DIP Episode 76 - How To Study For The USMLE Step 1 Exam (for M1s and M2s)

Okay, welcome. My name is Divine. I am a PGY-1 transitional year resident, ultimately going into radiology. And this is a podcast. I feel it's kind of appropriate, given the time of the year. People have prepared a stick step one and all that stuff. A lot of people have been going to freak out. So I guess they might as well make a fairly detailed podcast that just covers different aspects of the exam. And the note of warning, this is going to probably a little in feel though try to be as succinct as possible. That's one and two again take everything I say with a grain of salt. Try it again. I may know one I don't have all the answers, right? I try to be as thoughtful as possible with these podcasts and I hope by now if you've listened to other podcasts I've made you you get value from them. But again, take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'm just saying this, these are my own personal experience. My experience, tutoring and teaching, thousands of people and my experiences just being very involved in the test prep process for many people. So just again take everything of grain of salt. But I think you if you sort of pay attention I think you can pick up a few useful nuggets from this. So this is a step one podcast and basically right you know about the year 7 and it's step one. It's it's an eight hour exam. Seven hours is the actual testing time and then you have like a one hour break that you can use as you please.

It's like seven blocks of 40 questions at least as far as I know from more recent tested. And I mean obviously right to register for the exam costs about like like 700 800 bucks or something like that. And then you study during something period you know, known as a dedicated period right? That the dedicated period can range anywhere from four weeks to five weeks to seven weeks to nine weeks to three months depends right? I can't go ahead and tell you all this exactly how much time you need as a for your dedicated period. But the thing you need to remember is that it varies by person. Obviously if your knowledge business is really solid your great test sticker and all that stuff, then you probably don't need as much time. But if your knowledge business really weak and you're sort of like starting from what you're learning the basics, you should probably take as much time as you need. In fact I tell people around the side of taking more time than less. If you notice that man I'm feeling really good about this exam. I feel like I know my stuff super well. Then you can always scale back and move up your exam. Yeah, probably cost you like 50 to 100 bucks. It's not a huge deal right? Again, this exam is super important. And then I'll just say this again, there are no hard and fast rooms. I'm just giving you some nice general principles to keep in mind. If your graduate of a med school in the US, right? Then you're like an MD candidate. Chances are with score above the 235.

Most fields that you notice that you're not saying all. Most fields are open to you. If you want essentially every field to be open to you, you probably want to be looking at something in the 240s. I feel like in the 240s, most fields including Durham, if you have a good all-around application like you have research and all that stuff, you should be able to match fairly well. But if you fall outside of those categories, then you I'll just say in general, in fact I'm not gonna label any group, but I'll just say in general, if you want to match pretty much at least getting to a good program in your specialty of choosing. Again, this is as human. You have a well-rounded application. You want to get in the 240s or higher if possible. Now, one general principle I'll see right of the bat is before your dedicated period, focus on understanding. Okay? Before your dedicated period, focus on understanding. Memorizing minutia is something that can come through your dedicated period. But again, focus on understanding. And this podcast me sort of see my little strewn about with I talk about this here, talk about that here. I just literally sat down, wrote some random thoughts down, and then I'll just discuss, sort of flesh out those points as we go through this podcast. And again, your length of study just varies on where you are. If you're a person that you know your concepts pretty well, all that stuff, you probably don't need as much time.

I mean, in fact, let's say for example, you take a baseline exam and say for example, you're getting the 230s or the 240s, 250s, then you probably don't need like 12 weeks or something ridiculous. You can probably make do like five to six weeks or even four weeks and you should be good to go. Now, again, I say this, you need to be realistic, right? You need to assess exactly where you are. You don't want to be the kind of person that says, oh, you know what I'm going to get in the 250s. But let's say your baseline practice test was like a 180, right? You're probably deceiving yourself. I'm not saying you cannot get in the 250s, but you need to put in very significant amounts of effort. Something I'll say is that many students as a group are very good sometimes at over estimating their abilities. So just encourage you to be realistic with yourself. Ask yourself how well did I do my preclinical subjects? Were you the person that was getting like 99s or no preclinical exams? And if you're like, yeah, I'm going to get a 260, I'm going to get a 270 with four or five weeks of study. That is very, if you were telling me that I would absolutely believe whatever you're saying. But if you're the person that you're like, you were like, be in leverage for most of your preclinical exams. You didn't do so hard on the MCAT and all that stuff. And then you're saying, oh, I'm going to get in the 260s, 270s. Again, it is doable. But you need to go in with the right plan.

Like I'm telling you this with all truth in my heart. There are people I know that did not do well on the MCAT. They probably got, again, I took the MCAT when a 45 was the max score. There are people that probably got like in the 20s on the MCAT, got into a med school, they ended up crushing their USML Es, got like in the 250s, 260s and stuff like that. But again, you need to go in with the right plan. The thing is, in general, most goals that people have for these exams, they can get to those goals. But they need one, the right plan and two, they need the right amount of time and the right long term strategy to get into those goals. But if you're just like, I'm going to do like everyone else, I struggled in my preclinical subjects. I was below average on most class exams. And I'm just going to study like everyone else. I'm just going to study first aid, do a Q bank and take the exam. You're probably deceiving yourself. I will tell you that right on the back. There are other things you probably need to do to get to those goals you want. I will try to give you some of those keys here and I will sort of go from there. Now, basically, the cornerstone of any step one study strategy involves a permutation of four things. I want to be as exact as possible in this part of the podcast. But basically, doing well on any step one exam is a permutation of four things. Permutation of four things. You want to write some stuff down. This is probably a good place.

I've told you, I encourage you to just take notes as you're listening to those podcasts. But the first thing is review resource, right? A review resource. That's one. And I'll talk about different things. I'll give my take on different study, different study resources. So I'll give you my take on these things. But the first one is a review resource. Second thing is a question source. Another thing, a practice tests and fourth thing is a learning resource as needed. Learning resource as needed. So let me talk about this first. So let's talk about the review resources, slash learning resources. The thing is for review resources, right? First date, right? It's the gold standard. Many people use this. Many people are successful with this, right? But like I said, for every resource, I'll talk about the pros and cons, right? First date is a great review resource. In fact, I'll tell you this. If your knowledge baseline, and by knowledge baseline, I just mean your understanding of things. Like if your understanding of things is really good. So for state, right? So for state is good. It's great as a review resource, right? But again, if your understanding is not there, trust me. You want to understand first before jumping into first date. If the understanding is not there, you're just wasting your time with first date. I can promise you. You can say, oh, divine. I'm very good at memorizing stuff. Yeah, whatever. You can be good and awesome at memorizing stuff.

But the understanding is not there. When you take practice exams, you'll struggle, right? Because again, memorizing everything is not the key to being well on step one. You also need to understand things, okay? That is where the learning resources that I'll talk about coming to gear, right? You need to learn, understand. And then after you do that, you can then jump into a review resource. First date contains all the details. Maybe not all, but I'll say pretty much most of the details you need to know to cross step one. They are all in first date, but the understanding first day just gives you the facts, right? So I give you an example, right? So if for example, you read the first date page on diuretics, you talk about how diuretics can cause hypokylamia, cause a metabolic alkalosis and all that stuff. Again, if you know those, you need to know those details for step one. But the thing is, you also need to understand why is that the case? Well, a diuretic makes you volume down. If you're volume down, you'll activate the renin and diuretics and our diuretic system, right? And then our diuretic would do its job at the principal cell of the distal nephron and at the alpha-intercalidate cells, right? And then that's what ultimately causes your hypokylamia and your metabolic alkalosis. And then and diuretics, in total, does its duty at the proximal convoluted tubule and also increases the production of our diuretic in the zona glomerulosa of the adrenal gland.

So notice, there's always understand, I mean, there's more stuff there go to my renal podcast if you really want to understand that. But you get the point, you need to understand before you just jump into memorizing details. And again, first date gives you all the details, but it does not give you the understanding. So if you have understanding, you have a very good conceptual base of knowledge, then I'll see that greening, jumping right into first date and just trying to link ideas together and memorize as much as you can is a great strategy. But again, assuming that the understanding is already there, because the thing is, when you have good understanding, it is much easier to memorize and begin to integrate information. You really cannot integrate what you do not know in the first instance. Now next thing I'll talk about is boards and beyond. So boards and beyond is a great learning resource. Okay, boards and beyond is a phenomenal learning resource. If you want to learn something well for the first time, I'll encourage you try out boards and beyond. I give this recommendation without reservation. Bords and beyond is an amazing, amazing, amazing resource. It is great. It will teach you things really well. Okay. So if you're like, hmm, divine, my foundation is really weak, jumping to boards and beyond, learn that stuff well. And then after you get that strong conceptual basis, you can then jump into the first dates and whatnot.

