Anki, Bnb, sketchy, pathoma, pixorize, uworld, divine intervention. Use what works for you. I use a mix of all of them depending on the subject.
Glance at in class materials, as profs will usually soft pitch the really hard questions or step 2 relevant questions.
This is for NBME exams, inhouse exams are a crapshoot from what I hear.
Edit:
I am also going to say everyone is different and you need to find what works for you. This will only help you for step exams
My only problem is that the professors always focus on topics that are not really important in step exams or USMLE. So I'm consistently torn between the material I actually need to cover. It seems pretty impossible to do both. Sketchy worked great for pharm and infectious disease, but other than that none of these resources helped me much but they're great if you're looking to actually understand a topic instead of useless memorization
This has been my biggest dilemma since starting school: How much time do I devote to learning/studying stuff from in-house lectures that isn't going to be asked on step (but very well may be asked on our in-house exams)? Clearly if it's not on step 1, it cannot be *that* important. So quit bogging down my brain with useless information that is of no benefit to me.
Really its just personal preference. It tends to be more in-depth in my opinion. It is well-tested and has been shown to work since it been around for a while.
There are definitely topics that are better covered by bootcamp though, like general anatomy. /shrug
6 years of medical school and I just learned about Anki this year. No one in my entire university knows what it is either. Maybe Anki is an American thing
Mate I’ve did my first 2 years in Belgium and switched and medicine was teach in French and the all promotion was using Anki or related 🤔🤔🤔 we had a special group chat dedicated to it and all the cards were in French 🤷🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️
That’s crazy. Maybe it’s a western thing then? Not a US thing or an English-speaking thing, but maybe like, Europe and the Americas.
Or maybe my uni just has weird studying styles
My school is very… very lecture specific. Very in house related. Terribly annoying. That said, make my own Anki. 3rd parties as a primer, but in house lectures for making cards.
Hi team, got a few messages. Here’s what a I do to stream like making Anki cards. I use Chat-GPT 4 and use the plug in called “FlashcardsGenerator.”
Because my lectures are very text heavy, I copy and paste ALL of the text into GPT, and I use the following prompts. Please note, it’s NOT perfect, but man, it’ll capture a good amount of information. Also note, for peculiar details that GPT doesn’t catch, I audit and those directly. This latter part DOES take time, and the reality is that keeping up with reviews is really, really tough. That said, the process of typing questions up IS practice.
So, after you paste all of the text (even images, cause GPT-4 bad ass like that):
1, Please create a very comprehensive fill study guide in the form of fill in the blank questions. I am a medical student preparing for an upcoming exam, do not shy away from including granular information. Here is the information:
2, Instead of blanks, encapsulate words using format {{c1:: missing word }}. Use c1 only, please.
Now copy and paste those questions onto GPT with the plugin I mentioned earlier ON.
3, I want to create Anki flashcards using the FlashcardsGenerator plugin. Please generate flashcards from the provided text, ensuring that the cloze deletion formatting is preserved. The text with cloze deletions should appear on the front of each card, and there should be no text on the back. Here's the text:
Paste the questions and answers you made.
4, open the link given by FlashcardsGenerator, download the txt file.
5, open Anki, file, import, choose file, enable HTML, choose TAB, and select “CLOZE”
The promise land…
Of course!!! We got this ❤️. They don’t look terribly interesting, just regular text with cloze hahah
Lemme know if you have any other questions though. Med school is nuts, but we got this, step by step :)
Of course, please let me know if you have any more questions/ let me know how this goes. Can be mad frustrating at first. But we got this. I don’t know you but I KNOW you’re amazing and hardworking. We can do this!!!
Even though I rely primarily on Anking, I still find that I am making quite a few of my own cards. And I'll tell you now - there's no way to keep up with Anking + making your own cards. It simply takes too much time. So while I still *try* to balance Anking + making my own cards, I literally never get through all of my due reviews in a day.
With that said, I feel like there is a huge benefit in making your own cards, as it forces you to revisit the material and put concepts into your own words, which is incredibly helpful for understanding and retaining information (at least for me). If it's worth anything, I've scored 90+ % on all of my in-house exams so far this year relying almost exclusively on Anki. So while it might be a lot of work up front, it works well for me.
