My step 1 exp.

" score 247 "

Al-Salam Alaykom ,

My name is Hassaan Gomaa , i am currently a 6th year medical student in Tanta university , i knew
about Eamtar from my friends , they really helped me a lot besides the great info. i got from this group .
At 1st i'd like to thank everyone who helped me through this critical period of my life : My family ,
friends , study partners , my mentor :)
First of all you should know what you really want , is the USMLE path is the right one for you ! "pray
ISTEKHARA" , Do you have the 4 essential factors to complete that path with a good score ? "HARD
WORKING - A GOOD MENTOR - A COMPETITIVE STUDY PARTNER - ENOUGH MONEY"
The 4 essential factors :
1- Hard working : believe or not it's the most important factor in this pathway , you'll never imagine how
much effort you'll pay even if you were already a hard worker student in your college , this is different
especially for Egyptians :) , still you will love and enjoy the sweat of it . At the end of this step you'll be
officially a thinker with TONS of useful info
2- A good mentor : is another important key to success , He/she will guide you the way and will ensure
you'll not do anything stupid during the studying period . Mine was Ayman Abdelrazeq " i used to tell
myself if the First Aid is the USMLE bible , Ayman should be the pope :) " , check his Exp. it'll help you
alot https://www.facebook.com/groups/usmlesteponeeamtar/permalink/793637623995822/
3- A competitive study partner : actually i got 4 study partners at different study phases , one of them
was such a competitive dedicated bastard " everytime i wanted to take a day as a break he tried to study
harder at that day so he become ahead of me and that helped me a lot "
4-Enough money : the USMLE path costs about a 12-15 thousands dollars

Some general Tips:

*NEVER lose hope while you are studying , you'll feel desperate a lot and you'll go through a lot of downs
, but trust me all you need is to work and work and work more harder till you reach your goal
*Every info you have known through your whole studying of medicine can be used and will be used
against you , you'll answer some questions on the exam from your memory of a lecture you had on the
1st year "true story"
*Share as much info as you can with others that will not only benefit them but also will make you
remember this info better
*Help people as much as you can , GOD will reward you :)
*sleep at least 6 hours a day whatever the amount of studying
*Start solving UWorld with the 1st FA read
*you should start studying after finishing the internal medicine course at you college as most of cases
need some experience in internal medicine
*ECGs , CTs , X-rays , Ausculting Murmurs , other tools are heavily tested nowadays , try to improve
yourself about those.
*Try to have your first self-assessment as fast as possible so that you can know where you'll start from
and what are your weak points

I have done kaplan vedios and books except in microbiology "i did MMRS" and pathology " i did
pathoma" took notes and put them in the FA" , FA and kaplan biochem. book for 7 times , UWorld 2
times and a half "that half is the marked and wrong questions", Kaplan Qbank except pathology-micro-
biochem , BRS in renal-cardio-respiratory physiology , High yield in neuro-anatomy , 100 cases of
Dr.Conard Fischer , ALL the NBMEs

*for the paper work please review Ayman's exp.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/usmlesteponeeamtar/permalink/793637623995822/

Chapter 1 : starting
I began with anatomy " an easy subject" started with kaplan vedios and books with a rate 1 hour daily of
the vedios and what's equivalent to this hour in the books then take notes as much as i can of info that
the instructor said "wrote after him in kaplan books " also info from the book i thought it'd be useful "by
marking them"
then after i finished the vedios and reading the books , took all the notes of anatomy i copied them to
the FA " i did that at the end of each subject"

physiology: did the same as with anatomy , increased the rate of studying to reach a 3 hours per day of
vedios , BRS is also a great source for cardio-renal-respiratory physiology

Biochemistry and Genetics : did the same as with anatomy

*FA +Kaplan books (+/- High yield if you needed it)

*I really didn't know anything about those 2 subjects untill i started studying step 1 , they are really
complicated and most of our Egyptian college professors don't explain it well , it's nearly a weakness for
all the Egyptians , but have no worries you'll master it at the 5th read of the FA and kaplan book .

Pharmacology : did the same as with anatomy

*you'll enjoy Dr.Raymon lectures in pharmacology , every word he says you can find it in the exam
*you'll take too many notes , don't be lazy

microbiology : Don't do kaplan vedios or book

*read the MMRS it's fun and takes notes also , never stop taking notes even if the First Aid is great in
microbiology but recently the micro questions became so hard

immunology : did the same as with anatomy

*it's a small chapter but a tricky one , understand it well , kaplan notes and vedios are usually enough , if
they weren't do High yield

Behavioral science and biostatistics:

*well that's another weak subject for all Egyptians , in Behavioral the kaplan vedios of Dr.Steven " he's
working for Becker institution now" will be enough "don't read kaplan book except for the Dr patient
relationship chapter" also do the 100 cases of Dr.Fischer , Behavioral Questions will always be tricky but
you'll survive
*Biostatistics is scary for people who don't like Maths , you have to solve a lot of questions to master it ,
on my exam the biostats questions were pretty direct

pathology : pathoma vedios + First Aid + 60 pages of Goljian , directly wrote the notes of pathoma vedios
into the FA
pathoms is a great source and Dr.Sattar is really marvelous