And if you're the kind of person that you're like, man, I really love boards and beyond. I really love the way it works. I feel like I can memorize everything in boards and beyond. You may even have the license to skip first date again. I'm not saying you should skip first date, but it's, if you know everything in boards and beyond, you understand, you committed to memory, you will probably do just fine. Again, assuming that you're a good test teacher and all that stuff, you probably do just fine on the USML Step 1 exam. Bords and beyond, it's a detailed resource covers a lot of what you need to know for the test. Early when boards and beyond just came out, it was not super comprehensive, but now I can tell you this without shadow of doubt, boards and beyond is very comprehensive. There's no one resource that covers 100% of what you need to know for your USM Ls. But I can tell you for sure that boards and beyond, boards and beyond probably comes very close with first date in covering a lot of material. So boards and beyond comes again super close, almost like first date in terms of covering what you need to know for your exam. And then another classic resource is a DIT, so doctors in training. So DIT is one resource I feel like that doesn't get as much credit as it should. Again, does it have some pitfalls? Yes, right? I mean, you hear this that, oh, it's like someone reading first date to you. And that is true. That is absolutely true.

Well, the thing is, there are many parts of DIT where they actually take the pains. Yes, they may not give the greatest explanations, but they actually give fairly good explanations. In fact, I will tell you this, if you're the kind of person that sort of like big good attention during your preclinical coursework, and you feel like you understand most things like decently well, and you just need something to sort of put everything together for you very quickly spurs up your knowledge base. DIT is actually pretty good for that purpose. DIT is very comprehensive for step one, right? Again, does it have every single little bit detailing first date? No, right? But will you get most of what you need to get into the 250's or thereabouts on the USML Step One? Absolutely. Again, people have chewed it in the past that use mostly DIT. They did not even touch first date one bit, and they ended up doing extremely well. Like this is like 90th, 95th, 99% up on their exams. I mean, I can tell you this, I myself, the person making the podcast. I essentially did not use first date, the only first date chapter that I really truly used when I was preparing for my USML exams was the Durham slash MSK chapter, but pretty much all my other knowledge I acquired it from like other resources.

So again, first date is a great resource, and I'll almost encourage you to use it, but if you don't want to, if it's something that just absolutely doesn't work for you, let's say you've used it for like two weeks, and you're just like literally like threading water, you feel like you're not making any progress, and it's not working for you. I'm telling you this, you can do really well on the USML without using first date. There are very few people that do this and succeed, but I'm telling you that it is possible. Again, you just need to have the right plan, right? You just need to have the right plan. There are people literally are like divine. I'm scared. Everyone uses first date. Everyone uses this. Everyone uses that. And then we discussed, came up with a solid plan, just sort of based on what will work best for them as individuals, and they ended up doing extremely well. Again, first date is not the end of the year. It's the end of the year for most people, but if it's not working for you, if you're basically, let me just say this way, if the question you're trying to answer is, can I get above the ninth year percentile on the USM Ls without using first date? The answer to that is a strong yes. The answer to that is a strong yes. I'm telling you this without shadow of doubt. Now, so DIT again, it doesn't give you explanations for everything, right? But it gives you all the information and a nice audio visual format.

And again, for some key critical concepts, they actually take the pains to explain. So DIT is not the worst thing in the world to prep for step one. I actually used it a lot when I was studying for step one. But again, I'm not saying this as, oh, because divine use DIT, that means you must use DIT. No, no, no, no, no, no, that is not the point of this presentation. But if, I mean, before I use DIT, my knowledge base was, my conceptual base was phenomenal, right? Thankfully, I did pretty well in my pre-trained course subject. So I knew my concepts really well. So DIT was just a very nice efficient way to just sort of tie everything together for me. So again, I will encourage DIT for state if you're the kind of person that your concepts are good, those are probably good resources that can sort of get you to where you need to be relatively quickly. Now, pathoma, right? Pathoma is another resource. This is a learning resource, right? Learning resource. I will just encourage you to use pathoma. Pathoma is a great means of learning mythology. Pathology probably represents about 30 to 35% of what you need to know for the USM Ls. Pathoma is a great way to build that foundation, okay? I will encourage you as you're going through your first, second year of med school to use pathoma if you can. It's just phenomenal. It's a learning resource. It's like 30 hours long, but it will teach you pretty much a lot of what you need to know for pathology to do really well on the USML exams.

And then another close cause into pathoma is Goliath, right? Goliath. I mean, you've probably heard of this. Goliath has like audio files and has a book and whatnot. I love Goliath. Goliath is a great resource. It's one, it's a great learning resource and it's a great integrating resource. Goliath is very good at explaining things and also helping you integrate those pieces of information. He can basically like, he reflects a method of teaching I really love where people emphasize modules, the concepts, where they emphasize those concepts in the context of how that information will be tested. And then they talk about it in different contexts. Like for example, you could be listening to a Goliath electron nutrition and then we'll talk about it in the context of pharmacology. If you notice, that's kind of like the approach that I've tried to take with pretty much every podcast I make because I found out to be like a phenomenal, phenomenal method of learning. So Goliath, yes, the audio may be greeny and some people say, oh, it's from many, many years ago, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I can promise you Goliath is a great resource. I used it a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton, and it helped me a lot. Again, it's not a popular option. There's not many people that use it is kind of like old school, old fashioned, but it works pretty well. But if you like the Thoma, the Thoma will accomplish the same goal for you. Again, just these are just general recommendations.

I'm not trying to lead you towards one resource or the other. I'm just trying to give you objective information about these resources. The Thoma is a phenomenal resource. I used it a ton. Goliath is a phenomenal resource. I used it a ton. You probably don't need to use both. You can make deal with just one of, after that I'm telling you this, you probably should not use both. One or the other will accomplish the goal for you. Now, another commonly used resource is sketchy, right? So sketchy. There's like sketchy micro, there's sketchy farm, there is sketchy pathology. Sketchy is a great company. They make amazing resources. I mean, I know a ton of people that I have tutored and have done extremely well using sketchy micro. Many people love sketchy micro, sketchy farm, sketchy path. Those are newer resources. Some people like them, but I feel like the most popular resource is sketchy micro. A lot of people love sketchy micro, sketchy micro. Yes, I did not, I really did not use sketchy micro, but trust me, like, I have tutored tons and tons of people that use those that resource and did extremely well with it. So, if you're the person that has a lot of trouble memorizing stuff, sketchy may not be the worst idea in the world, although I'll just highlight one thing with sketchy. Try to make sure that you understand things. Just try to put some understanding behind those sketchy videos, right?

Sketchy, again, it's a great, it's sort of think of sketchy as almost like being like, on key in a sense. It's very good for helping you remember information, but it's not necessarily very good for helping you understand information. So, I will encourage you. Yes, there are fancy pictures and fancy nominics and all those things are great. They have helped thousands of people to learn information. I mean, to memorize information, let me use my word inappropriate to memorize information, but it may not necessarily be the best at helping you understand information. Now, and then there are some books. Actually, let me talk about firecracker because firecracker is another thing a lot of people use. So, firecracker is a great resource. Basically, if all you used was firecracker and probably did not touch any other resources, you would essentially accumulate all the knowledge, not all, but again, close to perfect knowledge of all you need to know for the USML step one. Firecracker is an amazing resource. It's a soul-crushing resource. It requires a lot of discipline. If you're a person that is very disciplined, if you're a person that is a big proponent of delete gratification, and you're the person that, again, you can basically like concoct the plan and be super disciplined following that plan every day for like two years. Firecracker is a great resource. I'm telling you this. Firecracker is a phenomenal resource if you just use it appropriately.

