The Best Biochemistry Resources for USMLE step 1 Success: A Comprehensive Guide

 

"Boost Your USMLE Prep with These Top Biochemistry Resources"

According to the content outline and specifications provided by usmle, it says 14-24 percent of question in step 1 exam will be from BIOCHEMISTRY AND NUTRITION. 

It is the third important subject in terms of the number of questions after pathology(45-55%) and physiology(25-35%).

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Biochemistry is comparatively hard to pathology and physiology, so most of the students avoid biochemistry. But avoiding biochemistry means a big backdrop, because of the number of questions you are going to get from this subject.

So, in this article we are going to suggest few resources which are very high yielding in biochemistry.

Textbooks

Most of the students directly pickup review books, which is not good. Because review books for instance say FIRST AID, with all due respect it is a great review book step1. It doesn’t have a comprehensive explanation of the topic, which is very much Important. Without any comprehensive knowledge just mugging up things doesn’t help you.

 Harpers Illustrated Biochemistry

As far as getting knowledge of biochemistry in the constraints of medical field, this book will be best book you will come across.

 This book is a great book, but it is not a great textbook. What does that mean?

Well, it do contain really good helpful information, but it is not language friendly, it is not written in a way that everyone can understand. Words are tricky in this book. But continues reading makes the book more familiar and that initial difficulty will exist no more.

kaplan lecture notes

These books are comparatively comprehensive when compared with review books. These books contain required essentials for the step 1

Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry

It gives lots of explanation and written in an easy language. Not always recommended for medical students. If you are the person who wanted to ace the subject, this book is for you.

Our recommendation: if you want to refer Leininger, at least give one read in harper of that topic and then refer Leininger.

Review books

These books are helpful during the revision period. So, one must have these books.

 The best book is FIRST AID, if you have it no need to refer other books. It is gold standard. 

Practice questions

 Just loading information into your brain does’t ensure your step 1 qualification. You must practice. So here are few good Qbank.

 Uworld

Must do Qbank, no one should skip it. Because questions in this q bank resemble the questions asked in the actual exam.

 USMLE rx

Doing usmle rx is important because, this question bank is from the makers of FIRST AID. For each question its corresponding page number in the book is given. So, it helps to do your FIRST AID more efficiently.

 There are other Qbank which are worth to do and must be done, because if you complete a Qbank and doing the same one for multiple times doesn’t give you nothing. So it is worth to try other Qbank once you finish the Qbank on which you are working.

1)    Kaplan Qbank

2)    Boards and beyond

3)    amboss

Note: all the above books can be downloded for free from online resources if you want to know how then check out Download Medical books free