Step 2 CK study plan Reddit

Hi everyone! I know some people don't like these posts, but I know there are others who look for these and appreciate the advice. Personally, a few posts like this helped me a lot before I started M3 and I wanted to return the favor. If this isn't helpful for you, please feel free to skip over it.

If you're looking for tips specific to dedicated, this post won't be very helpful to you. This is focused more on how I studied throughout M3 that set me up well for Step 2. I will add a little about my dedicated period at the end, but I'm sure there are other more helpful posts about that!

For context (preclinical years):

M1: Failed some exams and was a below average student throughout the year despite crazy amount of studying. Frustrated and down on myself.

M2: Started using Anki and doing more practice questions and less reading. My grades started improving a lot, but nothing super impressive.

M3 shelf scores and Step 2:

  • Surgery: 78th percentile (my first rotation, studying was all over the place, tried and failed to read Devirgilio, did Anki first and then UWorld in the last 3 weeks)

  • IM, Neuro, Peds, Psych, FM, OB/Gyn: 96+ percentile

  • Step 2: 27x

General M3 study strategy:

I used Zanki Step 2 and UWorld almost exclusively. I made a study schedule based off of this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/8v2v90/clinical_dukes_strategy_to_excelling_during_m3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I've never been able to stick to a schedule but I was surprised to find this doable. It helped immensely to know what needed to be done each day and track my progress. Building leeway into the schedule allowed me to stay on track when I inevitably had days where I could not complete my daily study goal. The last week of the clerkship in the days leading up to my shelf I did one practice NBME each day for a total of 4 practice exams. Ideally, I would have the day before the shelf free to review last minute concepts, but this often didn't work out.

Starting my study schedule on Day 1 of the clerkship benefitted me in two ways:

-Smaller bites of studying was more manageable and I found I was able to get more out of my studying vs. rushing through questions at the end. You are NOT learning the same thing doing 100 questions in a day as you are doing 10 questions a day for 10 days.

-Studying earlier was immensely helpful for pimping

Anki: I prioritized finishing my daily Anki cards before UWorld questions because if you fall too far behind on Anki it can become impossible to catch up. As the year went on, I kept up with all my reviews from past clerkships. This was not as hard as it sounds because the reviews decrease as you keep doing them. I had the Anki app on my phone and would try to knock out 5-10 cards here and there throughout the day in the hospital. By the time I got home I was typically at least halfway done, oftentimes more. Towards the end of the year I got AMBOSS and used their Anki add-on. It was super helpful and I wish I did this earlier.

UWorld: I think this is where a lot of people go wrong. I always hear people talking about wanting to spend the first few weeks "learning material" and then doing questions in the second half of the clerkship. This is what I did during surgery and as you can see my score was significantly lower. After surgery, I started questions on Day 1 of every rotation. You will be surprised with how much you already know from preclinical years. What you don't know, you will pick up. I typically scored fairly low my first few blocks and then improved rapidly. I found it extremely beneficial to see material repeated in smaller doses over the course of the entire clerkship as opposed to cramming questions in the last few weeks. I read every single word on every explanation for correct and incorrect answers regardless of whether or not I got a question correct. I did not take a single note. You will quickly realize that the same concepts keep appearing, and every time you read about it your memory will be refreshed and you will begin to pick up new facts or see how it relates to other topics in different ways. I kept a word document filled with the tables to go back and memorize at the end of the clerkship if I had time/needed to so that I wouldn't waste time pouring over them while reviewing questions, but I never ended up using it.

Practice NBMEs: Do them. If you are choosing between finishing UWorld questions and doing an NBME, always do the NBME. The shelf exams are written by the NBME, and the practice exams are by far most similar to the actual shelf in regards to questions that seem to come out of left field. I often looked on Facebook for answer explanations, but I did not rely on them. If something seemed off to me or I did not completely understand the concept, I read more using the AMBOSS library and sometimes UpToDate.

For all of these resources, always focus on understanding and not memorization. I always heard people say that but did not understand what they meant until this year. While doing Anki, I didn't just memorize the cards. For every fact, I asked myself "why is this true?" or "what does this relate to/when would this be important?" and I made sure I knew. AMBOSS add-on was super helpful for this. If you do this, you will not need to sit down and memorize a single list or table because if things make sense to you you will be able to remember them or reason them out. I cannot emphasize this enough because when you sit down for the shelf exam and especially Step 2, you will not see almost anything you explicitly studied. As a general rule, anything "high yield" tends to not actually show up on exams because question writers know every student has memorized these things. The exams rely almost entirely on your ability to actually understand what you are learning and apply that knowledge to scenarios you have never seen before.

