hi my name is Rishi Desai and I'm here
to give you a few high-yield tips for us
Emily step 1 first off doing well takes
a lot of hard work and a lot of
confidence and with that in mind I've
seen students score in the two 60s to
70s and and you can too one thing to
kind of keep in mind right off the bat
nvme as you might know has as announced
that that their exam is gonna be kind of
a max of 40 questions in in a block and
they're gonna be seven blocks a total of
280 questions in a day people have
wondered if that means kind of longer
vignettes you know nobody knows for
certain exactly that's the case but but
the facts are that the key changes are
things like user interface changes that
you can kind of familiarize yourself
with they're gonna have a bigger font
they're gonna allow you to kind of
switch between black and white
backgrounds so you can kind of see which
one you like better what's easier on the
eyes they're allowing you to zoom in on
images and in fact there's a tutorial on
how to do this so check that out and
play around with kind of the basically
the the keyboard shortcuts to kind of
let you basically get more familiar with
how to use that so that on the day off
so you don't feel flustered or feel like
you've never seen it before
so let's get into the nitty-gritty of
USMLE step one and I've come up with
kind of a five-step strategy to doing
really well on the test I'm gonna walk
you through it I'm gonna talk about
osmosis because that's the the platform
I know best but we're going to talk
about other you know platforms and
content as well so you kind of see how
to fit it in and how it all makes sense
together so so let's start with step one
this is early on kind of five to 20
months before you take the test so
really early first year format at school
may be kind of first part a second year
and at this point just be a good medical
student you know just enjoy your classes
enjoy your life you know don't stress
out people start talking about us Emily
you know immediately after white coat
ceremony and and try not to do that if
you are the closet gunner if I'm talking
to you I would say try to stay in the
closet don't freak people out you know
no need for that in the old days people
used to buy first day to take the book
and they would rip the binding off or
patho might do the same thing in
three-hole punch it and kind of open it
up and highlight Nana
and that was good you know 20 years ago
today it really is a much better system
to just do it all electronically it
allows you to kind of automatically
search for keywords in your notes so
later down the road when you're
searching through your notes you can
find them much more easily so I
recommend you do that early on when
you're in med school it may seem trivial
but when you've jotted something down
and choose later you're looking for and
you can't find it it wastes a lot of
time trying to decipher words and your
notes from from who knows back when so
just searching automatically is really
great for this bit of time also early on
you should also consider using a system
that allows you to automatically search
your notes hospitals has handles this by
automatically tagging your personal
notes to your coursework so that so
that's huge right you can just quickly
find it and find the exact PowerPoint
where you learn that particular concept
the other thing is spaced repetition and
and you want to make sure you use some
sort of platform that allows you to do
free spaced repetition ideally and it
helps with long term retention that the
research you can click on that you know
points that out very clearly and if you
do that through med school you're going
to be in good shape so that the data
shows this is the way to go you know you
don't wanna be highlighting and
annotating you want spaced repetition so
you're focusing on there is that you you
are struggling with rather than just
kind of doing the stuff that you know
really well over and over again so Anki
Quizlet osmosis basic all free of charge
they're all free of charge of the three
I know osmosis is basic the best it
allows you to create flashcards along
with your course documents so it right
alongside of what you're doing in school
it also lets you kind of crowdsource
questions really easily so you can kind
of answer questions that other people in
your class have written you know once
you get in the habit for a few reasons
one is that it's easy to answer
questions you've written but you want to
start seeing how other people would
phrase something just kind of get your
mind thinking about that and it really
does become much more challenging so so
force yourself to do that if you can and
and it sets you up really well for when
you're studying for USMLE step one
you're kind of ready to go you've
already practiced a lot of this kind of
skill building so step two starting to
study this is three to five months
before the test day right at this point
you're starting to figure out what
question banks should you use the two
that I would recommend are you world and
nvme
together it's about 4,000 questions you
want to do a couple nvm ease figure out