So, most people when they use firecracker, right, they do the reading and then they do the questions, right? Longitudinally for long period of time, right? The thing is, let me suggest another plan. It's risky, but it works really well. If, again, you're disciplined. The thing is, firecracker is a great resource. The reason that firecracker does not necessarily work out for many people is just the discipline aspect. If you're not a disciplined person, firecracker is probably not something you should use. I mean, if you're disciplined, I feel like you can get so much like a ton, like a lot more than you and VCH out of firecracker. So, let me give you an example. So, again, if you're disciplined and let's say you're first here, you're starting bloody, bloody, blah, I'll encourage you, firecracker, great resource. You just need to start early and you need to be disciplined. Now, some people may say divine, is there any way? Let's assume I have never used firecracker ever before, right? And I'm going into like a lengthy dedicated peer, let's say like a nine week dedicated peer, for example. Is there any like, what's that firecracker now and get benefit from it? My bold answer to that is yes. So, let me explain how. The thing is, many people think that firecracker is valuable just for the questions. There's no the case. Firecracker is actually also valuable for the readings, okay, for the readings. It basically creates like almost like a textbook with tons of questions.

So, if, again, this is a plan that again, I've very few people I know have used this, but it's actually a plan that can make you wildly successful again if you're disciplined, right? If you're the kind of person that can acquire information by reading and you want to use firecracker as the cornerstone of your dedicated study period, you can basically use firecracker as a textbook and you essentially just sit down and cover like many topics every day without doing the question. So, what do I mean by that? Basically, what I mean is you sit down and you can say, okay, you know what? In one day, I'm just going to do the readings for like 50 firecracker topics, right? Like read it slowly, try to understand it because they're actually going to like explanations, like try to understand it and then do like cue banks and everything that again that I'll talk about shortly to sort of like test my knowledge of what I just studied. So, that's why you can use it, right? So, like just use it as a textbook, read the information and then do questions from like you are, for example, okay? The only thing is you just need to make sure that as you're making that pass again, you're disciplined to read an appropriate number of topics every day so that you can get through like all of it and say, for example, like three to four weeks and then you can then say, okay, then I'll go ahead and pick up first date and use it as my review after using firecracker as a learner resource.

So, I can tell, I'll, again, I'll tell you this, firecracker is a good learner resource if you just use it in a certain way, okay? And again, you can study like literally during your dedicated period, but you need to study it early and you probably don't have the time to walk you away through the questions, but if you can just do the readings, you can almost treat firecracker like a textbook. It is extremely comprehensive to step one. In fact, I will say firecracker is probably, and again, this is again based on experience my experiences. Firecracker is probably one of the most comprehensive step one resources that I'll there. But again, it doesn't work for many people, but if you're disciplined, it can work for you. Again, if you notice, I'm saying DIT, like you can use DIT and get above the 9th-bit percentile. You can use just for state, get above the 9th-bit percentile. You can use boards and beyond only get above the 9th-bit, again, these are like learners, slash review resources. You can use any of these resources I'm mentioning and get above the 9th-bit percentile. We just need to one, make sure that you're the right person for that resource and two, you need to make sure that you use that resource the right way, right? There are people that have a good conceptual understanding what they use for state the wrong way, and then they don't get to their goals. Again, you need to be the right person for that resource, and you need to use that resource with the right plan.

If you can sort of like pay attention to those things, you can see that you can do pretty well on many of these exams with resources that people are like, hmm, does that resource even work? Again, just pay attention to those things and you should be well on your way to success. Then I will just go ahead and mention some books, right? For example, many of you have probably heard about this book, USML Step 1 Secrets. There is under closely related book, in fact, I think it's written by the same person, Cross Step 1. Those are actually very good books to learn the information. The only thing is those books are not comprehensive, but if you're like, man, I need a book that can help me understand certain things and is sort of like good for understanding most of the topics. So you're like, oh, instead of using like one book for this, one book for that, one book for this, one book for that, these books actually pretty good to like just get yourself up to speed in terms of understanding concepts before then jumping to like first date or something. For example, to start learning the minutia and all the needy-gritty details. And I mean, there are other books, right, that are there are other things that can help you for Step 1, but I think I would reserve my discussion to this for review slash learning. I'll talk about like some other like resources, but I'll talk about them after I've talked about my permutations, right?

So again, first two permutations are these review slash learning resources I just talked about. And then the third thing is a Q bank, right? So in terms of Q banks, your world is gold standard, right? Pretty much everyone uses your world. Your world is a great resource, it's a phenomenal resource, you should probably use your if you want to do well on the exam, but I will say one thing with your world. Your world is very good at teaching people how to overthink, right? So many times your world will write questions and they just lay all these traps for you. And then many people translate that to mean that, you know what, man, on my exam, I know they are going to try to lay many traps for me in my questions. That is true, the MBME does that. But the thing is most MBME questions, and again, you may not believe me on this, but I'm telling you this from again, my own personal experience, and again, from tutoring and teaching thousands of people, many MBME questions are written in a classic, common presentation of a given concept. There is a many people find these tests to be hard is one, they have bad test, test, bad test, in strategy, or two, their knowledge base is just not as good as it should be, right? So again, I will encourage you. Yes, your world is great, you should use your world, I mean, I use your world, your world is a great resource.

But the thing is, while you're using your world, try not to extract the notion that every question is out to trick you or becoming an overthinker with questions. That is one way you work and burn you, and that is just something you don't want to take with you from your world, okay? That's something you don't want to take with you from your world. Now, but again, your world is probably the best Q Bank that exists for studying for the USML East Step 1 exam. It's not the best question source, but it's the best Q Bank, the best question source at the MBME questions that I can tell you 100% without shadow of doubt. Now, the next Q Bank on my list is Kaplan, right? So the Kaplan Q Bank again, it's not a popular option amongst people, but the Kaplan Q Bank is actually pretty good. Yeah, do they have some questions that are not great? Yes, every Q Bank has questions that are not great, but the thing is, Kaplan is particularly good for physiology, right? Physiology and pharmacology. If you have the kind of person that needs thoughtful questions that will really force you to think about stuff, again, your world does that with pretty much all its questions, but I'll say especially for pharmacology and physiology, the Kaplan Q Bank is actually pretty good. Many of their questions and the explanations really force you to think. Again, you'll probably get many of the questions wrong, but trust me, the learning is quite worth it. But again, you don't need to use multiple Q Banks.

If you use only your world, that is fine. There may be a lot of theater that uses only your world, and they absolutely destroyed their exams. You don't need to use just Kaplan. I mean, you don't need to use your world and Kaplan and this and that. No, you can use only your world. Kind of risky, but you can actually use only Kaplan and still do just fine. Again, just pick one thing that works well for you and just run with it. But I'm sort of trying to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each resource. Based on, again, my own evaluation. Again, my own evaluation of things may be completely way off, right? So, again, take everything I say with a grain of salt. And then the USMLRXQ bank, it's a great Q Bank. Again, if you want, basically it's almost like first eating a question format. It doesn't cover everything in first state, right? But it's pretty great for questioning or see, for example, you just read a first state chapter. I just want to go through that first state again and like a question format. The RxQ bank is actually not bad for that purpose, especially for just, again, like, kind of like recognizing boss words and all that stuff. But I'll say in general, the URQ bank is probably the best rating Q Bank of all that you have out there. There's this other new-ish Q Bank that it's making its way out there, amboss. So, amboss, it's a Q Bank that has come out fairly recently. I probably will not recommend using it as your only Q Bank.

I'll say, for example, if you're using your world and then like amboss as an adjunct, that's not a bad idea. But saying that, oh, you know, what I'm going to do is every other Q Bank and just use like amboss, for example, I don't know if that's, again, it may work for some people. You never know. But I just will probably not recommend that as a prudent strategy. Now, in terms of practice tests, so the fourth part of my permutation, right? They're the NV Me practice tests. You really should do all of them. If you don't do those exams, you're probably should be yourself in the foot. I will highly, highly encourage you to do all the NV Me practice exams and do them from old to new. So, do the oldest one and then work your way up to the new one closer to your exam. And then you should also do the U-World self-assessment. So, there's 12 of those exams, zero self-assessment, one and two. You should do those. And then you really should do the free one 20. So, the free one 20 literally is a set off. It's really not 120, it's more like I think 117 questions. There's like 117 questions. Usually I recommend we will do those like three to five days before their tests. They're relatively easy. They highlight a lot of high-yield concepts that you may see on your exam. And there's this website made by a fellow radiologist that's named as Ben White. It has explanations to those free exams, right?

