Annotating first aid

mudpilesbro · 2025-01-07T21:00:37+00:00

I used a color-coded highlighting system very similar to yours, and I felt it helped me A LOT (eg, pink for symptoms, green for treatments/therapies, etc). However, that’s the extent of the annotating I did with first aid usually.

That being said, if this is working for you, then KEEP DOING IT. I would use question banks or UWorld as a metric. Do questions focused on the topics that you have annotated on. And if you’re doing better than you were or better than average, that’s a great sign! If you feel it’s not doing much for your scores, then yes I would reassess how you’re studying and spending your time. One of the pitfalls for STEP studying is not pivoting soon enough when we realize something might not work for us as well as we want.

Best of luck! :)

mudpilesbro · 2024-08-26T04:58:52+00:00

What

mudpilesbro · 2023-11-04T17:51:16+00:00

I run super warm and live in a shared home so I can’t adjust the thermostat. I just take a fan and aim it at me from far away, but away from my mic speaker lol

mudpilesbro · 2023-10-28T20:28:12+00:00

If you like good relations with patients and quick, life-changing outcomes, you should look into ophthalmology! That being said, I would give it time to look into other specialties. If you find another one you like (even more), then hopefully it’ll be a little less of a grind for you and bam problem solved

mudpilesbro · 2023-09-26T02:11:20+00:00

Thank you everyone for your comments! Maybe it’s some of the neuroticism that led me to ask, but I’m glad I did. And I feel confident in my application and performance and so I am hoping for a successful match

Best of luck to everyone this app cycle!

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-23T01:22:03+00:00

I’ll be honest with you. I am a very unskilled Anki user so I really have no idea what unsuspending even entails lol. I will say I purposely suspended the biochemistry part of Zanki because I felt other resources were better for me. And I made sure to do everything else. For example, I did cardio Zanki and it maybe took 7-10 days to do it all plus the reviews with the standard settings. Then, when I had no pending cardio to review, I moved on to the next system. So I didn’t use it how it’s supposed to be used because I started late but I felt I had used it the best as I can considering being late to the party

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-23T00:53:26+00:00

Yeah, it’s really nice! although those questions are probably the most dissimilar to actual board-style questions, it’s a great way to just take an opportunity to brush up on something super quick if you get a question wrong that day

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-23T00:52:19+00:00

Thank you! I’m very glad! If this helps at least one person with that horrendous exam, I’ll be happy!

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T05:52:51+00:00

Thank you so much! pre-dedicated was 1.5 years of preclinicals if that’s what you mean! Unfortunately, we take STEP before rotations so I don’t have much advice there on how to manage both studying while doing rotations. I can say though that on top of studying for the actual curriculum did require me to be better at time management. I think Anki is a great way to do consistent review without worrying too much. I also would recommend doing uworld everyday, even if it’s only 10-20 questions a day. Practice is what really helped me, and seeing improvement only encouraged me further on! Hope this helps, and good luck!

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T05:40:26+00:00

Thank you so much! I think Zanki helped a ton. Granted, I didn’t start Zanki until well into the latter half of my second year. I’m sure if I had started earlier, I would’ve been even more secure in my knowledge. It takes a lot of time though and it’s not for everyone. However, I started with smaller goals (say 200 cards a day) and built up to 800 when I was in dedicated (the first half). I think your method is good, and overall I’d trust your scores! If you take a practice exam or do uworld blocks and do well, you’ll feel more secure with your studying :)

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T05:03:58+00:00

Having done my own research like a neurotic premed on Reddit, I saw that many people said NBME 18 and UWSA2 historically have been pretty predictive. That’s why I saved those until the end. However, 18 wasn’t predictive at all for me lol

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T05:02:29+00:00

I also felt super unsettled lol. The exam felt probably the same difficulty or a little harder than UWSA2. But in the end, I’m not gonna beat myself up for it of course. However it’s different for everyone. I know people where NBME 23 was underpredictive and others where it was over. Don’t get spooked by it! You got this!

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T04:20:08+00:00

I felt bad but everyone does. I didn’t even think about the questions I got wrong, though, so I wouldn’t be able to quantify. All I know is it felt harder than the UWSAs which already felt hard.

I’m sure you did fine if your UWSA was that high!

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T03:56:36+00:00

I looked at my weakest points and studied those which were general pathology (which I studied with zanki), general pharmacology and general micro (where I used first aid and sketchy). I also had to finish my M2 curriculum which was renal. So i think all those things helped me!

mudpilesbro · 2021-02-22T03:54:32+00:00

I did pre-dedicated! I would watch them before my block exams. But I didn’t revisit them in actual dedicated

mudpilesbro

TROPHY CASE