USMLE Step 2 CS – Three Tips For Success

The USMLE Step 2 CS examination is becoming tougher and tougher as the years go by, making proper USMLE Step 2 CS preparation more important than ever.

In fact, the USMLE organization has recently increased the passing standards for the exam, making it more difficult to pass than ever.

Because of this, the USMLE Success Academy strives to help you better understand the intricacies of the exam so that as you prepare, you are putting your best foot forward and increasing your chances of success.

The following three tips are just a few of the many Step 2 CS preparation tips that we provide our Live Step 2 CS Preparation Students. Be sure to include all of these tips into your preparation to ensure you are getting as many points as possible on your exam.

Three Tips For USMLE Step 2 CS Success

Tip #1 – Practice Perfectly

Many students come to us in Chicago thinking that their weeks or months of practice with a friend prepared them well, however this is rarely the case. Practicing without knowing exactly what you need to do with each encounter means you are learning habits that could cause a failure on the exam.

Strive to master the skills that the Step 2 CS SP’s expect of you on exam day, then be sure to include those into your practice.

At the USMLE Success Academy, we teach our students the skills needed to ensure that they can practice perfectly after completion of the program.

Take time to learn everything that the CS examiners expect of the CIS, ICE, and SEP components, so that you can significantly increase your chances of success.

Tip #2 – Develop Muscle Memory

When a new student joins our Step 2 CS preparation program, one of the first lessons we teach is the need to develop ‘muscle memory’, which will allow the to thrive in the harsh CS exam environment.

What ‘muscle memory’ means when we apply it to the Step 2 CS exam is simply the ability to do the same things over and over again, without having to think about it as you do them.

If you’ve trained for the exam properly, you should do about 75% of the things needed to pass without really having to think about it. This way, if you panic during the exam, you can let your body’s muscle memory from all of your training take-over.

It’s like driving a car… You don’t have to think about what you’re doing, you just do it automatically. At the Success Academy, we put our students through rigorous training that ensures ‘muscle memory’ is present, so that whether you panic during your exam or not, you’re going to get through it.

Tip # 3 – Write 100 Practice Notes Before Your Exam

These days, the ICE component is where we see most students falter, which results in a failure. The reason is because students are writing poor and/or sufficient patient notes.

The patient note is an extremely important part of the entire encounter, and a poorly written note will likely result in failure of a particular case.

Here are some of the areas where we see our students making the most mistakes:

• HPI: If the HPI doesn’t include all pertinent information for the case, you’ll likely lose many points. Important information such as location, intensity, quality, onset, radiation, progression, duration, frequency, chronic/intermittent, alleviating/aggravating factors are all necessary for full points in the HPI part of your note.
• Differential diagnoses: It is imperative that you’re including only likely diagnoses and in the correct order of most likely to less likely. Additionally, strong support (both positive and negative) must be provided, otherwise you will lose points. 

The way by which we ensure that our Step 2 CS students are putting out perfect patient notes is by ensuring that each individual component of the note is mastered and that repetition is taking place. 

Just as with your encounter, you want to develop muscle memory for the patient note, which makes it much easier to create your notes during your stressful Step 2 CS exam.

In Conclusion

USMLE Step 2 CS preparation is very difficult…

It isn’t enough to simply practice with your friends and do a couple patient notes. You need to practice purposefully and perfectly if you want to put your best foot forward on exam day.

If you’re not 100% confident that you can put together a strong Step 2 CS preparation plan for yourself, consider joining our Step 2 CS Preparation Program. Our program eliminates all of the guesswork and ensures that you are prepared to navigate the increasingly difficult Step 2 CS exam preparation process.