Preparing For The USMLE Step 3

How I prepared for and passed the USMLE step 3

I found this to be the hardest of all the USMLE tests. I say this because I performed the best on the uworld bank but my test score was about 20 points lower than my step 1 and CK scores. This is a two-day exam, with 6 blocks of about 44 questions each on the first day. Then 6 blocks of 33 questions on the second day, followed by 13 CCS cases. In total, this took me three months of uninterrupted studying. For graduates who have some time before residency or applications start, that seems like a perfect time to prepare. 

Here's the link to the usmle.org page showing an overview of the exam: 

http://www.usmle.org/step-3/

For this test, I only stuck to two books and one question bank. Here are all the tools I used:

Master the Boards: from Amazon. This, I reviewed once while going through uworld the first time, subject by subject.

Step 3 secrets: also from Amazon. This covers general principles in the first chapter and systems in the other chapters. The book also contains 96 CCS cases.

Uworld question bank with CCS cases: I went through this bank about 3 times and took the single, 4-block assessment exactly a month to my exam. By the third time, I was scoring in the 80's and 90% and I felt confident and satisfied with my performance. Some people may prefer not to repeat the question bank so many times, but I wanted to make sure that I understood the concepts behind the questions. At the time I took the assessment, I was scoring 60s and 70s on my mixed blocks (second round of uworld), and I wasn't satisfied with this performance,so I moved my exam dates to a month from that time. 

I got the qbank with CCS cases, so I was studying both parts concurrently. Uworld comes with some live cases and others which are the "read-out" cases. For the read-out cases, you'll have to login to uworld not through the app but on the actual uworld site online. There are about 41 of these.

I didn't do NBME assessments or any other assessment. I ended up with one point higher than my uworld assessment score. However, I have seen several people getting scores way different from the uworld assessment, so honestly, I wouldn't say it's an accurate estimation of one's performance on the real test.

Uworld Biostats Bank: I did all the questions in this bank. 

Free usmle.org FRED practice test: This has a few blocks of questions and sample CCS cases. I'm glad I did this because there were some questions repeated in the test, word for word. A few, but it only takes one point to fail, right?

The last and best tool I used was my notebook. I took notes from uworld, but only when I found myself missing questions more than once. However, I did make detailed Biostatistics notes with the formulas and definitions I needed. I still had my notebook from studying step 2 CK, which contained notes from my uworld CK qbank, so that came in handy.