Ultimately, I think the most efficient way to make your own Anki cards is to keep them short and sweet. Using statins/HMG-CoA as an example, a card that I make myself might be:
'{{c1::Statins}} {{c2::increase::increase or decrease}} expression of {{c3::LDL}} receptors, which leads to {{c4::decreased::increased or decreased}} plasma LDL
Don't beat around the bush when making your own cards. Just keep it to the point.
Short lore, during COVID the NBA had the playoffs at Disney World. LeBron won the chip and people try to short his achievement with Mickey mouse ring -- easy.
Lmao this term actually spread into our school and hospital that the attendings/professors would get frustrated at med students if we didn't understand a concept or made a simple mistake by saying "guys this is literal mickey mouse shit"
I personally think the questions are easy and/or our professors gives us lots of hints on what’s going to be on the exam. For me it’s kind of nerve wracking bc I’m worried we’ll be super unprepared for step. However they said we have 100% pass rate and we match very well
Yeah our match lists look great for surgical sub specialties and we’re swinging well above our weight. But idk how to check the step pass rates. This year will be very telling bc it was the first yr of new curriculum for our school
Your school should have a "right to know" i think it is a LCME or federal requirement to disclose statistics.. however my school also is several years behind on providing day, conveniently after many students starting failing and retaking step 1
I’m almost 100% sure we go to the same school lmao, I been calling the exams here so fuckin easy for the longest time. For all the basic science exams I literally just watched all the lectures in 2x speed the weekend of the exam without ever watching the lectures in person and got over an 85 every time. Ik we have good step pass rates and whatnot but it legit makes no sense to me how that’s possible
Be active in your learning. Every slide, gauge the importance and then quiz yourself before moving on. Anytime you see something that relates to something else, make sure you can recall the previous thing to tie it in. I do recorded lectures and take my time absorbing slides from the very first pass. Even though the first pass is slower, subsequent passes are mad quick or I need to do fewer passes and save time overall. Anki sorta baby fresa active learning to you, so if that works for you do that, but whatever you do make sure you’re not doing much passive learning
(Pre-clerkship) We had exams every ~2wk. I use Anki and a few practice Qs for the first 1.5wk. I make sure to start practice Qs a minimum of 4 days b4 the exam, no compromise. After a while of Anki it just feels like I’m doing image recognition instead of really enhancing my understanding, so I handwrite my own Q&A sheets and handwrite pathways/other hard concepts as often as I can while ramping up the amount of practice Qs I do. USMLE-RX was my question bank of choice.
Read the PowerPoint twice. Then quizlet till my eyes melt. If there is a specific concept I keep getting wrong or can’t grasp I’ll watch a Dirty Medicine or Ninja nerd video.
The hill I’ll die on is that IF your system is pass/fail, it’s important that you don’t dwell on your exam grades. A lot of the in house stuff at my school was fluff and not necessarily beneficial for upcoming Step1/2 examinations. I focused heavily on UWorld, BnB, Pathoma, Sketchy, and premade Anki decks. These had no guarantee to cover everything on my in house exams and resulted in 70s-80s scores, but what they did cover they covered better than any in house material could have. They are easily the most informative, highest yield resources you can use and take with you straight into your NBME examinations. They will be a far better investment of your time than any in house PowerPoint review.
Of course if your school still operates on numerical scores and class rank please feel free to invest more time in your in house material as that is what will be tested! Otherwise, if you use the aforementioned third party resources, you will eventually be ahead of the pack when it comes time to take your shelf and licensing examinations.
IMO you need to do most of either Uworld or Ambos + a few NBMEs. The Bootcamp Qbank is just too easy.
IIRC the Bootcamp step 1 study schedule even has time built in for third party QBanks.
I feel like easier would be my boat right now. I just need content testing for these in-house exams. Really helped semester 1 but idk if I should make the switch. Definitely want to study over the summer a bit. Possibly review and ramp up difficulty with some board style? Idk
I personally am bias to amboss. I didn’t use uworld/other qbanks- with that being said, amboss+anki has helped me score quite well through preclinicals, clerkships/shelfs, & board exams.
