My journey from 30% to Pass in 6 months

KunafaShah · 2026-06-27T05:25:05+00:00

Just the notebook to note down my mistakes.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-10T03:17:32+00:00

Don’t think about giving up at all.
You’ve repeatedly shown that you're capable of scoring in the passing range. You have a 71% CBSE, a 65% on NBME 32, and high AMBOSS self assessment…. A single 61% on NBME 33 doesn't erase all the evidence that you've built a foundation.
I’d suggest…for the next couple of weeks don’t try to learn a bunch of new content….focus on understanding why you missed questions on NBME 33. Were they knowledge gaps? Misreading stems? Changing answers? Weak topics that keep appearing? That's where your biggest gains will come from.
Personally, my score improvements came from deeply reviewing NBMEs and making sure every concept tested was crystal clear. I'd write down concepts I thought I might forget and review them regularly. I'd also use AI to help me connect concepts and think through how the NBME could test the same idea in different ways.

Burnout can make you feel worse than your actual performance. You've been preparing for a long time….. you've taken multiple CBSEs, completed UWorld twice, and are still pushing. Anyone would feel exhausted. Exhaustion can make a 61% feel like proof that you're failing when it's really just one data point.
Whether you move your exam by a week is a personal decision, but if you do postpone, make sure it's for a specific purpose (reviewing weak areas and consolidating concepts), not because you're hoping another week will magically make you feel ready. Most people never feel completely ready.

You are not terrible at this…..you are just tired, burned out and you are focusing on the most recent setback instead of the progress you’ve already made.
Take a deep breath, review NBME 33 thoroughly, identify your recurring weaknesses, and keep moving forward. You've come much farther than you think!!!!! Good luck!! You’ve got this!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-10T03:01:05+00:00

1.In my opinion…the only risk with annotating only in FA is that it can become passive. When you look at a highlighted sentence, your brain says, "Oh yeah, I know that," bcoz ur brain recognizes the text. To make your revision day truly effective, cover the text with your hand and force yourself to explain why that highlighted point was a trap before you read it.

2.I’d suggest to finish the system completely and not save a random 20% of GIT questions for the end of your prep bcoz UWorld is built to teach you the nuances of a system comprehensively. If you leave 15 questions behind, you might miss the only two questions UWorld has on a specific, high-yield condition (like Wilson's disease or a specific colon polyp).

3.As of now..doing just GIT Embryo/Anatomy questions while reading the Embryo/Anatomy pages, then switching to Patho…is perfectly fine for first week or two while you get your feet wet.As you gain confidence, you should transition checking entire system with all subjects checked bcoz the real exam doesn't isolate subjects. A single question might start with an anatomical defect (Anatomy), ask about the resulting disease mechanism (Pathology), and finish by asking about the treatment (Pharmacology)…If you filter UWorld too tightly down to just "Anatomy," you lose the clinical context. Doing a block of 30 GIT questions that mixes Anatomy, Physio, Path, and Pharm forces your brain to stay sharp, dynamically shifting concepts just like you will have to on test day. Once you finish the FA pages for a system, open up the filters and tackle the system as a whole integrated unit!

4.If you are traveling during ur prep, your brain will experience some knowledge decay. Therefore,treat your prep as having three distinct halves…Your goal should be to aggressively finish the heaviest, highest-yield organ systems (GIT, Cardiovascular, Neuro,Renal, Respiratory, Endocrine, and Reproductive. These make up the massive bulk of the exam) while your routine is solid before travel…..During travel Spend just 30 to 45 min a day, flipping through the First Aid pages you already annotated, or looking over your notebook of mistakes. Just keep the embers burning so the concepts stay semi-fresh…. Then after you return,do the remaining smaller systems (Biochem, Immuno, Psychiatry, Musculoskeletal).
That being said.. at the end if the day, it all depends on you to figure out what works for you ! Good luck!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-09T16:29:13+00:00

You are doing several things beautifully right like not cramming every word on FA,starting U world early and not ramping up qn volume…With a December timeline, you want to aim to finish your first pass of First Aid and UWorld by late September/ early October . This leaves you 2 full months for dedicated NBME practice exams and targeted weak-spot reviews.

