Zanki Step 2 USMLE CK 2020 Updated. This original post is aimed for those who have downloaded the Zanki Step 2 Deck but needed instructions as to what the Zanki Deck includes and how to use it. Today, in this article, you will be able to download Zanki Step 2 Deck for free using official download links.
Each deck will have some very basic cards in the beginning that you can probably see once and suspend. These decks were meant to start at any level of knowledge. I’ll go into a breakdown of the content of each deck below:
Content Zanki Step 2 : The next thing I’d like to discuss is resources/content. This deck was designed to closely follow Uworld. I believe UW is the greatest resource for every third-year clerkship. With that being said, the idea was to take the core educational materials from each question and break it into digestible anki cards. For example, for a “What is the likely diagnosis?” card, I will put a few of the defining features of that diagnosis. Questions, especially UW questions, will give you a lot more surrounding info, but I tried to isolate the core features. In the “extra” of the card, I often tried to distinguish these features from similar diagnoses where appropriate. UW is always changing so try and just look out for questions with new material. The last day I updated this deck was 04/23/18 (just that day six new questions were added!)
- Side note: I got a new laptop like halfway through making these cards. If some pictures look beautiful and others look like they’re from the 80’s, you know why lol
Edit: Because this is based off of UW, I’d recommend doing a UW section first and then doing that anki subdeck after so as not to spoil any questions!
Comprehensiveness: I know a frequent question I will get is “How comprehensive is it?”. It’s a tough question to answer, unfortunately. It is nearly as comprehensive as Uworld. However, I think the ability to be comprehensive of all the content of Step 2 is near impossible. The best study strategy (in my opinion) is to do UW, retain the knowledge with anki, and spend other time looking up your patients or reading/watching a different source. I will discuss clerkship-specific sources below.
Clerkship-Specific Decks Advice:Zanki Step 2
- Surgery: There aren’t too many surgery UW questions, which is totally fine because there aren’t too many surgery questions on the surgery shelf lol. If you do happen to have surgery before medicine, I’d definitely recommend trying to get some medicine UW done as well. The most high-yield are probably renal, GI, pulmonary, and cardio. My favorite supplemental source was De Virgilio’s. It’s a looong (600+ pages) textbook, but it’s extremely easy to read. Many people recommend Pestana’s. Personally I didn’t like the brevity of it, but if you’re looking for a short book that can fit in your white-coat pocket, it’s not a bad resource. I didn’t use OnlineMedEd for any clerkships, but I know some people live and die by those videos. Check them out and see if they’re for you. Watch Emma Holliday a day or two before the shelf for a solid review.
- 2. Medicine: There are a lot of medicine questions. Furthermore, medicine is such a broad subject that even with all those questions, there’s still tons of other “testable” material. I felt UW was great for many of the subjects, but I definitely missed having some of the details from Step 1. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to add in “relevant step 1” material to this deck due to time constraints. Overall it wasn’t too much step 1 stuff though, so if step 1 is a distant nightmare, don’t sweat it. As far as book resources, most people will tell you Master the Boards or Step Up to Medicine (I chose to use MTB). Master the Boards was an easy read but definitely lacks on the details. I felt the only strength of it was to review an organ system in an organized way. There aren’t many new details, so it was a good last-minute review. I never read Step Up to Medicine but I’ve heard good things, especially if you’re someone that likes having more detail. Again, there’s OnlineMedEd – I know some people live and die by those videos. Check them out and see if they’re for you. Watch Emma Holliday a day or two before the shelf for a solid review.
- 3. Psychiatry: Psychiatry is known for being more of a relaxed rotation, which can be a nice break from some of the other ones with tougher hours. The material is pretty similar to Step 1 psychiatry and there aren’t that many new details to learn. That being said, UW was fantastic and they have really been making a push to update it recently. Some of these anki cards are long because I tried to include DSM-V criteria for the major disorders to help those students who are getting pimped. I personally supplemented with First Aid for Psychiatry. I thought it was a pretty good resource and I’m not really sure what other resources people used besides maybe OnlineMedEd. I also re-watched some of those relevant SketchyPharm videos because this was the only clerkship that I felt pharm was actively tested. I didn’t know Emma Holliday had a video for psych so I never watched it, but if you liked it for past clerkships, check it out.
- 4. Neurology: I know this isn’t a universal clerkship for medical students, but my school had it. The neurology questions are under the medicine category but I made them its own clerkship deck. We had an oral exam so I went a little overboard with “relevant step 1” stuff just so I could re-learn the pathways. For those who don’t care to look at the basic neuro stuff, I separated the subdecks so you could more easily suspend/delete them. I think that probably applies to most people, so please feel free to chop down the size of this deck, especially if you don’t have a neurology clerkship. I didn’t supplement neurology with any source, but I know some classmates used Blueprints and CaseFiles. Again, there’s OnlineMedEd – I know some people live and die by those videos. Check them out and see if they’re for you.
- 5. Pediatrics: This clerkship is known for having a pretty tough shelf. Mostly because it’s a bit random and has a fair amount of medicine. For that reason, I tried to incorporate relevant step 1 material into deck. I made this deck right after my best friend told me my medicine cards sucked (don’t worry, I edited nearly all of them), so I tried extra hard on these! I personally only did UW and these cards, but I know some people really liked CaseFiles, PreTest, and/or BRS. As before, there’s also OnlineMedEd and Emma Holliday.
- 6. OB/Gyn: OB/gyn can be a tough clerkship due to time constraints/stress and finding time to study. Overall, I found UW to be a great resource. I also used Uwise (you can find it as a Quizlet deck) and included a few flashcards from there that I thought were important. Those are the only two sources I used. I know some classmates used Casefiles, but I’m not sure about other textbooks. There’s also OnlineMedEd.
- 7. Step 2: Coming off step 2 about a week ago, I will admit it is a tough exam. I personally had a fair amount of material I haven’t seen before, but you just need to do your best and stay sharp-minded throughout. I think the key to a successful step 2 is studying hard throughout your clerkships. Don’t underestimate how much you can learn from your patients. I had about 3.5 weeks of dedicated and that was basically just enough time to re-do UW and take practice tests. I’d say about 1/3 of my test was a mix of NBME 6 & 8 (pretty straightforward with short questions stems), 1/3 was like NBME 7 (short question stems, but vague/confusing), and the final 1/3 was like the UW SAs (long questions, mixed difficulty).
Overall Studying Advice: Zanki Step 2
- I believe these anki cards are great to help retain the details of UW. However, there will often be questions that test materials you haven’t seen. I can’t stress enough how important is to try and seek out patterns. Many questions I’m unsure of, I make a guess based on intuition. If your pattern-recognition is strong, your intuition will rarely lead you astray.
- Pay close attention to question stems. There is a big difference between “What is the best next step in management?” and “Which of the following is best test to confirm the diagnosis?”
- Don’t let your studying be passive. Actively think about what diagnosis you’re looking at. Are there similar diagnoses? How can you differentiate them? A simple example would be vasa previa (painless 3rd trimester vaginal bleeding, but abnormal fetal heart tracing) vs placenta previa (painless 3rd trimester vaginal bleeding, normal fetal heart tracing) vs abruptio placentae (painful 3rd trimester vaginal bleeding)