So, I'll encourage you, like after you take the exams, probably just go on his website and just go ahead and scroll through his explanations to many of those questions. Now, in terms of other resources, right? So, Anki, right? I mean, there's, I can make a podcast without talking about Anki. Again, Anki, if you look at my, in fact, let me just go ahead and say this right now. If you have a free one hour somewhere, I will encourage you to go and listen to one of my previous podcasts on the central dogma of studying. Listen to that podcast will really help you get your thinking right with regards to how you should study just in general, okay? It's a one-hour podcast, but they're going to like life. I won't call it the theory of studying. I will talk just in COVID as well, discuss concepts on how you should study. I will encourage you to consider listening to that podcast if you have the time. Now, one thing I will say here is that Anki is good, Anki is great. There are many people that have succeeded with Anki, but there's a ton of people that have also not succeeded with Anki because they are using Anki wrong, okay? The thing is, Anki is a good memorization tool, okay? Anki is not a great understanding tool. You need to understand something first before you try to memorize it. There are many great decks out there. There is Zanki, there is Bruce and Sephalon and all that stuff.

And again, those are things that, again, if you work through and completely memorize everything in those resources, great. But the thing is, if you also don't understand many of those things in those resources, you will not dwell on your exams, okay? brute force Anki is amazing, but I will encourage you to try to have the understanding down before just jumping into memorization. Because here's why. The thing is, you probably know those people that said I've done 10,000 Anki cards, but I'm still doing poorly on my practice test. Why is that? The reasoning behind that, the thing is, you have the information on your fingertips. Don't get me wrong. But the thing is, having that information on your fingertips and being able to abstract that information from questions at two different things. The thing is, when you have understanding, then that knowledge that you've memorized, it's easy to see it in the midst of distractors, right? So, I sort of think of it this way, right? Let's assume you're going to foreign country. And you've memorized all, like a list of say, for example, you've never come to the US before. You memorize the list of 50 states in the US, and you memorize zip codes and everything. Great, right? You know a lot about the US. Fine, right? But the thing is, you may, if they drop you in the US, you'll probably still be completely lost because you just don't have an understanding of the US as a country, right? So that's the same thing with questions, right?

If you know everything in the world, you've memorized the brute force, but you don't have that foundation of studying, of, I mean, of understanding, then when the NV Me writes a question, you, you may not necessarily be able to see that question in the context of all the stuff you've memorized, right? The thing is, you need context to be able to approach questions. And that context comes from having good understanding. Again, this is one of those things I'll go out on a limb one. If you're just trying to memorize, are there people that really are potential by just memorizing stuff? Yes. But those people are very few and far between, right? The people that get in the 260s, 270s, the 250s, the high scoring ranges, I can tell you that those people have solid understanding. And then they took the time to go ahead and master and learn the minutia and all those memorization details. So again, Anki is a phenomenal resource. In fact, I'll probably encourage more people to use Anki, but I'm also trying to encourage more people to try to understand and then use Anki to repeat that material you have understood. Now, another thing is, say this series of books like the BRS books. So if you have a difficulty understanding material, the BRS books are great for helping you get that understanding, right? So for example, BRS physiology is a great, great, great, great book, right? It's a great book. If you really want to understand physiology, it's a great book for that purpose.

It has a lot of very awesome questions at the back of each of the book, at the back of the books that can really help you sort of kneel through that material. In fact, I'll tell you this, BRS physiology, there's a big one and there's a small one. The small one is like 330 pages. The big one is like 600 pages. If you really, if you're like, I just want to try understanding this resource, I'll encourage you, try the small Constanzo book first. If you don't get the understanding from reading that small Constanzo chapter, then go for the big one. The big one has more details, but the small one really, I'll say for most people, you can understand by using the small version of the book, but if you try, say for example, read the renal chapter in that small book, it's not clotting it for you, then you can consider trying the bigger book. Now, for immunology specifically, there's this book known as how the immune system works, right? It's a short book. If you're very motivated, you can read it in like two days, but if you read that book and understand everything in it, you probably be like an immunology master for your USMLE exams. Another resource, the Kaplan lecture notes. So Kaplan, the company has lecture notes for essentially every subject on the USML Es. Again, if your foundation is very weak, and you hate audio visual resources, so basically like boards and beyond stuff like that, and you're like, I'm a person that can sit down and by reading, I can digest.

Those Kaplan lecture notes are actually not bad for that purpose. I'll say probably use the Pithoma book or the Gullian book for reading, for pathology, but I'll say for every pretty much every other thing, those Kaplan lecture notes are actually pretty clutch for those purposes. Now, so now that and one other thing I will say, right, I mean, I'm making a podcast, so I'm going to talk about my podcasts, right? So the thing is, again, take everything I say with a grain of salt. My podcasts, I think my podcasts are pretty good. And I will see that there are certain areas in terms of studying for step one that I will say that I have pretty comprehensive material for those things, right? So for example, I will say that for biochem, like metabolism, my podcast is probably all you need for your USM Ls. Same warning goes for Reno. I have pretty comprehensive Reno material on my podcast website. I mean, they're even like You Tube videos. If you go to my website, you can click and you can get to the videos on those topics. A ton of microbes, so like the viruses, the fungi, most of the bacteria, I cover them really well on my podcast website. Pharmacology for the USML exams, I will say probably like 90 to 95% of the farm you need to know for your USML exams. I cover all of them on my website and podcasts. This is one of those things I can almost promise you. Pharmacology is very well covered on my website. If you listen, you know, there are multiple podcasts.

If you listen to those podcasts, take good notes, commit those things to memory, you really know pretty much all the farm you need for your USML exams. I mean, like even for micro, like the antibiotics, I have like three or four podcasts on antibiotics. Those are probably all you need to know with regards to micro farm for your USML exams. Now, other stuff there, I'd so like neural and psych. So the thing is the neural and psych material I have, I target them more to the shelf exams and to step two. But the thing here is what I will tell you. If you listen to those podcasts for neural, in fact, I have a video for psych, I can promise you that you will learn a good chunk almost I'll see probably like 70 to 80% of what you need to know for those subject areas, for the USML exams. And I mean, as time goes on in the upcoming weeks, months and what not, I'll make more podcasts that cover the other areas that I'm not saying, oh, I have complete material for this and that. But I will tell you this, neural, psych, farm, metabolism, renal, micro. I have a ton of good stuff on my website for those. And again, please don't necessarily believe everything I'm saying. Just speak out to one or 12 of my podcasts, listen to them, right? Decide for yourself if you like them, right? Again, I suspect that you like them as I've got in feedback from tons of people, both for step one, for step two, step three and whatnot. So try them out first, see if you like them. Try one or two, right?

If you like them, then I will encourage you. For these areas I've mentioned, you can get very good learning from them because again, my podcast, my mindset that I pursue when I make those podcasts is I don't make them to just give you facts. No, I give you the facts you need to know, but I go into I go into explaining them. And then I sort of think of it as like the Goliath technique. I try to explain, okay, this is how that material will be tested. This is how that material may be tested. And I try to integrate it with other fields of learning. Now, let's go into some more, these are just more like thoughts on how you should approach the exam, right? So the first thing is, so again, some of these things are unpopular, right? But again, I'm going based on my experience and again, the experience I've completed from advising people, seeing people that we're not doing well in their study period, and then we talked, and then they got better and all that stuff. I will encourage you again, take everything with a grain of salt, but just hear me out to you. You pick out one or two good things from these pieces of advice. So my first advice is study before you do questions, right? So this is the reverse of what you hear on many, many websites and you hear from many people. Many people say, oh, you know what? I learn well from doing questions.

Yeah, you can learn well from doing questions, but I'm willing to opine that you can learn even better if you study and then do questions over what you study. The thing is studying before you do questions is probably one of the most efficient means of using a dedicated study period. Because the thing is, when you're doing questions, right? And you're like, hmm, I'll just read the explanations and I should be good to go with that. The thing you may be doing is, what you may be doing is, yeah, in the moment, right? In that present moment, you're like, oh, I am learning so much from this explanation in your world. Oh, this is phenomenal. This is amazing. I'm getting so much into my brain. It's just flying and sucking into my my my cerebral cortex and all that stuff. The thing is chances are what may be happening in a good extent is you're understanding it in the moment, but you're also memorizing that explanation. You're not necessarily doing as much learning as you could be doing if you studied first and then reinforced by doing questions. Okay?