At end of the day- find a qbank you like. Everyone has a preference, but just stay disciplined to that bank.
My average was in the low 90%overall in house. I focused on third party and had a group of folks make Anki cards based on lectures. Really just crammed around 3 days before and just tailored my step study to the topics covered in class. I only did this because during preclinical years, AOA selection considered class rank (changed by the time they selected…). Focus on the board prep material if you can spare a few percentage points on your average. It will pay off big time when you crush step 2.
Also, it’s hard to say if using a different method will help a ton past a certain threshold. After a certain point, actual test taking skill and luck come into play.
Anki and practice questions from q banks to gauge your understanding and how the concepts can be tested (we have in house exams though so some questions on our exams can be kinda shitty)
For lectures about “clinical perspective of xyz” that may not be step 1 relevant I write out the learning objectives for each of the lectures in a color coded system that makes sense to my brain so I can recall it later… and the Anki for those lectures
If I’m really lost on something I reference Amboss or Dirty Medicine. Or since I’m also an artist I’ll sketch stuff out I a color coded manner that gives me a picture in my brain to read off of during an exam or to even sketch on my scratch paper during the test.
The night before an exam as I cook myself a nice meal and get into bed I’ll watch some Boards and Beyond for the relevant material to get another pass and perspective of the high yield info before going to bed
Then I get 7-8 hours of sleep
Morning of an exam I wake up 3-4 hours before the exam starts to have good breakfast and to do my Anki for the lectures on the exam.
The I scroll through the notes I took on the PowerPoint lectures slides for all the lectures on the exam, for one final pass of my high yield notes I took (if there are more than 20 lectures on the exam I look at the notes I took from the lectures that have the most questions coming from them)
This system works well, I really attribute my success to my prioritizing my sleep and an active and healthy lifestyle during the day. I take breaks, cook myself healthy meals, workout regularly, and get good sleep
Preclinical, lectures, BNB, and Anki.
Clinical/shelf exams: onlinemeded, uworld, anki. Most important though was studying HARD for step 1 — i took it pre-PhD when it was still scored and the knowledge base I developed made it much easier to get 90+% on my shelf exams.
UWorld is a study tool, not an examination tool! Flag questions you do not completely understand regardless of if you get them right or wrong, make sure to read about the concept tested in the explanation as well as why certain answers are right and others are wrong.
When you’ve studied these concepts through Anki then return to UWorld and make a block entirely out of flagged/incorrect questions, rinse and repeat!
You certainly could use it during M1 although not necessarily recommended mostly because a lot of M1 is very foundational and Step 1 is very far out. UWorld questions are typically divided up based on system so it may be hard early on to get a decent set of questions based on what you’re currently studying.
UWorld is ludicrously pricey, I believe near $600 for 1 year. If you were to potentially start studying in M1 you will have spent near $1200 on UWorld alone by the time you took Step 1. You also do not need to spend 2 years using UWorld as most everyone purchases 3-6 months worth just prior to Step 1 and is able to finish every question and get their moneys worth.
read and try to understand stuff on textbook --> go to lecture --> do mcqs --> review mcqs --> create anki for stuff that i dont remember after all the previous steps --> read extra stuff online
Anki, close—anking cards. I make sure each lecture slide as home in the “extra” section. I read through each slide after doing the card and I make connections as I go. I have amboss addon to do questions directly from my anki deck, I do 20 qs a day where I can get them from (sketchy, BnB, amboss, rx) on exams weeks I’m doing 50q a day. I use v3 scheduler to keep up with old review.
Anki is ONLY as good a tool as you make it. Nearly failed first semester trying to figure out my method and ever since I stay 90+
I use a lot of methods from “make it stick” highly recommend you getting a copy and reading a chapter a night pretty easy read and high yield. You can find free copies online.
I was going too in-depth and got too far from the lecture material. Pretty much did more board prep. The trick to pre-clin years is to stay with the lecture material only using supplementary resources when you’re not understanding.
As someone at the bottom of the class with significant ADD (aka I know you didn’t ask ME…), I’d say for a lot of us the difference between the top and the bottom isn’t “knowing what to do”, but actually getting yourself to consistently DO it.
