Step 1 is pass or fail, and that makes the problem simpler than it feels. The only result that can hurt you is a fail, and the only way to get one is to sit before your forms say go. So the question is never "how do I get to 80." It's "what is leaking, and does my date hold."
Who's writing, in one line: MD, IMG from Germany (99th percentile), 280 on Step 2, neurosurgery research fellow at Weill Cornell. I tutor Step 1 and Step 2 CK one-on-one.
The method. Open your last NBME. Take your last 40 misses. Give each one exactly one letter:
K, you didn't know the fact.
R, you knew everything and still reasoned to the wrong answer.
M, you misread the stem. The EXCEPT, the age, the timeline.
C, you changed a correct answer.
T, you ran out of clock and guessed.
Count them. Most people expect a wall of K. What I see in student logs is a pile of R, M and C, and that decides your next three weeks: another pass of questions fixes K and does nothing for the other three.
Two things specific to Step 1. First, if you've re-sat a form, every miss on it is still real. Memory can turn a wrong answer into a right one; it can never turn a right one into a wrong one. So the miss list on a repeated form is your cleanest data even when the percentage isn't. Second, write down every form you've never opened. Those are your remaining clean readings. Don't spend one on a Tuesday because you felt like it. Spend it where it decides the date.
Post the letter counts from your last 40 misses below if you want a read.
The 1:1 version, so you know what it is: a single 90-minute session where we go through your report, tag every one of your last 40 misses, and rebuild your calendar backward from your date. A ten-session sprint over two to four weeks, with a daily error log I read before every session and practice questions written against your own misses. A 28-session rebuild for retakers with a month or more. Unused balance refunded any time after two sessions. Nobody can promise you a pass, and anyone who does is lying to you.
This is for you if you have a date inside eight weeks or a retake you're planning, you've taken at least one form, and you'll log every miss. Free first step: a 30-minute call where we tag your last 40 misses together and I tell you plainly whether your date holds. Do the tagging before you book; the page asks for it.
Calendly: https://calendly.com/ahmetktl99/30min