Introduction: (please skip this introduction part if you just

wanna know my usmle experience)

Salam Alikum, Alhamdulillah I got 256 in usmle step 2 ck. I would thank every
member in this group, everyone shared his/her own experience.special thanks for
active members.

I would thank my mother(Am Tariq), this great woman gave me her support, love
and care. she gave me everything she can. she taught me an essential principle in
my life which is how to do what you believe in and how to believe in your self and to
be a positive thinker.she made me in a good shape and the whole credit is for You
my wonderful mother.if I can do it, that means you also can(inspirational:) ).

I believe many people in this group shared their experiences and it was of great
benefit for me and others. I don't think I will add lots of things in my own experience
over what already has been published and revised by many generous members in
this group. but I would like to focus on one point, which is according to my opinion
and experience is very important(( how to step up from step one to step 2 in
your score)).

What I did (The Plan) :

I took step one before step 2ck. I spent 8 months to study step 1, I got 242.
immediately after I finished step one I started to study step 2 ck(very important
point to start right away after finishing step one, if you are kind of people
who plan to take step one before step 2ck). I spent 5 months in step 2
ck( which is too much time since I already finished step one, so stay calm but not
too calm" what I mean here don't expand the study time more than 5 months if you
did step one first". I got 256 in step 2ck. my plan was not only for studying usmle,
but I was doing my internship year alongside my study.

my step 2 ck experience:
books, q bank/s,nbmes.

Kaplan lecture notes: 2 times in the beginning of this journey. I took general view
about step 2 ck from Kaplan notes, how to manage patients, how to think from basic
science(step one ) to clinical science(step 2), for example, COPD disease, in step
one the main issue when the examiner presents a COPD case for you as a step one
question is to know that all lung volumes and capacities are increased such as RV ,
TLC, BUT in step 2 the same case in step one could be presented in front of you but
they ask differently, for example, what important to know to answer step 2 question
is when should we give home O2 for those patients, and the effect of O2 on
mortality(this is step 2 question) . Kaplan notes took about 1-1.5 month
I also used MTB2 for medicine and emergency medicine, MTB3 for the rest. I did it
first time by rapid reading then second time parallel to listening to high yield videos.
(by Dr. Fischer). I watched OBS/gyn Kaplan videos and surgery videos 2010, despite
they are pretty old(because I thought i am week in these 2 subjects), I do
recommend Obs/Gyn Videos.

then I subscribed to UW for 3 months(the major part of my preparation), I did

UW 2 times, timed, mixed. first time I got 82%, second time I got 96%. I took bunch
of notes and I revised them thereafter. in these three months right before the exam
I only sticked to uw in my preparation(very important point). I didn't revise
any book. while going over UW for second time I focused on education objective
for every question(the main concept of every question is there ).

before I did uw I did nbme 4 and 6 offline, I got 246, 252 respectively. after I finished
UW first time I revised my notes then I did UWSA, I got 256(was predictive in my
case). I revised notes of uwsa then I did nbme7, I got 250. now 2 weeks left before
the exam, but I was pretty confident since my scores in nbmes and uwsa were
reassuring.in these 2 weeks I made a critical decision which was to revise the whole
UW in 2 weeks. it was a big and very exhausting task, but I was able to do it well
Alhamdulillah. after I finished UW second time, I revised the notes from uwsa(some
new concepts in this test, don't miss them).

what I learned from step one in my preparation for step 2

ck:
1) don't use too many sources.. dont play scientist:)

2) stick to one q bank (uw of course is the best) and do it as much as you can. make
concepts( important) , memorize facts(less important).

3) make UW your bible for step 2ck(exactly like first aid for step one), and don't use
any source before the exam except UW.

4) when you do uw first time, do it well, no no ,do it very very very well, after that
repeat UW as much as you can .

5) focus on high yields, just high yield concepts are asked in the exam in different
and twisted ways. so don't bother with low yields.

6) don't use nbmes as a learning tool, but use them as evaluation tool.. that means
you don't have to do all nbmes offline, because many answers are misleading and
they might make you to misunderstand the concepts you already made from UW
7) please sleep well the night before the exam even if it is for just an hour . don't do
anything related to the exam the day before , relax before the exam. the good way
to sleep the night before the exam is by doing an exhausting exercise throughout
the day, make your body asks your brain deeply to sleep at 10 pm by doing
exercises(body says, please my brain go to sleep, I am dying to sleep, apparently
this is a metaphor for kind of people who are very anxious ). don't do exercise
before sleeping time. don't use the bed to study, get use on that for a while before
the exam if you are kind of person who uses bed for study. watch something makes
your nerves calm before sleeping time, in my case was a Romantic
Movie(notebook). you can try over the counter sleep aids one week before the exam
and see if it works out with you. such as diphenhydramine( it worked with me).

N.B, my step one experience was published on this group.

guys, Best of Luck for You all

Malik YG, MD