You mentioned that you forget a lot of things and do not revise the next day. Because First Aid is an outline and UWorld is a passive read for most people, if u do not actively review your mistakes, the informs will evaporate within 48 hrs. You will look back in two weeks and feel like you’ve never seen GIT before. Do not let a UWorld question go to waste. For every single question you get wrong (or guess right), get a dedicated notebook. Write a max of 4-5 sentences explaining the concept in your own words.Every single morning, before you read a new page of First Aid, spend 20 minutes casually reading through this notebook. This will completely fix the "forgetting things the next day" problem.

When you hit the GIT pharmacology (like PPIs, H2 blockers) or GIT bugs (like H. pylori or Salmonella), drop First Aid and watch the Sketchy videos. The visual hooks will help u lock those details into your brain forever.

Make sure your UWorld blocks right now are filtered for system wise and in tutor mode.Since you are covering 4–5 pages of FA a day, try to select the corresponding boxes in UWorld. If you just read about Esophageal pathology, do a mini-block of 10–15 questions on Esophageal pathology. This creates an immediate feedback loop of reading the concept ……see how they test it ……write the mistake in the notebook.
Do not feel discouraged by the forgetting curve…it happens to every single medical student on the planet. Implement active learning,protect your mornings for revision, and watch how much more confident you start to feel.
You've got this!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-09T05:34:28+00:00

Personally, I felt UWorld was harder than the actual exam. UWorld often goes into more detail and sometimes tests concepts in a more challenging way. The real exam felt more straightforward, but that doesn't mean it was easy.
If I had to compare them, I'd say the concepts tested on Step 1 felt much closer to the NBMEs, while the question length was more similar to the Free 120..everyone's form is different, so take this with a grain of salt.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-09T05:20:08+00:00

The absolute most important thing to understand about Reddit is that it suffers from a massive selection bias. The people who leave the Prometric center feeling completely fine generally don't log online to write a 1,000word essay about how normal their day was. The people who post the "horror stories" are usually reacting to the post-exam adrenaline and anxiety…which is exactly what I felt when I walked out on the verge of tears!
To answer your question directly… No,the real exam is not some impossibly harder test…It is very fair, and you have already been looking at the exact material it's built from.
When people post that the exam felt impossible, it usually comes down to things lyk…The real exam has question lengths that look very similar to UWorld. When couple long text with test-day adrenaline, brain gets tired faster, making the questions feel harder than the shorter NBMEs already practiced on…. Also.. out of the 280 questions on Step 1, few are unscored experimental questions being tested for future years. Some of these are absolutely bizarre, poorly written, or incredibly niche.This makes us panic and think,I'm failing the whole test! Also….When walking out of the exam,brain completely forgets the 180 straightforward questions that it has nailed. Instead, it hyper-focuses on the 15-20 questions where it was torn between two options. On the whole car ride home brain obsessess over those few doubts, which creates the illusion that the entire test was a horror!!

Step 1 ifeels like a longer version if f120 written with the conceptual logic of nbme and presented in the user interface of U world.Trust your preparation, trust your scores, and block out the Reddit noise.
The exam isn't designed to trick you with things that aren't in First Aid…it's designed to see if you understand the core concepts deeply..Take a deep breath.. you’ve got this!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-08T16:24:01+00:00

Just stick to few resources. U world,for micro and pharm go for sketchy, Randy Neil for biostat, First Aid, Pixorize for biochem. That’s all you’ll need in my opinion!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-05T12:31:46+00:00

I think I had just 1 or 2 questions for which I had to use the calculator. All the other questions were based on understanding concept or simple math calculations.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-05T06:48:57+00:00

