My step 1 exp.

" score 247 "

Al-Salam Alaykom ,
My name is Hassaan Gomaa , i am currently a 6th year medical student in Tanta
university , i knew about Eamtar from my friends , they really helped me a lot
besides the great info. i got from this group .
At 1st i'd like to thank everyone who helped me through this critical period of
my life : My family , friends , study partners , my mentor :)
First of all you should know what you really want , is the USMLE path is the right
one for you ! "pray ISTEKHARA" , Do you have the 4 essential factors to complete
that path with a good score ? "HARD WORKING - A GOOD MENTOR - A COMPETITIVE
STUDY PARTNER - ENOUGH MONEY"
The 4 essential factors :
1- Hard working : believe or not it's the most important factor in this pathway ,
you'll never imagine how much effort you'll pay even if you were already a hard
worker student in your college , this is different especially for Egyptians :) , still you
will love and enjoy the sweat of it . At the end of this step you'll be officially a
thinker with TONS of useful info
2- A good mentor : is another important key to success , He/she will guide you the
way and will ensure you'll not do anything stupid during the studying period . Mine
was Ayman Abdelrazeq " i used to tell myself if the First Aid is the USMLE bible ,
Ayman should be the pope :) " , check his Exp. it'll help you alot
https://www.facebook.com/groups/usmlesteponeeamtar/permalink/7936376239958
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3- A competitive study partner : actually i got 4 study partners at different study
phases , one of them was such a competitive dedicated bastard " everytime i
wanted to take a day as a break he tried to study harder at that day so he become
ahead of me and that helped me a lot "
4-Enough money : the USMLE path costs about a 12-15 thousands dollars
Some general Tips:
*NEVER lose hope while you are studying , you'll feel desperate a lot and you'll go
through a lot of downs , but trust me all you need is to work and work and work
more harder till you reach your goal
*Every info you have known through your whole studying of medicine can be used
and will be used against you , you'll answer some questions on the exam from your
memory of a lecture you had on the 1st year "true story"
*Share as much info as you can with others that will not only benefit them but also
will make you remember this info better
*Help people as much as you can , GOD will reward you :)
*sleep at least 6 hours a day whatever the amount of studying
*Start solving UWorld with the 1st FA read
*you should start studying after finishing the internal medicine course at you
college as most of cases need some experience in internal medicine

*ECGs , CTs , X-rays , Ausculting Murmurs , other tools are heavily tested nowadays ,
try to improve yourself about those.
*Try to have your first self-assessment as fast as possible so that you can know
where you'll start from and what are your weak points
I have done kaplan vedios and books except in microbiology "i did MMRS" and
pathology " i did pathoma" took notes and put them in the FA" , FA and kaplan
biochem. book for 7 times , UWorld 2 times and a half "that half is the marked and
wrong questions", Kaplan Qbank except pathology-micro-biochem , BRS in renalcardio-respiratory physiology , High yield in neuro-anatomy , 100 cases of Dr.Conard
Fischer , ALL the NBMEs
*for the paper work please review Ayman's exp.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/usmlesteponeeamtar/permalink/7936376239958
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Chapter 1 : starting
I began with anatomy " an easy subject" started with kaplan vedios and books with
a rate 1 hour daily of the vedios and what's equivalent to this hour in the books
then take notes as much as i can of info that the instructor said "wrote after him in
kaplan books " also info from the book i thought it'd be useful "by marking them"
then after i finished the vedios and reading the books , took all the notes of
anatomy i copied them to the FA " i did that at the end of each subject"
physiology: did the same as with anatomy , increased the rate of studying to reach
a 3 hours per day of vedios , BRS is also a great source for cardio-renal-respiratory
physiology
Biochemistry and Genetics : did the same as with anatomy
*FA +Kaplan books (+/- High yield if you needed it)
*I really didn't know anything about those 2 subjects untill i started studying step 1 ,
they are really complicated and most of our Egyptian college professors don't
explain it well , it's nearly a weakness for all the Egyptians , but have no worries
you'll master it at the 5th read of the FA and kaplan book .

Pharmacology : did the same as with anatomy

*you'll enjoy Dr.Raymon lectures in pharmacology , every word he says you can find
it in the exam
*you'll take too many notes , don't be lazy

microbiology : Don't do kaplan vedios or book

*read the MMRS it's fun and takes notes also , never stop taking notes even if the