The thing is, I believe I'm going to more detail on this in my central dogma podcast, so I don't keep bidding about the bush, but I'll tell you this, if you read and understand like a resource first and then go into questions, one, you won't spend copious amounts of time going through questions, two, you won't spend, like anything you get wrong will become more meaningful to you because you're like, man, I studied this and I'm still getting this question wrong. You then begin to see errors in your thinking that you can correct with those practice questions. And the thing is, if you have a solid knowledge base going into test taken, you pick up more in the realm of test taking strategy doing questions when you have a knowledge base to boot. But if you have like no knowledge base, it's very hard to pick up on good test taking strategy as you're taking and reviewing questions. Again, I'm not going to keep bidding about the bush here. Listen to my central dogma podcast of studying. You'll get more of my thoughts on this, but I will encourage you. It's an unpopular opinion, but I can tell you that studying first and then doing questions in tandem is a very good study strategy. And it's a very efficient study strategy because one thing that burns people's hours during the dedicated period is the seed divine. I spent nine to ten hours just doing my uR questions for the day. You really should not be spending that much time if you spent the hours learning the information.

And the thing, I mean, many people don't realize is there's only so much you can learn from a Q bank. A Q bank cannot issue everything you need to know for an exam. That is just deceiving yourself, to be honest with you. I mean, the greatest form of deceit is self deceit. You know the truth in your heart where you're still deceiving yourself. The thing is Q banks, right? They focus some like, oh, this is the highest yield material to unlearn. This is this and this is that. The thing is probably one of the more efficient means of picking up information initially. Notice, again, pay attention to my wording. I'm not saying the most efficient means of picking up information, all the time is through questions. That is not true. There is a time where doing questions represents the most efficient means of picking up information. For certain exams, doing questions is a great way to pick up that information. But I'll tell you that for many subjects, especially for the preclinical subjects, reading first and then doing questions is probably the most efficient way of picking up a more complete comprehensive breath of knowledge. Now, so without out of the way, let's go to my next advice. So my next advice relates to doing, so this is again very unpopular. But again, I will explain my reasoning and here's the advice. So I will encourage you to do questions in Twitter mode, in non-random fashion. So people may see divine. No, no, no, no, no, no, this is ridiculous.

Everyone has told me to do Q-Banks in timed random mode, like random, random, random, random, great. That is not a good strategy. And again, I may be way off here. I may be completely wrong, but I can almost encourage you that that is not a good or efficient study strategy. The thing is, do you need some kind of randomization with questions? Absolutely, you do. But that randomization, I will say it's probably more appropriate to come from the MBMI practice tests and the URL self-assessment.

Because one thing many people do not realize is that Q-Banks, regardless of how polished it is, regardless of who wrote the question, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody You know what?

I'm going to, for example, wake up in the morning, read the first-aid cardiology chapter, and then after that, I'm going to go ahead and do cardio questions for the next one or two days. The thing is, when you go through that iterative process, you'll be a cardio master in like two days, and you'll feel like your knowledge of cardio is great, solid, on good footing, right? But when you like chasing the this chasing this chasing this chasing that I think, you're like, man, I learned a lot today, but I don't feel like there is this one thing that I learned really well. The thing is, don't take this to mean that, oh, the vine is saying that I should not go and go random questions. No, no. See, for example, you've taken one good cue bank, and as you're doing that cue bank by section, you've also been studying by section, right?

And let's say you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, an

d you're like, four or three, and you're like, four or three, and you're like, four Okay, because again, it represents probably the most efficient use of your study time.

If you keep chasing too many directions by doing random questions with Q banks, Q banks that are not necessarily the best representation of what your real exam will look like, then I will tell you that one you're being very inefficient and two you may end up not learning as deeply or as richly as you could have if you de-thens by section. Now, the whole question of should I do things timed or untimed is completely up to you. Pretty much every Q bank have done, have done it in Twitter mode, and occasionally I do it timed, occasionally I do it on time, timed on time, it does not matter, but I'll say that pretty much every Q bank I have used, I do those questions in Twitter mode. But whenever I'm taking practice tests, like the NV Me practice tests, the UR self assessments, I always do them on their like perfect test taking conditions, but Q banks, I always do them almost as a rule, I always do them Twitter, and many times I do them on time, for some situations I do them on timed Twitter, right? But that Twitter is like a common denominator, I almost always do questions in Twitter mode, because the thing is I've noticed, again, just from myself, and from many people that have Twitter, have advised, and everything, many people they do a set of 40 questions and say, okay, I'll go back and review those 40 questions, it's really hard for them to do.

But there's nothing like doing a question now, seeing the answer right now, reviewing it right now, and writing down whatever notes you want to write right now, right? Again, many of you have probably fallen into this chapter, you're like, I did this two blocks of questions, but man, it's so question to go back and review everything. No, if you just do it Twitter by question, right, you basically eliminate that problem. And again, I go into more detail on this in my central dogma podcast. Now, next thing is, next I guess concept is, many people actually underestimate the value of studying, right? Many people underestimate the value of studying. You see many people that say, you know what, for my dedicated period, I'm just going to do questions. Like I hear many people say this, all I'm going to do is detail students, even all you should do is questions, all you should do is questions, all you should do is questions, and you'll crush your exam. No, that is not a great strategy. The thing is, if you're saying all I'm going to do is questions, and your knowledge basis phenomenon going in, then I'll say, yeah, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. That is absolutely what you should do. But if for example, let's say you were like below average for most of your preclinical subjects, your knowledge basis is not as strong as it should be. And you're saying that your dedicated period is going to be like 90% questions. I can almost promise you that you're setting yourself up to fail.

Okay. Here's why the thing is again, Q banks are a great means of learning. But Q banks, I, in fact, I'll tell you this, you know what, yes, I've been saying I would suggest I will highly encourage you go back and listen to my central dogma podcast. You see me say more about this day. But the thing is Q banks, you cannot learn everything from Q banks, right? Q banks are good testing tools. They also good learning tools, but you need to study. The study is really where you can learn a lot of information in a fairly efficient format. Again, don't take this to say, the vines says don't do questions. No, that is an absolute lie. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if you take the time to study and then you take the time to do questions and review them thoroughly, you can do really well on exams, right? But the thing is you cannot do one without the other. Those things cannot be done in a vacuum. There are certain exams. Don't get me wrong that all. If you just do questions, you do well. But I will am opining here again, take everything I say with a grain of salt that that is not the best strategy for the USMLE exams. If I will say no, MBM is specifically in general, if you study and then do questions and review them well, you can do really well on these tests. I mean, like literally there are people that have worked with as a tutor that they literally like their first few weeks of the dedicated prayer, they were probably doing like 30. Your questions a day.

And then they were spending like 70 80% of their day literally studying. That was like literally all they did literally all they did. And say for example, like they had like a seven eight week dedicated study period and they probably studied for like they probably spend like 70% of their time like going through boards and beyond DIT bloody, bloody, bloody, blood for those first four, five weeks. And then they took a practice test after that first four, five weeks and they got like a 250 something or 260 something. That is with probably having completely only like 20 to 30% of your world. Yes, some of them ultimately went on to like get to like 60% of your or 70% of your or 100% of your before they took their tests. But I'm telling you this like there are people that literally the bulk of say like their dedicated period like the first few weeks, at least before they took a practice test was like 70 80% studying and then that up like the took of their first person is like, wow, divine. I got a 250, I got a 260 and you're like, hmm, wait, I have only done 20% of your world. How am I doing this well? I'm telling you this, there's a lot of value in actually studying. Right, I'm not saying, oh, spend 100% of your dedicated period studying and then not doing questions. No, that's a bad strategy. Right, you should do questions. But the thing is questions are not the end or be all of a dedicated period.

You really should spend probably an equal percent of your time actually studying and committing details to memory because the thing is on many of these NV Me questions, they are not out to trick you. Many times they give you the classic common presentation of things. Those classic common presentations. Yeah, you pick up on many of them from Q banks, but you pick up on a more comprehensive amount of those classic common presentations, including pathophysiology. By actually studying. Now, next thing is, and I mean some people say, oh, divine, I know someone that just did Q banks and they got 270s. Right. I will encourage you go to those people and just get a little more backstory from them and you will see that in many cases, those people have a phenomenal base of knowledge. In comparison with that Q bank, whatever that you're going through. Yeah, if you go through three Q banks, bloody, bloody, bland, all that stuff. Sure, you can do well on your USM. But the thing is, many of those people that get in the 260s, 270s, 250s and you're like, oh, they tell you that all these Q banks, that is generally for the most part, not true. Many of those people have a solid knowledge base, either a completed a solid knowledge base during the dedicated periods or during their first like two years of med school. And I'll say some more things about that as we go along.

