How Top Scorers Use UWorld To Crack the USMLE!

Hey friends welcome to this special blogs, in which I will share with you the best strategies to use UWorld for the Step 1 or Step 2 CK exam, and 5 common mistakes that students make when using this amazing resource.

The first one is: UWorld Tutor vs. Timed mode. I use UWorld in the Tutor mode or the Timed mode. So, for those who are not familiar with these two concepts, Tutor mode means you solve the question and then you see the explanation. You study the question, and then you go to the next one. Timed mode, you would do a block of 40 questions in one hour, and then you see the explanation of these 40 questions. I highly recommend the Timed mode, and the reason for that is that the exam itself will be timed. You will have multiple blocks of 40 questions each, one is an hour. So, why don’t you prepare in the exam mode from the beginning, and you would be practiced to do the exam style? Once you’re done with the first round of UWorld, it’s like practicing for a marathon. Does it make sense to run 100 meters when you’re preparing for a marathon, or run long distance and increase that with time as the marathon time comes by? So, that’s why I recommend you study UWorld in the Timed mode, because you will be practicing on the exam style from the beginning.

Some might ask, “How can I study the explanation and see the answers if I’m doing it in the Timed mode?” I recommend you do one or two blocks a day, based on how many questions you finish a day. So, let’s say you can finish studying 80 questions a day. You would do two blocks in the beginning of the day, for two hours, and then you take the rest of the day to read the explanations, study the question, “Why did you answer this question wrong, how can you improve?” So, you would take the rest of the day to solve the questions into multiple hours, as if you do for individual questions.

The second point I want to talk about is UWorld Random vs. System. Today, it’s random questions versus system-wise, and to be honest, this is a controversial topic. Because I don’t think it’s a mistake to do random questions from the beginning, but my preference is to do system-wise, and the reason for that is when you’re studying a topic, let’s say cardiology, in my opinion, it makes more sense to study related topics and start connecting the dots. You see heart failure here, you see another heart failure, and you start connecting the information from both questions. You see a related question about ischemia, and then you go on with the systems as you advance in the question bank. Some might say, “Well, the exam itself is in the random mode, and you were just suggesting to do it in the timed mode so we can get used to the exam. So, why don’t we study it in the random mode from the beginning? However, in my opinion, these are totally different concepts. Studying in the random mode, although it’s similar to the exam, but it makes you lose the connection between the questions that are in the same system. And you would have so much time to do random style questions, you would have that when you’re reviewing, you’ll have the time to do that when you’re doing NBMEs, the sample, you will self-assessment. So, there is enough time to do the random type of questions, In my opinion, as you are learning and studying, it makes more sense to do it in a systematic way. Because in that way, you would be able to connect the information together. As I stress throughout multiple blogss in my channel, studying is a question of man, the purpose of which is not to assess yourself, but to study. So, if you’re studying in a systematic manner, it helps you better connect the information in each system.
UWorld STEP Explanation
The third point I want to talk about today is the explanation. I see some students who finish 200-300 questions a day from UWorld, and I was like, “Wow, that’s amazing! How can you finish that so fast?” Because they’re only reading the educational objective or they’re using UWorld as an assessment tool, and they just see if they got the question right or wrong. In my opinion, that’s not the correct approach, especially if you don’t have a good background about the topics you are studying.
Some students are already amazingly good with the concepts listed in UWorld from their medical school, and they don’t need UWorld; they’re just doing it to make sure that they are aware of the concepts tested on the exam. But if you are in a different situation, especially for international medical graduates, in which the school curriculum and school materials are different from what is tested on the exam, I don’t recommend that approach. Again, if you’re very confident of your medical knowledge and you studied in a school that prepares you for the USMLE style, you might be fine studying only the educational objective. However, if you’re studying, and you studied in a country outside the US, or you’re not 100% sure of the information tested on the exam, I recommend you read the explanation, even of the questions you get right. The reason for that is sometimes they test you on the diagnosis in the world question, and you get the answer right, amazing! However, the explanation might include also the etiology, they might include other diagnostic tests, they might include the treatment, and these concepts you might not be familiar with. So, by reading the explanation, you might get exposed to ideas and information that you don’t know, and you would add it to your knowledge, and you might be tested upon that in the real exam.
So, don’t think that if you got the question right, that means you know everything about the topic. You know a portion of the diagnosis, maybe, in this question, because this is what the question asked about, but the exam might ask you anything about this disease. That’s why I highly recommend you read the explanation, so you increase your medical knowledge, and you would be getting a higher score on the exam, especially for the Step 2 CK, because now Step 1 is going to be pass/fail, but Step 2 CK will be a score, and the score of Step 2 CK will be very important. That’s why you need to expand your knowledge as much as possible, so you get a higher score.
The fourth mistake I see students make when they’re studying UWorld is that they don’t look at the wrong choices, and in my opinion, that’s a mistake, especially for questions that have multiple differential diagnoses. Looking at the wrong choices, they explain to you why this choice is wrong, and that might be the key to answering questions on the exam. So, if they give you multiple options, and you were not sure between two or three, or maybe now you’re sure because now you’ve just studied the material or you’ve solved a similar question, but on the real exam, you might be confused between two similar diagnoses that have similar presentations. So, if you study and memorize and understand why this versus that, and what differentiates diagnosis one from diagnosis two, treatment one from treatment two, you’d be able to solve more questions on the exam. So, that’s why I see value in the wrong choices. Not all wrong choices, and the explanation for the wrong choices is helpful. Some of them are very helpful and can make the difference between you answering the question or not.

