early prep

hey man,

i got a lot of advice here, so i wanted to try to give back to the forum.
my m1 year i didn't even know boards existed. i just tried studying hard for class, and despite busting my ass, was always kinda average. looking back, i woulda not worried too much about my grades, and spent more time with my friends and girlfriend.
m2 year i amped it up, worked hard, and scored well above a 250. so basically, my advice would be to just focus on school and try to have some fun m1 year. the one thing i'd recommend is using costanzo physiology and brs phys your m1 year, as those will be key books for boards. maybe try to get in some ortho research m1 year, and during the summer. m2 year, use your boards books from day 1 to study for your school curriculum...kill 2 birds with one stone that way. anyways, m2 year covers most of the stuff on boards (at least at my school), not m1 year.
good luck!

hey

Thanks a lot for the advice......I just wanted to get a sense of what other ppl. do....i am planning to do some research my M1 summer and my school also requires a 4 month research block between our 2 and 3 years

I agree. Do as well as you can in your classes this year. Forget about Step I right now. Relax, and take care of business. If you still can't get it out of your head, then buy yourself a copy of First Aid for Step I. Then, as the year goes along, put some additional notes in the margins of the review book to supplement its material. That way, when you actually study for the USMLE's, you'll have a couple of extra little notes right there.

Having just taken the big test, I am of the belief that the most surefire way to rock Step 1 is to study hard in year 1 and (especially) year 2. Many people in my class "started studying for the boards" in like september of our second year. Result - they spent too much time reviewing things at a cursory level over and over again, rather than mastering the material the first time and doing a quick and efficient review in May/June after MS-2. They didn't do so hot on the boards because the test (usually) requires you to be able to understand things and integrate knowledge across several disciplines, which is only possible if you have a true understanding of the material.

If you work hard in your classes and do well in them, you will have a very solid foundation by the end of your second year. Reviewing the minor details that will push you to 240+ will be much easier with this base of knowledge.