Clerkship specific resources

  • Surgery: Surgical recall is useless, even for pimp questions. Devirgilio is probably a good resource but ain't no one got time for that. Everyone says read Pestana right before your shelf- I say read it at the beginning of the clerkship for a brief overview of important concepts. I wish I did that because the surgery UWorld questions aren't great, and when I read Pestana at the end I thought "wow, this is everything my team kept expecting me to know and I could have saved myself a month of looking like an idiot if I spent a few hours reading this at the beginning".

  • IM: I listened to Emma Holiday at the beginning and I read through most of the OME notes, focusing on topics I knew I was weakest on because I knew I wouldn't get through all of it. I only did this for IM because the information is so vast and broad I felt I needed a little guidance. Try to find a PDF of the notes from other students in your class. I never watched the OME videos.

  • Neurology: I read BluePrints because I'm going into neurology and I wanted to. This isn't necessary and I don't think a lot schools have a required neuro rotation anyway.

  • Family: You will notice there are no FM UWorld questions. I did about half of the AAFP board practice questions and this was plenty. If you have FM before IM and peds you will need to study more. The IM and peds UWorld questions would be helpful but there are a lot of them and many are probably too in-depth...I was happy I had those rotations first.

  • Peds, OB/Gyn, Psych: Nothing extra

Step 2 (~4 weeks dedicated)

Anki: Learning from the mistakes I made studying for Step 1, my goal was to maintain the knowledge I gained in each clerkship throughout the year. I made it a priority to keep up all Anki reviews. Since I had IM so early in the year, when my daily IM Anki reviews started to get pretty low (early March) I decided to drop it and start the WiWa IM deck from the beginning. This was around the time I linked the AMBOSS add-on. I'm glad I did that because it brought back a ton of stuff I hadn't seen in a while and the AMBOSS add-on helped me gradually refresh on concepts I had forgotten. I stopped doing Anki a week or two into dedicated to focus all my time on questions.

UWorld: I am SLOW at doing questions. I don't think I've ever gotten through 80 in a day in my life. I knew that going in and did not reset UWorld for this reason. UWorld added a lot of questions throughout the year, so I completed those along with the IM questions I didn't finish during the clerkship. There were probably around 500 new questions for me and I usually did around 50/day. I did them all on random, a mix of timed and tutor depending on my mood and energy levels. I had planned to redo my incorrects and then do some questions from the AMBOSS Qbank, but I didn't end up having time for either of those.

Practice exams: I did all of the NBMEs, then the two UWSAs last. I also did the new Free 120 which I highly recommend over the old one.

Other resources: I listened to the Divine podcasts here and there on walks and car rides. I didn't get through all of them or follow any schedule, but I found it somewhat helpful and picked up a few things here and there.

Biostats: This was always a subject I struggled with. I used to uncheck all the biostats questions while doing UWorld and then do them all in one "biostats day" close to my test. During dedicated for Step 2, I decided to keep the biostats questions lumped in with all the others and was honestly impressed by my understanding of these concepts after a few weeks by doing it this way. In the few days before my exam I went through the biostats questions on AMBOSS to make sure I understood how to use a lot of the formulas that didn't show up too much on UWorld.

Pharm: I didn't study pharm at all the entire year outside of the drugs that regularly showed up on UWorld. This was absolutely sufficient.

EDIT: Practice exam grades

  • NBME 7: 238 (83%)

  • NBME 8: 252 (88%)

  • NBME 6: I did not score myself on this one, I went through the questions that I found for free

  • UWSA 1: 260 (81%)

  • UWSA 2: 263 (83%)

  • New Free 120: 84%

I didn't talk as much about Step 2 because I don't think I did anything special during dedicated and really didn't study that intensely because I felt well prepared from studying throughout the year. My practice exam scores really didn't change much over the course of dedicated. The left over UWorld questions I did was enough to refresh my memory on stuff I hadn't seen in a while, pick up some extra factoids, and most importantly integrate and strengthen my overall understanding of the material.

That said, I'm happy to talk more about Step 2 and my experience with the test if anyone wants to know, and I'm happy to answer any other questions as well.

Enjoy M3! It's a difficult and draining but rewarding year :)

How many weeks should you study for Step 2 CK?

Overall, study time usually ranges from 1-4 weeks with most students taking 2-3 weeks. Students who take the exam during a vacation will often need less time since they have more time each day to study.

How long should I study for Step 2 Reddit?

3 weeks is more than enough if you have been studying consistently throughout the year. Thank u!

How do you get 270 on Step 2 CK?

The only way to score a 270+ on Step 2 CK is to be a super genius (which I do not consider myself, and I assume you are not either) or to be efficient with your time. Since you can't learn everything in one month (see step 3), you must plan to retain and review it.

Is Pathoma helpful for Step 2?

Pathoma is an outstanding resource for your USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK studies, which integrates embryology, anatomy, pathophysiology, and pathology all in one.