UWorld USMLE Notes

Finally, I want to talk about notes. UWorld is expanding exponentially now. There are almost 4,000 questions on the UL Step 2, almost 3,600 questions on the UL Step 1. So, it’s extremely challenging to repeat the whole question bank after you go through the first round. And I can see from multiple students, including myself, it’s very challenging to remember everything from the first round of studying. So, you need some form of review so you can retain the information that you forgot. So, in order to do that, you need some form of minimizing the number of information you have from 4,000 questions to a smaller number that you can review easily.

And there are multiple ways to take notes and create a review format. I made a detailed blogs on how to take notes for Step 1 and Step 2 CK, but in this blogs, I’m going to go briefly over the main concepts in that blogs. And the first one is, try to avoid writing down everything, because it takes so much time, it’s not efficient. So, maybe you can use another more efficient format to take notes and review the materials after you’re done with the first round. So, in UWorld now, there is a notebook in which you can copy-paste information, text, images, tables to a notebook, and that notebook could be divided into subjects, for example, cardiology, physiology, immunology. So, the information would be divided by the system or the subject that you want to study, and when you want to review it, you can just go directly to that part and review it.

Another way of reviewing information from UWorld is flashcards, so you can create flashcards like the Anki flashcards, but through UWorld itself. So, you would have the question, you can highlight it, and then you can take it to a flashcard and create your deck, your specific deck for the questions that you want to review. The flashcards and the notebook are mainly for the explanation, but what if you want to review specific questions? Because again, it might be challenging to review 4,000 questions after your first round.

So, what you can do is you can flag questions. Let’s say you went through a question, you solved it right or wrong, you found it challenging, and you want to review it again. You can just flag it, and at the end of your first round, you can review only the flagged questions. So, instead of reviewing 4,000 questions, you might flag 300, 500, based on how much you need, and then you can review only the flagged questions.

Summary

So, in summary, when you’re studying UWorld, try to do it in the timed mode rather than the tutor mode. Personally, I prefer system-wise versus random questions. Understand the explanation, even of the questions that you get right. Understand the wrong choices, which can help you in differential diagnosis. And create a format of note-taking, so you can review the materials after you’re done with your first round of UWorld.

Before we end this blogs, if you’re struggling with the biostatistics of the USMLE exams, make sure to check out my biostatistics USMLE course, in which I cover in an interactive way the high-yield concepts tested on the USMLE exams. Multiple questions, multiple quizzes, there is a free lesson of the course, so you can check it out for free. And I have a specific focus on the abstracts, which are challenging for so many students studying biostatistics for your USMLE.