Article: How To Score Over 270 In Your USMLE Step 2 CK With 3 Months Preparation

Post by:Kings
AMA/Study Guide: Step 2 CK – 272.

Hello everyone, so below you will find what resources I have used, how I have utilized those resources, and how I could have scored higher.

The first paragraph is only towards what kind of a person I am and who I am thankful for.

First and foremost, I wouldn’t have gotten this score without the help of certain few individuals. Not only they challenged me, but they gave me ideas on how I could improve in my own knowledge where I lacked severely in. I am an US-IMG(non-Caribbean) student, and I was a below average student during my medical school. Fast forward to today, if I could rewind time, I wouldn’t change anything.

I am the type of person who wants to become better not only as a person overall, but as a better Physician.

I met many individuals along the way that taught me how I could change my studying style, and what others have done.

Now that this is out of the way, lets get to the core.

Note: anything I say here is by no means advertisement or I am being compensated for.

Time: 3 months

Resources:
1. My gold standard resource I used to build my knowledge base is AMBOSS. I will wear this on my sleeve. There is not a single resource out there that is updated thoroughly and down to the specific information that’s important. I wished I knew AMBOSS for Step 1. I did NOT use AMBOSS question bank, I used AMBOSS notes only.

2. Along with this, I used UWORLD question bank (Online). If you think you can go by using Offline UWORLD, you are mistaken big time. Uworld is being updated on a daily basis, and not using an online UWORLD as your question bank is your biggest step towards mediocre score, and perhaps not even pass?

I do not recommend using UWORLD notes, they are outdated on many topics, and the style is terrible. Uworld notes is pretty much all information jumbled into one.

3. First Aid Step 1 – great tool, especially the back of the book for rapid review.

4. Dr. Pestana Surgery Notes – if you haven’t bought this, buy it. Nearly all of my uworld questions, and actual exam were from Dr. Pestana Notes. Always get the latest edition, no matter what.

5. Journal to take all your notes into.

Not recommended resources:
1. Step up to Medicine
2. Kaplan
3. UWORLD Notes 
4. First Aid Step 2
5. OnlineMedEd.

Why?
1. Because I hated reading from textbooks.
2. Too passive.
3. Not properly formatted compared to AMBOSS.
4. I used Kaplan for Step 1 and I hated it.
5. Don’t even think about using Onlinemeded.
Onlinemeded is not at all a resource you want to use if you want to score high. IF you want to JUST pass, then go right ahead, because onlinemeded is TOO vague.
I doubt anyone in my range have used OnlineMedEd.

BUT If you took Step 1 greater than 6 months ago, and are JUST starting your journey towards Step 2, then I recommend Onlinemeded to get your basics down within 2-3 weeks, and then go through the resources I mentioned above.

My plan:

I started my journey by using Uworld. I would do 1-2 blocks every day, and every question/topic I did not know about, I would read AMBOSS. Inside out.

I would take my own notes in my journal. I would write down stuff I did NOT know, or stuff I knew I needed to learn.

Every morning and before I go to bed, I would read these notes. No matter what, not a single day went that I did not read them. I had a friend near me, and he did the same thing. We would exchange our notebooks, and quiz each other every day. We only studied together when quizzing each other. Otherwise our day to day would be going through question bank, and in the night quiz each other.

I did my questions untimed, non-tutor. My blocks were mixed, always. But I limited the number of questions to 20 questions per block. I would do this 3-4 blocks every day totaling to 60-80 questions every day.

Last 2 weeks:
We finished our qbank twice. We knew the answers.

What we did was every 3rd day we would take simulate an actual exam. Do 8 blocks, timed, non-tutor.

On the days we were not doing practice exams, we pretty much quizzed each other from our notebooks and made sure each of us knew our notebook inside out.

Because we knew that if they asked anything from our notebook, the USMLE would be a fool. And that’s exactly what happened.

My friend just received his scores, and he scored a 276. We both outsmarted USMLE. The type of notes we would make is basically questions only. I would write a specific question, and a specific answer. I would limit this entire question and answer to one note book line only.

Mistakes, overall experience:

The exam is shitty. You will feel shitty. Get that through. Once you do, you will walk into the exam without worrying.

Don’t be nervous. Get your stamina up by doing multiple days of 9 hour exam before your exam day. If you have time, do my method. If you do not have time, then I suggest keep doing what you do, don’t try to follow my method.

Stop trying to get what kind of questions were asked, because then you’re just putting yourself under the impression that this question might be in your exam and you will become lazy in a sense. You need to actively study, interactively study.

If I had to repeat this process, one thing I would change is focusing on myself and not worry about anything that’s outside of this exam. I had some personal issues nearing the exam, and it was a tough time mentally. I wished I could cut myself from all social life if I had the change. But that is currently what I am doing as I prepare for my Step 3. I am using this same method for Step 3 and adding on to my journal with Step 3 question bank.

Original Post by Devansh Pathak‎ 
Continue Reading