where your strengths are your weaknesses
are so you know what to focus on this
part of the exam you'll also want to do
additional practice boards questions so
you don't want to use up all your you
world questions at this point so I
recommend you look at one of the other
question banks for example mostess has a
question Bank of 3,000 plus questions q
max Kaplan Q Bank both have about 2,000
questions doesn't matter which one you
choose choose one of them and the good
thing is you want to use these for
learning primarily now one thing that
I've come to really enjoy about osmosis
questions that I think is really neat is
that the osmosis questions allow you to
figure out your confidence level before
you answer the question so it asks you
how confer are you and then you click
whatever the answer is and the other
ones are going to ask you that after so
it's important to answer the confidence
question before because then you can
focus on the stuff you're not confident
about as well as the stuff you're
getting wrong and there's those two
buckets of questions I really want you
to kind of drill into and say okay why
was I not confident about that why was I
getting that wrong go and find learning
resources that can help you figure those
things out and the classic learning
resources that you're familiar with
Costanzo for physiology path almost is
di t high-yield book slaying flashcards
whatever you need now a lot of these
cost money and in and I realized that
you know money doesn't grow on trees
you're probably not so happy with having
to spend so much so we've created a free
resource completely free resource to
help you learn you can check out the
link these are video based resources
that are awesome click on it you know
see for yourself if you like it the idea
is that you know as long as you find the
answers to those things that you're
getting wrong early on you're gonna do
well on the USMLE step 1 so now let's go
fast for a little bit to step 3 the ramp
up phase this is one to two months out
of the exam so at this point you have to
think about your goals and first off
average you Assembly scores are 229 and
if you're thinking about something
especially for my international or for
medical graduate students if you're
thinking of something competitive you
should be thinking four to six that get
around to 65 so if you can aim for that
if you're think about something less
competitive like keys or family medicine
to 35 so just figure out where are you
spectrum of 235 to 265 and what's your
personal goal what do you really kind of
want to aim for we also want to set a
time deadline my best students the ones
that set a time deadline know exactly
the date they're hanging the USMLE step
on and really just focus in on that
rather than saying I'll take it when I'm
ready so you just wanna kind of circle a
date on the calendar and just move
towards that date and then you're a
mental ninja you want to just get into
the mindset of a mental ninja 10 to 12
hours studying every single day that
means being disciplined with your social
lights with with eating with healthy
exercising with sleeping well with
making everything about your day about
preparation for that test and leading up
to the test you want to figure out what
resources do you want to use and you
want to create a daily schedule osmosis
allows you to do that really easily just
you know you can look at the interface
type in what you you know when you want
to start studying how long you want to
study for when your exam date is and
then check out the resources you want to
use the popular ones include ufap oh
that's a fun acronym you world first aid
path oma and osmosis so you fap oh and
it automatically generates a day-by-day
schedule for you so you can change the
schedule based on how many days you want
to allocate to each topic that's up to
you you can mix that up you can include
breaks for yourself you can assign
yourself full-length exams on the nvme
or you world and as you go through
everything remember it's best to
actively think rather than passively
reading or watching something so at this
point spend most of your time doing
questions and then going back over your
answers because that's where you get a
good sense of why you're getting things
right or wrong also helps you get
practice during questions and kind of
builds endurance so at this point you
want to squeeze every bit of information
or knowledge out of each question right
so here's some tricks on how to do that
really well
well the way I like to approach
questions so first I basically cover up
the answer options on a question and I
say okay what what do I think the answer
would be so just don't allow myself to
cue my answer by just looking at
something but just trying to recall it
and you can do that with your laptop
screen just like literally covering it
up or you don't scroll all the way down
on your phone and then after you've kind
of come up with an answer you want to
verbalize wide the right answer is the
right answer you know put into words and
why are the wrong answer is the wrong
answer and then say okay what
would change about that question that
would make one of these wrong answers
