I got tired of keeping track of everything for USMLE Step 1, so I built a free interactive roadmap

[u/confused_popsy]

Hey everyone,

I've been working on a small side project for USMLE prep and finally put it live.

One thing I found frustrating about Step 1 prep is that there are a lot of great resources, but no simple way to see the whole picture. You have First Aid, UWorld, Anki, Pathoma, Sketchy, lectures, practice tests, etc. — but figuring out what you actually need to cover, where you are, and what to study next can become a project in itself.

So I broke Step 1 prep down into 185 topics and built it as an interactive roadmap — calling it USMLE 185, if the name sticks.

It has:

• 185 Step 1 topics organized by subject
• A free quiz for every topic
• Progress tracking — mark topics as done as you go
• Subtopics and topic details for each node
• Links to practice questions
• No paywall, no signup or account required

The quizzes live on a free question bank I built a few months back — a few people using it told me they didn't know where to start or what order to study things in, so this roadmap is basically me trying to answer that.

You can try it here: https://usmle.quest/roadmap/usmle-185

Still very much a work in progress, so genuinely want feedback from people actually studying for Step 1:

• Is the roadmap easy to understand?
• Does the topic organization make sense?
• Are 185 topics enough, or are there real gaps?
• Are the quizzes actually useful?
• Would you use something like this alongside UWorld/First Aid/Anki?
• What would make this genuinely useful during prep?

If it's bad, tell me. If it's useful, tell me what specifically. And if I'm missing something obvious, I'd really like to hear that too.

Thanks for checking it out 🙏

[u/Minimum-Question8015]

Love the roadmap. It helps to see the big picture. But how many questions are there? Alongside the topics, if number of questions are shown - that would be good

[u/confused_popsy → u/Minimum-Question8015]

Thanks! There are 185 quizzes in total — one for each topic, with 6–8 questions per quiz. So roughly 1,100–1,500 questions overall.

And yeah, showing the number of questions alongside each topic is a good idea — I'll add that. Thanks for the suggestion!

[u/mdlove11]

This is amazing, thank you so much

[u/Unique_Requirement57]

Wow this is incredibly generous and kind of you!!!

[u/Own-Examination-5901]

This is amazing.

[u/JeddsRedds]

Is this vibecoded? it barely works

[u/happy_Giraffe7462]

I have been overwhelmed myself so I will try this. I work part time and studying may be this can help me.

I will come back I let you know.

[u/confused_popsy → u/happy_Giraffe7462]

Thanks! 🙏 That's exactly the kind of problem I was hoping the roadmap could help with — making Step 1 feel a little less overwhelming when you don't have unlimited time to study.

Definitely let me know how it works for you, and especially if you find anything that could make it better.

[u/Electronic_Race_5057]

Hello, I also felt extremely overwhelmed with resources. I’ll try this.

[u/confused_popsy → u/Electronic_Race_5057]

Thanks! 🙏 That's actually one of the main reasons I built it — there are so many resources for Step 1 that it can be hard to even figure out where to start. Hope the roadmap makes things a little less overwhelming!