The medical profession in the United States of America has been at the top of various rankings in terms of prestige, complexity and remuneration for many years. However, despite the high level of income in the country, there is still a shortage of doctors. The reason is that according to many Americans, “learning to be a doctor is extremely hard.” So, passing the USMLE is considered to be one of these difficulties. An integral assistant in preparing for this exam is the AnkiPro virtual resource.
How to Prepare to Take the USMLE?
It is necessary to prepare for any exam and the more seriously this preparation is, the less anxiety there will be. Most students don’t take exams seriously until they are looming in the near future. Therefore, the lion’s share of preparation usually occurs in the last months. So, this creates exceptional stress.
The thing is that at the final stage of preparation, intensive repetition of a huge amount of material is required. That is why you should start preparing for exams in advance so that a situation does not arise when you need to read all the material in the last days.
The most important thing in the process of preparing for the USMLE is motivation, everything else is secondary. Some people passed this exam with a decent result in 4 months, while others did not pass it even in 2 years, with the same initial level of English and the number of years that had passed since graduating from medical school.
Additionally, when preparing for this exam, you should read the “proper” books specifically written for USMLE preparation. There are entire series of books marked “Board review” or “USMLE review”. With any set laid out on the table, you will answer 90-95% of the exam questions, which will bring you a stellar score.
The third condition for success is that a month before the exam, it is recommended to look into the bank of standard questions for Step1 and solve all the 1500-2000 questions presented there on the Internet in real time.
What Are the Best Study Resources for Passing USMLE?
To begin with, the USMLE is an exam taken by American medical students. It’s worth noting right away that without excellent English you won’t succeed. Constant practice and learning new tutorials will help you prepare effectively for the exam. However, it is not always convenient to carry a pile of heavy textbooks.
Online resources for preparing for the USMLE will come to your aid. They can be used absolutely at any time. In addition, they are no less effective in preparing for medical tests. The top five resources for passing USMLE according to most students are detailed below.
AnkiPro
The presented training portal is generally based on the method of using virtual decks with effective flashcards to successfully memorize the necessary USMLE data. This digital learning platform helps you master the humanities in an entertaining and easy way. The program is based on an improved distance repetition algorithm, which allows you to remember important terms and definitions, and prepare exams while studying new materials. Among the main advantages of this application, the following aspects should be highlighted:
- knowledge assessment is displayed in points here;
- flashcard decks are suitable for different age categories;
- there’re regular updates that improve service functionality;
- there’s a large number of informative flashcard decks;
- the tool works on an improved interval memorization algorithm.
Nevertheless, the essential Anki Pro flashcards benefit is the possibility of online learning. This is interesting not only because of gaining the required knowledge at home or during a trip. You can independently adjust the lesson time as well as make adjustments to your personal USMLE training.
This tool understands which piece of information you are about to forget and automatically shows you. The undoubted popularity of AnkiPro is confirmed by positive reviews from plenty of users. Simply put, people downloaded the app and passed this medical exam. Moreover, the training took place online. We have to agree that this is incredibly convenient and truly beneficial.
USMLE-RX
This service provides a bank of questions and flashcards with videos that will assist you in preparing well for this most difficult exam. This is the only resource developed by the authors of First Aid. Accordingly, it has much of the same high-profit philosophy as First Aid. This platform will surely help you comprehend how well different anatomical and pharmacological concepts work.
What matters here is that you can use this service to browse different topics, with all questions and content divided into specific topics. This app also includes two 160-item exams to allow you to test how well you understand the content. Interestingly, this feature can help you simulate the testing process, giving you extra confidence in success.
AMBOSS
The presented resource implies a mobile platform designed for teaching medical students. Here, you will see two main sections. The first section includes a reference guide to a variety of clinical topics. The second section is a USMLE-type question bank. Moreover, in the second section, you can easily adjust the questions to suit your needs and plan. This application will be especially useful for those students who plan to take the USMLE.
Sketchy Videos
The presented top app constitutes a popular learning platform that automatically turns various USMLE-related concepts into informative videos for audiovisual learning. Here, you will see hundreds of fascinating videos covering lots of aspects of pharmacology, anatomical reactions and the like.
Notably, these videos contain a variety of smart and gripping illustrations and drawings that will assist you in remembering how different parts of the test work. Undoubtedly, watching many of the videos presented in the application takes some time. However, they provide detailed information about the human body that can help you better understand the USMLE material.
UWorld
In this application, you will see a plethora of banks with questions, the answers to which will help you successfully prepare for stage 1 of the USMLE. First of all, this platform will allow you to get acquainted with the content of the medical exam. This app offers thousands of questions with detailed explanations and diagrams for each one.
What is more, you can create your own virtual notepad. It will assist you in saving some of the most essential data that you would like to remember. The majority of common students who are preparing to take the USMLE use this app to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Thus, it facilitates the necessary changes in studying the exam material to achieve success.
Bottom Line
Preparing for any exam requires systematic work. It is necessary to repeat and organize your knowledge. At the same time, the most important element of preparing for the exam is training in solving problems. In order to solve and correctly write the largest number of answers on the form in the allotted time, you need to “get your teeth into”. To learn how to solve problems, you need to solve them. The virtual resources presented in our review will help you with this.
