 Today's video is brought to you by Picmonic. Most students make studying for step one way too stressful and hard. Today we're going to talk about the most common yet costly mistakes that you can avoid to help make your prep so much easier and still pass the test comfortably. Hey friends, welcome back to channel. In case you're new here, my name is Lakshman, internal medicine physician, and here at the AMD journey we make content to help people like you succeed in whatever journey you're on. Today we're going to talk about step one and specifically when mistakes I've seen myself and countless students over the past few years make the entire part so much more stressful and if you start to avoid them, you'll start to see your grade skyrocket and your stress decline. So if that's the goal that you're aiming for, let's get into it. So mistake number one is we often forget the goal of the entire prep. Often I'll have students who'll come to me for help on step one and initially they'll have this really detailed plan for their six, seven, or eight week study prep until they actually take their exam. But after going through their first few weeks of prep, they realize a few things. One, whatever schedule they designed for themselves is a little too overwhelming. They don't have the energy to actually be able to do it for the rest of the prep. And two, they're not actually sure if they're going to see progress with it because after a week or two, really nothing has changed. And that's because most students forget the entire goal, which is you need to make as many mistakes as possible. So for example, if you have a six week prep, your entire goal during that six weeks should be, I'm going to make as many mistakes as possible now. So I don't make it on test day six, seven, or eight weeks from now. Now that may seem very obvious on the service level, but if you take a step back and look at majority of step one schedules, it's actually not designed for that at all. Majority of it is spending maybe eight hours a day and six of it is watching videos and doing Patoma and doing sketchy and going through first aid. And then you do a question block here and there and do some review. You can see how your proportion of time that you're spending on actually making the mistakes versus hoping you don't make them by going through videos is not actually aligned with the entire goal. So a lot of times we'll have students do is to flip their entire schedule. So if they're studying for eight hours or 10 hours a day during a dedicated prep, I'll say 60% of that time at least should be doing questions and reviewing the past mistakes you have. Honestly, if I had to design the most simplest yet effective step one schedule possible, all I would make you do is do questions, review your questions, have a way to collect your mistakes and then have a way to review your mistakes. And we'll talk about a few ways you can do that later on. But if you're going to take anything away from this episode, remember that the main goal for step one is I'm going to make as many mistakes as possible. I'm going to do it now. So I don't do it on test day and that is the entire goal. And if at any point during this episode or during your personal prep, if you want to increase your chances of having a very comfortable pass on step one, if you want to work with us one on one, there'll be a link down below if you're interested. So mistake number two is you often complicate the study cycle. Again, remember the most important thing about step one is that you need to do what? Yeah, you have to make mistakes. And so you have to look at where your current study schedule looks like and does it allow you to make enough mistakes? If you're loading it with resources that you want to do just because you don't want to miss something on the final day, you're probably not setting yourself for success. On the flip side, if you just focus on a study cycle that's designed around making mistakes, you can get rid of tons of extra resources and things that you feel like you have to do really aren't going to help you make those mistakes. And so often I'll have a student who'll come to me with all the Padoma videos, all the sketchy videos, their embosses, their words and beyond and everything else that they want to do at one time. And instead we'll say, okay, cool, you want to make mistakes. What is the one resource that you're going to be using to help you make mistakes? Most people will pick you world. What is the one thing that you want to do to collect questions that you're going to miss on your world? Some people use onkeys, some people use a notebook, some people use an Excel sheet, really doesn't matter. You just need a place to collect it. And I'm saying perfect. If you had to just have your most simplest day, I want you to do your old when you wake up and I want you to collect those mistakes from your old explanations and repeat the process over and over again. And when you compare these two study cycles, somebody who has tons of resources alternating between videos and textbooks and then questions compared to a student who just says, I'm going to do questions. I'm going to review my mistakes. I'm going to repeat the process. Plus or minus, maybe doing a few hours a day of watching videos on topics that they're weak on. That student in the second group is going to feel much more confident that they're making more mistakes. They're collecting them, they're repeating the process compared to somebody who just is going through resource one by one, just because they feel like they have to. So if you're already within your dedicated prep or you're about to start soon, if you can look at your schedule and saying, that does not look so much fun, then ask yourself, can I step away from certain resources and put myself in a more mistake friendly mode, such as doing more questions or flashcards and replace them for resources that aren't really giving you a lot of excitement when you're studying. And the mistake number three is that we often over promise and under deliver when it comes to our step one prep. Now the biggest issue for this is it's really hard to plan a six week schedule when certain topics will just require more time, either because you're not comfortable enough or there's more of it. For example, the neurology section in first aid is huge compared to something like bio stats. And so it's hard to say, is this going