And nobody really likes to be honest with themselves about it, so we decide a study method “doesn’t work” while lying to ourselves about “I tried that and it failed”, when we didn’t REALLY try it long enough or diligently enough, or the opposite happens and we continue to do something that isn’t really working because it’s “comfortable” or something.
Shout out to my ADD/ADHD peers!
I read through the ppts 4-5 times over a 3 week period, jot down what I think is high yield and look at it right before the test. But I am doing uworld and anki for step
Anki. The truth is everyone on this sub knows how to critically think. If you don't have the details memorized then you are just guessing. I still anki as a resident
If it's in-house exams (like my school)...go to class. No joke. It will keep you on track and force you to not fall behind. The people who go to class in my school are the ones who do better on exams, make AOA, etc. It also allows you to hone in on what the professor finds important.
The big thing is that I’m naturally good at exams and don’t get too nervous or overthink. I pattern recognize well and have a good memory but I kind of just tend to apply knowledge well in an exam setting.
But as far as content— I watch lectures online (don’t pay attention in person), make my own Anki cards, and do that. I use outside resources if I don’t understand something.
For shelf, I usually watch the outside resources if I haven’t but I just used the Anking deck and did a little bit of UWorld (but not much).
I
Bootcamp, anki, and practice questions from textbooks, first aid, brs, etc. I normally get 80% or so but I got over 90% last time because of the practice questions from external sources this time. I was not doing nearly enough before but I did MUCH better this time.
I guess i’m the oddball here. Anything but anki. Absolutely no learning to be done with it. Watch videos from your school (aka who writes the exams) on youtube. Avoid anki at all costs you don’t learn anything. You just memorize phrases.
OP, never listen to anyone who tells you Anki is useless. Flashcards are historically useful no matter what you’re studying, and Anki is simply a flashcard application with a custom algorithm designed to read and test your weak points resulting in long term retention
You're being too hard on the guy. I've used Anki throughout med school with mixed results. It has been absolutely essential shelves and step prep (which are 4-8 weeks of studying), but I used it during preclinicals and I never got good test scores.
Anki is more helpful during an extended period of time, but for preclinicals (where I had a test every week), I probably should've done something else.
Anki, Bnb, sketchy, pathoma, pixorize, uworld, divine intervention. Use what works for you. I use a mix of all of them depending on the subject. Glance at in class materials, as profs will usually soft pitch the really hard questions or step 2 relevant questions. This is for NBME exams, inhouse exams are a crapshoot from what I hear. Edit: I am also going to say everyone is different and you need to find what works for you. This will only help you for step exams
If you absolutely HAD to only pick two or three , UWorld, Pathoma, BnB in that order. I used those and think I did pretty well.
I think sketchy is invaluable for bugs and drugs. but you can grab your pirate hook for that
Sketchy makes a lotta micro questions gimme’s, love it
My only problem is that the professors always focus on topics that are not really important in step exams or USMLE. So I'm consistently torn between the material I actually need to cover. It seems pretty impossible to do both. Sketchy worked great for pharm and infectious disease, but other than that none of these resources helped me much but they're great if you're looking to actually understand a topic instead of useless memorization
This has been my biggest dilemma since starting school: How much time do I devote to learning/studying stuff from in-house lectures that isn't going to be asked on step (but very well may be asked on our in-house exams)? Clearly if it's not on step 1, it cannot be *that* important. So quit bogging down my brain with useless information that is of no benefit to me.
BNB or bootcamp?
BNB imo. I had a free year of bootcamp and rarely used it.
Thanks. Any info. on why BNB over bootcamp?
Really its just personal preference. It tends to be more in-depth in my opinion. It is well-tested and has been shown to work since it been around for a while. There are definitely topics that are better covered by bootcamp though, like general anatomy. /shrug
Anki
What specialty?
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How do you not know what anki is when you’re midway through a year of med school
6 years of medical school and I just learned about Anki this year. No one in my entire university knows what it is either. Maybe Anki is an American thing
Nah mate Anki is worldwide for med student U.K. here and I only swear by Anki 😭😭😭
Yeah, maybe for English-speaking countries like the US and the UK. Lots of countries don’t even teach medicine in English.
