7-book white kaplan set...good or bad for STEP 1?

I think this is normal for most of us to be overwhelmed by the volumes of review books out there for step1. My grandfather once said to me while I was looking at fishing lures at a store that, "most lures are made to catch fishermen and not fish." I think this holds true with board prep books. These companies know we all crap our pants with anxiety and will pay any price to get the "secret" review.

I think the Kaplan books are the most valuable to the foreign medical graduates who come to the US and study like 6-12 months for step 1. They are very low yield but they are very complete. So if you went to medical school in Pakastan and you wanted to rock step I because you have no LOR or contacts --then you memorize them like its your job.

However if you have been studying all year and learned the stuff the first time, then the Kaplan books are pretty much overkill and will waste your time. If you are weak in a certain topic then by all means read that volume. But I think that most of us will agree that if you use q-Bank and a good review book you will most likely do just as well or better than if you read all 9000 pages of kaplan.

Remember what Mr. Miagi said to Daniel son.....Don't worry about the quantity of your karate, trust the quality. So I think that knowing the basics cold will get you much farther than reading 9000 pages of junk you will forget 15 minutes after you read it.

If you know the fundamantals you can reason through a lot of the questions. And contrary to popular belief, Step 1 is also a test of how well you can think with the knowledge you have acquired. It is mostly horses with only a few zebras...and if you shoot the horses you will do very well.

I have to disagree with the stereotype of alwayshard. The fact is that everyone has a different learning style, and we also all went to different institutions (ie. your level of training is going to be different). I do not care for condensed review books myself. First Aid simply would have not been enough for me, and I kicked butt the first two years. My strategy was to power through the Kaplan books (and I did get through the important ones twice) in a four week span and really focus on the q-bank. But, what I did or anyone else did is completely irrelevant. You have to look at your studying style (outline, details for completeness, etc), evaluate your weaknesses (yes, we all have some), and then pick a strategy that is going to work for you (and only you are going to know what this is...so have a little faith in yourself Daniel-son). And have some faith, everything is going to work out like it is supposed to (at least that is what I keep telling myself). Good luck.