First Aid is great in microbiology but recently the micro questions became so hard
immunology : did the same as with anatomy
*it's a small chapter but a tricky one , understand it well , kaplan notes and vedios
are usually enough , if they weren't do High yield
Behavioral science and biostatistics:
*well that's another weak subject for all Egyptians , in Behavioral the kaplan vedios
of Dr.Steven " he's working for Becker institution now" will be enough "don't read
kaplan book except for the Dr patient relationship chapter" also do the 100 cases of
Dr.Fischer , Behavioral Questions will always be tricky but you'll survive
*Biostatistics is scary for people who don't like Maths , you have to solve a lot of
questions to master it , on my exam the biostats questions were pretty direct
pathology : pathoma vedios + First Aid + 60 pages of Goljian , directly wrote the
notes of pathoma vedios into the FA
pathoms is a great source and Dr.Sattar is really marvelous
*Notes:
*that study phase took me about 3 months and a half , i started on 8-12-2013 and
ended it on 23-3-2014 then i took about 2 weeks as a vacation
*it's the most interesting phase of studying , you learn a lot of mysterious topics
your professors in college used to explain badly , you'll start to feel human again.
*I disassembled my FA and rejoined it in an "Archive file" so that i can add Kaplan
book of biochemistry in between the pages , also add any diagram or notes i need "
i also like to study from only one source , so the book was huge but i liked it " I even
named it Heaven LOL"
Chapter 2 : exploring the FA and UW offline
after the 1st phase I took a week as a vacation then :
I started to study subject-wise pathology, anatomy , pharma etc. , and after
every sub-subject I finish I did the UW , for example I started with cardio-physiology
then I solved UW in cardio physiology and so on.
This phase took about 45-50 days
Notes:
*This is the most important step in setting a good base to build on it your info in the
next phases , take your time in it
*always take notes from UW , READ EVERY SINGLE EXPLANATION FOR THE
ANSWERS
*UW in this phase is for collecting info not for self-assessing
*any other sources you need to do highyield or whatever do them in this phase
Chapter 3 : consolidating your info
in this phase I did the FA 2 more times in 28 days then I took NBME 11 , I got 214

offline I was devastated I wished I could get 230 , I didnt search for the right
answers in the following days which was very very very wrong as I discovered
later my problem wasnt with the info as I knew most of the questions I got wrong
but it was a concentration problem
Note:
*after every single NBME or any SA you should fetch the right answers , know your
defect and fix it.
Chapter 4 : the moment of truth
I did UW online , then I studied the FA 1 more time , kaplan Qbank in anatomyphysiology-pathophysiology-genetics-biostats-behavioral . I did NBME 15 online
and I got 215 42 days before the exam when I fetched the right answers I
discovered my concentration defect I was devastated and kept telling myself
thats not true I am better than that but deep inside I knew I was deceiving myself
Notes:
*when you are solving the UW for the 2nd time do it online timed and tutor , DONT
alt + tab whatever happened while you are solving a block , concentrate well
* I did 6-7 blocks a day
*after solving the UW , re-solve the marked/wrong questions again
*take photo notes of good diagrams that will help you later

Chapter 5: Hard working

this phase was 42 days of 16 hours of studying daily
I did the FA 3 times , the 1st took 10 days , the 2nd and 3rd took 7 days each
I did kaplan Qbank in pharmacology and immunology
I did the remaining NBMEs 1-2-3-4-5-6 used them as a question pool not as a selfassessment
NBME 7 240 , 30 days before the exam
NBME 12 248 , 15 days before the exam
NBME 16 online 230 , 13 days before the exam
NBME 13 256 , 2 days before the exam
Notes:
* I used to be anxious while taking the NBMEs that would explain a lot what
happened in NBME 16 , try to stay calm
*try to take NBME 16 before your exam by at least 30 days , so that your studies for
FA would be oriented to the way the exam will be the real exam resembles NBME
16 a lot
*before the exam by 10 days I took NBME 6 and half NBME 4 in 6 consecutive hours
300 Questions so that you train your mind to be efficient at solving big bulks
*my exam was on 30-9 , on 28-9 I revised about 70 pages of the FA that I usually
forget glomerulonephritis subject and others

*On 29-9 I revised the photo notes I took from eamtar group , UW , NBMEs , my
friends and study partners in about 1 hour in the morning , I watched some
episodes of a series then met my friends try to relax as you did all you can before
I traveled to cairo
Chapter 6: The fight :D
On 29-9 I stayed at Kanzy hotel its a great place to stay but one of my friends
who has booked a room many days a ago was rejected to stay there as the rooms
were full !!!! so its unreliable, search for alternatives like Almanar hotel
I traveled alone , stayed alone.
I watched a movie and slept at 9 P.M , waked up to pray Alfajr and slept again till 7
A.M , ate my breakfast , checked out at 7 : 45 A.M and walked to Amidest , I was lost
at 1st but I was there at 8:10
I entered the exam room at 9 , they will take a photo of you by the PC cam , they
will give you a locker for your stuff and a key , you are allowed to keep the key and
your passport only in the exam room
I entered the room , sat down and started the tutorial block dont waste the
tutorial block time as youll need it to add up on your break time just check the
headphones and skip the other items
I took block 1-2 then 8 mins break ,3 then 7 mins break , 4 then 15 mins break , 5-6
then 25 mins break then block 7
ate about 5 snickers and 2 boxes of juices
emptied my bladder in each break
in the last break 25 mins I drank a cup of nescafe from the boufet upstairs
at the end you take w paper that indicates you complete the exam.
Notes:
*try to be their early to adapt to the environment and finish your palpitations before
you enter the exam room
*take your passport , your scheduling permit
*Dont eat a greasy or protien breakfast , avoid large meals , I ate a bate and drank
coffee
*empty your bowel and bladder before leaving the hotel or in the Amidest
*every time you take a break you are searched again by the exam admin it usually
takes 1 minute of your brake time
*they take you fingerprint every time you return from the break
*In auscultaion questions of heart murmurs , you can change the site of the
stethoscope on the chest of the patient
*stay calm its not an exam its just a show to demonstrate your power of
knowledge , be confident
GOD bless you all , and good luck ,
Hassaan.