I took my Step 1 exam on April 14, 2008 in good old Sydney~
I have been working full time as a Resident in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, and I am very happy here, getting both lifestyle and a reasonable salary. I didn't think it is worthwhile for me to take 6 months or a year off just to study for an exam like this as I am only considering about doing Fellowship in the US - therefore I don't need to aim as high as those that want to do Residency in the US. In fact, I was doing nights (grave yard shifts from 10:30pm to 8:30am for 7 consecutive days) 2 weeks before this exam, so I had the brain of a zombie.
Anyway, what I did was:
1) Read through the following briefly:
BRS Physio
Microbiology made ridiculously simple
High yield: Anatomy, Embryology, Histology
Neuroanatomy made ridiculously simple
Kaplan Biochem
2) Listened to Golijan 1x
3) First aid step 1 2006 Edition: I read through it about 3xs... tried to memorize it, but I believe I am getting demented - I just couldn't memorize it properly. But this is the best book to use for Step 1. I only memorized pharm from first aid as I couldn't cram that Lipincott pharm book, and first aid really is enough for pharm.
4) Kaplan Qbank: Crammed 1300 questions 1 week before my USMLE exam, only getting 57% overall correct - paying for this thing was a way of forcing myself to actually do these Qs, or else I'd never have the motivation. I didn't do the NBME thing because doing the USMLE itself was already so expensive.
The total amount of time I spent studying for this is probably equivalent to 2months of full time studying.
Anyway, on the day of my exam, most of the questions seemed pretty weird and made me feel like I was guessing it all. There were some easy questions that were directly related to the First Aid... and I could remember getting approx 11 very easy Qs wrong because I didn't memorize the first aid well enough. The first aid is still my best advice for studying for this exam. Kaplan QBank got my brain working a bit, but there are cheaper alternatives.
So 224/93 isn't too bad for all the guesswork I was doing during the exam.
Anyway, I give all the credit to God because I prayed and I go to a supportive church where people actually prayed for me. He will lead the path, and I will just work hard during the process.
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