Know your up/down arrows! Especially when it comes to cardiology, endocrinology, and renal. Overall I think the hardest for me were the physiology questions. Ultimately, most of the questions I missed were little details that are not covered (or covered very briefly) in FA or QBanks. I will once again say that doing well in classes and having a strong background in the basic science of medicine is the best possible way to prepare. There is a lot of microbiology and immunology mixed in. If it makes sense, it’s probably the right answer (although logic can sometimes lead you astray as well…). A few tricky questions, but don’t psych yourself out. Expect a ton of pathology and physiology, most of it very straightforward.

Overall, my impression of the exam is that it is very similar to the NBME practice and/or UWorld.

If you do want to save UWorld for the end, that’s fine, but I would recommend starting a different QBank earlier and following along with classes. Start doing questions as soon as possible. I do not really believe in “saving” questions for the end. It helped me condense all the information and made review much simpler. Throughout the first two years, I think annotating FA is very important. Doing well in classes is a great way to do that. I see a lot of students focusing only on the “high yields,” but the truth is if you want a 270+ score you need to put the time in to learning the minutiae as well. I did well Honors in almost all classes (except Gross Anatomy). I seem to be one of the odd people that actually enjoyed the first two years of medical school. To be honest, there is not much unique that I can tell you, but I thought I would give an overview of my resources and general strategy anyway. As others have done I thought I would do a quick write-up of my experience on Step 1.

Kaplan videos step 1 2015