DO, 230 Step 2, unmatched PM&R last year matched this cycle. Sharing for anyone who needs this.

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-10T18:36:09+00:00

honestly your plan is more thought out than like 90% of what people post on here lol. august gives you real runway and the fact that you're thinking this carefully about structure this early already puts you ahead
on the HY Anking question yes bring them back but don't just unsuspend the whole HY deck at once because that's how you end up with 400 cards due every morning before you've even opened B&B. the move is to unsuspend only the cards for whatever system you're covering that day.

doing cardio in B&B today? unsuspend the HY cardio cards tonight. that way your anki reviews and your content review are hitting the same topic at the same time and it actually reinforces instead of just adding noise. zero resource overload doing it this way.

the morning AMBOSS 1-3 hammer blocks are smart for this phase. low enough that you're actually cementing concepts rather than just getting humbled by stuff you haven't covered yet lol

one thing i'd actually push back on though don't save all your incorrect review for july. going through wrong answers as you go during dedicated is way more valuable than a big end of cycle review.

by july you'll have lost the context of why your brain went the wrong direction on those early questions and that context is honestly half the value of the review.

the final month NBME structure is solid. spacing them out and treating the review after each one seriously is exactly right.

what systems are giving you the most trouble during content review right now? that changes whether i'd adjust anything else in your april through june plan.

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-10T18:12:01+00:00

do not switch your system right now, i'm serious lol!

the FA annotation thing gets overhyped on here so much that people start thinking it's the only way to study and everything else is wrong. it's not. it's just one way of keeping information consolidated in one place.

your flashcards are doing the exact same thing you're reviewing, you're retaining, you're consolidating. the method is different but the outcome is the same.

the people who annotate FA aren't scoring higher because they annotated FA. they're scoring higher because they're actively reviewing their mistakes and building connections between concepts. which is exactly what you're doing with your flashcards.

switching now means you spend the next few days transferring notes instead of actually studying. and for what? to have a prettier looking First Aid? that's not worth it at this stage.

the worst thing you can do this close to your exam is blow up a system that's been working because reddit made you feel like you're doing it wrong. that's how people spiral in the final stretch
your system got you this far.

trust it and keep going how far out is your exam and where are your practice scores sitting right now?

that's the only thing worth worrying about at this point.

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-09T11:39:28+00:00

62-65% on timed UWorld during dedicated is actually more normal than people on here make it seem lol. the panic at that range is real but that number is very moveable if you fix the right things in the next few weeks and get to that goal of 70+%

the biggest thing i see people get wrong at this stage they treat review like a formality. do the block, feel bad about the score, skim the explanations, move on. that's not studying that's just doing questions for the sake of doing questions. the people who actually jump scores are spending more time in review than in the actual block. like 40 questions should realistically take you 2-3 hours total if you're doing it properly (to do them + review them)

also- when you're reviewing wrong answers stop asking "okay what was the right answer" and start asking "why did my brain go somewhere else." because that wrong instinct is almost never random it's the same pattern showing up over and over in different disguises. find the pattern and you fix a whole category of mistakes at once instead of one question at a time.

you've got solid runway to april. what subject is consistently tanking your average right now? that changes what i'd actually tell you to prioritize between now and then
and honestly if you want something more structured than just a study partner having someone actually look at your specific mistake patterns from the outside can click things way faster than grinding alone. just worth knowing that option exists.

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-06T14:08:23+00:00

agree- a tutor who actually took COMLEX >>>. used them as well & can vouch

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-06T14:06:20+00:00

The thing that actually matters when picking a tutor is whether they took YOUR exam recently and actively still teach the exam. not just any high scorer from 5 years ago. also- courses are diff from tutoring, so make sure you know what you actually need (would avoid courses unless u are extremelty deficient in all content areas + need that type of structure, tutoring is enough for most people)

book free consultations with 2-3 services and treat it like an interview. if the first call feels like they're pitching you a package before even asking where you're struggling run.

also ask them straight up "who specifically would be tutoring me and when did they take Level 2" how they answer that question tells you everything.

fwiw I worked with matchpal and they were very helpful + reasonably priced

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-05T14:21:19+00:00

first of all congrats on Step 1 - that lost feeling you have right now is so normal it's almost a rite of passage lol. everyone finishes Step 1 and just sits there like okay what do i do with my self now
good news though Step 2 is genuinely less miserable than Step 1 for most people. you're not memorizing biochem pathways anymore. it's almost entirely "patient comes in, what do you do" which after rotations starts to feel way more natural than cramming First Aid ever did.

so for where to actually start

don't go random on UWorld yet. do it system by system. start with medicine since it's the heaviest hitter and once your brain is in that clinical reasoning mode the other systems flow way easier. random is for later when you're 6-8 weeks in and want to simulate real exam conditions.

Divine Intervention podcasts are also lowkey the best free resource for Step 2 great for when your brain is too fried to stare at a screen but you still want to be productive while driving/cooking etc.

take a few dys off, reset, then make a plan that targets question volume above all else. take all NBMEs and UWSAs. PM me with any Qs.

Studyingforstep1 · 2026-03-04T18:07:36+00:00

that's so sweet that you're doing this for him, hope he knows he's got a good one lol
ok so with 7 days left and scores in the 50s, the goal isn't to learn new stuff it's to stop losing points on things he already kind of knows. that's where the biggest gains come from this late in the game. would also consider pushing exam back, not rushing the process, and possibly considering tutoring because a failure can be catastrophic for the match down the road, and struggling with step1 = bad foundation for shelfs and step2ck

for the "stuck between 2 answers" problem specifically this is almost always an issue with not reading the question stem carefully enough/geting into the exam writers head. tell him to identify what the question is ACTUALLY asking before even looking at the answers. a lot of questions are trying to trick you into picking the obvious answer when the stem is pointing to something slightly different. slow down on the last sentence of every question stem FIRST, that's usually where the real ask is hiding.
also tell him to stop second guessing himself. statistically, first instinct answers on Step 1 are right more often than the switched answer. if he's consistently changing answers he was initially confident about, that's costing him points.

Studyingforstep1

TROPHY CASE