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Our Cuisinart blender served us faithfully for 10 years. My wife acquired a smoothie habit and it was suddently realized that it was not up to the task of smashing ice into dust. Time for an upgrade.

I needed a small knife that I was confident in if I ever was forced into a situation were my safety was in question.

SO i took step 1, two weeks ago...i trusted the advice of my friends and studied mainly from this book! although this book may seem like just a list of facts...USE IT as a guide....for my version of the exam...I was able to answer almost ALL of the questions based on knowledge from this book....there's proabbaly 10% of the test that tested on obscure facts, and i know for sure the first section of my test was the experimental questions (questions nbme uses to try out new questions) the answer choices were all ambiguous and weird!!! at that point i was like HoLY i shoulda studied from more sources...but after that section was over...I started to DO MAJOR damage to that test....90% of the questions were covered in FA, but here's the kicker...the test only covered 25% of FA ( i literally had like 5-7 gout questions)...simply put...if you know this book youll do GREAT! more importantly in order to consolidate this information i suggest doing qbank on RANDOM...do atleast 100 a night...u'll finish in 22 days...refer back to first AID while u do the questions......and take notes from qbank and write it into your first AID...that helped me a lot! learn from qbank...do it in TUTOR mode and read the answer explanations...I also used the pathology robbins review {question book) did all 1000 of them...100 questions a day for 2 weeks...i did this prior to starting qbank...but i forgot most of the information i learned from the book tho...but it did help me refresh a lot of pathology... I Would read the corresponding sections in BRS and do the path questions...and take notes into BRS...that way when i later reviewed BRS all that info would be there for me....and i also read pathophysiology for boards and wards(takes only one day)...which i thought was BETTER than BRS because it gives u more clinical findings than BRS...read both if you can...but there ARE many mistakes in pathophysio for boards and wards...i also read high yield anatomy and embryo...TOTAL Waste of time...all anatomy questions and embryo that I had were answerable using FIRST AID... also DO NOT BELIEVE IT WHEN PEOPLE TELL U the versions don't change from year to year...I owned the 2004 edition...a month before the test i went to the bookstore...and glanced over the 2006 version...THERE IS WAY MORE INFO in the 2006 version...atleast a good 40 pages more...and the font is smaller...so FIRST AID is basically new and improved!!! SO I bought the 2006 version and transfered the notes from the 2004 version i had taken during my coursework into the 2006 version...50% of my notes were already added into the 2006 version!!! get the 2006 version...if you have an old version get rid of it...of course for biochem...i read lippincotts just to make some sense out of all the random facts in first aid...if your doing things like memorizing every pathway in biochem you're wasting your time...memorize the ones given in FIRST AID ESP RATE LIMITING REACTIONS!!!...and make sure they make sense to you....and if it doesn't make sense...save it for "blind memorization" before the exam....but the most important things you can do for yourself is...read FIRST AID from front to back cover...it'll take about 6 days...you have to do this so you know what info is covered...then divide up your days... i did...1 day behavioral(FA only)...1 day biochem(lippincott), 1 day embryo(High Y), 1 day anatomy(high Y),1 day neuro,(use clinical neuro made ridiculously simple and FA's neuro section) 2 days physio (BRS-VERY IMPORTANT BOOK) 2 days pharm (mainly FA,some lippincott) 2 days micro(FA and microbio ridiculously simple CHARTS), 5 days path(BRS+patho board and ward) (if you find yourself using more than 1 day on anatomy or embryo...ur studying way too much... MOVE ON and study wats in first aid!)these study days were 8 hours reading from texts...and 3-4 hours doing questions at night...about 11-12 hrs a day for 5 weeks... the last week i spent rereading first aid twice...reading it once probaably would have been enough...the 2nd time reading it you tend to start glancing over information and not focusing as much...by now all u can fit in your brain...is already in there...so be a man...and take the test!!! don't get bogged down if your first section the questions are harder than qbank...its most likely the experimental...they'll get easier after that...and after the test...u'll hug and kiss your FIRST AID 2006. good luck med students...the journey has just BEGUN!