First Aid, UWorld, Sketchy, Mehlman, Anki, NBMEs, a hundred PDFs… and still no idea what to actually do each day.
By Dr. Marish Asudani · Published · Updated
USMLE Vault is the one place that puts your Step 1 resources in order: it sequences everything into a single, day-by-day system. It has 4 parts: the Schedule, which builds your whole plan from your exam date and daily hours; the University, with walkthrough videos and high-yield PDFs; the Vault, which teaches First Aid page by page with an ELI5 and an MCQ; and the Anki decks, Foundation Anki and the NBME Booster. It is free for your first 3 days.
Put in your exam date and how many hours a day you can study. The Vault builds your entire plan — system by system, in the right order — and tells you exactly what to do each day: which First Aid pages to read, which micro, which MCQs, which Mehlman videos, when to do Anki, how to handle UWorld, and when to take each NBME. Every task is timed, tracked, and checked off as you go. The systems are sequenced on purpose — each one sets up the next.
→ Zero guessing. Just open it and study.Never wonder "how am I supposed to do this?" again. The University has walkthrough videos for every system and every strategy — how to do Sketchy, how to review an NBME, how to use UWorld, how to build your timeline — plus a Files section with the high-yield PDFs you actually need (like the Neil/Randy Neil high-yield set). It's the part that turns the plan into action.
→ Someone's guiding you the whole way.First Aid is a list of facts with no teacher. The Vault goes through it page by page and adds the missing layer — a plain-English ELI5 for every page, the core teaching point, a "how is this tested?" breakdown, and a quick MCQ at the bottom to lock it in. It's the bridge between reading First Aid and crushing UWorld — all 16 systems, page by page. If you want to see one before you sign up, here's exactly what's inside a single page.
→ The teacher First Aid never had.Two lean, page-anchored decks — not 30,000-card monsters. The Foundation Anki (~2,400 cards as of October 2026, every card tied to a First Aid page) lets you revise the entire book by active recall in under a week — here's the day-by-day protocol, two systems a day. The NBME Booster (forms 20–33, system by system) breaks the score ceiling by front-loading the patterns the NBME keeps recycling.
→ Recall the whole book, fast.Not sure which part you need first? The ten mistakes almost every IMG makes — each one paired with the fix.
The AI tutor — a teacher on every page — simple, mechanism, how it’s tested.
Week 1 to exam day — the whole road, with what happens at NBME 1.
Anki, rebuilt — NBME 34, Timed mode, and First Aid on every card.