but they have a weird subscription extension policy where you had to wait for 3 days before it is accepted and at that point I couldn't afford these 3 days so I cancelled my subscription). After I was done I rechecked my statistics for each subject to see how well I improved and whether I needed to go over anything again or not.
The final two days I re-went over FA for one last time and focus on the parts I thought were challenging. Now at this point you will discover the benefit of unifying your source of studying as it will take you little time to go over FA with nothing left behind.
I didn't do any NBME. The reason for that is the fact that I already have postponed my exam from the 16th of July to the 1st of Oct. as I was swamped at work and didn't even do UW online by that time. I have to join the army next week and so I couldn't postponed my exam any later, so I thought that in my case doing the NBME would be useless as my only option was to take my exam in time, and I knew that what I did was the best I can do.
Finally I know my score is a 99 but I also know that I won't get to much WOWS when I am applying for a residency, but I thought I would share my experience as a little token of gratitude to this group and all EAMTAR affiliated groups; I simply couldn't have done it without God's blessing, my family's support and EAMTAR.
So I hope you get the most of it and inshaala score even higher and higher.
Please feel free to ask me anything but I apologize in advance if I dont answer past this Tuesday as I will be at the military training camp, I hope it goes well.
My step 1 result came out yesterday of 233
I wanted to share my experience as a sign of gratitude for how much this group has helped during my prep
First of all allow me to introduce myself; my name is Magdi Atef Zordok and I am a graduate from Zagazig University, Egypt Class of 2011.
I started my test prep on August 2012, I know it sounds like a long time but I had to work hard on my ER and Surgery rotation during my internship year, plus I spent about two months working as a junior cardiologist as Kobry El Kobba Military Hospital.
Lets start with the study material
I wasn't a great fan of Kaplan because I simply lose focus when I watching a long video, and I thought I would be better off studying from the sources and trying to explain to myself. I am not trying to push you away from Kaplan, a lot of people scored high using it but it didn't work out for me. So I used:
high yield for gross and neuroanatomy
100 cases by conrad fischer for ethics
lippincott for pharm, and biochemistry
Microbiology made ridiculously simple for micro
lippincott for immunology
Goljan for pathology
and used other text books as Davidson for the medical topics
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY IS FA (first aid).
This group has been very helpful in providing links to almost all of the study material.
Here's how I studied.
I started with studying FA for the first time. FA is amazing book but it's very condensed and concentrated that you will need the other books fore-mentioned or Kaplan (which ever makes you feel comfortable) to break it down. It's also packed with tiny little bits and pieces of information that you may feel tempted to skip on but trust me DON'T, as these may be very frequently tested.
After I was done with my first read I did DIT 2012. Some may think of it as a waste of time but I thought it was a good first review to go over the very important points and point out some of the most frequently tested topics.
Then I did UW offline and I printed out the questions I thought were challenging and I put them into a binder and organized them according to topic.
I also forgot to mention that you should unify a source for studying; to me it was FA so everything that was extra I found somewhere ( DIT or UW or Kaplan or any of the other texts) I added by a sticky note to FA so that you would save time and bring all the info you need together at once.
I then went over FA for the second time and this time after I have added the extras.
After that I did UW online, one thing about UW online, IT'S AMAZING!! It might seem like too much info but it's very informative and it explains why the correct answer is so and why any wrong answer you were tempted to choose is wrong in a very concise way; so try to keep its subscription until the day of your exam.
After I was done with that I went over the wrong answers and the questions I marked.
Then I subscribed to Kaplan Q bank. Now that was very difficult and sometimes very depressing as it may seem like a whole new syllabus and gives you so much information you may not even know where to add in FA, but it is very close to the difficult kind of questions that may show up on the exam. One thing I could have done better was to redo the Q bank after I finished it.
After I was done with kaplan and UW I printed out my performance on the different subjects on both Q banks and I stuck it on the wall and I set a cut off point of about 75% to know what subjects I was weak at to really focus on during my review. That was about a month and a half before my exam.
So I went over FA with special attention on my weaknesses and then after I was done with FA in each subject I would redo the UW question related to that subject (I wanted to use Kaplan as well but they have a weird subscription extension policy where you had to wait for 3 days before it is accepted and at that point I couldn't afford these 3 days so I cancelled my subscription). After I was done I rechecked my statistics for each subject to see how well I improved and whether I needed to go over anything again or not.
The final two days I re-went over FA for one last time and focus on the parts I thought were challenging. Now at this point you will discover the benefit of unifying your source of studying as it will take you little time to go over FA with nothing left behind.
I didn't do any NBME. The reason for that is the fact that I already have postponed my exam from the 16th of July to the 1st of Oct. as I was swamped at work and didn't even do UW online by that time. I have to join the army next week and so I couldn't postponed my exam any later, so I thought that in my case doing the NBME would be useless as my only option was to take my exam in time, and I knew that what I did was the best I can do.
Finally I know my score is a 99 but I also know that I won't get to much WOWS when I am applying for a residency, but I thought I would share my experience as a little token of gratitude to this group and all EAMTAR affiliated groups; I simply couldn't have done it without God's blessing, my family's support and EAMTAR.
So I hope you get the most of it and inshaala score even higher and higher.
Please feel free to ask me anything but I apologize in advance if I dont answer past this Tuesday as I will be at the military training camp, I hope it goes well.