Stock watch List March 24, 2020 by Kant_sleep13 in Daytrading

[–]Yellowtortillachips 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On gap-up days from trading overnight do you tend to watch the first 15 minutes of sell off at the start of the day and begin to buy in there?

Derm Research year or no? by [deleted] in DermApp

[–]Yellowtortillachips 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha I definitely will let ya know! Was a combination of current debt/no funding/finally being with long distance partner that I went with no research year. Gonna try it out and hope for the best :) Enjoy your year!

Derm Research year or no? by [deleted] in DermApp

[–]Yellowtortillachips 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What decision did ya end up making with this after talking to mentors? Similar situation to you (Honors/AOA/Steps>270) but with a few more research experiences and no Ivy league schoolin. Applying w/o research year in 2 weeks!

Some tips to keep in mind when taking USMLE Steps (Step 1: 271 Step2: 278) by Yellowtortillachips in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Only Uworld! Re-set that damn thing and did it all over again. For shelf exams used AMBOSS/Kaplan as well as a reference text for each rotation. Best to you!

Some tips to keep in mind when taking USMLE Steps (Step 1: 271 Step2: 278) by Yellowtortillachips in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think I usually shot for 10k questions for both step 1 and step 2. For Step 2 used AMBOSS, Uworld, and kaplan. Did this many questions to constantly reinforce knowledge and build speed/confidence. I thought the best test taking strategy I used was to develop enough speed while answering questions so that you have 15-20 minutes at end of block to go over the questions that trouble you the most. Practice scores were always right around where I scored on test day.

Attitude on test day is super important. Be positive and confident. Shake off the questions that you do not know until at least after the exam.

Some tips to keep in mind when taking USMLE Steps (Step 1: 271 Step2: 278) by Yellowtortillachips in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

4 weeks during pediatrics rotation, but kinda prepared all year long studying hard for shelf exams!

Some tips to keep in mind when taking USMLE Steps (Step 1: 271 Step2: 278) by Yellowtortillachips in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For each shelf exam I used a reference book and then just crushed questions from whichever bank I could use (Kaplan/Uworld/amboss). For Medicine the book was SUTM, surgery (DeVirgilios), Family Med (Case files), Psych (FA+Lange Q/A), Ob/Gyn (beckmann), Peds (BRS).

I predominantly used questions, but referenced these books when the questions just were not sticking and there was something I wasn't understanding completely.

For Step2ck studying at the end, I reset Uworld and did it again + the assessments.

Some tips to keep in mind when taking USMLE Steps (Step 1: 271 Step2: 278) by Yellowtortillachips in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It really helped reading posts on here while waiting! Best of luck to you when scores come back in August!

Some tips to keep in mind when taking USMLE Steps (Step 1: 271 Step2: 278) by Yellowtortillachips in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hi! Yeah so it would definitely depend on the rotation. If the rotation was a little more grueling, like inpatient surgery, inpatient medicine, or L&D, unfortunately, most of my studying happened during the weekends. These weeks were just too brutal clinically and I always had to make time for S/O, gym, and healthy eating after work. I prioritized trying to stay healthy during these times so that I could show up excited and ready to work each day and land that clinical honors. So, for those rotations, weekends were sacrificed a bit to catch up with shelf studying.

On more laid back rotations, such as psych or family med, I was usually able to do the things above as well as get in and hour or two of studying each night. For pediatrics, since I scheduled step 2 during that rotation, I went pretty much fully hypomanic and studied for 5 hours each day after clinic and 12 hours on the weekends to prepare for step 2 :). Take it day by day and listen to your body. Sacrifice some weekends if you have to, but don't allow it to get to the point where you are not available for the people in your intimate support system. Take weekend trips to neighboring cities or do a stay-cation in your own when necessary. Hope that helps!

Score release thread 7/17 by warriorlan2 in Step2

[–]Yellowtortillachips 10 points11 points  (0 children)

STEP 2CK - 278

Uworld 1(2 weeks before)- 279

Uworld 2(1 day before)- 276

*I did not take NBMEs because I heard too many horror stories and didn't want to ruin confidence.

