usmle step 1 is arguably one of the most intimidating professional licensing exams. 280 rigorous questions, seemingly randomly drawn from a huge pool of testable information, make the exam more than seven hours long and require weeks to months of focused preparation.
For many students, Step 1 represents the culmination of at least two years of targeted study in preclinical medical school courses. tens of thousands of anki card reviews, hundreds of pages of textbooks pored over, and countless sleepless nights are just a few of the obstacles students overcome on their way to taking the exam.
You are reading: Best books for usmle step 1 prep
This article outlines the best prep books and other resources for anyone preparing to take the USMLE Step 1 exam. Study hard, stay humble, set aside time to maintain your health and well-being, and may good fortune be upon you. on your side. Our team may earn a small commission from purchases made using the links below at no additional cost to you.
- advisors and seniors
- a smart plan
- usmle exam first aid step 1
- usmle kaplan book set step 1
- pathoma
- joint review series
- leaves review
- joints and beyond
- sketch medical
- pixorize
- uworld
- both
- usmle-rx
Your main, and perhaps most important, resource for USMLE Step 1 preparation is the people at your medical school. Your academic advisors and seniors know which books, study tools, and question banks will serve you best on the way to Step 1.
can give you deeper, more personalized information than any online source (including this article).
Variation in each medical school’s curriculum and institutional partnerships with test preparation companies mean you can potentially save time, money and gray hairs by discovering what worked best for your peers (and what resources your peers already bought). school). you, or has made available to you at a discounted price).
Schedule an appointment with your advisors as soon as possible, even if the date in step 1 is a year or two away. It’s never too early to start planning your Mount Everest climb [Step 1], and gearing up as well as possible, as early as possible, is a surefire path to success.
Talk to your classmates about what tools helped them succeed on the exam and how they structured their study time during the dedicated study period.
Your second most important resource is a smart plan: one that sets specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based goals for your study period.
This is a critically important navigational tool that you should develop with the help of your academic advisors. the long hours of study during the weeks or months leading up to the test date in Step 1 must be carefully calibrated to maximize your learning.
Without a smart plan, you may not be optimally prepared for the challenges of test day. burnout, poor content retention, and high levels of stress due to hoarding are just a few of the potential issues that could arise.
A smart plan means budgeting time not only for studying, but also for maintaining strong physical, mental, and spiritual health. On test day, a clear mind is just as important to your success as mastery of the material.
Without compass or map, the fate of a ship lost at sea is left to chance alone, a terrifying proposition any experienced sailor would strive to avoid.
there are a few usmle step 1 prep books you should consider having on your radar.
usmle step 1 first aid is the gold standard tool used by countless medical students preparing to take the step 1 exam.
The book is designed to be read longitudinally, throughout (and as a supplement to) the medical school preclinical curriculum, so that in the study period devoted to step 1 it can serve as a tool used to a quick review of the content. .
Almost all of the relevant exam content in Step 1 is covered to some extent in First Aid. If you know the contents of the book from cover to cover and have gained a deeper understanding of the key concepts beyond the abbreviated introduction you receive in First Aid, then you should be well prepared to take the exam.
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While reading first aid during the preclinical years, many students make notes in the margins of each page, embellishing the relatively concise content of the book. this is useful not only for learning the material the first time, but also for reviewing it during the dedicated study period leading up to the Step 1 exam.
First Aid authors have written a few other books that may also be helpful in preparing for Step 1. First Aid: Questions and Answers for USMLE Step 1 presents the exam content in a question-and-answer style based on format cases. although it was last published in 2012, much of the content is still highly relevant.
First Aid for the Basic Sciences: General Principles and Organ Systems covers key topics in greater detail than the main First Aid title.
After I bought each of these books, I realized I didn’t have time to read them all, even though it would have been helpful to do so. You’ll find that the biggest limitation in preparing for Step 1 is probably not the amount of resources, but the amount of time at your disposal.
This means you should carefully select your Step 1 books and other resources before spending your limited (and very valuable) study time.
