ssrpk
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Thank God the waiting is finally over.
I took my exams on july 25th, but got really busy in family and sme personal issues, so could not write to this forum about my experience...so here it is.
Mine is a bit odd, because i took my step1 exam, in october 2005 while i was in final year of my medical college, anyway i would have wanted to start preparing for step2 right away but i decided not to, because i hadnt gone through medicine and other subjects, and it was the start of my final year. so i started my preparation in august 06,at the same time i started doing my internship and got couple of research projects, so in those months my preparation was having a waxing and waning course, besides my biggest drawback was that i didn't remember several hard core step1 materials like neuro, systemic pathology, which took quite a few months to revise, and then came 2007, i started with kapan dvd's for step2, and listened to whole medicine series, surgery and psychiatry, but didn't complete gynae/obs (too lengthy) and peds.january, february went smoothly, when out of no where i decided to take CS which i scheduled for march 29th...so there was another 6-8 weeks break in the ck preparation, i started in may again by revising the materials and solving usmle world questions, and i did those questions topic vise.
PREP:
For medicine, i did kaplan, and blueprints...for me i this combination worked really well, along with the explanations from UW, please guys read those and if possible make notes out of them or atleast note down important points....they really make a big difference to one's readiness for the exam. For surgery, kaplan was good enuff, ofocurse when combined with UW explanations. for Gynae/obs, did not do kaplan much, used blueprints, and i highly recommend it, should be more than enough. Psychiatry, oh God i had a very very bad experience with behaviroal science, cause at that time i could not demarcate the diff. psychiatric disorders mentioned in DSM-IV, however, the way kaplan has formalized psychiatric reviews lectures notes and the way they are explained in dvd lectures, i must admit that thts a five-star combo...because i had no trouble solving even the most twisted of the q's, in UW and also in real exam, for instance, learning the time duration for diagnosing psychotic mania, from schizophrenia really gave away even the toughest scenarios in my exam....obviously i cannot comment the same about ethical and legal issue questions....i don't know whats best for them, but i was fortunate enough not to have many weird q's on this topic....anyway will come to that later. For peds, i hnestly did not do much, did kaplan, but only thse topics exclusive to peds, rest of the systemic, i just solved the mcq's and made notes out of them...and but questions on peds should not be too much of a troouble if ones background of int. medicine is very strong, but i truely recommend reading the material completely, i read kaplan, but people also recommend blueprints. so i don't think i can really make out the time period in terms of months that took me to prepare for step2, because of so many ups and downs, except for the last three months.
THE EXAM:
Finally, i took my exam, on 25th july, it started fine, i planned to sleep really well the night before, and tried my best not to overload my last day review, but it was a total disaster, at two the night before the test, i was already awake for probably 18hrs, took two hrs sleep...had a big coffee and ran off to the test centre, got there early so kept revising psychiatry.
The test i must say, was truely a mixture of all the topics, i cant recall any part of the subject which was not covered, and cannot even comment on the difficult level. I started my first block, and literally flew through it, extremely easy, and next block more or less the same, they really boosted me up as i had atleast 10 minutes left at the end of the first two blocks for reviewing the questions. But then the thrid block happened....God, the toughest possible combination, most of the questions were comprising of 10-15 plus lines with so many labs, and whole wide lists of choices to choose the answer from. I was marking the questions after reading them and decided to solve them at the end pof the block when i realized that at question number 15 i had already marked 8 or 9 questions, so from that block onwards i changed my strategy and was solving every question as they came along while simultaneously racing them against time, my target was to complete first 26 questions in the first 30 minutes of the block, because that way i could save atleast 5 minutes at the end of each block from 4th block and onwards. The point i want to make here is, what ever strategy u apply, improvise it during the exam, just whtever works best for u.
Some of the topics that were widely covered are, cardiovascular, almost every aspect, lots of questions on gastrointestinal under the context of medicine, surgery especially trauma and pediatrics. Several neuro questions, concerning localizatrion of bleed or ischemia, best diagnoses, initial tests of choice, choosing between, LP and imaging, and even the treatment in some cases. Endocrinology was pretty straight forward, so was hematology, i was worried about the treatment regimens for tumors, but thank God i cant recaqll many questions on that, although the types of anemia and best diagnosis for the condition were heavely tested. Renal was very much twisted, especially the differentiation between pre-renal and renal causes, so learn them really well. Infectious diseases were easy, choice of antibiotics and other related things, rheumatology was one of my weakest, but there were quite a few questions on those disorders, especially SLE, RA, OA and those sero-negative arthropathies, learn them well. For gynae/obs, questiions were classical, based on most-likely diagniosis, antepartum hemorrhgages, pre-term labor, chorioamnionitis, PPROM and abortions and ectopics, sevral q's on HTN in pregnancy, and eclampsia, even the treatment for those. I can recall quite a few questions on, urinary incontinence, truely regretted revising it in the last days, although planned to. gynecological malignancies were there, both benign and malignant, treatment of breat cancers, when to do surgery and when to do chemotherapy or hormone therapy.
In surgery, the predominant scenarios were based on trauma, i can't even recall the number of questions i got on trauma, they were all over the place, and for that i truely recommend doing kaplan and UW, these questions were very much confusing, few questions on specialties and preo-op care. in essence it was mostly, trauma, and genral surgery.