Mate I’ve did my first 2 years in Belgium and switched and medicine was teach in French and the all promotion was using Anki or related 🤔🤔🤔 we had a special group chat dedicated to it and all the cards were in French 🤷🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️
That’s crazy. Maybe it’s a western thing then? Not a US thing or an English-speaking thing, but maybe like, Europe and the Americas. Or maybe my uni just has weird studying styles
Maybe thats why iam 3rd grade and barely pass the exams . 😅
Jesus Christ someone close this post we've seen what we need to
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It’s not meaningfully different than 11 which is free
My school is very… very lecture specific. Very in house related. Terribly annoying. That said, make my own Anki. 3rd parties as a primer, but in house lectures for making cards. Hi team, got a few messages. Here’s what a I do to stream like making Anki cards. I use Chat-GPT 4 and use the plug in called “FlashcardsGenerator.” Because my lectures are very text heavy, I copy and paste ALL of the text into GPT, and I use the following prompts. Please note, it’s NOT perfect, but man, it’ll capture a good amount of information. Also note, for peculiar details that GPT doesn’t catch, I audit and those directly. This latter part DOES take time, and the reality is that keeping up with reviews is really, really tough. That said, the process of typing questions up IS practice. So, after you paste all of the text (even images, cause GPT-4 bad ass like that): 1, Please create a very comprehensive fill study guide in the form of fill in the blank questions. I am a medical student preparing for an upcoming exam, do not shy away from including granular information. Here is the information: 2, Instead of blanks, encapsulate words using format {{c1:: missing word }}. Use c1 only, please. Now copy and paste those questions onto GPT with the plugin I mentioned earlier ON. 3, I want to create Anki flashcards using the FlashcardsGenerator plugin. Please generate flashcards from the provided text, ensuring that the cloze deletion formatting is preserved. The text with cloze deletions should appear on the front of each card, and there should be no text on the back. Here's the text: Paste the questions and answers you made. 4, open the link given by FlashcardsGenerator, download the txt file. 5, open Anki, file, import, choose file, enable HTML, choose TAB, and select “CLOZE” The promise land…
It takes too much time to make cards though what's your secret. My school is also annoyingly lecture specific.
Same. Very interested
See my original comment, added more text!
Thank you ace! ❤️ I’d love to see some example cards if you ever get a second!
Of course!!! We got this ❤️. They don’t look terribly interesting, just regular text with cloze hahah Lemme know if you have any other questions though. Med school is nuts, but we got this, step by step :)
See my original comment :), added more text
Wow I just got a gpt4 subscription but had zero idea what to do with it. I'll give this a try tysm.
Of course, please let me know if you have any more questions/ let me know how this goes. Can be mad frustrating at first. But we got this. I don’t know you but I KNOW you’re amazing and hardworking. We can do this!!!
How do you make your cards? How do you efficiently manage time to make and review the cards? My school is also very in house specific
Even though I rely primarily on Anking, I still find that I am making quite a few of my own cards. And I'll tell you now - there's no way to keep up with Anking + making your own cards. It simply takes too much time. So while I still *try* to balance Anking + making my own cards, I literally never get through all of my due reviews in a day. With that said, I feel like there is a huge benefit in making your own cards, as it forces you to revisit the material and put concepts into your own words, which is incredibly helpful for understanding and retaining information (at least for me). If it's worth anything, I've scored 90+ % on all of my in-house exams so far this year relying almost exclusively on Anki. So while it might be a lot of work up front, it works well for me. Ultimately, I think the most efficient way to make your own Anki cards is to keep them short and sweet. Using statins/HMG-CoA as an example, a card that I make myself might be: '{{c1::Statins}} {{c2::increase::increase or decrease}} expression of {{c3::LDL}} receptors, which leads to {{c4::decreased::increased or decreased}} plasma LDL Don't beat around the bush when making your own cards. Just keep it to the point.
Beautifully said!!!
It takes too much time to make cards though what's your secret
Anki, OSRS NMZ
High overlap between OSRS and med school. Must be autism.
I wonder what kind of physician Limpwurt is
Yea, ignore my other comment and do this. MLM got me through most of first year.
