After the National Board of Medical Examiners released a round of 2014 Step 1 scores, reddit user hamm3rhand decided to take a survey of students’ study habits—what books they used, what practice tests they took—and how these correlated to their scores. While the data he gathered did not reveal one particular resource to guarantee a stellar score, he was able to flesh out the better resources and most successful study habits. He concludes that the best resources to use are Firecracker, Kaplan, Uworld, FA, and Pathoma—these were the most popular and recommended—while, as for the best practice tests, you should do at least USWA 1 and USWA 2 along with NBME 15 and NBME because 16—75% of responders felt these were most similar to the test. Ever so shockingly, he found that using any resource was better than none at all, with the exception of DIT. As for the efficacy of the practice tests, hamm3rhand created this plot from his 272 valid responses to demonstrate how well practice tests can gauge the score you may get: Source
