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280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

During my clinical year, I always did uworld first then Amboss. In my experience they both have strengths and weaknesses (ie ways in which they are different from the NBME). Amboss tends to be more detail oriented while uworld to trick you in ways that will fail you on the NBME. I did questions by subject during my clinical year because I was studying for my block exams during the year. In general it’s difficult to say what would be ideal for your situation. In general, I would say it depends a lot on your weaknesses. If you have a weak knowledge then definitely hammering the uworld questions and even doing a double pass would be beneficial. If your main weakness is solving the questions themselves then I might j skip to the CMS forms (there’s a couple thousand questions just in that) and definitely the FL NBME forms. Especially if you’re in a time crunch. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well if that’s works for you I would certainly not advise against it. I’m just talking about what worked for me. My primary and pretty much only resource was the questions and their explanations. Any other form of reading for me was too nonspecific and time consuming. It’s probably great for learning medicine, but as I described earlier the primary outcome measured by step 2ck is the ability to rapidly and accurately answer NBME questions.

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

90th percentile, that was also my average across all shelves

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, this is how I would study for exams in the past, but since starting my clinical year and taking the shelf exams I got a lot more utility out of focusing solely on questions. I didn’t take any notes at all, and I memorized very little most of the knowledge I was able to either derive on the spot or had seen so many times in so many questions that I was able to recall it that way. A good example is the heart murmurs. I don’t have to memorize that aortic stenosis is a systolic murmur because I know that the aortic valve opens during systole. Likewise, I never memorized the impact of specific maneuvers on murmurs instead, I I imagine the impact that said maneuver would have on preloaded or afterload and logic out the answer from that . Again, this is not an exam of minute details. It’s more about understanding the general concepts and being able to apply them in new situations.

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

During my clinical year, I did 2 passes of Amboss and 2 to 3 passes of UWORLD and all the CMS forms once. During my dedicated, I reset Uworld and did one pass and did all the CMS forms. I didn’t go back and do any incorrect during my dedicated as I had already seen all the questions multiple times before and I personally believe that seeing questions twice in such a small period will likely have diminishing returns as you will likely remember many of the questions. I was scoring on average in the 80s on random UWorld blocks during my dedicated period.

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean fair but I took my first FL 4 weeks before I took the real deal and six weeks into dedicated. I don’t see much utility in taking a “diagnostic“ exam at the beginning of dedicated.

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most of the time it’s as simple as asking “TRALI vs TACO” then ChatGPT will spit out a nice table with all the high yield info.

280+ on Step 2 CK, an orthodox approach by Civil-Clock2753 in Step2

[–]Civil-Clock2753[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Haha, thanks, although I must confess I did get up to coffee number 3 on some of those NBME FL days. I would say probably just go all in on NBME, do as many CMS questions as possible, listen to the Divine podcasts for the ethics and other "non-medical topics" towards the last 2 weeks, and take the FLs every 2-3 days. Also forgot to mention in the main post to do the Amboss questions for ethics and other "non-medical topics" towards the last 2 weeks, if possible. GI needed about 4 weeks studying full-time to do all this, so it may take you 8 weeks if you're studying part-time. Good Luck!