Study strategies and advice for USMLE no. 2

Continuing our previous blog on study strategies and advice for USMLE, We would like to continue recommending strategies for you to form your own strategy to tackle all the material for any Step, since having a strategy it’s important to your performance we are giving today some tips that hopefully will help you get a really great score in your tests.

Remember that preparing a step it’s not just about studying material and committing to memory facts and numbers, but also it requires you to have a strategy for preparation, a way to prepare you for the possible questions as well as highly used topics and high yield contents.

-Check the topic list:

Before starting a topic in any given subject check if it is important for the exam, there are many subjects that are not included in the exam or some that may be asked but are not regularly used, those should be the last on your list since studying the most used and high yield contents will be a more efficient use of your time.

If there is a topic you think it’s not really being used like for example (just as an example)  physiology of the auditory system, then by all means use your time and effort in a highly used topic like vitamins for example. All in all do some research about the topic you have doubts and ask in forums about it. Remember that it’s possible to ask for help when you need it.

-Write from memory

After you are done with a particularly difficult topic for you, make a quick review and write it down in your own words from memory, there is a part of our memory that helps retention when you write down those ideas. Also it will help you find those gaps that you have forgotten or where you are not sure about some fact.

Your own words will be the best way to review a subject quickly and more comprehensibly than reading cards or facts from other source.

-Check the unusual facts

There are always really unusual facts that are frequently used in the exams, like a protein named avidin that depletes a B vitamin to name one unusual fact, remember to write them down in one side of your review material, there are some that are frequently used in the exams, those particular or awkward signs and symptoms that make a disease different like blue colored sclera in osteogenesis imperfecta type 2, particularly also the clinical findings and manifestations of trisomy diseases and how you differentiate them from each other.

If you find unusual or strange data try to remember it and associate it to a disease, there may be clinical vignettes where you have to recognize the pathology using these unusual findings, including the use of images.

-Get your facts right

If you come across a fact or number that doesn’t seem right or you have doubts about its real value, double check it with a reliable source, search them in a well-known textbook or search online in official websites, it’s important to double check when in doubt since you will have one chance to get it right in the exam.

Also when you have doubts while answering question banks or simply trying to remember a topic, check again if you are not sure of some specific details, don’t leave your doubts in the air, you have to be more of a perfectionist in the case of doubts or missing pieces of information, remember that questions are made to be confusing or make you doubt your own answers so mastering each topic is really important.

-Add your own information

Whenever possible add information from your own research, you may find important details in textbooks or other sources that improve the ones you are working for your exam, add them as a side note, remember that there may be more and better ways to explain a topic that what you are currently reading, also simplicity in words and concepts are easier to remember, explain to others and use in a given situation.

-Associate images with important facts

There is always a really important fact lying in front of you in each image, it’s not just about the recognition of a given image or relation with a diagnosis, but also important details like specific growth media, bacterial growth requirements, specific deficiencies like the case of hemophilia, commonly found anatomical regions for growing a specific type of cancer etc. 

The whole idea is to add more contents to your knowledge when identifying a specific image. So they become available once you see the image presented, this will be important for questions on pathology, histology and medical imaging (x ray, cat scans etc.)

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Keep in mind these tips during your preparation to improve your retention of material, don’t forget to check our tutoring guides at www.usmleprepguide.com to have a detailed tutor for your preparation, also if you have other ideas to help for studying let us know in the comment section.