Naturally, other Step 1 preparation books have much of the same content as First Aid. it is its presentation style, design, and comprehensiveness that offer competitive advantages to some students.
kaplan usmle 7 book step 1 reading notes are relatively more explanatory than first aid. Structured chapters offer content exposure calibrated to support first-time learning and subsequent review. the questions at the end of the chapter cover the topics in sufficient detail.
the kaplan set can be combined with first aid for a deeper review of the content. Although I didn’t have time to read Kaplan’s entire set, if I had purchased it at the beginning of the first preclinical year, the readable narrative style of the books would have been an excellent addition to my medical school courses.
Even during the dedicated period, I found myself using parts of each book to “brush up” on concepts I hadn’t yet mastered.
To this end, there are two other sets of very valuable “quick review” books that many students use for Step 1 preparation.
husain sattar’s pathoma is a useful resource for reviewing pathology concepts. many students read the first three chapters of the book, which are relatively short, and watch the accompanying video lectures. the high performance content covered by pathoma makes it an invaluable resource for step 1 preparation.
the board review (brs) book series offers a brief bulleted review of the content and, more importantly, numerous usmle-style questions with sufficiently comprehensive explanations.
many students use the brs physiology, in particular, to review the basics of physiology before the exam. I have personally found all of the brs books helpful, including brs anatomy, brs neuroanatomy, brs microbiology, brs cell biology, and a few others.
To save money, you don’t have to buy the latest edition of every book. previous editions often have a similar quality (and relevance) of content (although more recently developed concepts and drugs may not be covered).
This represents all the books mentioned in this article. i bought previous editions of the brs books to save money and still found them very relevant and useful.
the deja review book series is primarily useful for quick review of content. each page presents content in a short question-and-answer format, so numerous questions and answers can be covered in a relatively short period of time.
For example, deja review microbiology and immunology has a section on antibiotics that covers important aspects of drugs (including indications and side effects). I found that the question and answer format of the material really helps it “stick”.
Please note, however, that these books should be used solely for content review and not for first-time learning.
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leave review usmle step 1 covers snippets of many topics that could be present on the exam.
for students who prefer video-based learning resources, rather than books, whiteboards and more, and incomplete medicine are arguably among the best available.
Boards and Beyond consists of numerous short (5-30 minute) lectures on almost all of the topics covered in the Step 1 exam. The content is higher yielding than traditional medical school lectures. Additionally, it can be efficiently reviewed with the Lightyear Anki Deck, a free third-party tool developed specifically as a plugin for Dashboards and more.
sketchy medical is a relatively new, but very valuable, video-based learning resource. The resource consists of numerous “memory palaces” that are presented through engaging videos and greatly assist in long-term retention of medical knowledge.
Many of your peers may not remember the fine details of the medical school lecture slides devoted to diabetes medications, but the vivid and often humorous scenes of the sketches are ” will remain” in the mind’s eye for months or even years.
sketchy medical has expanded in recent years from microbiology and pharmacology to biochemistry, pathology and more, so that it is now a comprehensive study tool.
pixorize is one of sketchy medical’s competitors, and some students may prefer it because of its structure. videos are generally shorter.
While several related topics are often covered in a single incomplete video, pixorize dedicates a video to each specific topic. while this means there are more memory palaces to cover, they are less detailed and perhaps easier to learn and retain.
During the dedicated period of step 1, boards and beyond, sketchy and pixorize are useful for strengthening specific areas of content weakness. ideally, one would have already learned about these resources in their entirety during the preclinical years (although I know how difficult it can be to fit in time).
Beyond book- and video-based learning resources, question banks are an indispensable Step 1 study resource.
Perhaps the best known usmle step 1 question bank is uworld. The breadth of uworld questions makes them useful for both learning and content review.
Some students start the uworld question bank during the preclinical years and try to complete it a second time during the dedicated period. other students save the question bank for the dedicated period.
the questions are not meant to be “burned”, but to be approached with curiosity. some students only complete one or two blocks of 40 questions per day.
While a block of 40 questions takes a full hour to complete, it can take two or even three times as long to review. the detailed explanations of each question are intended to support learning and mastery of the content.
some alternatives to uworld are both and usmle-rx. Similar to uworld, these resources offer numerous questions relevant to Step 1. For some students, choosing among these question banks is a matter of balancing cost and personal preference.
Your academic advisors should be your go-to resource when it comes time to decide where to invest your money and time. plan smart, study with intent, and when test day comes, take the test confident that you’ve done your best to prepare. My best wishes for your trip.
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