hey everybody and welcome back to this

series on step one preparation today's

video is specifically focused on how you
can make a schedule to help guide your
step one studying process a schedule is
one of the most important parts of step
one because without it you don't have
any plan on how to actually tackle
preparing for this exam there's a lot of
different resources out there for how
you can put a schedule together and this
is just my personal approach to how I
made my schedule and some tips for how
you can look at doing yours don't forget
to check out the rest of the videos in
my step one series talking about overall
strategy how to use different question
banks how to use the resources out there
in order to best tackle your preparation
for step one so there should be two
components in my opinion to your
schedule when it comes to step one
preparation and that's to break it down
to the period before your dedicated
study time and the period during your
dedicated study time regardless of your
medical school schedule you should have
some period of time that's focused
solely to preparing for step one and
then of course the period of time
beforehand during the rest of second
year where you're going to be doing
multiple things let's talk first about
the period of time before your dedicated
study preparation now this of course is
very based on what your personal
preference is for your strategy on step
one and depends on how much you wanted
to do throughout second year before your
dedicated study time personally my goal
was to get through all of you world once
before my dedicated study period and
then have the majority of my resources
all allocated into first aid around kind
of Christmas time and before my
dedicated study period so come up with
whatever your goals are for before you
start your dedicated period and then try
to set more broad expectations for when
you want to meet those goals in regards
to your schedule let's say for example
you know that you want to have a certain
portion of first aid reviewed by
Christmas break of your second year then
that's fine that can be as simple as
your schedule is but have some sort of
time point before your dedicated study
period that you're aiming for in order
to start your preparation if you're
using first aid as your primary resource
for step 1 then break down in terms of
when you want to have gone through first
aid for the first time you're gonna go
through it multiple times most likely
but it's good to have a general sense of
what your timeline is for getting
through with that and
initial time if you start too soon
you're probably gonna burn yourself out
so don't think that you have to get
through all a first-aid early on in
second-year but have some point in time
where you say you know what based on my
schedule this feels like a reasonable
date for which I could have gotten
through first aid that first go-round if
you're using some of these other guided
resources like firecracker is a pretty
common one look at the total number of
questions or the total number of topics
that you need to get through and then
how much time you have between that day
and between your dedicated study time if
you've got let's say a hundred questions
and you have you know ten weeks before
you're starting your dedicated study
period then just focus on getting
through ten topics a week so that you're
on schedule by the time you finish and
start your dedicated time and actually
write these goals out if your goal is to
get through half of first aid by
Christmas put on a piece of paper what
that timeline looks like for you so that
you can actually have something to
follow every day a lot of people
probably won't do too much studying
until their actual dedicated time or if
they do it'll be a lot more informal and
that's totally okay so I want to focus
next so I'm probably the more crucial
part and that's how to break down your
study schedule during your dedicated
study period the first thing to think
about is what your actual schedule is
going to be throughout the day now
personally I didn't do this because I've
never been the type of person to use a
calendar and a day planner to go about
my regular day but some people do and so
what I've seen people have good success
was is defining you know from 8:00 a.m.
until 10:00 a.m. I'm gonna do you world
questions and then from 10:00 a.m. until
noon I'm gonna review first aid then I'm
gonna have lunch and then plan your day
out accordingly you know put in things
like exercise time put in time for meals
put in time to relax so that if you're
the type of person that needs that
schedule throughout your individual days
you've got a plan for what you're gonna
do during each portion of the day during
your dedicated prep time every single
minute of your day is valuable and so
it's good to have an idea of how you're
gonna allocate those times throughout
the day
I'd recommend giving yourself one day
off or at least one half of a day off
each week don't burn yourself out by
thinking that you have to study for 1216
hours every single day straight for
whatever number of weeks straight build
some time into your schedules that you
have some time to relax recover and kind
of get your mind away from
medical school what I personally did was
moreso make his schedule for how I was
going to review all the different topics
and get through all the material that I
wanted to get through and the way that I
would recommend making your schedule is
to work backwards so start with when
your actual test date is and then work
backwards to fill in the weeks of your
dedicated study period or even more if
you need to fit in everything that you
have to get through and then once you
have where your starting point is from
your test date list out everything that
you're trying to get through within your
dedicated study time both in terms of
you know the number of questions you
want to get through in your question
Bank the number of chapters of first aid
the flashcards you want to get through
whatever your individual resources are
that you're working through list all
those out so that you have objective
stuff on paper in front of you with what
you need to get through within your set
dedicated study period I personally had
I think an 8 week schedule that I worked
through and that wasn't all dedicated
time but I felt like whenever I listed
out all the things I wanted to get
through eight weeks was a good amount of
time in which I could allocate those
different things so for me personally
the things I wanted to get through in my
dedicated study time were by this point
I had already gone through you world
once and I wanted to go through it a
second time completely on random
simulating what the real test was gonna
be like in terms of the questions per
block I also knew that I wanted to get
through everything in first aid one more
time by the time I started my dedicated
