As spring comes to a close, the flowers have started to bloom and medical students across the country are entering their dedicated boards prep season. Whether you’re a second year gearing up for COMLEX Level 1 or a third year trying to bribe yourself into studying for Level 2, May and June represent a season of too many Uworld questions and not enough daily sunlight for medical students. As a third-year student entering my second round of boards preparations, I’m offering up some friendly advice for surviving these seasons of life.
Make a Plan
First and foremost, I cannot recommend making a written study plan enough. Getting a planner and mapping out what I thought was most important to me really helped me gear up for what felt like endless weeks of studying. I tried to make my study plan 1-2 weeks before actually starting the dedicated time so that my brain had enough time to accept its new reality and I could make tweaks here and there before actually starting. Decide what’s important to you and figure out what you need to do daily to get it done (don’t forget to give yourself some time off every week).
I pick my preferred Q banks (there’s no wrong answer) and determine how many questions I need to do daily to try to complete the bank (usually about 80 questions a day), then I build in time to review those questions. I also try to build in daily content review depending on the topics I feel the weakest in at the time. Make a schedule that works for you that you can stick to every day. I really thrived during dedicated (as best one can) when I started treating my studying like a full-time job. Wake up at the same time every day, do your work as you have it scheduled, take breaks (lunch breaks and little outdoor walks were lifesavers), and when the day is done, call it quits. You will never feel complete after a day of studying and there is never a particular level of satisfaction that will allow you to call it quits, but you need to set a hard stop for yourself at the end of each day and give yourself time to do things you love for your mental and emotional health. So call it a day at a reasonable time and go outside, read a book, go to the gym, or whatever it is that makes your heart happy and reminds you that you are a person outside of all this studying.
Choosing a Q Bank
In terms of Q banks, there’s an excess of options available either through your school or for personal purchase. It can be overwhelming to pick what will work best for you, but I recommend sticking to no more than 2 banks of questions and really focusing on getting through those as best you can. The more questions you can get through, the better you will become at question analysis and pattern recognition, so quantity really matters during these weeks. High-quality review of your questions within an adequate time frame of completion also really helps to solidify concepts in your mind. Find a way to actively review your wrong answers (do not just passively read through the explanations), whether that’s with flashcards, Anki, or old-school written notes. The review itself will help solidify your understanding of the concepts and help you determine why you got the question wrong. There are two reasons why you can get a question wrong: either you don’t know the content that was asked of you, or you failed to recognize the pattern of the question to properly answer the question (the more frustrating questions in my opinion). The more questions you do and actively review, the better you will get at pattern recognition and the more content you will relearn. You will start to see those practice scores rise with time and consistency.
Narrowing Down Content Review Resources
In terms of content review a similar problem arises: there is an absolute surplus of resources available for medical school content review. Whether you use Sketchy, Boards and Beyond, Ninja Nerd, or something in between, you need to find what’s best for you and stick to it. Consistency is key to all boards studying, so whatever you choose, just make sure that it works for your learning habits. Everyone will have different opinions about what resource is best but, ultimately, what you’ll learn is that you need to do what works for you and how you learn.
These things all helped keep me sane throughout exam preparations and feel relatively confident walking into Level 1. Stick to your instincts and be as consistent as you can in order to get through the massive amounts of content you will see every day. Try not to worry about what your classmates are doing, and focus on what is best for you and the way you learn and study. Take lots of breaks and give yourself grace while you venture through this time. And finally, try to remember that there is a light at the end of this tunnel and that the old cliche still applies: this is a marathon, not a sprint.