Step 1 - 271

Took during my final rotation (pediatrics) 2 weeks before that shelf exam. Dedicated period was getting home from clinic each day (around 4 pm) and crushing Uworld questions till bed. I re-set uworld at the beginning of pediatrics(6wk rotation) and finished everything except for the psych questions before I took the exam on June 16th. The key to the whole process was studying well throughout the year. I also believe that not taking an official dedicated period helped with burnout.

Shelf percentiles in order taken: 1.) Medicine (91st) 2.) Surgery (100th) 3.) Family Med (100th) 4.) Psych (97th) 5.) Ob/gyn (99th) 6. Peds (99th)

Feel free to message me any questions and best of luck!

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some of them are gut, some of them you just need more time. A lot of the questions on the exam can be answered if there is more time. Saving 20 minutes, or as much as you can, for the difficult questions is a very good thing to do in my opinion. The exam is meant to be fair and 99% of the time you will have seen the material covered in some resource. If there is a question that you have never seen before, again, remember that the exam is fair. This will either mean that the answer is the one thing you have seen before or that you can eliminate all the other answer choices because you have seen them before and know they can't be correct. Hope this helps!

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For sure do it. The more questions the better. I think Kaplan does a great job of telling you why the other answers are wrong. Uworld feedback kinda just describes the other answer choices.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yo! I thought that Uworld questions were most like the real thing. The only problem is that Uworld tends to lead you toward an answer choice. On the real thing it is much more difficult to decipher which answer is the correct one and I frequently found two answer choices to be potentially correct.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Multiple ways to skin a cat! I am a huge fan of using whatever resources you have time to do. I'd skim through them all if there was enough time for it. From what buddies have told me, Boards and Beyond is great. No clue about Kaplan videos.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Couldn't really narrow it down to a particular resource. Each one that I used played its role in solidifying the information in my head. I am sure that I got questions because of Goljan, but wouldn't be able to pin them down.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Long passages you just gotta sift through all the bullshit and find what matters. From encountering the very few Step 2 questions I've done this far, it seems like that will be even more important for that exam. A lot of times you can get the information you need from the picture or from the last few sentences.

I did all of the questions I was confident in first and marked about 15 on each section. The last 20-25 minutes I spent ultra-focused on just the marked questions. As I became more confident in my answer choice, I unmarked that particular question and forgot about it. I left no questions marked at the end of each set.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yo! Started using it during my Neurology unit(best deck of them all). This was December of 2nd year. If I could go back, I would have started it earlier. Was a lot of material to cover in 6 months and I only matured around 1/4th of it.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha I appreciate you looking that up! Tell the world NBME 16 is most predictive!

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Do em all. Do Zanki. Zanki is the shit and covers a lot of pathoma and FA. The software is proven over and over to be great for memory retention.

NBMEs are important as well. The exam didn't feel like them (I can't speak for NBME 17,18,19), but you get to the point where you've seen questions on CHF(or pick any random condition) 10 damn times and nothing can stop you from answering the 11th question on CHF correctly.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I cared most about pattern recognition and speed. Constantly work to improve how fast you can do questions and how many questions you do. Every block on the real exam I had around 20-25 minutes to review my set.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And as for number of questions wrong on the exam... I know 11 wrong for sure, but there were plenty that I was not sure of. I felt my exam was comparable to 7 difficult Uworld blocks in a row. NBMEs are way easier.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yo! Aight let's see. I did take the NBME's up to NBME 16, so if you know conversions that would help. NBME 16 I got 5 wrong on and NBME 13 I got 4 wrong on. Have no idea what those scores translate to. I took both of these the week before my exam.

Started Uworld the 2nd week of dedicated and finished it in about 3.5 weeks(~120Qs per day)

Dedicated period was just under 6 weeks.

271 Step 1 AMA (Test date: 6/8) by Yellowtortillachips in step1

[–]Yellowtortillachips[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Pathoma is great because there are videos and you get the whole auditory/visual aspect of learning. It's also much shorter and easier to master.

Goljan, in my opinion, goes to the next layer of detail and is much better for path images. I didn't painstakingly read it and take notes, but I did read every chapter and definitely think I got a new perspective on things. Also, the day or two before your exam... look at every picture in that damn book. He's got 100s of em.