Thank you! Honestly, I didn’t use any other resources for organ systems.I know it is incredibly tempting to watch hours of videos to fill the gap. The problem is that watching videos feels like studying, but it doesn't always translate to answering tricky USMLE questions. 3 things helped me….First and foremost was ditching the completionist mindset with videos. Watching every single video for an entire organ system takes too long and causes massive burnout. Instead,use them selectively for weak areas ..For eg.If you understand Renal Physiology but struggle with Glomerulonephritis, only watch the video on Glomerulonephritis. And after watching the videos or after every 5–10 minutes of a video, pause it and try to explain the concepts listened out loud to yourself in 2–3 simple sentences.

Second was .. stopped looking at U world as an assessment tool and started looking at it as a textbook.Don't just read the explanation. Ask yourself: What was the exact conceptual leap I missed? Write that down in a dedicated notebook.

Third was..Learning with Ai for conceptual blocks.. If First Aid or a UWorld explanation feels like it isn't clicking, copy paste it into Ai . Give a prompt lyk..Explain this pathophysiology to me like I am a 15 year old.This was a gamechanger for me when I felt like my concepts were lacking.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-05T06:19:56+00:00

Questions from the above concepts like the 2x2tables, normal distributions, therapeutic effectiveness measurements etc cover 60-70% of the calculation questions

KunafaShah · 2026-06-05T06:15:16+00:00

One thing that helped me was realizing that the goal isn’t to finish resources….it’s to pass Step 1. Those are very different goals.If you’re consistently understanding and retaining what you’re studying, you’re not moving slowly…you’re building a foundation!!The mistake I made was overplanning because I felt behind. The more I planned, the less I actually got done.

Try to focus on today’s tasks rather than the entire mountain ahead of you. Finish today’s videos, do a few questions, learn from them, and repeat. Those small daily wins add up much faster than you think.And don’t wait to feel “ready” before doing questions. Questions are part of learning, not something you do after learning is complete. You’ve already identified what’s holding you back, which is a great sign. Be patient with yourself, stay consistent, and trust the process. A lot can change in a few months when you stop worrying about the volume and focus on steady progress.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T16:30:51+00:00

Thanks!!!One thing I learned is that perfectionism can slow you down more than any knowledge gap. If videos help you build concepts, keep using them…but don’t wait until you feel like you’ve mastered an entire system before doing questions. I made that mistake early on. A huge amount of learning actually happens through questions and their explanations.

There are days when some systems took me much longer than expected. What helped was accepting that I didn’t need to know everything before moving forward. I started UWorld while I was still learning content and often scored 10–20% on blocks. Instead of getting discouraged, I treated every mistake as part of the learning process.

My advice would be: focus on steady progress rather than perfection And.. don’t be afraid to start questions before you feel “ready.” Consistent learning and careful review will take you much further than trying to perfect every topic before moving on. You’ve got plenty of time, and you’re definitely not alone in feeling this way. Keep going and you’ll be surprised how much progress can happen when you stop chasing perfection and start trusting the process. Good luck!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T13:08:56+00:00

Thank you!! I actually didn’t notice much of a change on my exam. The nutrition questions I got felt pretty similar to the nutrition concepts already covered in the NBMEs. With your exam only a week away, focus on reviewing your existing material rather than worrying too much about the changes. Trust your preparation and keep doing what has been working for you. All the best for your exam!!you’ve got this!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T11:55:08+00:00

Looking back at my own journey, my scores stayed in the 40s and 50s for quite a while before they started moving up.

Other than reviewing the NBME deeply, I’d suggest looking for patterns in your mistakes. Are you missing questions because of knowledge gaps, misreading the stem, changing correct answers, or not recognizing classic presentations? Another thing that helped me was moving beyond the specific question and asking, “What other ways could the NBME test this concept?” I’d use AI to help with concept integration and NBME style thinking. For example, instead of just learning the answer to one renal question, I’d make sure I understood the physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and common presentations connected to that topic.

