USMLE Review Tips: Right Time for Review

Due to most of the topic that needs to be covered, it is generally recommended that your preparation for the USMLE Steps last two months. The intensive USMLE review generally included a two-month internal program. The reason for conducting the review in such a way is to eliminate as much distraction as possible for the medical student.

When you’re already attending the USMLE review, should you take more time to review on your own? The answer is yes. To ensure retention and dominance, the review must be:

At the end of each unit of study or topic, find out if you are ready for the next topic. At the end of any unit of work, there should always be a review. It is an important aspect to help medical students retain the materials learned.

Before weekly or monthly practice test exercises. You should try to review on your own before practicing test exercises to organize, summarize, select, and correct important points. To test your mastery, you must organize your materials from a new point of view.

A part of the regular USMLE review session. Experimental studies have revealed the good effect in terms of mastery of the subject, of doing a brief review every day before starting the new review session.

Anytime. In order to diagnose your need and evaluate your improvement, a written or oral review may be requested within the review program. Depending on the outcome of the diagnostic or evaluative review, your mentors or facilitators may initiate a corrective review session.

Therefore, a daily review should be performed and it should be systematic and persistent in nature. You will also deepen the impression of old lessons, clarify points that are not fully understood, and fix past lessons, while preparing for the reception of the next topic.

In addition to the daily review, there should also be a more extensive and formal review that goes back to working days and weeks. Medical students forget what they have reviewed and their knowledge, in this sense the review revives and fixes. The review should aim to examine the entire field and bring all the parts into a relationship, comprising a symmetrical structure of imparted knowledge and skills.

Your review must be both oral and written. Through oral review, you should be able to express yourself frequently on a topic. This type of review provides training in forming accurate, connected, and logical statements in good English. The written review achieves the same end in written expression. It has the advantage that all medical students answer each question simultaneously.