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Your NBME is tomorrow morning. Step 1 or Step 2 CK, this is your evening.
By Dr. Marish Asudani · Published
Only your 1-page list. All week, bookmark everything that doesn't click: Anki cards you keep missing, your NBME one-liners, UWorld questions you traced back to First Aid. Put it on 1 page. The night before, study only that page, then run the checklist: offline form, paper and pen, 3 timers, glucose, alarm for a 7:30 or 7:45 start.
Most IMGs spend the night before an NBME opening random chapters in a panic. Cardio for an hour, then biochem, then a UWorld block "just to check". That's how you walk in tired and scared.
First, though: when is your NBME?
Tomorrow? Read on.
Throughout the week, whatever you study that isn't clicking, you bookmark it and put it on 1 page. One page. Not a notebook, not a folder of screenshots.
Where the bookmarks come from:
Want a day-by-day schedule that tells you exactly what to study next? The Vault builds it around your exam date.
Get the week before, day by day →On the final day before the NBME, you study all of those things. Only those things. No new content the night before.
Why the page works: it is every topic that didn't click for you this week, and nothing else. You aren't revising what you already know to feel better. You're closing the gaps you already found.
Tonight's cards: only the ones you flaggedPick & Mix pulls your flagged and missed FA Foundation Anki cards from every system into 1 session.
Open Pick & Mix →When to stop. This is an NBME, not the real exam, so keep your normal routine and your normal sleep. Study the page, stop at your usual time, and sleep your usual hours so you're fresh for a 7:30 start. The special exam-eve routine is for the real Step 1 only, not for an NBME.
▶Neil Randy · Test anxiety series: demos and strategiesIf the nerves start tonight. YouTube playlist.The checklist on the final day makes sure you're completely ready for tomorrow. Tick it off. It saves on this phone.
Why offline, and every other NBME rule in one place: NBMEs offline: the complete system →
Start time, why the morning, the break plan, why glucose and not caffeine, and the review the same evening: 24 hours of an NBME day →
▶How to solve NBME blocksMy video. The 2 passes inside every block of 20. Watch it before your first form, not tonight if you already know it. ▶Before giving your first NBME, watch this videoMy video. Best watched 5 to 6 days before; if tomorrow is your first NBME, watch it now.And after it, review your incorrects the same day: the review protocol → Then the week after, run that form's topics in the NBME Booster Anki, system by system. How the Booster works →
Before your next form: the NBME Booster AnkiEvery form from 20 up to the one you give tomorrow, system by system, each one-liner explained underneath.
Open NBME Booster Anki →24 hours of an NBME day — tomorrow, hour by hour.
The week before your NBME — for the next form.
24 hours after a bad NBME — if tomorrow goes badly.