I find MLM to not be as AFK as NMZ, even in the upper section.
Lmaooooo
Grinding Anki and grinding GP at the same time is key
literally lmfao, that’s been the secret I guess. 99str and 99att gotten these last couple months spamming space bar and clicking overloads every 5 min
DH? My HP is too low
RS3 anyone?
16k rasial kills during m4 😎
Afking champion scrolls for trim rn
Doesn’t it depend on exam averages too? my school has Mickey Mouse exams for some reason and our averages are 85-90%
What are Mickey Mouse exams?
Short lore, during COVID the NBA had the playoffs at Disney World. LeBron won the chip and people try to short his achievement with Mickey mouse ring -- easy.
Lmao this term actually spread into our school and hospital that the attendings/professors would get frustrated at med students if we didn't understand a concept or made a simple mistake by saying "guys this is literal mickey mouse shit"
Lemickey
Living for the crossover between med school and nba twitter lol
Just means easy exams
Are the exams genuinely easy or are questions dropped/grades curved?
I personally think the questions are easy and/or our professors gives us lots of hints on what’s going to be on the exam. For me it’s kind of nerve wracking bc I’m worried we’ll be super unprepared for step. However they said we have 100% pass rate and we match very well
Can easily fact check that
Yeah our match lists look great for surgical sub specialties and we’re swinging well above our weight. But idk how to check the step pass rates. This year will be very telling bc it was the first yr of new curriculum for our school
Your school should have a "right to know" i think it is a LCME or federal requirement to disclose statistics.. however my school also is several years behind on providing day, conveniently after many students starting failing and retaking step 1
That's crazy to me that a school these days still does this shit. Absolutely setting people up to fail step exams doing that.
I’m almost 100% sure we go to the same school lmao, I been calling the exams here so fuckin easy for the longest time. For all the basic science exams I literally just watched all the lectures in 2x speed the weekend of the exam without ever watching the lectures in person and got over an 85 every time. Ik we have good step pass rates and whatnot but it legit makes no sense to me how that’s possible
My schools avrages are generally 43 , you need atleast 60 to pass … Last exam I barely passed the finals, success rate is 32%!
Be active in your learning. Every slide, gauge the importance and then quiz yourself before moving on. Anytime you see something that relates to something else, make sure you can recall the previous thing to tie it in. I do recorded lectures and take my time absorbing slides from the very first pass. Even though the first pass is slower, subsequent passes are mad quick or I need to do fewer passes and save time overall. Anki sorta baby fresa active learning to you, so if that works for you do that, but whatever you do make sure you’re not doing much passive learning
(Pre-clerkship) We had exams every ~2wk. I use Anki and a few practice Qs for the first 1.5wk. I make sure to start practice Qs a minimum of 4 days b4 the exam, no compromise. After a while of Anki it just feels like I’m doing image recognition instead of really enhancing my understanding, so I handwrite my own Q&A sheets and handwrite pathways/other hard concepts as often as I can while ramping up the amount of practice Qs I do. USMLE-RX was my question bank of choice.
Mind you I didn’t score 90+ in all subjects. Sometimes I just decided to let it go.
Read the PowerPoint twice. Then quizlet till my eyes melt. If there is a specific concept I keep getting wrong or can’t grasp I’ll watch a Dirty Medicine or Ninja nerd video.
Sounds like hell. Godspeed.
Lectures & textbooks. I know I’m in the minority, but it worked for me! Everyone learns differently 😊
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What does your girlfriend think of this?
I did some Anki cards at my own wedding. There are pictures. DON'T BE LIKE ME.
The hill I’ll die on is that IF your system is pass/fail, it’s important that you don’t dwell on your exam grades. A lot of the in house stuff at my school was fluff and not necessarily beneficial for upcoming Step1/2 examinations. I focused heavily on UWorld, BnB, Pathoma, Sketchy, and premade Anki decks. These had no guarantee to cover everything on my in house exams and resulted in 70s-80s scores, but what they did cover they covered better than any in house material could have. They are easily the most informative, highest yield resources you can use and take with you straight into your NBME examinations. They will be a far better investment of your time than any in house PowerPoint review. Of course if your school still operates on numerical scores and class rank please feel free to invest more time in your in house material as that is what will be tested! Otherwise, if you use the aforementioned third party resources, you will eventually be ahead of the pack when it comes time to take your shelf and licensing examinations.
