Hi everyone,
I thought of writing on how to prepare for STEP 2 CK but was waiting for my results before giving study tips.
I received my results this morning and was excited to see my score- 249!

A short intro : I am an IMG from India, took step 1 towards the end of 2014, took a break and started preparing for CK since October 2015.
Long story short-
Preparation Time: 6 months 2 weeks. (min of 8 to 10 hours per day)
Materials used: First Aid for step 1(biochem,pharmacology of all systems,microbiology,immunology,biostat +quick look at basic pathology of all systems)
MTB 2 + U world q bank (read from book and then did questions)
USMLE step 2 Secrets
Meded videos (few videos for topics that I had a hard time understanding)
All the clinical mastery series except neurology
NBME- 3,7,6 and UWSA
Prep Schedule: October to December- 1st round Uworld (did all the systems 1st) + MTB, with bits of FA-step 1
January to March- 2nd round Uworld . I covered them in the following order : Read surgery MTB, Surgery secrets, uworld surgery qns, 200 qns
from surgery clinical mastery series. Similarly for OBG,Psych,Peds,IM. Internal Medicine required the whole 1 month of March.


My scores: NBME 3 - 183 (last week of January)
NBME 7 - 217 with 48 incorrect questions (2nd week of Feb)
NBME 6 - 217 with 36 incorrect questions (1st week of March)
UWSA - 250 (4th week of March)
USMLE CK- 249 (1st week of April)

Doing all the CMS questions helped me a lot. I started doing them from January and also covered the newly released CMS blocks(3,4) - WORTH DOING THEM!
I started scoring well in clinical mastery series over a period of time. My scores were in between 35 and 44 out of 50 questions per block. I took time to search the right answers and confirmed them with my study partner.

The last 2 weeks before my exam I read all my notes, reviewed all my u world incorrect questions, then brushed through various topics in MTB and FA.

Hope this will give an idea of how to prepare. Message me anytime if you need help preparing.

Good Luck Studying Guys
HARD WORK PAYS!

Sara
edited by on 4/27/2016
edited by on 4/28/2016

Congrats Sara, well said hardwork does pay off indeed, ! Thnx for sharing ur experience, actually I m planning for step 2 ck too, wanna ask question do watching step 2 ck Kaplan videos worth, since I think it takes hell of long time,,!! wts ur take on tat, hoping fr ur reply
edited by on 5/6/2016

Thank you Ali,
I haven't watched any Kaplan videos for CK. I have no idea about it. Videos might help if you have trouble understanding few tough topics like electrolyte imbalances...but I didn't spend hours together watching videos. Every day during lunch I watched a 15 minute video from online meded. His videos are crisp and to the point. Hope this helps.

Good luck studying!
Thanks
Sara

hii thnx for ur quick response , well did u pay for wathcing those videos, n lastly do we hav all subjects there on online meded...!!! n wnna ask is uworld self assesment helpfull to predict the score on step 2 ck

Those are free videos I guess they have most topics . I was surprised with UWSA ... I read many forums to know whether it is close predictor before I took my exam .. Guess it is !!! Scored 250 in uwsa and my final score was 1 point less 249!!!

Sara

I see there's a discrepancy between your NBME and final score. Is that normal? I got nearly the exact same score on NBME's 6 and 4 respectively with almost 3 weeks of focused studying between them, thought my score would rise but it didn't. My goal is 250+, should I go through with it with an NBME 4 score of 237?

I read in many forums that you might score greater than NBME score or may be a little less than NBME. Check out the number of incorrect questions in your NBME exams. In my case I was seeing a progress in that... i.e., my number of incorrect questions were getting lesser than the previous ones as I was getting closer to my exams!

Well, I got almost the exact same number of questions wrong...the exam did not seem in any way related to what's on UW, however. Or am I mistaken?

If you pay more attention the concepts are pretty much the same.. the way they frame the question is tricky. The explanations given in u world are very important.Of course they always test us on some unknown topics. So, it is better to be thorough with what we know !
Good Luck!

I did not take step1 still but I want to take step2ck and I want to purchase u world but I want to take step2ck next year ,because am undergraduate final year,,if I purchase uworld for 2months is it ok,,i want to know what is nbme 3,4,7and uwsa

Hello everyone,

I am happy to receive messages from USMLE aspirants regarding preparation guidance.(I know that my post is a couple of years old ) This exam is all about - focus and revision. The more you read, the better you score.
Good Luck, Guys.
Please feel free to contact me if you need help.

Thanks,
Sara

Congratulations to those who cleared the exam
I am happy to help you all with your preparation. Try to find a dedicated study partner to make your preparation easy and interesting

Good Luck