My Step 2 CK preparation

Geared up with the 99 I got in step 1, I started my preparation for the step 2 CK. I had just 2 and half month of time with me (after which I got to leave India and join my Masters in Univ of Findlay,US). So, I thought that I could give my best shot with less time is by doing more bits rather than reading lot of material.

Kaplan Lecture notes

as usually, it is a customary for all of us to start our preparation with Kaplan lecture notes. I started off with Psychiatry (though may seem unconventional, I choose it as i am in fresh touch with Behavioral science). It hardly took me two days for that.
Now, I began Obs-Gyn and it too barely took anytime. Later, I went for Peds , then surgery and finally medicine.
So, it hardly took, 15 days for me to read all the Kaplan stuff.

Bits or MCQs

I started doing Kaplan Blocks and Q book. And as per me, doing Medicine Q book is a good idea.
Surgery kaplan notes by itself is a bitbank and my suggestion regarding surgery preparation - Be thorough with every page of surgery Kaplan notes. coz, it is not that tough to be perfect with it and more over it is very important.
Treat Kaplan Qbank and Q book as learning tools and never estimate yourself with the score you get in it.

Spend around 15-20 days with these and now start UW.

USMLE WORLD (also called with the pet name UW)

This is the most essential part of your step 2 preparation. It is a must before you attempt USMLE.
There are two ways that it is being done
One way is to subscribe it for one month and the otherway is to subscribe it for 45 days.

One month subscription (I did this way)..
I ve started UW by doing 2 blocks a day. Though I had the overambitious plan of doing three or four blocks a day, I could not do that.
So, a reasonable option would be doing 2 blocks a day and revising it as and then, writing down the unknown points (which occupied an entire notebook of mine).

45 Day subscription.

This is what i heard some 99ers did. They did the UW , 2-3 blocks a day , studied the matter and did not write down the unknown points. After finishing it off for the first time, they start doing it again from start till end.
and it is up to you to choose which to opt for. I feel that I should have done the second way (after giving my exam).

UW, shatters our confidence much

Yes, with the scores i got initially, I was very intimidated. But, I could somehow pull up my scores to 67 %(74 percentile). So, dont be worried with the range of score you get in it.


NBME

I took NBME form 2 and got 241(99) in it. I took it before one week of the main exam. My advise before taking NBME is to be prepared as if you were taking the main exam. Getting a good NBME score will boost up ur confidence levels for sure.

And Finally on May 6th , I took the exam.


My Exam

I felt as if I were doing UW once again but, this time there are 8 blocks. I took break after doing two blocks and one more break after finishing 3rd and 4th block. After that, I started taking breaks after I finish a block.
I took with me a bottle of Glucose bottle, some chocolates, some bread-jam , and water.
I got my result on 28th of May when I am in US and it is 241(99) which is the same score as in my NBME. And when I compared the performance charts given in both the score sheets, to my amazement, they are almost alike.