Internal Medicine Shelf Exam

I would love to tell you how to do well on this exam, but instead I'm going to tell you how I did, which is average, and how little I had to study.  My scaled score was a 75.

Now, I would have liked to do better, and I missed honors on this shelf by a few percent, but I'm here to set your expectations based on how I studied, so that you can do better.  Like I've been saying before, I'm a pretty average student, so most of you readers should get some benefit.  So here's what it takes to get an average grade.

First, start off your clinical year with internal medicine.  You won't know much of anything outside of step 1 material at this point.  Tell yourself how you're going to study really hard to do well on the shelf.  Start off strong by doing Pretest questions, and some Uworld questions.  Consider watching the Emma Holliday review video (link), and then don't actually watch it.  Consider watching the onlinemeded videos (link), and then don't actually watch it.

So far you're doing great, it's halfway through your clerkship, and you've done about 200/1200 of the medicine uworld questions, and about 1/2 of the pretest questions.  Most of your learning is being done at the hospital based on your patients and researching stuff on uptodate.

In other words, you need to kick it up a notch.  At this point you should get serious about studying.  Start breezing through uworld, and if you get something wrong, then learn that topic, and learn it well.  The books I used to learn stuff well was Case Files Internal Medicine, and Kaplan Step 2 CK.  I didn't even bother with Stepup, it's too dense for my liking.

Finally, you're in the last 10 days before your shelf exam.  You have about 300 uworld questions left, you stopped doing pretest, and you're only going to do the Emma Holliday review video because it's short.  Great! Now finish the questions, do 3 nbme practice exams, and watch the review video two times.  Take your test, and get an average score.

Next time:  How to honor your Pediatrics shelf because all it is is an internal medicine shelf.

Preclinicals and Realistic Step 1 Expectations

Alright, I never update this blog, and all you care about is what I titled this post.  So straight to the point.  My step score is in the 230s.  A good score, but still not good enough for anything real competitive like ortho, ent, derm, or uro.  Guess those are more than likely out.

You are most likely an average student like me.  Pretty good, but not stellar.  Good, this post is for you, because you also likely won't get 250s, even if you try all the things people with 250s do, you will end up having a score wall like I did.

To do well on step the number one thing is to do well in your preclinical classes.  I got a few questions right only because I remembered random shit from first and second year.  My friends who crushed step were rockstars in years 1 and 2.  I'm serious, try very hard to do your best.

My second year progressed like this leading into step:

• First half of year, don't even think about step.
• I used PATHOMA for my pathology course.  This is the NUMBER ONE way to study for step indirectly.
• I also used sketchy micro,  and sketchy pharm.  NUMBER TWO way to study for step indirectly.
• Second half started uworld.  I got through half of it before dedicated.
• Also tried starting first aid, but it was HELLA boring. (You can use a one year old first aid by the way, though I wouldn't go further back than that.)
• Just before dedicated.  You will have finals for your second year courses, and so you WILL KNOW pathoma and sketchymicro and sketchypharm very well right before dedicated.
• Dedicated (5 weeks):
• I took an nbme to see where I stood.  (Don't get discouraged if you do poorly.  It is a challenge to your psyche to kick ass when you get a shit practice score.)
• I focused mostly on uworld questions, and I tried to study first aid at ~2chapters/day.
• I did ~120 questions/day, with one block focused on material I read in First Aid that day, rest random.
• First aid soon fell to the wayside about 2 weeks in, and it became a reference instead.  
• Each week on the weekday I was set to have my test, I would take an nbme.  I did this every week leading up to the test, improving a little bit each time.  My step score was within 5 points of my last, and best test.  (Do newer nbmes last since they'll be most like the real thing.)

There you have it.  If you're an average/above average student, and try as hard as you can, you will get at least an average/above average score.  But to really get a high score you have to do as well as you possibly can in years 1 and 2.  Comment if you have questions on anything.