correct what would have to change so
really kind of really interrogating that
question and then finally saying okay
what didn't I get right you know what
what didn't I understand about the right
honest answers or wrong answers let me
go look that up so sometimes you spend
ten minutes going and looking things up
you know again going to those primary
resources the the the books the
high-yield books the flashcards or the
videos and it can take ten minutes or so
but it's well well worth it
okay all right so it's a step for crunch
time this is one week before the exam
you're still doing a lot of the same
things but in the final week I want to
make sure you pack in information that's
going to be heavy on memorization in
kind of light on the concepts and and
this is kind of things like biochemistry
you know microbiology and I'm an
infectious disease doctor I'll be the
first to admit that microbiology is in
this category
pharmacology embryology genetics stuff
where you know there's lots of questions
you don't wanna get them wrong just
because you didn't memorize some fact or
something that you're supposed to
remember
so really spend that last week really
focusing on this stuff make sure you
nail it and all this stuff it's it's
hard to keep straight so this is why
that last week you want to kind of
devote to those topics and by this point
if you haven't already done it finish
off those nbme exams all the other ones
you want to make sure you nail those
many as you can and and they're gonna
predict kind of where your real scores
gonna end up I've seen that time and
time again so they're gonna tell you
what you can probably expect on exam day
within let's say five or ten points now
at this point you're in the homestretch
right so Step five final day 24 hours
before the exam now in test day you're
not gonna have anything with you no
books no online resources no flashcards
you're gonna walk into the test by
yourself so the day before the test I
would suggest spending the day the same
way you've studied hard just go and
relax you know try to get yourself in a
good frame of mind this is day you want
to prepare for logistics you know make
sure you know where to go how to get
there bring snacks for the day sleep
well the night before bring layered
clothing light jacket in case it rains
an umbrella all that kind of stuff you
also want to make sure you don't drink
too much coffee the day of the test cuz
you're gonna have adrenaline flowing so
you don't be all shaky and jittery and
you want to pump yourself up right this
is where a confidence really matters you
want to pump yourself up a couple ways
to do that that are sign
miss prove and we're gonna go over there
right now together two ways first power
poses so this is where you just raise
your arms you go yes just real loud yes
and you can do the double fist pump just
that yeah yeah yeah just pump it and
then the other way is just force
laughter right force yourself to laugh
even if you don't feel like laughing
just ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and by the end
of it and I hope you laughing cause
otherwise I feel like I'm just a crazy
person on YouTube laughing but by the
end of it you're gonna start feeling
really good so if you've stayed this
long a couple of bonus tips I'm gonna
give you some just extra things first
off it's a marathon
studying is hard it's really tough and
so some some software you can get to
block out you know websites you don't
want to go to for me that would be like
nba.com or social media just block that
stuff out so you don't have to go to it
it's also good to divide up your work
and they're like 25-minute kind of real
power sessions you're just working hard
and then 2 minutes or just like stretch
out your back stretch out your neck and
just allow yourself to just breathe
deeply just relax your mind
I'm also an infectious disease doctors
so that part of me has to come through
and say look in your final week make
sure you wash your hands make sure you
don't stay around people that are sick
you don't last thing you want is to wake
up day the test and then someone someone
got you sick and you're feeling terrible
or sore throat or something you don't
want that right and then if there's one
thing one thing you get out of this
video let it be this that you want to
make sure you do little things to make
yourself feel good you know all all this
is about going and taking care of
patients eventually right this is just
one hurdle you have to cross along the
way and keep that in mind
don't lose that perspective and keep
your spirits up by doing things that are
good for you right so go out and if it
makes you happy
drink a smoothie you know if it makes
you happy go to the garden if you if you
like you know animals play with your dog
you know do the things that make you
happy and and on that note I'm gonna
give you something that hopefully makes
you happy it's a little cartoon from
awkward Getty it always makes me smile
so enjoy the cartoon and I wish you the
best of luck
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org
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