Post by Mohamed Ayoub Mortagy on May 17, 2014 3:29:43 GMT -5
El7amdulellah I passed USMLE Step 1 with score of 247. I am a house officer at Alexandria University Faculty of Medicine. I would like to thank everyone who inspired me in this group and specially, Mohamed Salah Soliman, Ahmed Elkhanany and Nizar saleh. I will summarize my experience below.
Experience Summary
total preparation time: 12 months
Materials used : Kaplan videos - First Aid - Goljan pathology Rapid Review - Goljan 36 pages - BRS behavioral - BRS physiology - 100 ethics cases by conrad fisher.
Questions sloved: Qmax Qbank - Kaplan Qbank - USMLE World Qbank - BRS physiology questions - BRS behavioral questions - Goljan pathology questions - Kaplan Qbook - FA Q & A - Usmle world Biostatistics questions - NMBEs (All of them - did 2 online and the rest offline)
Experience details by month
3 months: Listened to Kaplan videos and added notes on First Aid (Note: I printed FA so that the back of every page is blank so that I add notes to these pages). I didn't read kaplan notes, because I saw that videos and my notes of them are enough. I cropped a lot of Kaplan notes pages, tables and graphs and added all this to First Aid. finally I created a 1000 pages source that is somehow comprehensive.
2 month: I Studied of FA + Notes subjectwise (It was more like a reading.... I felt that I don't remeber anything afterwards). I also solved Usmle world offline and kaplan Qbook and FA Q & A
1 month: I studied FA + Notes systemwise and solved qmax qbank with 75% (Which was very great in helping memorizing FA)
1 month: I studied FA + Notes systemwise and solved Kaplan Qbank with 70% (Which is very helpful unlike what I heard... only 30% is low yield but I recommend it to help you think better in new/hard questions). I solved NBME 11 and I got 215 which was a disappointement.
2 months: I studied FA + Notes and solved Usmle world Qbank with 80% (The explanations are amazing). I did NBME 13 and got 235 and i wasn't satisfied by this score. I got 253 on USWSA1 which is a deceiving score (substract 20 marks). So I decided to delay the exam for 3 more months and decided to increase my knowldege by approaching different sources.
3 months: I did Goljan pathology Rapid review (the 600 pages) which is an amazing book. I also listened to general pathology from Pathoma (about 10 hours) which is very helpful. I solved questions form BRS behavioral sciences (very good questions) and BRS physiology. I solved all the questions sources i metioned earlier during this period. I went through FA and Questions banks notes multiple time. I got 263 on UWSA2. I solved NBME 15 and got 252 and this satisfied me before the exam, so I decided to sit for the exam.
Real Exam experience
The exam was very tough and more difficult the Usmle world and NBME 15. I had no problem with timing. I even finished every block 10 minutes early. The exam needs both time management and stress management skills. I used to mark 10 questions per block.
Anatomy: was oK... not alot of questions... don't waste time on finding sources other than FA and kaplan. All questions was peripheral nerves and blood vessels.
Embryology: Straight forward --- FA/Kaplan is enough. Congenital anomaly/basic principle questions
Neuroanatomy: alot of questions.... MRIs, CTs, gross anatomy and brain stem sections... all these are covered well in kaplan.
Biochemistry: Tough questions... may be similar to USMLE world---- Kaplan and FA are enough.
Genetics: Weird questions....
Physiology: Tough questions but covered in kaplan.... need thinking
pharmacology: straight forward
Microbiology: Straight forward
Immunology: Tough questions need deep understanding not just memorizing
pathology: Very important section in the exam... Goljan pathology is more than enough.
Ethics: very confusing questions - 3 to 4 questions per block (too many0
Biostatistics/epidemiology: hard but doable
psychiatry: not many questions -many defense mechanisms and personality disorders
A lot of experiments questions including mice and rats: need imagination, pattern recognition and deep thinking.
My final advice is to solve alot of questions and never give up hope. If anybody did it, then you can absolutely can do it
This is link for my Video Experience
