Improving a weak subject over summer?

[jaw93]

I finished up MS1 year last week. Right now I'm doing a research project but there is a gap as we are submitting so I'm really just hanging out at home doing nothing. During the year I was consistently an above average student sitting mostly in the top 30%-40% of my class and occasionally breaking into the top 20%. obviously I would have liked to be top 20% all the time but my grades reflect my effort for the most part.

Except for one unit. we are on a organ block schedule and I bombed GI. borderline failing exam grade and well below average for the unit overall (helped by a strong anatomy grade). I felt I worked hard enough on this unit but my studying was obviously not efficient or high yield. I thought my grade may have been low because I only used outside resources for the first time so I could have missed a lot of school specific q's. However, we had an end of the year NBME exam and once again GI was below the overall average and well below my other subjects.

I know studying for step 1 over summer is low yield and burnout risk is high but I don't want to start MS2 and step 1 prep with a clearly deficient subject. what are somethings i could do now to fix my knowledge gap? zanki/bros GI section? FA + USLME-Rx? class notes?

Thanks in advance for any advice

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[Elessar]

I know studying for step 1 over summer is low yield and burnout risk is high but I don't want to start MS2 and step 1 prep with a clearly deficient subject. what are somethings i could do now to fix my knowledge gap? zanki/bros GI section? FA + USLME-Rx? class notes?

I would highly recommend only doing this if you are incorporating long-term spaced repetition (i.e. you plan on keeping up with whatever new cards you learn). If so, I would watch GI Pathoma followed by learning the zanki GI cards. Otherwise, whatever work you put in this summer will be a waste since you won't remember any of it come step 1.

As long as you limit study time to 1-2 hrs a day (max), I don't see how this could hurt as far as burnout goes.

 

[OnePunchBiopsy]

I tried the same thing with biostatistics (summer research, study it in my spare time,etc) and biostats was STILL my weakest subject going into Step 1.

This was because I was so busy with research that I studied it a couple of hours M-F and then didn't look st it much during second year because I thought I was "good" after studying it that summer.

Honestly, I'm happy I spent more time on my research bc I got a pub, poster, and conference out of it.

If your research takes up a lot of time, just focus on that bc you'll have all second year for step prep. If you HAVE to study due to lots more spare time, then I recommend continuing to study it more during second year and not to rest on your laurels like I did.

 

[acutepox]

Obv can't give advice, but in a similar boat and am choosing to zanki it up this summer and watch Pathoma for my weaker points. I won't be studying too much but zanki has been pretty great so far so I'll just keep at it.