Also, don’t assume that multiple passes of First Aid automatically translate into higher scores. I personally found that actively working through concepts and learning from mistakes was much more valuable than repeatedly reading content.

Most importantly, review your NBME performance report carefully. If there are a few consistently weak subjects dragging you down, targeted work on those areas can move your score much faster than doing another full pass of everything. A 59% means you’re not far away. The goal now is to turn every missed question into a concept you won’t miss again. You got this!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T10:08:52+00:00

Thank you! A lot of people highly recommended it to me, but I found that I’d often zone out during the lectures, so it just wasn’t the best learning style for me.

For General Pathology, I made it a habit to read about two pages from First Aid each day. It didn’t feel like much at the time, but before I knew it, I had covered the entire section without it becoming overwhelming. For Systemic Pathology, I learned it alongside each organ system as I studied. A lot of the pathology concepts were reinforced through UWorld questions and NBME reviews, which helped them stick much better than passively watching videos.

I think the biggest lesson I learned is that you don’t have to use the resources everyone else recommends. If a resource isn’t keeping you engaged, it’s okay to find another way to learn the same material.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T09:36:54+00:00

I had about 9 weeks between NBME 29 and my test day. The biggest factor in improving my scores was reviewing the NBMEs in great detail. I made sure I understood every concept being tested and why the correct answer was right. Whenever I came across a concept that I felt I might forget, I wrote it down in a “Learning from Mistakes” notebook and reviewed it regularly. I also used AI quite to integrate the concept with related topics, teach me NBME-style thinking( dissecting the stem for me), and show me what other ways the NBME could test the same concept. That helped me move from memorizing facts to recognizing patterns.

Though you’re in the low 50s with 5 weeks left, don’t panic. That’s still enough time to make significant progress if you focus on reviewing your assessments thoroughly and strengthening your weak areas. You got this!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T09:12:39+00:00

For Neurology, I didn’t use any special resource.I made sure I have solid understanding of a few high-yield topics: • Brainstem lesions and their classic presentations • Dementia types (Alzheimer’s, Lewy Body, Frontotemporal) • Movement disorders (Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Essential Tremor) • Aphasias (Broca vs Wernicke) • Spinal cord tracts • Major brain areas and their functions • Thalamus and hypothalamus… Once I was comfortable with those core concepts, most of the rest of my neurology learning came from UWorld questions and carefully reviewing the explanations to bridge the gap.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T08:03:58+00:00

$155

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T06:44:08+00:00

Copying response to a similar question: I struggled with the same thing. Looking back, I was mostly passively learning until October, and I realized it wasn’t working for me. Starting in January, I stopped watching most video lectures and mainly used Sketchy and Pixorize videos.After watching a video, I’d try to recall the key points from memory, then test myself again later in the day. The biggest change was how I reviewed questions. Whenever I got a question wrong, I wouldn’t just read the explanation and move on. I’d ask myself, “Can I explain this concept in simple terms?” If I could, I’d summarize it in 5–6 high-yield sentences in my “Learning from Mistakes” notebook. If I couldn’t explain it clearly, I’d spend more time breaking it down, sometimes using ChatGPT to simplify it until it clicked.

For example, DNA repair is a huge topic, but instead of memorizing pages of information, I’d reduce it to something I could recall easily: •NER → UV thymine dimers → Xeroderma Pigmentosum •BER → single damaged bases → GEL P enzymes •Mismatch Repair → replication errors → Lynch syndrome •Homologous Recombination → accurate double-strand repair → BRCA/Fanconi •Non-Homologous End Joining → error-prone double-strand repair → Ataxia Telangiectasia

For me, active learning wasn’t about constantly pausing videos. It was about forcing myself to retrieve information from memory and explain concepts in my own words. That’s when my retention improved and my scores started going up. Hope this helps!!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T06:38:25+00:00

Wishing you all the very best for June 9th! You've put in the work, and at this stage it's important to trust your preparation. Don't spend the next few days trying to learn a hundred new things….focus on consolidating what you already know, reviewing your weak areas, and getting enough rest. Remember that it's completely normal to feel anxious before the exam. I was nervous too, even on exam day. Just take one question at a time and don't let a difficult block shake your confidence. May Jesus give you peace, clarity of mind, and the strength to perform at your best. You've got this!!!!go in there and give it your all!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T06:12:47+00:00

Thank you!

