Malathion
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| | 09/22/05 - 01:37 PM
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Guys I wanted to tell my exam experience. I gave my exam last month (august 05). I was very tensed up before the exam. I used to read post in these forums to get an idea of the exam experience especially the frank opinions and it did give me a lot of relief in alleviation my anxiety. In a way it helps to calm your nerves in the last few days.
So here I go...
The exam is very thorough and nothing is actually left out BUT important subjects are medicine, pediatrics, obs gynae and trauma.
Books I read
Combination of Kaplan and other review books
Medicine: Kaplan (good overall but lack some specific information in some parts) and Blue prints medicine (both will complement each other).
Obst: Kaplan and BRS (read this well, this subject is highly scoring)
Pediatrics: Kaplan and Blueprints (blueprints is really good, one of the better books in the series, but difficult ot read, do it well and you score well)
Trauma: Kaplan surgery (initial part of the notes gives fantastic vignettes which are literally repeated in the exam. Do the surgery trauma in Kaplan it is high yield.
Surgery: Kaplan (very good) and high yield surgery (but you need some other book because surgery from Kaplan doesn't give you a lot of confidence)
Psch: High yield psych and Kaplan. This is one subject that is the Achilles heal for a lot of FMG's, but you cannot help it just do the basics no point is spending a lot of time in one subject.
Overall
Spend max time in this order medicine - pediatrics - obstgyne - trauma - surgery - last psychiatry
The last few days (~ 10 days)
Last week focus your energies try and revise (or quick look) all the subjects in 10 days (seems impossible but try and just flip through the whole thing) It really helped me a lot. The exam is more of knowing the terms and grasping the mechanisms so going through it helps in the last moment. For example you should know what all is given in CCF specific drugs or if there is kidney involvement then add ACE inhibitor.
Questions that I did
Kaplan Q book (all sections)
Kaplan online did about 30% didn't have time to do the rest
Usmle Cd questions scored 37 35 36
Questions at the end of blueprint books.
In the practice quesstions I didn't see the score as I got nervous in my step 1 so I made it a point not to see my performance this time. I had a Kaplan CD which my friend had given it to me (I don't know what it is) I had to go in scoring mode to do it and was scoring about 75% in 5 sections. I did only 5 section s out of 8.
I went through the whole course about 3 times for med, peads, obst and twice for other subjects.
I completed the final reading about 10 days before the exam. The last few days were for revision. I call it a quick look revision; just have a look at the page it really helps.
Last few days before exam try to calm yourself finish your last reading one day before and calm your nerves one day before (easier said than done, you should have seen me!)
The real exam
I took breaks in all sections. Zoom through the tutorial. First section I felt it to be difficult. Completed all sections some 5 minutes before time. I had to pace myself through out the exam.
Here is the strategy I adopted at half time (30 min) you should be at 25th question. If you are at 25th question then you have ample time if you are not at 25th question then speed up. Once you complete the section get up, there is no time to revise. The extra time gets added to your break time so it is better you take more breaks.
If you get stuck up in a question mark it and go ahead, if you follow the 25th question 30 min method then you will have some time in the end to go through the question. All sections had 46 questions in 60 minutes time.
I am not allowed to tell specific questions but these are generalities
Asked a lot of pediatrics (I was surprised) and trauma. Every alternate question was a boy/ girl aged 1 year to 15 years. Pediatrics questions were vague so I was afraid of the score. Trauma right from Kaplan I guess scored well there. Medicine not much but very straight forward (MI. CCF. Rheumat, Gout, SLE, COPD etc) Gyne obst very scoring so do it well especially the screening questions.
Feeling after the exam. This is important because I was confident of passing the exam but I thought I will score low. You feel like shit after the exam. My guess was that I would score 80 to 85. Pleasantly surprised with 99. Feeling low is normal; lot of others who had given step 2 had similar feeling. It is very different from step 1, because you feel very confident in step 1.
I guess I am all set to apply for residency now.
Good luck to all others who are taking this exam.
Edited by Malathion on 09/25/05 - 08:48 AM
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| chemamr
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Malathion, your message encourages me a lot, mainly because my test is next tuesday ( 4.5 days), i feel our preparation was similar so I hope to get a similar score  , jejej!
Thank you!
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| bibigol
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dear malathion thanks alot for telling us ur experience, wish u the best
just one Q ,i've just started studying for usmle, i'm in the uk and worked in ER for a year.now decided 2 move to the us.
is it better 2 do step 1 or 2 first, because with my background i thought i'm more fresh for step 2 what's ur opinion????
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| drkpp
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hey malathion congrats. thanx for that review.
wanted to know one thing, did you do usmleworld or just that u forgot to mention it.
its imp. to all of us cause we are pinning our hopes on it man. i am relying on it like crazy...
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| ARJ
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Congratulation
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| Malathion
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bibigol
step 1 and step 2 are different exams, BUT with your clinical knowledge step 1 will be a cake walk. Most of the questions in step 1 will have some form of clinical orient. I took step 1 first and scored 98 it was a good morale booster, so I would say take step 1 first. Another thing is you can get done with subjects like biochem micro which you need not read again. One more thing path is an important component of step 1 and step 2, esp Goljan. Goljan really helped me in both steps. I 'd give 50% of the credit to Goljan for step2 score. 100% in step 1
Drkpp
I did not do usmleworld. its just a personal preference. I like to read text so i read the above mentioned books.