Now, if you feel super weak in something, I'll encourage you to find a good, but succinct resource to understand that information. Before again, jumping to a review resource like first aid, for example, now, let me give you a potential algorithm for how you should study. Right. Again, I go into more detail on this in my central dogma podcast, but I'll encourage you first understand. And then after that, read a review, not learning a review resource. And then after that, do questions. And then after that, repeat that review resource as many times as is possible. If you basically follow this pathway, you should be able to do really well on your exams. Okay. And again, again, get the understanding down, get the repetition in and have detailed nuance, the analysis of questions. Okay. That is essentially the cornerstone of any successful strategy. I mean any successful study strategy. And the thing is, while you're studying, ask yourself, how can this information be tested? That is actually a very powerful way to learn material. Now, while you're doing practice tests, please, please, please, I'm begging you, even if you don't do this with Cubans, please do this with your practice tests. If you don't do this, you're wasting your practice tests. After doing practice exams, please, please, please spend time reviewing those tests. In fact, this is probably one of the things that has helped me the most as a test taker.

Whenever I take a practice exam, especially the NB Ms, those are pure gold. I always go back to review every single question in great, excruciating detail. And the thing is, whenever I'm reviewing questions, I always do this. I basically ask myself, okay, do I know the concept that is behind this question? That's one, two, ask myself, is there any test taking strategy? I can pick up from this question. Three, is there any destructor? Basically, I always ask myself, why did I get this question wrong? Or why did I get this question right? Or is there any way I could have gotten this question without even having the knowledge required to answer the question in the first place? That's the kind of analysis I do it pretty much. All the questions I expose myself to, especially I mean, I don't necessarily do this with your world or with Kaplan or whatever. But this with the NB Ms, I am very, I don't want to use bad words, but I'm very detailed when I review my NB Ms. You can get a lot of learning done with those NB Ms, except I probably spend more time reviewing tests than I do actually taking them. Especially the NB Ms. Now, I can tell you this, if you use your NBM practice test well, you can learn a ton from them, you can identify patterns, you can become a better test taker just seriously from reviewing those tests appropriately.

Now, when you're doing questions, when you're doing your world, right, here's one good time wister for many people on, during the dedicated periods, you see people concocting 300, 400 page documents, right, of notes that they are taking from Q banks, right. That is a bad, bad, bad strategy. You see some people, they're literally transcribing your world, right, they're literally transcribing your. The unfortunate thing is many of those things they are transcribing has already been written very nicely in some textbook or in first date or in the Power Points that come with words and beyond, right. The thing is all that time you're spending transcribing, one is wasted time. Yeah, no, no, no, it's not necessarily, let me put it this way, because I know some people are probably like flipping out with what I'm saying right now. The thing is that time you're spending transcribing as it was, is time that you probably could have spent studying and repeating that material multiple times to get it into your head. The thing is whenever I do practice exams, especially like your world, if for example I get a question right and I understand why I got it right, I just read the answer explanation, I literally take no notes on that question. But if there is a question I get wrong or a question I get right because I guessed right or like this new concept that I've not seen anywhere, I try to read the explanation first.

So the thing is, you see some people are like, you're eating the explanation, they're taking notes, no, no, that's not the way to go about things. I read the explanation first, cover up that explanation and ask myself, divine, is there a way I can express the key concepts from this wall of text in terms of answer explanations that I just read in one to two sentences. I try to sit down, force myself to put everything together into one sentence and then I write down that one sentence for that question. So you may see some people, they have 10, 20 pages worth of notes for an example like, man, how is all the high yield stuff you need to know in those 10 to 20 pages? That's because they took notes the smart way. In fact, the good thing is your world actually has a resource like a notes feature that you can use while you're doing questions, although if your computer crashes or your U-World subscription expires, something crazy happens, you may use all those notes. So I'll encourage you, just probably get a pen and paper or a notebook. And again, no more than one to two sentences for a question, even if it's a question you get wrong. Okay. Limiting yourself to one to two sentences will force you to put everything together and abstract what is the most important. And you may see what divine, but there's so much good stuff in those explanations. The reason you're saying that and the reason you feel the need to write a ton of stuff is because you have not necessarily studied.

That's why you see I tell people study before doing questions. If you study, you know where the information is. You know all this is in first day, because think about it. Why spend hours and hours and hours and hours writing down information that is already written somewhere in some book that you can just refer to and just read it off yourself. Because many times these people that generate these 300 to 400 page behemoths, they never go back to go through that resource multiple times as these should. So I will encourage you, consider using this strategy when you're doing Q banks and reviewing your questions from Q banks. Now, my next piece of advice, changing plans. The thing is, before you study or dedicate it, period, I'll encourage you, speak with someone that is knowledgeable with these issues like an opera class man or a tutor or something. Let that, or even even if you don't speak with anyone, even if you're doing this by yourself, how do I realistic assessment? Where am I right now in terms of my knowledge? A good way to actually assess that is to take a baseline envy me, just sort of figure out where you are. Ask yourself, where am I right now? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? How do I study? Blah blah blah. Those are all things. If you figure out, make a solid plan. The thing is, once you make a solid plan, this is where discipline comes in. You need to be disciplined to stick with that plan.

Obviously, if you use that plan for like four weeks and it's not working, you're like, I'm not learning my test scores, I'm not budging, I will encourage you, then make changes. But you see people, they use one study plan for three days and then they jump to another one two days later. And then they jump to this one and then they jump to this one and then they get to me like, wait, wait. I have just one week to make some of you like wandering. Whoa, what happened? How did I get to this situation? The reason they go to that situation is they kept changing plans or they kept trying to copy what they found. Let's say they were studying for one week and then they found this friend using this one resource that, oh, they never, they haven't even touched, they haven't even used. Even if it's out of their plan and then they panic and start using it. Those are things that kill your dedicated study period. So again, I'll encourage you. Make a solid plan that works for you as a person and stick with that plan. As long as you make a plan that includes those four permutations I talked about earlier on, you should be able to do really well on your test. As long as you're disciplined and you use them appropriately. Now, another thing is again, I will encourage you. Before you dedicate your just listen to my podcast on the Central Dogma Study. You can learn a lot from that. Now, what if you're an auditory learner, right?

So there are certain people that just absolutely hate reading books, right? There are people that absolutely hate reading books or maybe they love reading books but just medical texts just send them to sleep or they don't learn as effectively from that. If you're an auditory learner, I will encourage you. Find a good video resource. Words and beyond. Doctors in training. Those are great resources. Watch those videos. As you're watching those videos, generate your own notes on them. It's so crushing. It takes a very large amount of time. But if you're an auditory learner, that is a great plan. Like literally again, there are people I know that all they did was or that the plans. Let's just say the plans I suggested to them. We're plans that involve them using one of these video resources. Watching every single video and making notes on every single video. And then they read those notes multiple times, did questions and they crushed the exams. I absolutely will tell you that those are things you can do. So if for example, right, you're like, oh, you know what? I love audio visual learning. Are you take boards and beyond or you take first or you take the IT? Watch each video, make notes and then use those notes as your first date and not even touch the real first date at all. That is absolutely fine. Again, I'm telling you that there are people that I have to do it. There are people that have advised that I've used that strategy and I've done extremely well on their exams.

So it's a strategy that certainly works. You just have to be disciplined. You just have to be disciplined and thorough. So don't say, oh, I did this with 20% of the IT. And oh, I got it in the 200. How did that happen? Well, you just use 20%. If you're very detailed and you're very thorough, you can get to the destination you want. Now, in fact, I mean for me, right? I mean, I'm under like, I tell many people, I'm an auditory learner. Yes, I'm very good at reading books, but I much prefer a good lecture, a good audio visual lecture. That's why I'm creating this podcast website in the first place. I really love listening and watching videos. I can learn a lot and I can retain a lot from just going through that. Although many times what will happen end up happening is I'll watch a video or lecture to understand. And then I'll just watch that video like many more times at higher speeds, just as my sort of like on keywealth repeating that information. And I still get the same effect. I still end up doing thankfully pretty well on exams. So I will encourage you if you're an auditory learner, you don't, you can use what I'm just, what I just now suggested. Now, one thing people do is they say, oh, the one should I do three passes through your world? That's probably not a good idea. I'll encourage you that if you've used your world once, you can go back and redo your own questions or better yet. Add another Q bank, right?

