My name is Farukhzad Hafizyar and I am a graduate of Kabul University of Medical Science(KUMS) on 2018. I was an average medical student during my university days and here is my Usmle step 1 experience.
Preparation time:
Total: 17 months(with lots of breaks and interruptions)
Dedicated: 4.5 months
Study hours: 4-6 hours/day in the beginning, 7-10 hours/day towards the end.
Major Study materials and sources :
- #FirstAid: The main source, I read FA 5 times during my preparation, 3 times alone and 2 times alongside with Pathoma videos, and UWorld.
- #Pathoma_videos: I did these videos once alongside with FA at beginning of my preparation to familiarize myself with the pathology subject and to understand the basics of pathology and it was and excellent source for pathology.
- #UWorld: The most important source, I did UWorld after second round of FA and compered every topic of that with FA, which took 4.5 months of me. during my second round of UWorld I didn’t compere it with FA, but finished only 50 blocks out of 64. I recommend you to do UWorld at least 2 or 3 times, because UWorld alongside with FA covers about 90-95% of topics that are tested in the real exam.
Minor Study materials and sources:
- UWorld biostat subject review once at end and it was very helpful.
- 100 Conrad Fischer once at end and it was a very good source for ethics.
- Boards and Beyond videos only for biostatistics and ethics which was a good source but not excellent.
- Rx videos: used occasionally which was a “waste of time”.
Major Materials that I didn’t use:
- Kaplan lectures and videos
- BRS lectures
- DIT videos
- shelf notes for anatomy
Self assessments:
- UWorld first round: 81%
- UWorld second round: 93%
- Nbme 15(offline): 53 mistakes after second round of FA
- UWSA 1: 241 (after finishing half of UWorld)
- NBME 18(online): 238 (4 months ago)
- UWSA 2: 256 (3 months ago)
- NBME 16(online): 252(1.5months ago)
- NBME 19(online): 240 (2 weeks ago)
- NBME 17(online): 234 (4 days before real exam; which has ruined my self confidence)
- Free 120 questions: 85%(1 day before exam)
- Real deal: 251
Exam day:
I reached the prometric centre 30 minutes before the exam. My exam started at exactly 8 am. The question style was a mix of NBME 18, 19 and UWorld. 80% questions were easy and had straight forward answer. 10% needed a little thought process and were difficult but answers could be excluded from the knowledge of F.A and UWorld. 10% were very hard and out of nowhere.
I run out of time 3 times in block 3,4, and 5, which I marked blindly about 8 questions without reading those. I do recommend you to have at least one simulation test with 7 blocks of UWorld for increasing the endurance and coping with real exam. After finishing the exam I had about 25-40 mistakes which I could recall after the exam, but I didn’t get panic and waited for date of score release.
At end I want to thank all those my friends which has helped and supported me throughout my preparation, and sorry from my language mistakes.