*Notes:
*that study phase took me about 3 months and a half , i started on 8-12-2013 and ended it on 23-3-2014
then i took about 2 weeks as a vacation
*it's the most interesting phase of studying , you learn a lot of mysterious topics your professors in
college used to explain badly , you'll start to feel human again.
*I disassembled my FA and rejoined it in an "Archive file" so that i can add Kaplan book of biochemistry
in between the pages , also add any diagram or notes i need " i also like to study from only one source ,
so the book was huge but i liked it " I even named it Heaven LOL"

Chapter 2 : exploring the FA and UW offline

after the 1st phase I took a week as a vacation then :
I started to study subject-wise pathology, anatomy , pharma etc. , and after every sub-subject I finish I
did the UW , for example I started with cardio-physiology then I solved UW in cardio physiology and so
on.
This phase took about 45-50 days
Notes:
*This is the most important step in setting a good base to build on it your info in the next phases , take
your time in it
*always take notes from UW , READ EVERY SINGLE EXPLANATION FOR THE ANSWERS
*UW in this phase is for collecting info not for self-assessing
*any other sources you need to do highyield or whatever do them in this phase

Chapter 3 : consolidating your info

in this phase I did the FA 2 more times in 28 days then I took NBME 11 , I got 214 offline I was
devastated I wished I could get 230 , I didnt search for the right answers in the following days which
was very very very wrong as I discovered later my problem wasnt with the info as I knew most of the
questions I got wrong but it was a concentration problem
Note:
*after every single NBME or any SA you should fetch the right answers , know your defect and fix it.

Chapter 4 : the moment of truth

I did UW online , then I studied the FA 1 more time , kaplan Qbank in anatomy-physiology-
pathophysiology-genetics-biostats-behavioral . I did NBME 15 online and I got 215 42 days before the
exam when I fetched the right answers I discovered my concentration defect I was devastated and
kept telling myself thats not true I am better than that but deep inside I knew I was deceiving myself
Notes:
*when you are solving the UW for the 2 nd time do it online timed and tutor , DONT alt + tab whatever
happened while you are solving a block , concentrate well
* I did 6-7 blocks a day
*after solving the UW , re-solve the marked/wrong questions again
*take photo notes of good diagrams that will help you later

Chapter 5: Hard working

this phase was 42 days of 16 hours of studying daily

I did the FA 3 times , the 1st took 10 days , the 2nd and 3rd took 7 days each
I did kaplan Qbank in pharmacology and immunology
I did the remaining NBMEs 1-2-3-4-5-6 used them as a question pool not as a self-assessment
NBME 7 240 , 30 days before the exam
NBME 12 248 , 15 days before the exam
NBME 16 online 230 , 13 days before the exam
NBME 13 256 , 2 days before the exam

Notes:
* I used to be anxious while taking the NBMEs that would explain a lot what happened in NBME 16 , try
to stay calm
*try to take NBME 16 before your exam by at least 30 days , so that your studies for FA would be
oriented to the way the exam will be the real exam resembles NBME 16 a lot
*before the exam by 10 days I took NBME 6 and half NBME 4 in 6 consecutive hours 300 Questions so
that you train your mind to be efficient at solving big bulks
*my exam was on 30-9 , on 28-9 I revised about 70 pages of the FA that I usually forget
glomerulonephritis subject and others
*On 29-9 I revised the photo notes I took from eamtar group , UW , NBMEs , my friends and study
partners in about 1 hour in the morning , I watched some episodes of a series then met my friends try
to relax as you did all you can before I traveled to cairo

Chapter 6: The fight :D

On 29-9 I stayed at Kanzy hotel its a great place to stay but one of my friends who has booked a room
many days a ago was rejected to stay there as the rooms were full !!!! so its unreliable, search for
alternatives like Almanar hotel
I traveled alone , stayed alone.
I watched a movie and slept at 9 P.M , waked up to pray Alfajr and slept again till 7 A.M , ate my
breakfast , checked out at 7 : 45 A.M and walked to Amidest , I was lost at 1 st but I was there at 8:10
I entered the exam room at 9 , they will take a photo of you by the PC cam , they will give you a locker for
your stuff and a key , you are allowed to keep the key and your passport only in the exam room
I entered the room , sat down and started the tutorial block dont waste the tutorial block time as
youll need it to add up on your break time just check the headphones and skip the other items
I took block 1-2 then 8 mins break ,3 then 7 mins break , 4 then 15 mins break , 5-6 then 25 mins break
then block 7
ate about 5 snickers and 2 boxes of juices
emptied my bladder in each break
in the last break 25 mins I drank a cup of nescafe from the boufet upstairs
at the end you take w paper that indicates you complete the exam.
Notes:
*try to be their early to adapt to the environment and finish your palpitations before you enter the exam
room
*take your passport , your scheduling permit
*Dont eat a greasy or protien breakfast , avoid large meals , I ate a bate and drank coffee
*empty your bowel and bladder before leaving the hotel or in the Amidest
*every time you take a break you are searched again by the exam admin it usually takes 1 minute of your
brake time
*they take you fingerprint every time you return from the break
*In auscultaion questions of heart murmurs , you can change the site of the stethoscope on the chest of
the patient
*stay calm its not an exam its just a show to demonstrate your power of knowledge , be confident

GOD bless you all , and good luck ,

Hassaan.