USMLE Vault · Step 1 · Anki · Final week
The NBME Booster, Pharmacology Only
Every pharmacology question ever asked in any NBME, put together as flashcards. You do it in the final week before Step 1, next to your pharmacology revision from First Aid.
The deck in 1 line.
The pharmacology deck of the
NBME Booster:
the drug patterns the NBMEs have already asked, from forms 20–33, asked back to you the way the exam asks them.
20–33
The NBME forms it is built from.
Final week
Days 28–29 of the last-month plan.
0
new drugs. Patterns you have already met.
What it is
The NBME Booster takes every topic of the retired forms, system by system, and writes each one as a 1-line card. Pharmacology is 1 of those decks: every pharmacology question from the NBMEs, in 1 place.
Pharmacology was never a hard subject. It is a disorganised one. This deck is the exam's own version of it: not every drug in the book, but the ones the NBMEs actually asked, and how they asked them.
NBME 34 has since been added to the Booster. What changed in Anki.
When to run it
| When | What |
|---|
| First 10 days | Pharmacology is learned here, with the FWRT method, in 48–72 hours. Not with this deck. |
| Days 11–17 of the last month | The pharmacology deck runs once with the rest of the Booster, system by system, forms 20–30. |
| The final week | Run it again, pharmacology only. Every pharmacology question from the NBMEs, right before the exam. |
Where it falls, day by day: The Last Month Before Step 1 places it on days 28–29.
How to run it in the final week
1
Pharmacology from First Aid first. The final-week list has pharmacology revision directly from your First Aid. Organise it, then drill it.
2
Then the deck, all of it. Every pharmacology question the NBMEs have asked, as flashcards. Active recall, not re-reading.
3
Drill the drugs you keep failing. Pick & Mix filters to the cards you flagged or missed, so
the misses stop coming back. Why pharmacology gets its own deck in the final week: the patterns repeat. The NBME retires forms, not logic, so the drug questions on the later forms were already asked on the earlier ones with a different vignette. Running only pharmacology, right before the exam, puts every pattern the forms used in front of you once more.
The rest of the final week runs alongside it: First Aid Rapid Review, the FA Foundation Anki or the NBME Booster Anki, the Mehlman High-Yield Arrows, the Randy Neil PDF, Sketchy for micro, and the
NBME Images Anki.
Nothing new.
What not to do
Do not use it to learn pharmacology. That happens in your first 10 days, with
the FWRT method.
Do not open a new pharmacology resource in the final week. First Aid, this deck and your misses. That is all.
Read next
Every NBME drug question, in 1 deck.
The pharmacology deck is part of the NBME Booster in the Vault Anki.
Open it on usmlevault.com →
Or DM me STEP 1 on Instagram.