M
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| drtiger
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Malathion:
Which surgery review book did you use to supplement Kaplan ? I also found Kaplan surgery not really good, so am looking for another one.
Thank you.
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| drkpp
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did u do goljian step2 tapes or just knowledge carried forward from step1?
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| Malathion
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drtiger
You are right, Kaplan is not enough if you want to learn surgery but it does a good job in exams. I did't get many questions form surgery. Believe me Kaplan has enough material. You feel a bit vulnerable but it is not worthwhile to reading a lot of surgery. I used the high yield Surgery (Narula). This book too is not that great but it is goes fast.
drkpp
i only skimmed few topics from Goljan text. Never used audio or video tapes. I can suggest a few topics that you must go through from Goljan.
Renal, Liver :know the lab test results. Lot of question will have a array of lab results. You should get in to habbit of scanning through the results and find which are abonormal. Goljan text (big one not the review) tackles it very nicely. Tumors try reading through all, the path concepts.Sensivity and specificity question (firs chapter goljan)
blood: Know all the leukemias and bleeding disorders
skin: you do get some derm questions, goljan has a little bit of it, not enough something better than nothing.
M
Edited by Malathion on 09/30/05 - 12:15 AM
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| drkpp
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thanx malathion. been a great help
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| drtiger
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Thank you Malathion, I'll just stick to Kaplan for now, hopefully I won't get too many questions in my real exam. 
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| mac007
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hi malathion
congratulations on ur great score!!!! i m also prepareing for step2 n almost done with my first read mostly refering to kaplan along with vignettes....used blueprints only for obs gyn....
now i started doing ques n feeling very depressed of my performance.....many ques i m not able to answer well n not finding all of them in kaplan as well n if present not able to recall well ....so it has become like a viscious cycle....getting very scared of exam now .
suggest me something which u think can solve my problem n if u faced something like this
mac
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| Malathion
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when you read for the first time you just skim through the text. So don't expect wonders. keep your cool you have to be thorugh with the subject, keep doing questions, it really helps. Whenever I did the practice exams I always did it in the untimed mode, so I never saw the score. I just did the questions to see the content rather than the score, in the end it pays off.
Edited by Malathion on 10/03/05 - 11:23 AM
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| drkpp
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i hae done only one reading of kap. notes and then started with ques. u think that is the stratedy to follow or shld i read the notes once more before the exam? exam in 28 days. done with half of usmleworld and scoring 63%. also wanted to know if kap. qbank is worth the time??
thanx
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| Malathion
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I can't really comment on that. I did not do USMLE world. I did kaplan q bank and it is really worth it. I did read a lot of theory. My strategy was to do both questions and theory. Doing questions helps you to focus where and what to read. Blindly reading will get you no where. Kaplan questions were not repeated word for word but general direction was the same i.e. if you answered the Kaplan question right then there is a high probablity that you will answer it right in the real exam. the same should apply to USMLE world.
good luck for your exams.
M
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| drkpp
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 thanx
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| mac007
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thanks malathion for quick reply n suggetions......
malathion when i m not able to find concept of few qs in books then how shd i proceed like shd i remember that concept or shd follow diff diff texts to search for that concept or nearby things....shd i read blueprints also....actully i read bp gyn found it really helping n got for peds as well but finding it too bulky to read n how did u manage to read both kaplan n bp for peds because two contain subject in very diff format .....i mean i was finding it difficult....wat was ur whole duration for prep?????
thanxs
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| Malathion
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| | 10/03/05 - 10:16 PM
1 of 1 forum leaders found this post helpful
| #18 |
yeah i am quick to reply because I am checking my application at least 5 times a day for their status.
Mac007: If you get stuck up in a question immedietly look it up in one of the big books like harrisons or CMDT. I had to see harrisons once only, everything else is in the notes.
Peads blueprints is by far the best one in the series, naturally it is going to be tough. In my opinion it is well written, it has a lot of extraneous information but it all helps in the long run. Regarding the format, try to stick to the blueprints. My strategy was to first read a topic from blueprints and then jump over to Kaplan and go through is as quickly as possible. It is time consuming but helps. Let me tell you one thing I spent about 5 months to do the full course right from the scratch, so I had time.
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| mac007
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thanks malathion
i ll look for doubt in cmdt now......if something i ll ask u again!!!!
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| claudia_i
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Congratulations Malathion!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing all this. Could you please tell me which Goljan text are you talking about? Is the Goljan Pathology textbook that you can get from Amazon.com or any other book store? Thanks a lot and all the best with the Match!
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| Malathion
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there are two goljan books
one is review and other is text (its more like a text book with about 500 pages). I have read the text. Review book is a concised version of the textbook in about 200 pages.
Reading the textbook takes long but gives you a better understanding of the subject. But, I haave other friends who have read from the review and scored the same. I guess its what you are comfortable with.
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| claudia_i
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Thank yoy very much Malathion for taking time to answer my question! I will go with the review book for time considerations. You did a very good review for the exam I'll try to do the same. All the best in your career!
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