I didn't use first aid, but I did use both board and wards and Step II secrets. I thought that the combo of the two were great, but if you only want to use one, I'm not sure B&W is very comprehensive. It has a good breadth, but little depth. You'd need a lot of Q-bank or NMS questions to make up for it.

But, if you're going to supplement to book with another study aid, it gives you a very good and quick review of a lot of topics.

Just my $0.02
Good luck

Big B&W fan here...used it instead of FA. What I did was add my own notes to B&W as I went thru all my other study materials (Qbank/book, NMS Step 2 ?s, Secrets), and in the end had a super-comprehensive but compact reference to go back to for review.

Any comments on using the clinical volumes from the Pretest series as the primary study tool for Step 2? Good idea, bad idea, retarded idea?

I used them for all of the shelf exams, so I basically remembered the questions when I was reviewing for Step II. But, if you haven't used them yet, they are actually quite good. You should probably use a composite question source in addition (something like NMS or QBank).

I highly recommend Crush Step II as a quick, easy, extremely high-yield source for Step II prep. It's not written in outline format, so you can actually read it and remember it. You can get through it in a week or so, and like I said - VERY high-yield.

Also, don't take any time off to study for Step II - I did and I regret it. Use your last shreds of vacation time wisely.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck with everything.