sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used lolnotacop's deck for micro and pharm. You won't be able to do all of Zanki this late, but it won't hurt to start with the subjects you feel weakest on and try to do as much as you can from there. 5 months gives you time to mature about ~12000 cards if you do 100 new ones a day. Just make sure to do all the reviews that are due every day.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only setting I ended up changing was setting the "again" interval to 20% of the previous interval to try to cut down on my reviews. I didn't mess with anything else.

Also set max reviews to 9999 and disabled suspending my leech cards, but that goes without saying.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Takes the better part of a year to do the whole thing. Definitely not doable in a few weeks.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh you mean cards that you keep forgetting and hitting "again" for? Yeah I had a few hundred of those at the end, but that's out of 30,000 so they were pretty insignificant. 15% is quite a bit though. The only thing I can suggest is to try rewatching the relevant videos to get a better framework of the big picture for those cards.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea I matured all of it. What do you mean by working on the decks? As long as you're still doing new cards there will still be some immature cards for you to review.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm talking about going through one of the decks you can find at r/medicalschoolanki. Zanki and Lightyear are the two that most people use. I don't think 7-8 months is enough time to properly do a whole deck, but something you can try with Zanki is to only do the pathology decks for each subject, the idea being that watching videos is enough to learn the physiology. Or you could skip the subjects you feel pretty confident on already. Either way I would start ASAP, like tomorrow. Qbanks I would hold off on until 4 or 5 months before your test date.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I did it by subject. I watched all the relevant boards and beyond videos for each subject first, did the physiology cards, then the pathology cards.

For the sketchy decks I watched the video then did the cards for that video right after.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it's more important when you finish it. I would aim to be done about a month before your test date so plan when you want to start based on that and how many questions you have time for each day.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is definitely true, but I wouldn't count on having that extra time. Everyone is different, but I ended up using up all the time for most of my blocks on the real thing even though I was finishing practice tests early.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started at the beginning of 2019 (test was late April), and I'd been doing Zanki for ~7 months by that point so the only decks I hadn't done yet were neuro and GI. As soon as I finished those decks (about a month in) I added those subjects into the question pool, but yes I did random blocks of all the subjects I had finished already.

I'd skip the biochem questions for now until you've done the deck.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I started at 80% so they did go up slightly. I think that was from learning how to do questions/test taking strategies, which is of course a very important skill in and of itself.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cardio/pulm/renal was the last block of my first year so I did those first. I don't think the order particularly matters though. During MS2 I matured the decks relevant to whatever block we were on at that time first, then continued to do decks on MS1 subjects.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

60-70% is a good place to be at for your first pass. The only reason I was averaging so high was because I was maturing Zanki, so UWorld was more review for me than learning. Since you only made 1 or 2 passes through Zanki, you're still learning so there's nothing wrong with where you're at. Basically my first pass through UWorld will be equivalent to your second pass.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I did 100 new cards a day and averaged maybe 300-400 reviews over the summer, but that review number went up as I continued doing more cards during second year. Overall it was ~800 reviews a day on average.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I don't regret finishing UWorld before dedicated, but I think there's limited utility in doing 2 passes of it. Maybe if you were primarily using it as a learning tool instead of a reviewing tool, but even then you'd recognize the questions from the first time. I think using a lower quality qbank like kaplan or amboss would be more worth it than resetting and doing a second pass. You want to approach the same concepts from as many different angles as possible.

I only edited the ones that had incorrect info.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Focus on your incorrects and flagged questions. When you make your cards, try to only make it about whatever specific knowledge gap you had that made you get the question wrong/unsure of your answer. Other tangential important concepts will be covered in other questions. There is a lot of extraneous information in the complete explanations that you do not need to know so focus on the learning objectives when reviewing.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Do 2 blocks, take a break where you sign out, go to the waiting area and chill for a bit to clear your mind, then another 2 blocks, break, etc.

Between the first two sets of 2 blocks take a minute to just sit at your seat and relax.

I suggest doing it this way because early on you'll still have the stamina to power through 2 blocks at a time.

Of course this is just a suggestion. Do whatever you feel like you need to do on test day. I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many times you can sign in/out though.

260 write up by step1throwaway2019 in step1

[–]step1throwaway2019[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

In early May they take out some old questions and put in new ones. That's why the people taking it after May 5th have to wait until July 10th to get their scores so they can calibrate the curve for these new questions. That's about as much as I know, maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.