So instead of doing 50 passes through your world, I'll highly recommend maybe use your world once, use it right to the first time. And then go ahead and add another Q bank like Kaplan or USMLRX. Now, just other quick things, right? So these are just thoughts that make sense, right? So one thing is the free 120, you should certainly do those already talked about that. I will encourage you once in your prep, probably like two weeks to your exam, try doing the back to back, right? Because your real exam is eight hours, right? It's seven blocks. So maybe do like two you world self assessments in one day or do like one you world self assessment on one NV Me practice exam to simulate a full length day. And then I will encourage you to exercise, right? Mental health is important because really a dedicated period is a great time to stress eat. Really, I feel like exercise one makes you feel good and two, I mean, you've heard of the endorphins, your medical students, you know, that stuff. But exercise like daily exercise makes you a, almost makes you a disciplined person. I mean, even there's a part of the Bible that says that bodily exercise, profite, little is the profit is little, but there is like atrop, like legit profit from exercise. So I'll encourage you establish that daily discipline, one, it will help your mental health and two, it will help you remain disciplined as you go through your dedicated study period.

Now, obviously, you should try to study in a place where you can learn without being disturbed, right? So if you know that your family, the more hands-on people that will prevent you from studying as well as you should, then stay back at your med school and study. At the end of your dedicated period, you can go to the city of family and whatever. And before you study a third, you have to your dedicated period. I'll encourage you, take like a week off, right? Get your brain set. Even if it's just two days, if you have the work of a holiday, even if it's just two days, take some time off, right? In general, you don't want to like finish your dedicated period and literally do it. The next day, start your third year, right? That's probably not very good for your mental well-being. And while you're studying, one thing I will definitely, I mean, I'll say this one as motivation and two as like, what is just true is this. If you study hard for your step one exam and you study to do well on your step one exam, you're setting yourself up to do really well on step two CK on your step three exam for your entire clinical career and for your shelf exams in third year. I'm telling you this, the best prep for third year is doing well on step one. You see some people, they say, oh, I'm very good with talking to patients and everything. Yes, that is true. You need to be good with talking to patients and all that stuff to do well in third year.

When I promise you, if you have a bad knowledge base, you're not doing yourself any good. A complete clinician is one that has a good knowledge base and has good bedside manner. Those are two things you want to be able to tie together. I'm telling you this, like you can just check, right? So that dual on step one invariably dual on step two CK invariably dual on step three invariably dual on the shelf exams. Yes, it's a different kind of thinking for third year and step two CK, but many times that knowledge base you acquired for step one, even if you've forgotten a lot of it, will still help you tremendously down the line on tests on the words and for the rest of your clinical career. Now, if you're not hitting the goals you want, talk to someone early, right? So again, talk to an upper class man, talk to a professor, talk to a tutor, talk to someone that the thing is, let me just put it this way. There are many professors or there are many supposedly knowledgeable people that they probably knew how things worked 20, 30 years ago. What I mean, I don't necessarily know how things work now. So I'll encourage you. There is probably someone at your med school or someone that you know really well that has done really well on tests, has a lot of experience with test prep test taking that you can speak to, run your ideas by them and get their feedback. I will encourage you to strongly consider doing that, especially if you're not hitting your goals on practice exams.

And the thing is, please don't say, oh, you know what, I want to get into the 240s on my exam. And then let's say you're getting into the two tens like a week to your test and then you're hoping I prayed for a miracle on test. You don't get me wrong again. Miracles happen, right? We also have to be realistic, right? I mean, like even the Bible says that faith without works is dead, right? So if for example, you're like, I'm going to get into the 250s on my test. And then you adopt like a like a day sickle approach during your dedicated period and all that stuff. And you're not studying as hard as you should. And let's say you get like a two 10 like three days before your test. And you're hoping for a 250, you're setting yourself up for for a lot of pain when your score comes out. Okay. Yeah. Then people have seen that, oh, they got like in the 220s before the, right before the exam. And then they took their tests and boom, they got like 250s to 60s. Absolutely. There are people like that. But those people are extremely few and far between. So again, you want to be realistic. Don't you are setting yourself up for a huge disappointment if you're counting on that. Now, another problem that commonly props up is you see people they don't know to study in with their scores and not budget. It's usually one of two problems, right? One, they don't know things as well as they should, right? Or two, they may have just bad test taking strategy, right?

Both you can fix them yourself or again, speak to someone experienced in these matters. They can usually look through whatever studying you're doing or whatever strategies you're applying, pick out the things that are not working, give your recommendations on things to turn around. And then point to in the right direction. And then another thing is please don't be paralyzed by anxiety, right? So I know anxiety is a big part of preparing for exams, right? Many people are like, this exam is so important. It can determine a big portion of my future, which is true, right? But the thing is don't let anxiety paralyze you, right? Step one is a hard exam, don't get me wrong, but it's not impossible. Step one is a very global test. If you're just going with the right plan, the right mindset and discipline in executing the right plan and right mindset that you already set up from the beginning. Just remind yourself, if you have that solid plan, if you're a disciplined in execution, we got on your side, you'll succeed. And again, if you're feeling overwhelmed, please speak to somebody. I'm begging you, speak to someone. Don't go either alone, speak to somebody. Speak with a trusted person. Again, a person that has experience handling these issues. And again, don't just focus on learning and studying, also focus on building up your testing skills. Doing well on step one is not just about knowing the information. It also revolves around being a good test taker.

And again, you can build your testing skills, you can build your testing in argument, but those are things you can build by studying and thoroughly reviewing your practice questions. I mean, the people that I work with one on one, yeah, I go over, I teach them like I review practice exams with them. And as I do those reviews, I go over like test taking strategy in the context of taking MBA needs, but those are things you can also do on your own. If you review your practice test thoroughly, yes, I do that with people when I do my one on one private tutoring. But again, those are things you can pick up on your own. If you just spend your time really thoroughly reviewing your practice exams. Now, let me speak to this subset. So say for example, you're the person that has been getting like in the high 90s on your preclinical exams, that is usually an indication that you've learned the material well. And it's usually an indication that you do pretty well on your exam. You may not necessarily need 12 weeks to study or something ridiculous to kill your test. You just need to have like a good solid plan and you should be able to do pretty well like five, six weeks of studying. Let's see, what else do I want to mention? One thing I will say is, you see some people, they start off their dedicated period and they're trying to memorize every minutia known to man. That is again, also not a great strategy.

The thing is, you want to spend, in fact, I'll say a ton of your dedicated period, getting the big picture down first. Like I can almost promise you, if you get the great majority of the big picture down first, you can easily, again, and assuming you're a good testicker, you can easily get to the two 30s, two 40s without issue. When you hit these thresholds, then you can start hunting down minutia. You see people say, oh, divine. I want to learn every minutia, but they're still at like 200 in terms of our practice test scores. Now, the reason you're getting a 200 is, those big picture details, you don't know them well just yet. So I'll encourage you. Like I'm telling you, you may say, divine, you're a lion, you're a lion. The thing is, remember, the USML exam is a competency test. They basically want to test that you have like a certain base of knowledge. I can not, I'm telling you this. If you don't have back testing strategy and you know most of the big picture really well, you can get in the two 30s, two 40s on the USML exams. That is one thing I can tell you with a strong degree. Again, I'm not saying with 100% confidence, but with a very strong degree of confidence, again, given not just even my experiences, given not just not just my experiences, but just again, from many people I have to do it, many people have advised, right?

If you have the big picture down, even if you don't necessarily know minutia, if you have the big picture down and you have like just, you don't have to have phenomenal test against you, just decent test against skills. You can get into the two 30s, two 40s on your exams, but if you want to start going into the 250s, 260s, 270s, then you need to have the basics down. You need to have minutia down and you need to be an excellent test taker. And those are all skills you can work on, but get to that two 30, two 40s threshold first and then you start building on those things, you start building from there. Now, one other thing is if you're getting in the 190s or like early 200s on exams, if I'll say if you're getting less than a 207 for example, I would highly recommend not taking the exam. You actually had a very high risk of feeling on that those circumstances. Basically, if you have those scores, your foundation is not good. I will encourage you in those circumstances, step away from review resources, step away from the first date, step away from the you world, go back, relearn your basics from a good, super detailed learning resource, like boards and beyond boards and beyond is excellent for this purpose or those couple of lecture notes. They are excellent for this purpose and then go back to your review resource after that. Please don't take the exam. Because really, can you bring yourself back if you fail the exam, retake it again and match all that stuff?

