 So how in the world are you expected to balance step one in using question banks as a pretty clinical student? In this video guys, I'm going to show you step by step on exactly how you do that. All right guys, what is going on? Luck, shape and remedy journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. Today I am going to be breaking down basically how to use question banks as a first or second year medical student before you get to your dedicated study prep for step one. But before we get to it, make sure you find that like button and you go ahead and smash and destroy that like button to help both this video as well as this channel grow on YouTube. And if you haven't so already make sure you subscribe to get two videos just like this one every single week. Well, let's get into the video. So when you're talking about question banks, it comes to a couple of things. One main questions I get is when should I start using them? Which one should I start using? How do I find the time to use them? And how should I go about using them in the first place? So I made a separate video altogether on the top question banks that I recommend. So I'll link that down below, but I talked about USM and ERX, Kaplan as well as you all. But in this video, we're going to talk about when to start using them, how to use them and how to find the time to use them. So step number one is understanding when to use them. And this really breaks down the two groups. There is the type of students who use a lot of resources and are really early on in their medical journey. And then there are those students that either don't like using a lot of resources or are a little bit further on. So for the first group, for the students who are relatively new and or like to use a lot of resources, I recommend probably holding off on adding a question bank to your study regimen just because it could be really overwhelming. You have a lot of things going on. You're still trying to figure out your grounding in terms of how to study from med school. You're still trying to figure out what resources are best for you. So what I recommend is go through your first semester, get through anatomy, biochem, all those courses that are really the foundation for step one. And then when you get into your organ systems, cardiology, respiratory, pulmonology, nephrology, whatever, go ahead and then add a question bank, particularly doing those questions with that organ system. This is a really good way to go ahead and incorporate question banks because two things happen. One, your schedule ideally should get lighter because you don't have a lot of those initial med school courses, but it also depends on your institution. And two, a lot of the resources that kind of came into your system as a new med student are likely out and you understand what works well and what doesn't. And for the students in the second group who either have gotten those resources out of their system or are a little bit progressed in their med school timeline, I recommend going ahead and doing a question bank. Now ideally you're already on your organ system, so you can go ahead and just do those particularly questions for the organ system you're on. So if you're on cars, do card questions. Now a pro tip that I've mentioned in my question bank video, again that's linked down below, is to avoid using uWorld at this time as one of your question banks. This is a very dedicated kind of question bank that's really meant for when you're particularly studying for step one during your five to six weeks that you have off. So I recommend using one of the other two question banks that I recommended. And again, if you want a quick rundown on how to use each of those question banks, that video will be linked down below. So let's get to the next part of the video, which is how do you find the time to use question banks. Now the first thing you can understand is that you don't have to commit to using a question bank every single day or every single week. Honestly all you have to do is look at your calendar and ask yourself how much time am I willing to commit. So for a lot of my students that I would coach, they feel like they'd have to use a question bank every single day or every several days. And I told them you can either do a question bank session once a week, find an afternoon on like a Wednesday if you know you don't have much going on in your medical school life to spend an hour or 30 minutes, or you can do something on a weekend afternoon, or if that doesn't even work, you can say I'm going to do one to two practice questions every other day, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and find a schedule that works for you. Again, I like to point out and I mentioned this to a lot of my students is that you don't really study for step one during your preclinical years the same way that you will during your dedicated study prep. There's just a lot more intensity in that dedicated session that you won't have. So it's better that you go ahead and create a steady schedule that's more realistic instead of overwhelming. And to piggyback on that point, you can even go as far as just saying I'm going to spend one day on a weekend, the weekend before an exam, and that's going to be my step one session with a question bank. It doesn't have to be more intensive than that. So just find something that works for you and be okay with that plan. Don't pay attention to what a lot of your classmates are doing. You're totally fine where you are. Now one of the last things that I want to mention is probably going to be weird in this video about question banks is that you don't have to use a question bank to prepare for step one. Don't feel pressured that you have to buy another resource. It is definitely something I recommend if you feel comfortable with one, just studying in medical school in general where you are. And two, feel like you don't have a lot of other resources that are taking a lot of time. I love doing practice questions. They're a great way to increase my retention, but maybe they're not your desired form of studying. And there's another study resource like Patelma Physio, Sketchy, Picmonic, Online Meded that are taking your time. As long as you're doing some form of practice and particularly getting some kind of exposure to board level questions, then you're fine. There are a lot of resources out there like Physio that combine it with their resource. So if you want to go ahead and check that out, those will be linked down in the description below as well. But just remember, you don't have to use a question bank. In fact, there are free ways that you can go ahead and get some practice for step one. That includes doing like Sonky cards and Bro and Cephalon cards, which are going to be a lot quicker. But just remember they're not board level questions. They're more like facts and checking whether or not you know the high yield material. But as long as you have board level questions and practice somewhere through one of your resources or books, you don't have to use question banks. And before we leave, I want to leave you with a bonus tip because I'm really excited about this. People don't talk about this, but honestly, I feel like it can make a 10-20 point difference on your final score. So listen up. But before we get there, did you hit that like button? Because if you didn't, like, come on, you made it to this far of the video. Hit that like button, please. But in all seriousness, this is a bonus tip that I feel like made such a big difference in my step one as well, step two score. And that is basically creating a master on key deck throughout your first two years of medical school. So essentially, when you're going through your question banks or you're going through one of your other resources that are first or second year med student, go ahead and add any questions that you miss or topics you miss as well as questions that you guess on correctly, but don't really understand and add those to a master on key deck. You don't necessarily have to review them now, although if you can find like 10 to 15 minutes every weekend to do it, that's going to help you. But basically you've created a weakness stack for your first two years of med school and it's going to grow. It's going to be really large because let's be real. We don't really know which one we're going through medical school. But when you get through studying for step one during your dedicated, then you have a huge pile of questions that are very particular for things that you're good at as well as things that you're not. So then you can spend 10 minutes at the start of every step one dedicated day doing those questions. And then the next level is that when you're actually using URL to do practice questions during your dedicated, now you can add more questions to these flashcard deck. And it's going to help you create a personalized basically collection of all your weak points. It's going to be helping you get more points when it's time for test day. And I promise you guys you're going to crush it. And that's basically how you master using question banks as well as studying for step one as a new med student. Now I know this is probably not your only step one related question. So if you guys want to master step one resource, then the link down below, I'll go ahead and share one of the resources I'm creating for you. And for this channel, call it step one academy. Now this is a resource that's basically helping you answer all of your most common questions from you as well as other subscribers on how to study for step one, study strategies, study schedules, as well as interviews with top scoring students. It's something I'm actively creating right now. So right now it's probably the making of this video still in the survey phase where I'm collecting more questions to help you guys out. So check out the link down below, fill out your questions, let me know what you want more help with. But if you're watching this video in the future, you can see what that link goes to. It may already be that step one academy is live and you guys can check it out. But hopefully you guys enjoyed it. If you guys have more questions, comment down below before you leave. If you still haven't hit that like button like please help. But in all seriousness guys, thank you so much for watching this video. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. Hopefully I've been a little help to you on your journey. Thanks for being a part of mine. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.