Because Step 2 requires less preparation and dedicated studying period is shorter, this post will also be shorter! Most people typically do better on Step 2 than Step 1, but I found Step 2 to be more challenging for me for several reasons. Although I didn’t reach my goal score as I did with Step 2, my score fell between 250-255.
Dedicated Schedule
- 9 am – 1 pm: UWorld Questions 40 x 2
- 1 pm – 3 pm: Anki, research
- 3 pm – 7 pm: UWorld Questions 40 x 2
- 7 pm – 8 pm: break, dinner
- 8 pm – 10 pm: UWorld Questions x 1
- 10 pm – 11 pm: Anki
Resources Used
- UWorld – Main resource
- Everyone says all you need is UWorld and that you know more than you think, that your clinical experience will help you. I heeded the advice and focused on UWorld.
- I agree that your clinical experiences throughout clerkship and studying for the shelf combined with UWorld is sufficient. For those at my school however, our clerkships were all cut short by a total of 5 months due to COVID, so we had less time to study for the shelf and prepare and less learning opportunity in the clinical setting.
- UWorld often tests on low-yield information, like atypical presentations or rare complications of a common disease. Clinical experience gives you knowledge of the common presentations of diseases and treatments. I would focus less on these zebras that UWorld tests you on and focus on the horses that you learn about on clinicals.
- I took notes on questions I missed or concepts I wasn’t familiar with, most of which were the zebras I talked about. I made time before the exam to review all my notes. To be honest, I’m not sure how much it helped and I think Anki would have been a better use of my time in terms of reviewing and long-term retention.
- Divine Intervention Podcast – Supplemental
- I had heard many positive things about this podcast and decided to make the time for it, at least the high yield podcasts. My only critique is that some of the information is out of date and you won’t know that unless you pick it up. But otherwise, it is a great review and Divine is so engaging and hilarious!
- Clutch Micro Ep 100
- Clutch Cancer Ep 102
- MCC death, diseases, prognostic factors Ep 97
- Risk Factors Ep 37
- Weird, Ep 184
- Military 204, 231
- Biostats 143
- Antibiotic Ep 41
- Ophthalmology Ep 36
- Ethics Ep 123
- Social Sciences Ep 132
- Bias Ep 197
- Because my Internal Medicine clerkship was 8 months ago, I wanted a way to review for Step 2, so I also watched the IM podcasts/videos 1-4 which you can find on Youtube!
- I had heard many positive things about this podcast and decided to make the time for it, at least the high yield podcasts. My only critique is that some of the information is out of date and you won’t know that unless you pick it up. But otherwise, it is a great review and Divine is so engaging and hilarious!
- Amboss Library – Supplemental
- I love how Amboss is organized. The tables and diagnostic algorithms are gold! The ethics section was particularly helpful for the exam and I was able to answer several questions because of it.
- If something was in UWorld but wasn’t in Amboss, I considered it low yield.
- Anki/Anking Step 2 Deck – Time permitting
- I only kept up with Anki for my first few clerkships (Neuro, Internal Medicine, OBGYN) because I realized that it was only helpful for pimping on wards, but not as helpful for the shelf exams.
- During dedicated, I unsuspended Anki cards related to questions I missed on UWorld or on subjects I was weak on. Luckily, the Anking decks are always well organized by tags.
- NBME
- I personally thought the NBME exams were easier than UWorld questions, but they were definitely more representative of the real exam in terms of difficulty.
- It’s not the best learning tool and also over-predicts your score (at least for me)
- UWorld Self-Assessments
- Difficult questions, great for learning, but again take this with a grain of salt because UWorld often tests on lower yield concepts and you have to know what information to tease apart (focus on more high-yield concepts)
Test Day
- Going to keep this short because frankly I can’t remember much about this day other than that I wanted to forget it…
- What I remember most was how much longer it felt compared to Step 1 and how horrible I felt afterwards. I felt worse than I did after Step 1.
- Lots and lots of experimental questions that threw me off in time management
- Lots of ethics questions.
- Only about 20% of the questions felt “easy”
What I wish I had done differently
- Kept up with Anki throughout clerkships
- Focused solely on Step 2 without doing research on the side, etc.
- Place less emphasis on UWorld and review more content with Amboss
- Spent less time on Divine Intervention podcasts
- Spent less time on difficulty questions on the exam that were likely experimental and just move on
That’s it! I hope that helps!
With lobe,
Kelly