to be a half a day kind of topic? Is this going to be a three day kind of topic? And you just are kind of guessing. And so that often will lead to this scenario where you're hoping to get through all the material by three weeks into your dedicated. It may take you four weeks. And so then you're already behind and you start to panic. And so often when I'm working with students when I'm one to create a study schedule, often we will create a lot of buffers. So if their original plan was to finish all the first aid within the first two and a half to three weeks, we'll say perfect, let's go ahead and just plan for four. They tell me I'm gonna wake up at seven every day. I was like, let's just imagine if your study schedule started at seven 45. So if you woke up late one day, it's not a big deal. They say I'm gonna study till 10. I was like, let's just stop at eight. And so those small things will help you under promise and over deliver. It gives you a sense of momentum. And often those buffers are great times for you to say, I'm actually ahead of my study schedule. Let me use this extra day to spend on a week topic and make more mistakes, do more questions, et cetera. And as a bonus tip, often I'll have students transition their focus from amount of tasks to amount of time. So an example may be a student who says I'm gonna do flash cars or I'm gonna watch a certain amount of videos. Typically they may say I'm gonna watch three videos but I'm gonna give myself an hour and a half. But what if they take two hours to watch because you just haven't maintained it? So instead for those students, I encourage them to say, well, instead of watching three videos, why not just set an hour and a half to watch videos? And if you get through three videos, perfect. If you get through four, beautiful. If you get through two, that's fine. You got three or hour and a half. Same thing with things like flash cards. You may say, I'm gonna try to do 100 flash cards, but on certain days it may take you an hour. On certain days it may take you 30 minutes. And so why not just say, I'm gonna do 45 minutes of flash cards and then that's it. Some days you may have more, some more or less, but at least the focus and amount of time and then when that time is done, you move on to the next thing. Now, before we get into the rest of the mistakes that you need to know about, let's talk about today's sponsor, which is Pickmonic. Pickmonic is one of my favorite resources to recommend to students that are on their medical journey because you typically want all in one resource that can help you learn something and help you review it as well as retain it. And when it comes to things like step one, Pickmonic is a great resource that combines all of those three. So you can come into their hundreds and hundreds of videos, go into their browse function and essentially say, cool, I'm gonna study for step one. Do I actually wanna go through first aid and find this particular videos that they have for each individual page? Or my preferred option is that you can go through their step one library and saying, okay, today I'm actually gonna learn about hematology, but let's be honest, sometimes I can't remember those. And either you can go through the individual videos based on how you're learning. So maybe the physiology of anatomy is gonna be confusing. And you can watch their high yield videos on things like the coagulation cascades and then do the respective quizzes or something that you can do if you're really struggling or want more practice and wanna make more mistakes. As you can say, actually, I'm gonna go ahead and just go and do learn and go into hematology and just do quizzes. So now it's just gonna ask me all of the hematology quizzes and questions that Pickmonic already has within their disposal. This is a great way of, again, making more mistakes. You can still go through their high yield videos that combine these very interesting stories, interesting images and then have reviews and quizzes through them. My favorite part about this resource is that it's just quick. So a minute 46 to watch this quick video on the coagulation cascade and to help you understand a very complicated but highly tested thing that comes on step one, as well as tools such as videos from other high yield resources and texts in case you're a visual learner. So if you're looking for an all-in-one resource that you can combine with your classes as well as your step one, PrepPickmonic is a great resource to look into. If you guys are interested, I'll put a link down below. Our friends at Pickmonic have been nice enough to include an extra 20% discount if you use the code MDJourney at checkout. So as always, thank you for Pickmonic for being today's sponsor. And mistake number four is that there's a lack of flow throughout your day. And now I know from personal experience that it is very hard to have a relatively short step one prep. A majority of students will study anywhere from eight to 12 hours. And that's pretty normal because if you're gonna do multiple question blocks a day, each of them taking an hour, plus a time to review, plus more videos, plus more questions, it starts to add up. And so with that kind of schedule, it's very easy to procrastinate, to fall behind, to lose motivation. And so for those students, the most important thing you can do for yourself is have the most important task at the start of your day. Instead of starting your day by watching videos on a resource that are high yield, like sketchy or Patoma, which are absolutely great, I do recommend starting your day by making this mistake. So either wake up and do those Anki cards from a PMAY deck or do like your review from the questions that you've missed or just go ahead and jump into a block of questions either for the content that you're reviewing that day. So if it's a renal day, do random renal questions or if it's gonna be a random day, then that's so be it. But jumping into questions, even if the rest of the day doesn't go as planned, you at least have had some sense of progress because you made more mistakes today that ideally you missed on testing. Mistake number five is that there's a fear of low marks. Often I'll have students who'll come to me because it's been a week or two into their prep and they're essentially looking at their year old averages and they're like, crap, this doesn't look good. I'm getting like 20s and 30s and 40s