I went to Pass Program in August and since then have completed USMLE Rx (70-80%) and made 1 pass thru the PASS Program Course material and 1 complete pass of First Aid 2014 with a study partner (very detailed passes talking things out and writing things out on a white board, drilling each other on topics, etc)

Now from late October until December 31, I plan on doing Kaplan QBank and UWorld QBank by subjects. I have finished recently uWorld endocrine and renal and took extensive notes on Microsoft Word (which allows me to search thru the notes). My notes for each question from uWorld consist of getting the gist of the question and any relevant material that I deem is worth while to understanding.

My daily schedule consists of waking up early, doing Anki decks (your deck and another deck used by many of my class mates to cover Pathoma and First Aid for each section) then i spend 3-4 days doing uWorld questions in the morning from that specific topic and I take notes.

And then in the evening, I do Kaplan questions with my friend (we read the question, select an answer, then spend time discussing the answers afterwards). Then after we finish that section in Kaplan QBank we spend one to two nights (4-5 hours) discussing and talking out my extensive uWorld notes.

I plan on finishing both uWorld and Kaplan (with at least a second pass of uWorld question notes with my friend) by December 31. Then I plan on spending from Jan 1-Jan 31 doing 2-3 mixed blocks a day in the morning and spending the evening drilling First Aid thru your deck and another anki deck. I really want to take the test by January 31 and my school is pressuring me to do so as well.

Do you think my study plan is sufficient and do you think that it will yield solid results?

Btw right now I am scoring bw 55-70% on my uWorld blocks alone and roughly 75-80% on Kaplan with my friend (once we have finished studying and mastering that specific topic via Anki decks)

My last two NBME have hovered bw 195-240 but I hope that these next 3 months will raise that score by 30-50 points and I will produce great results.

Any help is greatly appreciated and once again thank you for providing all the resources and advice on your site

Great question. Why not put EVERYTHING into Anki, right? If a little is good, then more must be better.

That’s the trap.

You COULD try and put everything into Anki, but you’d quickly overwhelm yourself. It’s your choice, but if it were me, I’d focus on mastering a smaller amount of information, starting with the educational objective, and leave most of the other answer choices. It’s up to you, though, to find a method that will work for your objectives.

Hope this helps!
Alec

Of course! One of the biggest issues I had was making too many cards w/ too much information. To “limit” myself, and keep myself from going too crazy w/ cards, I would try and only include the information from the educational objectives.

Remember – all of the information that you put into your cards you will have to review, which is time you are taking away from doing questions, etc. There is a balance that I tried to strike between those two activities, and if I put too much information (the 80% you refer to), I create so many cards it becomes VERY hard to actually DO questions.

Thank you so much, Alec! Another question, if I may? Using UWorld- do you only include the “educational objective” in your Anki cards? or do you include the explanations for the wrong answers as well? Sometimes I think “what a waste!” if I exclude the 80% content of the explanation… Sorry for the many questions?

The more important question is: how effective are the cards I’m making? If you find that when you learn something, and you get another question on that same topic and you can recall all the important information you put in your cards, then usually it means you’re making good cards.

How many questions do you review over what time period?

I use 100 old cards/hour as a rough estimate, but usually it’s a little bit faster for me – maybe 2-3 cards/minute. The bigger concern is if your cards are taking too long, since that usually means that you’re putting too much information on each card, which a) makes each card take longer to review, and b) increases the likelihood that you will get each question wrong, and thus have to repeat them, creating more reviews for yourself every day.

Absolutely – I couldn't agree more! There is no better feeling than going to bed (early!) after doing everything you set out to do that day. How has your sleep been lately?

Life, that would be candy land.