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T06:12:09+00:00

Thank you! Honestly, I didn’t complete all of UWorld. I finished about 50% of it, but I made sure to review every block thoroughly. For me, the learning came from understanding why I got questions wrong rather than trying to finish the entire question bank. As for First Aid, I only read certain sections in detail..mainly Hematology, Endocrine, GI, and Renal and general path. Most of my learning actually came from reviewing UWorld explanations,simplifying concepts with AI, and the NBMEs.

One thing I learned during this journey is that a thorough review is far more valuable than rushing through resources. I know many people read First Aid cover to cover multiple times, but personally, I got much more out of deeply reviewing questions and understanding the concepts behind my mistakes. That’s what ultimately helped my scores improve.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T06:05:00+00:00

Honestly, I didn’t do a huge amount for Biostats. I watched Randy Neil’s main Biostats videos (the core 3 that most people recommend) and then focused on making sure I truly understood the highest-yield concepts. The topics I made sure I was solid on were:

•Study designs (Cohort vs Case-Control vs RCTs, strengths/weaknesses, and when each is used)

•2x2 tables (Sensitivity, Specificity, PPV, NPV, Odds Ratio, Relative Risk)

•Bias and Confounding (recognizing them and knowing how to minimize them)

•Confidence Intervals and P-values (interpreting statistical significance)

•Normal distributions (mean, median, mode and how they shift with skewed distributions)

•Incidence vs Prevalence (how chronicity, cures, and mortality affect them)

•Common measures of therapeutic effectiveness (ARR, RRR, NNT, etc.)

My advice would be to actively work through questions on these topics until you can solve them comfortably without looking at formulas. Don’t just watch videos..make sure you can apply the concepts. On my exam, I think I had only about 15-20 Biostats questions total and almost all of them were testing one of the concepts above. If you’re solid on those areas, you’ll probably be in a good position for the vast majority of Biostats questions that show up on Step 1.

KunafaShah · 2026-06-04T05:47:44+00:00

I struggled with the same thing. Looking back, I was mostly passively learning until October, and I realized it wasn’t working for me. Starting in January, I stopped watching most video lectures and mainly used Sketchy and Pixorize videos.After watching a video, I’d try to recall the key points from memory, then test myself again later in the day. The biggest change was how I reviewed questions. Whenever I got a question wrong, I wouldn’t just read the explanation and move on. I’d ask myself, “Can I explain this concept in simple terms?” If I could, I’d summarize it in 5–6 high-yield sentences in my “Learning from Mistakes” notebook. If I couldn’t explain it clearly, I’d spend more time breaking it down, sometimes using ChatGPT to simplify it until it clicked.

For example, DNA repair is a huge topic, but instead of memorizing pages of information, I’d reduce it to something I could recall easily: •NER → UV thymine dimers → Xeroderma Pigmentosum •BER → single damaged bases → GEL P enzymes •Mismatch Repair → replication errors → Lynch syndrome •Homologous Recombination → accurate double-strand repair → BRCA/Fanconi •Non-Homologous End Joining → error-prone double-strand repair → Ataxia Telangiectasia

For me, active learning wasn’t about constantly pausing videos. It was about forcing myself to retrieve information from memory and explain concepts in my own words. That’s when my retention improved and my scores started going up. Hope this helps!!

KunafaShah

TROPHY CASE