and ever so often I'll get a 60th and I'm not getting a good enough percentage. That is a mindset shift versus a knowledge base. Remember, you're trying to make the mistakes and do the learning during the six weeks. So if you're hoping that your first two weeks are gonna get 80% on all of your step one material, that's not very common. There's very few students who actually do well in terms of their percentages on step one on their year old questions initially. It really does require a lot of repetition. So remember, the goal of the game is to make the mistake. So if you do 10 questions and you miss eight of them, instead of saying I am stupid, actually say perfect. I have found eight questions that I have missed now so I won't ideally miss it on test day. And that is a mindset shift that I do have to force all of the students that I work with. But as soon as they start noticing that, they do get excited. When they do make mistakes now, they're like, perfect. Now at least I know what I'm not able to grasp despite going through all these videos and high yield resources, made the mistake, put it into my on key card, put it into my notebook, put it in my Excel sheet. I wanna make sure I don't make that mistake on test day. Let's repeat the process. So remember, your year old percentages from block to block really don't matter. If you make a low grade, perfect. There's more mistakes that you can learn from. If you do a high grade, awesome. You just got presented with questions that you knew very well. And that is a reassurance that you're doing a good job. The main thing if you score a 70 or 80% is to focus on this 20% that you missed, then ideally get closer and closer to the score you ultimately want. And mistake number three is having a formal overload. Now this was a much bigger problem when step one was graded and I feel like I'm one of those old man that was like, back in my day. But now that step one is to pass fail, you would think that it wouldn't be as big of a problem but students still tend to go to student doctor forum, to Reddit, to Quora, to YouTube and want to badger about all these small changes that you can make to increase your score. Right now you just have to get above 196, 197 on step one and do well enough comfortably to pass your exam on test day. So all these plans and study schedules of using various resources and going through flashcards in a very unique way, they're pretty much overblown. They probably will work for a majority of students but again, if you create a plan for yourself that just says I'm gonna make mistakes in this schedule order, I'm gonna review my mistakes, doesn't really matter what other students are doing. And so for that reason, I do recommend trying not to be into the deep parts of the interweb when it comes to the medical community because everyone is going to post their fancy study schedule that says this is how I got at 250 when step one is graded or 263, follow it and you'll do the same. There is a level of luck, intelligence and proper preparation that is required to get an excellent score on step one. So the best thing you can do for yourself on step one to comfortably pass the exam is to look at your study schedule and saying, yes, everything in here feels like I agree to it versus doing it because somebody else also got good results from it. And so it's important to remember to have that tunnel vision when it comes to your step one prep. As soon as you have your resources, your study schedule, design, when you're gonna be taking what practice exam, try not to make too many changes because remember the goal is to comfortably pass the exams. The small changes here and there are not gonna be the reason that you're gonna get a pass versus a fail. Again, go back to the first principle that we talked about, which is make the mistakes as many times as possible, collect the mistakes and review it and repeat. If you can do that, I promise you that you will start to see progress in your scores. And as always, if you do have more issues or if you want extra help, you click down the link down below and you wanna work with us one-on-one to help you on your step one prep and your step one schedule. Happy to do so, that'll be linked down below. And if you're on a medical journey and you still have some time before you take step one, you wanna make sure you do well on step one, but also all the other phases of being a medical student, make sure you check out our free resources, the medical school success handbook, essentially all the principles and lessons that I've learned that other students have taught me that I'm constantly adding to. It's a free document that I constantly am updating, but hopefully it can serve as a constant reference guide that you can use to do things like, how do I study better? How do I manage my time? How do I manage my stress? And all of the other important lessons that I've learned on my medical journey, I'd like to make sure that you know too. So with that, my friends, hopefully you guys enjoyed today's episode about the most common mistakes on step one. Let me know what you guys think in the comment section down below. Remember, if you're interested in some of our free resources like the medical success handbook, that'll be linked down below. Or if you want specific help for things like step one, you can check out our programs including the step one academy program, as well as working with us one-on-one to help you design a study schedule that's perfect for you. Both of those will be linked down below. But as always, my friends, hopefully you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you are watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe and notification bell to be notified when new videos like this go out. Make sure you drop your comments down below. Happy to answer them. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, make sure you hit that follow or subscribe in your favorite listening platform as well as leaving an honest review on iTunes. And if you enjoyed today's episode, you're probably going to like this one right here on how to study for step one, not as pass-fail, step-by-step, as well as this one right here on how to use Anki and to study like a pro. Hopefully you guys enjoyed those. And as always, my friends, thanks for being a part of my journey. Hopefully that was a little help to you guys on yours. I'll see you guys on the next one. Peace.