Step 1 Post-Mortem - The Very Short Version

Hi all,

Several people have asked me to comment on the outcome of my Step 1 adventure. I want to give it a more full treatment when I get time, but right now, I'll give the short and sweet version.


First, my score.
I am hesitant to blast my Step 1 score on the interwebz for all to see. I think you can appreciate. But I also know that that result is important for judging whether my Anki strategy is worthwhile. I will give a qualitative result:  I was extremely pleased with my outcome, and I couldn't have asked for more. Take that as you will.

Short story:
1. Anki works really really.  Many questions, both in qbanks and on the real test would jump out at me as an Anki card, and that would enable me to answer them quickly and correctly.
2. UWorld is amazing. Many real q's looked very similar. Putting qbanks above content review was a good strategy for me. Because Anki started me off with a very solid base, I could take full advantage of UWorld and USMLERx from day 1.
3. 7 weeks was too long.  I should have done 5 or 6 weeks. I had to work very hard to get marginal gains in my performance compared to my initial NBME test. Diminishing returns. The silver-lining of that story, however, is that that means I was already poised to do well on Step 1 from day 1 b/c of Anki. So its conceivable that someone might use Anki and do qbanks during their normal class schedule, and then not even have to use dedicated time for Step 1. So that means a 1+ month vacation for someone with the courage to try that.
4. If I had done Anki for subjects like biochem, behavioral science, etc. early on, I probably would have done no content review at all. Maybe like 2-3 days at max. So for the future, students who use Anki from day 1 of med school may not need to do much content review at all.


I promise I'll come give more detail at another time. But the take-away now is that the Anki-Step 1 strategy I've described on this blog works. If you use good cards and are dedicated and disciplined in using them, you be set for success (however you define that). And, best of all, your learning efforts are not for naught. The knowledge will not be fleeting. The stuff I studied in the preclinical years is now burned in my head, and I hope that some of it will be useful to me in the future.

Good luck to you all on your Step 1 journeys. And thanks for following my own path here on this blog. I hope I've helped some of you.

Now it's time to start doing (and writing about) other exciting things.