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Step 1 dedicated study schedule (6 weeks) with practice exam dates

Last updated September 1, 2026

A schedule is a hypothesis, not a contract. This one assumes six weeks of dedicated study, roughly ten hours a day, and a primary question bank you have not yet finished. Adjust the volume; keep the structure.

The shape of it

Six weeks divides naturally into three phases: two weeks of broad coverage, two weeks of targeted repair, and two weeks of consolidation. Practice exams sit at the boundaries, because that is where their information is most actionable.

Week 0 — before you start

• Sit a baseline practice exam. Uncomfortable, and the single most useful thing you can do. You cannot target weak areas you have not identified.
• Book your exam date if you have not. An unfixed date makes every subsequent decision harder.
• Plan rest days now, not later. One a week. People who schedule none take them anyway, at worse moments.

Weeks 1 to 2 — broad coverage

• Questions: 80 to 120 a day, mixed and timed.
• Review: at least as long as you spend answering. This is not optional; it is where the learning happens.
• Focus: everything, in rotation. The goal is to surface weaknesses, not to fix them yet.
• End of week 2: practice exam. Compare the content breakdown against your baseline.

Weeks 3 to 4 — targeted repair

• Questions: same volume, but weighted toward your three weakest content areas.
• Add: biostatistics and ethics if you have been avoiding them. Both are among the most learnable sections on the exam and among the most commonly left too late.
• End of week 3: practice exam.
• End of week 4: practice exam. Two exams close together here is deliberate — this is the point where the trend becomes readable.

Week 5 — consolidation

• Questions: back to mixed, full blocks, timed. Rehearse the format, not just the content.
• Sit at least one full-length exam in one sitting, at the time of day your real exam is booked for. Seven hours of sustained attention is a skill distinct from knowing the material.
• Day 5 or 6: final practice exam. This is your readiness estimate.

Week 6 — taper

• No new material. Nothing learned this week will meaningfully change your score; the cost to your sleep will.
• Light review of things you already half-know: 40 to 60 questions a day at most.
• No practice exams in the final 72 hours. A bad result here does real damage and cannot be acted on.
• Sleep on a fixed schedule from day one of this week, matched to your exam start time.

Practice exam dates at a glance

• Before week 1 — baseline
• End of week 2 — first checkpoint
• End of week 3 — trend
• End of week 4 — trend
• Week 5, day 5 or 6 — readiness estimate

Five exams across six weeks. If that feels like a lot of testing, drop the week 3 exam first — it is the least informative of the five.

If you are behind

Cut question volume before you cut review, and cut breadth before you cut your weak areas. Halving your daily questions while still reviewing every one properly is better than doubling volume and reviewing none. And if the trend across three exams is flat and well short of where you need to be, the right response is to move the exam date, not to study harder in the final week.

Common questions

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