period I had already put all of my
additional information into first aid
like I talked about in my resource video
and all I had to review was first aid so
I wanted to get through everything one
more time before I actually took my test
and so that was part of what in to
making my schedule so what I did was I
listed out the total number of chapters
within first-aid and divided those out
into the days I had available to set a
goal for which chapters I was going to
get through by which date and it's
important to actually take out a
calendar and put things on the actual
day of the month so that you have a set
goal for when you're gonna finish them
by so for example if you list out you
know the cardiology section infectious
disease pulmonary renal all those things
within first-aid then you have a list of
however many
topics and you can say alright I have X
number of weeks and I have this many
topics to get through so this is how I
need to distribute them within each day
of the calendar so that I can make sure
I get all of them done now interspersed
with each of those I knew there were
let's say 2000 questions in first aid if
there's 2000 questions in first aid and
I know that each block is gonna be 40
questions and I could calculate how many
individual blocks of you world that I
needed to complete in order to do all of
the questions in you world a second time
once I did that I had a number of how
many blocks of you world I had to do by
my test date and once again I could go
back to my calendar and I could fill in
the dates with how many blocks of you
world I wanted to do each day to make
sure that I got through all of them by
the end of my dedicated study period the
other part that I added to my calendar
was when I was gonna do my practice
tests and personally my medical school
help pay for practice tests and so I
took as many as I could I think I took
four or five of them and I basically did
them on the weekends and so on my
calendar I had on Saturday morning I was
gonna take a practice test and so I
liked having an actual physical piece of
paper or you know in my case I put it in
my iPad with on you know May first I'm
gonna go through the biostatistics
portion of first-aid and I'm gonna do
three blocks of you world and then on
May second I'm gonna do two blocks of
you world and I'm gonna go through the
first portion of the cardiology section
of first-aid and so I went through it in
that manner and had something in front
of me that I could check off each day
after I was done with that assignment
one of the other little things I did
that I read is a trick online and when
you're dividing up which topics of
first-aid you're gonna go through on
each day try to kind of group similar
things together so for example pulmonary
and cardiovascular kind of go hand in
hand there's a lot of overlap between
things and so I did the cardiology and
the pulmonary sections back to back
similarly if from the first time you've
gone through you world you know where
your weaknesses are when you make your
schedule dedicate more time to those
weaker sections so let's say there's a
hundred pages within the renal section
of first-aid and you know that
nephrology is one
your weaker points dedicate like two or
three or four days within your study
schedule to just getting through
nephrology because you know it's gonna
take more time as opposed to a topic
like biostatistics that maybe you're
really really good at only put you know
like one day on your calendar for
reviewing bio stats because you know you
don't need to devote as much time to it
so take into consideration what your
weak points are in your knowledge base
and then devote more days to reviewing
that subject in first aid whenever
you're in your dedicated period don't
give them all equal weight because you
know that there's some that you're
better at than others and so you should
give those weaker ones more time and
devotion when you're studying then I say
that I liked about doing this calendar
aside from having a plan in front of me
was I knew I was never gonna be behind
my schedule so if you don't know where
you're at in terms of getting through
all of you world or getting through
first aid and you've got some number of
days left until your test and can be
really stressful to know whether or not
you're moving quick enough and whether
or not you're studying in a fast enough
pace to get through everything but if
you have your calendar you can rest
assured knowing that at the end of the
day if you did what was on your calendar
then you know that you're gonna have
everything done in time for your actual
test date so just to summarize what I
think is best in terms of making a
schedule for your dedicated studying
period put a list together of everything
you need to get through and then divide
out those individual topics based on how
much material there is to cover divide
out how many questions there are within
your question Bank divide out how many
pages there are within each section of
first aid or path omma or whatever other
book you're using get some objective
numbers in terms of how long and how
much you need to get through a certain
subject take a look at what's your
weakest and what your strongest points
are and then on an actual physical piece
of paper with calendar days of the week
write down which topics you're gonna do
on each of those days in accordance with
how much time you need to prepare for
them and how weak or strong you feel in
that subject sprinkle in whenever you're
going to do your practice test so that
those are accounted for as well and then
if you want to get more detailed take it
day-by-day and break down what you're
gonna do in the morning what you're
gonna do in the afternoon the evening so
that if you're more particular about how
you have your time in terms of
scheduling you then have a plan for
you're gonna do hour by hour through
each part of your day either way it's
extremely important to make a schedule
to help guide you during this process
it's gonna become more stressful as you
get closer to your test day and so if
you have something to rely on that you
know ahead of time will work out then
you can just focus on your schedule and
not worry about making sure you get
everything done stick to your plan and
everything will get done in time and
then you'll be prepared as you can be
for the actual test day so that's it for
this video on my step 1 series with how
to make a study schedule for both the
non-dedicated portion of step 1 prep and
for the dedicated portion of the exam
check out the rest of the videos in this
series we're also going to be talking
about the resources I used and how to
get the most out of these resources the
question Bank I used and how to
appropriately use it and study from it
and then other kind of general
strategies and tips for preparing for
step 1 hope you enjoyed the video thanks
for watching and we'll see you next time
thanks