Hi everyone! As requested, here is my Step 1 Dedicated Study Schedule! I also include tips on how to approach content review and how to create your schedule, but of course everyone has their own way!
Note: As I discussed in my post on How to Integrate Step 1 Studying During School, most of my studying for Step took place throughout my MS1 and MS2 year because I didn’t want to stress/feel overwhelmed during dedicated. I wanted to go into dedicated with a solid foundation so that I could focus on my weaknesses and go through content review without feeling rushed. But everyone has their own preference and handles stress differently!
For your reference, I scored between 245-250.
I started studying “lightly” towards the end of winter break:
- Winter Break: December 20th, 2019 to January 6th, 2020
- Watched all the Sketchy Micro and Pharm videos that I didn’t finish during the year
- Pre-Dedicated: December 30th, 2019 to January 13th, 2020
- Continued to finish Sketchy Micro and Pharm videos
- Attended the rapid review sessions that my school held
- Official Start of Dedicated: January 13th, 2020
- My Test Date: February 25, 2020
Bird’s Eye View
- Kept up with my reviews from Anking Step 1 deck that I completed throughout the year with each block
- Completed new Anki cards for Sketchy Micro and Pharm and kept up with those reviews every day during dedicated
- First Aid every day
- BRS Physiology OR Pathoma
- UWorld every day
Schedule (7 days a week)
- 7:30 am to 8: 30 am: Wake up, breakfast, coffee, head to library
- 8:30 am to 10:30 am: Anki reviews (Anking Step 1 Deck)
- Sketchy Micro and Pharm Anki cards daily
- Keep up with the reviews I accumulated from year 1 and 2 throughout my blocks
- If you recall from my other post How to Integrate Step 1 Studying During School, I started the Anking Step 1 Deck during my second semester of MS1 year
- I did NOT do any new cards from the Anking deck, except for Sketchy Micro and Pharm because I didn’t have time to finish those videos and do the cards pre-dedicated
- 10:30 am to 2:30 pm: Content review (more below) + short lunch break
- First Aid for “Organ System of the Day”
- BRS, Pathoma, etc., depending on my “Foundational Science of the Day” (more below)
- Supplement with Boards and Beyond as needed
- 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm: Finish Anki reviews and finish First Aid review
- 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm: 2 hour break for dinner and self-care
- 7:30 pm to 10:30 pm: UWorld
- 4 blocks of 20 questions
- When you do more than 20 questions at a time, when you are reviewing the answers and explanations sometimes it can be hard to recall what your thinking was behind each question.
Total hours studied: 12-13 hours
Half Days
Throughout dedicated, I scheduled about 5 half-days where I would study half the day and then take the rest of the afternoon/evening off to rejuvenate. My Step 1 counselor advised me to take 10 half-days, but I didn’t feel like I needed it and I also wanted to spend more time studying. You should go by what you think works best for you.
- Sleep in until 8:00am
- 9:00 am to 1:00 pm: Anki
- 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm: Lunch
- 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm: UWorld
- 2 blocks of 20 questions
Total hours studied: 6 hours
1 Week Before Test Day
- 7:30 am to 8: 30 am: Wake up, breakfast, coffee, head to library
- 8:30 am to 10:30 am: Anki reviews
- 10:30 am to 5:30 pm: Content review
- First Aid, First Aid, First Aid
- BRS Physiology equations and only high yield sections
- 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm: Break, dinner
- 7:30 pm to 10:30 pm: UWorld
- 4 blocks of 20 questions
Total hours studied: 12-13 hours
Creating a Schedule
01 Calculate how many days you have until Test Day.
For me, this was 43 days. Then, you can figure out how many of those days you want to spend on each subject or organ system. I suggest making an excel sheet for each day and filling it in with the subjects you will be studying for that day.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a good guideline for how many hours you should be studying daily. I feel like that’s totally dependent on you. My advisers suggested 11 hours, but I ended up studying more than that! Some of my friends would only study 8 hours a day. The same goes for your break/half days!
02 Study the basic/foundational sciences first.
This is to lay down the foundation for learning organ systems! The order you want to go in and the time you want to spend in each is totally dependent on what your weaknesses are. It’s also nice to stagger the hard and easy subjects to give yourself a break from the dense material! This was my order, along with the resources I used for each:
- Physiology (6 days)
- BRS Physiology
- First Aid
- Anking Step 1 Deck
- Pathology (7 days)
- Pathoma
- Anking Step 1 Deck
- Behavioral Science & Statistics (2 days)
- BRS Behavioral Sciences
- First Aid
- Microbiology (6 days)
- Sketchy Anki cards from Anking Step 1 Deck
- Immunology (2 days)
- Boards & Beyond
- First Aid
- Anking Step 1 Deck
- Biochemistry (2 days)
- First Aid
- Anking Step 1 Deck
- Neurology (3 days)
- First Aid
- Anking Step 1 Deck
- Gross Anatomy & Embryology (4 days)
- First Aid
- 100 Concepts of Gross Anatomy Anki Deck
- Anking Step 1 Deck
03 Figure out how much time you want to spend on each organ system.
- The time you spend on each organ system is entirely up to you and what your weaknesses are! If I scored lower on an exam in a particular block, I spent longer on that organ system when I went back to review it in First Aid.
- The order you go in is up to you! Some people like to go in the order First Aid has it. Some like to review the organ system that they haven’t seen in awhile first. Others like to review the organ system they are most weak in first.
- Each day you can pick one organ system to focus on. But it will not always line up with what you will be reviewing that day from Pathoma or BRS. You can still try to review the same organ system for pathology, physiology, etc., but it might not always line up. You will have to be flexible!
- For example, if my organ system of the day was Cardiology, I would try to review the cardiology section of Pathoma and BRS. But sometimes, I’d finish those sections and I’d move on to another section, like Pulmonary, even though Pulmonary was not my organ system of the day I still reviewed it. This helps keep you on track because you still have to review all of Pathoma and if you only did it one organ system at a time, you would not finish! It can be irritating especially if you like to learn in sequence, but that’s just how it will be most likely!
- You will likely be reviewing an organ system every day until test date, or 1 week before test date if you’re following my method.
04 Calculate how many chapters you need to get through each day based on the time you allocated for each subject.
By this point, you should have a list of resources that you will be using to study each subject.
For foundational sciences, calculate how many chapters a day you need to review based on the time you allocated for yourself for that subject. Example: if I decided to spend 6 days on physiology and there are say, 24 chapters in BRS, then I will need to get through 4 chapters a day for 6 days.
If you’re using First Aid or Boards & Beyond for reviewing organ systems, divide up the chapters by the number of days you allocated for yourself to review organ systems. Example: if I decided to spend 3 days on cardiology, then I would simply read 1/3 of the cardiology chapter.
Final Thoughts
Keep in mind that you can choose to group the foundational sciences with the organ systems if you’d like. Example: instead of studying ALL of physiology in 1 week, you can study physiology + pharmacology + organ system.
But if you are going with my method, then it will often feel like you’re jumping around or studying unrelated subjects. This is common and normal. It also helps prepare you for the real deal. On the test, the questions will be random. You are not tested by subject!
I know this might all seem a bit hectic and stressful and it can definitely be confusing to figure out your dedicated schedule, but let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to help!
Other Related Posts:
How to Integrate Step 1 Studying During School
How I Studied for Step 1
Pros & Cons of Boards Resources
Resources I Used During Pre-Clinicals & Step 1
With lobe,
Kelly