Yes, that is totally doable. But I will tell you that you're putting significant odds in your way if you fail the exam. So, if you're getting like in the 190s, if you're getting like 10 points, just like 10 points above passing, I highly recommend do not take the exam. Yeah, there may be pressure from your school and you may not have many options. But I would rather you take time off and go and study hard, get those foundations right. So, what I mean is you can prevent yourself from getting in these problems if you again have an honest assessment of yourself from the beginning and then come up with a solid plan that will deal with all these issues. But life happens, things happen. But if you are around these scourringes, I will tell you this. You had a very high risk of failing your exam. And yes, you can retake the exam. Yes, but I'm telling you, if you retake the exam, after failing, you've just introduced another mountain that you need to overcome in getting to residency. I'll just tell you that right off the bat. Listen to me here, I'm not missing words. This is very important. And again, what is a general thing I tell most people, right? Take a baseline exam at the beginning, right? So, like the very first day of your study period on like a week before, take a baseline and be in the oldest one, maybe like in the end of the 13. If it's still being so now, see where you are.

That will tell you your strengths and weaknesses and many times it can actually like light a fire on the you and tell you that, okay, maybe I need to study a lot more than I, I planned to, okay? That's one thing I'll just recommend. And then spend like your first few weeks, like the first half of your dedicated period, carefully going through a review resource, assuming your knowledge base is good, or carefully going through a learning and review resource. And then after that, you can then start taking practice tests every week. I mean, there are more specific studies, study schedules for step one that you can set up. But I'll just say in general, that is what I recommend that people do. I mean, for me, like my routine during my dedicated period was like basically, like wake up in the morning, pray, work out. And then after that, I get going early. So I'm a morning person. I'm about 4 a.m. kind of guy. Get up in the morning at 4 a.m. and study a deep kind of guy, right? So, um, start early, pray, work out. And then after that, I go to my med school, or I stay at home and just study. Study as much as possible. Usually I'll take like small breaks here and there, but I usually take like a big break in the afternoon to like relax, sleep, nap, whatever. Um, and then I'll study for as long as I could go till like probably like late afternoon, early evening, and then I retire for the day. Um, I was not the person that will study the whole day till midnight.

No, I almost never did that. Um, I also valued having a life watching Netflix and all that stuff while I was going through my dedicated period. But I knew that my maximum times of focus were like morning, early afternoon. So I got a very early and just use those times to my advantage. And then, um, let me say this when you're taking your exam, make sure you print your permit in advance. Before the day before your test, go to your testing center and just know what it looks like, right? So that like no, like where can you park? Where do where can you do this? Where can you do that? Um, it just gives you this level of confidence, um, going into your, going into your exam. One other thing I also did is again, make sure you park lunch, right? Um, like literally plan your meal, right? Don't give yourself foods that will cost tummy upsets during the exam. That's not a pretty strategy. Um, so plan your meal. It will on exam day, right? You will only help you get good sleep, right? If you need to work out for hours and hours to like burn yourself out so that when you get on and take a shower, you just crush for like nine hours, do that. Um, but I'll encourage you try to get good sleep before you take your exam. And then one thing I think I said I do need for like step two CK was, um, just taking Tylenol profilistically, the morning of my exam, so that headache is not something I have to deal with during my, during my test.

Now, one thing I'll go ahead and say, and this is for if you have lower class menu, you're advising in the future, that I study now first year. Let me beg you to do something with those people. Here is it. If you're a med student that is just starting up med school, I will encourage you to focus on crushing your pre-clinical coursework. That should be your first priority like study like you want to get a hundred on each of your pre-clinical exams. If you fulfill this first priority and have time for nothing else, have time for no other like step one studying on the side and all that crap, that is 100% absolutely fine. I can tell you this from my experience as a tutor and a teacher. The people that are near the top of the class grade wise in the pre-clinical coursework are almost always the people that at the top with regards to USMLP% house. That is probably the one thing that has the strongest correlation. We're doing well on the USMLP exams. Yes, are there people that are bottom-barrel in the class and then they bring it on step one and get in the 250s to 60s? Absolutely, there are those people. But in my tutoring career, I have identified an extremely limited number of those people. Again, I have tutored for many, many, many years. Again, take everything I say with a grain of salt, but I'm telling you, make your first priority like study for your pre-clinical exams to understand, study to get the best grades possible.

That is though, even if your curriculum is supposedly low yield, I can promise you that is probably one of the most critical things that will prepare you well for step one. Regardless of how low yield your curriculum seems, the thing is many much students are bad at estimating what is high yield and what is low yield. Another thing is, if for example you've studied really hard for your pre-clinicals and you feel like, okay, I have some extra time, then by all means you can pick up like a good learning resource, like boards and beyond on the side. And study from that or pick up like an Anki deck and do that. But again, if you are doing those things at the detriment of getting the best grades possible in your pre-clinical coursework, I'm telling you this, again, you don't have to believe me, but I'm telling you that you are making a mistake. That is a very bad strategy to go off of. If you don't believe me, just go ahead, find people that scored above 245 on the USMLA exams and just ask them. Just take like a poll. Especially those people that are in the very high scoring ranges, just take a poll and ask them. I can almost promise you that the great majority of those people did really well in their pre-clinical coursework. Spend your early time understanding all the root memorization can come during your dedicated period. Okay? So, again, these are all my thoughts on things.

They are not necessarily all correct, but I'm just again, my best judgment on what I think has worked for me and has worked for the thousands of people of tutor than thought over a long period of time. So, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. And again, the message I put at the end of all my, at least my more recent podcasts is, I do offer one-on-one private tutoring for the USMLA Step 1, Step 2 C and Step 3 exams. The USMLA Step 2 CS exam, I prepare people for that, I prepare tons of people for that. Also, the 30-year shelf exams and the internal medicine, training exam and the internal medicine board exams, I do actually offer tutoring for those. One-on-one tutoring, obviously it's on a paid basis, so I offer those. So, if you need any of those, feel free to reach out to me either through my website or you can send an email to Divine Intervention. Podcasts with an S at gmail.com. And I'll be happy to point you in the right direction. I'm not saying this to sell anything to you. I have a lot of good content on my website that you can use and learn from it. Please, you don't need tutoring from me to do well. Many people do extremely well without tutoring from me. But I offer those things if you were to ever need them. And I also prepare Eras Applications for Residency. I also do mock interviews and I also do the same thing with Amkis Applications for Met School.

So, if you know anyone that needs any of those things or weirdly needs like organic chemistry tutoring, I can point you in the right direction with those things. So, have a wonderful rest of your day. I know this was a lengthy podcast, but I think there's a lot of very good information here. So, see you in the next podcast. Have a wonderful day and God bless. And I hope the Lakers make the play of San Lebron comes back soon. See you next time.

Understanding concepts first, before jumping into memorizing minutiae details.

A dedicated learning resource (e.g., Boards & Beyond or Pathoma) to build conceptual understanding.

Review resources, question sources (Q-banks), practice tests, and learning resources as needed.

Limiting notes to one or two sentences per question, forcing abstraction of key concepts rather than transcribing explanations.

Performing well in preclinical coursework (getting top grades) is strongly correlated with success on the exam.

Daily exercise, as it helps maintain mental health and discipline throughout the dedicated period.

Crushing preclinical coursework to build a strong foundational knowledge base.

Pathoma (or sometimes recommended alongside Goliath).

Boards & Beyond or Doctors in Training (DIT) videos.

Doing multiple passes through a single Q-bank (e.g., 50 passes through U World).

1) Do I know the concept behind this question? 2) Is there a test-taking strategy here? 3) Why did I get it wrong/right?

Spend an equal percentage of time studying (learning details) and doing questions (testing knowledge).

Crushing preclinical coursework to build a strong foundational knowledge base.

Pathoma (or sometimes recommended alongside Goliath).

Boards & Beyond or Doctors in Training (DIT) videos.

Doing multiple passes through a single Q-bank (e.g., 50 passes through U World).

1) Do I know the concept behind this question? 2) Is there a test-taking strategy here? 3) Why did I get it wrong/right?

Spend an equal percentage of time studying (learning details) and doing questions (testing knowledge).