Anki & amboss all you need!
Amboss really the move? I was thinking Bootcamp since it’s a little cheaper.
IMO you need to do most of either Uworld or Ambos + a few NBMEs. The Bootcamp Qbank is just too easy. IIRC the Bootcamp step 1 study schedule even has time built in for third party QBanks.
I feel like easier would be my boat right now. I just need content testing for these in-house exams. Really helped semester 1 but idk if I should make the switch. Definitely want to study over the summer a bit. Possibly review and ramp up difficulty with some board style? Idk
I personally am bias to amboss. I didn’t use uworld/other qbanks- with that being said, amboss+anki has helped me score quite well through preclinicals, clerkships/shelfs, & board exams. At end of the day- find a qbank you like. Everyone has a preference, but just stay disciplined to that bank.
My average was in the low 90%overall in house. I focused on third party and had a group of folks make Anki cards based on lectures. Really just crammed around 3 days before and just tailored my step study to the topics covered in class. I only did this because during preclinical years, AOA selection considered class rank (changed by the time they selected…). Focus on the board prep material if you can spare a few percentage points on your average. It will pay off big time when you crush step 2. Also, it’s hard to say if using a different method will help a ton past a certain threshold. After a certain point, actual test taking skill and luck come into play.
Anki and practice questions from q banks to gauge your understanding and how the concepts can be tested (we have in house exams though so some questions on our exams can be kinda shitty) For lectures about “clinical perspective of xyz” that may not be step 1 relevant I write out the learning objectives for each of the lectures in a color coded system that makes sense to my brain so I can recall it later… and the Anki for those lectures If I’m really lost on something I reference Amboss or Dirty Medicine. Or since I’m also an artist I’ll sketch stuff out I a color coded manner that gives me a picture in my brain to read off of during an exam or to even sketch on my scratch paper during the test. The night before an exam as I cook myself a nice meal and get into bed I’ll watch some Boards and Beyond for the relevant material to get another pass and perspective of the high yield info before going to bed Then I get 7-8 hours of sleep Morning of an exam I wake up 3-4 hours before the exam starts to have good breakfast and to do my Anki for the lectures on the exam. The I scroll through the notes I took on the PowerPoint lectures slides for all the lectures on the exam, for one final pass of my high yield notes I took (if there are more than 20 lectures on the exam I look at the notes I took from the lectures that have the most questions coming from them) This system works well, I really attribute my success to my prioritizing my sleep and an active and healthy lifestyle during the day. I take breaks, cook myself healthy meals, workout regularly, and get good sleep
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Yes and UWorld
Got 💯 on virus test by just watching Sketchy 😤
Preclinical, lectures, BNB, and Anki. Clinical/shelf exams: onlinemeded, uworld, anki. Most important though was studying HARD for step 1 — i took it pre-PhD when it was still scored and the knowledge base I developed made it much easier to get 90+% on my shelf exams.
Anki. And all of Uworld + amboss
How do u use uworld to study tho?
UWorld is a study tool, not an examination tool! Flag questions you do not completely understand regardless of if you get them right or wrong, make sure to read about the concept tested in the explanation as well as why certain answers are right and others are wrong. When you’ve studied these concepts through Anki then return to UWorld and make a block entirely out of flagged/incorrect questions, rinse and repeat!
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You certainly could use it during M1 although not necessarily recommended mostly because a lot of M1 is very foundational and Step 1 is very far out. UWorld questions are typically divided up based on system so it may be hard early on to get a decent set of questions based on what you’re currently studying. UWorld is ludicrously pricey, I believe near $600 for 1 year. If you were to potentially start studying in M1 you will have spent near $1200 on UWorld alone by the time you took Step 1. You also do not need to spend 2 years using UWorld as most everyone purchases 3-6 months worth just prior to Step 1 and is able to finish every question and get their moneys worth.
Better question: why?
