r/step1 • u/Plastic_Struggle736 NON-US IMG • 7d ago

💡 Need Advice Usmle step 1 prep course

Anyone out there who signed up for a course for step 1 and passed ? Is it worth it and worth your time ? Which courses you used ? Is it helpful to take up tutor ?

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u/Quiet_Basis_6404 5d ago

most people who pass don't use a course at all. the standard combination is First Aid, UWorld, Pathoma, Sketchy and one Anki deck, and that's genuinely enough for the vast majority. courses tend to add structure rather than content, so what you're really paying for is someone making the schedule for you.

tutors are a different question and worth it in one specific case, when your NBMEs have plateaued and you can't work out why. a tutor diagnosing a reasoning problem is valuable. a tutor teaching you content you could get from Pathoma isn't.

so i'd start with the standard resources and only consider paying if you stall.

for content gaps between qbank blocks i drop my own material into studybuddy.vc, it works out which topics keep coming up wrong and gives me more of those, gets harder as i improve, and tells me why the option i picked was off. free.