For psyhiatry, as i said earlier, kaplan along with UW should be more than enough to deal with q's on the exam, but learn the differentiating characteristics very well. Most of the questions were from mood disorders, thought, several q's on somatizations and personality disorders. Asked about treatment as well as associations. I can't recommend anything as being perfect ethical questions, so twisted they generally are, but i was lucky not to have many of those, epidemiology was also very very low yield in my case, hardly one or two questions.
Peds, except for the topics, exclusive to this subject, i was able to deal with these questions mostly from my knowledge of internal medicine.
This is so far, i can remember. God it seems like a never ending post...
anyway, i am happy i pulled off all of my exams in time for the residency applications, and i want to emphasize that if i can do it, anybody can do it, this exam is doable, so plz don't panic, it just takes time...people on this forum, have gone through much tougher times, and they have indeed done even better, so i consider myself lucky in this regard.
I want to thank everyone on this forum, and also my compliments to prep4usmle for managing this forum so well....last but not the least i wish all you fellows good luck in your future.
I am off to step3 now.
my NBME scores were 650 in form 2 and 600 in form 3
i will be happy to answer any queries 
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| P4a99
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Double 99, well done, congratulations, and good luck with the rest of your life. 
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2008 Step 1 Study Plan Discussion ..... I am a moderator not a source for download links. Please do not ask me for any.
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| neuroblastoma
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wowwwwwwwwww Congratulations..Greattttt personality thanks for post
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| njcjzy
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Thanks for sharing. That is really informative and encouraging message.
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| elitoki
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Congrat~ 
Good Luck
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| gr8doc
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Congrats !! That's really a great person with intelligence. Good Luck for your match.
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| khorshid
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congrats
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| smalley
Forum Elite
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congrats thats a great score...
keep it up buddy
blueprints or kaplan for psychiatry ?which one is better
tc
have a blast
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| bhanusupriya
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thank you very much for the input ssrpk and congrats on great score too.
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| hallachi
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congratulations...great score...good luck for the match..Thanks for ur participation on this forum..
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| hallachi
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congrates....just wanted to know ...my exam is in one week ...what should i read in my last day prep..
thanks
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| ssrpk
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wow, i am overwhelmed, by all the compliments here, thankyou so much everyone.
to smalley: I haven't read blueprint of psychiatry, so can't commet on that, my basics inclusing that of behavioral sciences was really weak, so i learned the whole beh.science once again, from kaplan and BRS, and then learned the whole psychiatry frm kaplan, plus the notes from UW, and that was the combo that worked best for u. These sources are good, but do not hesitate to search out other books, as nothing is absolute, just whtever it takes to learn the material well, thats the most important thing...good luck
to hallachi: during my last week prep, i was reading other people's experiences and someone adviced me not to revise those topics during the last week, i am relatively very strong in, for eg. my CVS and respratory and GIT and psychiatry were very fine, so i concentrated on other topics during the last week, and it paid off really well, so it depends on u. I would say its best to review the notes if u have made out of UW or qbank, and skim through the review books...and try to avoid going into so much details, unless that area was not previously covered. You won't believe but i did eye and skin during the last week, i hated myself for not doing them earlier...anyway, i wish u very good luck for ur exam next week....just stay calm, eat and sleep well, and rest appropritely because keeping the concentration till the end of 9th hr is really a hard work. All the best
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| MRMAVERICK
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congrats ssrpk
best of luck for match
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| dr.roh
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Congrats!! and Good Luck with the match. Did you do Kaplan q-bank?...if so was it helpful? Did you do any nbme...which was closest to the actual test in score? Thanks and goodluck.
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| njcjzy
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dr.roh, about kaplan qbank, a lot of people comment that it was easy. They claimed the difficulty degree of the real exam is kind of in between of kaplan qbank and UW. GL.
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| dr.roh
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thanx njcjzy
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| hgheith
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I am so happy for you ssrpk congats! and good luck in your next exam and ofcourse the match!
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| ssrpk
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hey thanks alot buddy, whtz up with u?? applying for the match?
yeah i agree with ncjzy, i solved just a few q's of qbank, but found them quite easy...UW prepares us well for the exam...
as for nbme, i found form3 tougher than the previous ones, and it is also relatively new, so if u want to do just one, go for form 3
good luck mate
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| hgheith
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hopefully, just started studying for step 2, I need to cram and take it by the end of november, any hy tips? Did u do Goljan lectures? What do you think of them? Good luck, I hope I get a score close to yours!
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| ssrpk
Forum Fanatic
Topics: 154
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well buddy, i did'nt listen to goljan this time, although i was a big fan during my step1 prep, basically because i didn't have time...as for HY i would say, keep revising your notes as you never know wht question u are asked...technically speaking, i didn't get any question of some disease or somehting for which i had absolutely no idea...this was a big difference from step1.
anyway, keep working hard, yuo wil do great INSHALLAH.
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| hgheith
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Thanks for the advice, May you get the residency you want Inshallah!
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| ssrpk
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thakyou so much, i wish the same to you
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| virgola82
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Congrats ssrpk I was sure you were gonna kill it... Good luck for your match!
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| sonaliraj99
Forum Senior
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CONGRATS!! double 99!!!dats gr8 sir... i'm a final yr student myself..preparing for step2.. i plan to give it dis march.. wat do u think mu odds are??
can u pl divide n tel.. the number of days u gave for each subject..also.. how many readings??
do i HAVE to re-read path n pharm frm step 1??
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| veroni14
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Great experience post...thanks for sharing it with us
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