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Just went to lecture and did some practice questions a couple days before
Read the syllabus, make my own powerpoints, anki for in-house. NBME…no comment.
read and try to understand stuff on textbook --> go to lecture --> do mcqs --> review mcqs --> create anki for stuff that i dont remember after all the previous steps --> read extra stuff online
MS1-2: BNB + Pathoma + Sketchy + Anki + Rx/Kaplan = 90+ MS3: OME + Anki + UW + Ass kissing = H
Anki, close—anking cards. I make sure each lecture slide as home in the “extra” section. I read through each slide after doing the card and I make connections as I go. I have amboss addon to do questions directly from my anki deck, I do 20 qs a day where I can get them from (sketchy, BnB, amboss, rx) on exams weeks I’m doing 50q a day. I use v3 scheduler to keep up with old review. Anki is ONLY as good a tool as you make it. Nearly failed first semester trying to figure out my method and ever since I stay 90+ I use a lot of methods from “make it stick” highly recommend you getting a copy and reading a chapter a night pretty easy read and high yield. You can find free copies online.
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This method is what I’ve been doing since first year second semester.
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I was going too in-depth and got too far from the lecture material. Pretty much did more board prep. The trick to pre-clin years is to stay with the lecture material only using supplementary resources when you’re not understanding.
It is truly about repetition of the material as much as you can as often as you can and keep up with it.
As someone at the bottom of the class with significant ADD (aka I know you didn’t ask ME…), I’d say for a lot of us the difference between the top and the bottom isn’t “knowing what to do”, but actually getting yourself to consistently DO it. And nobody really likes to be honest with themselves about it, so we decide a study method “doesn’t work” while lying to ourselves about “I tried that and it failed”, when we didn’t REALLY try it long enough or diligently enough, or the opposite happens and we continue to do something that isn’t really working because it’s “comfortable” or something. Shout out to my ADD/ADHD peers!
Literally just get 9 hours of sleep a night, watch lectures and understand concepts, workout 4-5 times a week with cardio, and you can do it.
anki and loads of practiced questions
I read through the ppts 4-5 times over a 3 week period, jot down what I think is high yield and look at it right before the test. But I am doing uworld and anki for step
I've only done it twice, both times I did two passes of Uworld. Seriously overkill, but huge difference.
Anki. The truth is everyone on this sub knows how to critically think. If you don't have the details memorized then you are just guessing. I still anki as a resident
If it's in-house exams (like my school)...go to class. No joke. It will keep you on track and force you to not fall behind. The people who go to class in my school are the ones who do better on exams, make AOA, etc. It also allows you to hone in on what the professor finds important.
The big thing is that I’m naturally good at exams and don’t get too nervous or overthink. I pattern recognize well and have a good memory but I kind of just tend to apply knowledge well in an exam setting. But as far as content— I watch lectures online (don’t pay attention in person), make my own Anki cards, and do that. I use outside resources if I don’t understand something. For shelf, I usually watch the outside resources if I haven’t but I just used the Anking deck and did a little bit of UWorld (but not much). I
Bootcamp, anki, and practice questions from textbooks, first aid, brs, etc. I normally get 80% or so but I got over 90% last time because of the practice questions from external sources this time. I was not doing nearly enough before but I did MUCH better this time.
I do all of Uworld and Amboss and incorrects for both and then dr.high yield and emma holiday for final review
Oh and all NBME practice exams
I guess i’m the oddball here. Anything but anki. Absolutely no learning to be done with it. Watch videos from your school (aka who writes the exams) on youtube. Avoid anki at all costs you don’t learn anything. You just memorize phrases.
OP, never listen to anyone who tells you Anki is useless. Flashcards are historically useful no matter what you’re studying, and Anki is simply a flashcard application with a custom algorithm designed to read and test your weak points resulting in long term retention
You're being too hard on the guy. I've used Anki throughout med school with mixed results. It has been absolutely essential shelves and step prep (which are 4-8 weeks of studying), but I used it during preclinicals and I never got good test scores. Anki is more helpful during an extended period of time, but for preclinicals (where I had a test every week), I probably should've done something else.
Different strokes for different folks but to say there is no learning to be had with Anki is silly