HELP! Step I Advice - What books to use?

[DMBFan]

I'm really confused about my study strategy for Step I. What books should I use? I've used a combination of books for my organ-systems based class - such as Goljan Path, FA, BRS Phys as I've studied throughout the year, etc.

But for boards - I'm debating about whether to use just one brand of books such as Kaplan, or different kinds of books in each subject that are the best i.e. HY, BRS, etc.

What are everyone's experiences with this?

Also, I've read that USMLE World is better than Kaplan QBank. That IS the general consensus right? Or should I get both? Thanks!

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[XoQo]

I'm really confused about my study strategy for Step I. What books should I use? I've used a combination of books for my organ-systems based class - such as Goljan Path, FA, BRS Phys as I've studied throughout the year, etc.

But for boards - I'm debating about whether to use just one brand of books such as Kaplan, or different kinds of books in each subject that are the best i.e. HY, BRS, etc.

What are everyone's experiences with this?

Also, I've read that USMLE World is better than Kaplan QBank. That IS the general consensus right? Or should I get both? Thanks!

bottom line, it does not matter so much as to which set of books you use...but rather that you go thru the set completely as a review. you may find that using the spread of books you used for class might make the review easier since you've seen things before.

i've known people who go a bit book crazy and end up doing partial jobs on each one...and seen their scores suffer because of it.

i personally used Kaplan 4 vol set + first aid + qbank + all the nbme practice tests online.


people find that UW tends to have harder questions (a given person taking a random set of questions from UW would score lower % wise than a person taking a random set from qbank) and therefore people seem to favor it more. For step 2 most of the people i know used UW, for step 1 most of the people i know used Kaplan qbank. UW is cheaper than qbank btw.

ymmv.

 

[Lamborghini1315]

bottom line, it does not matter so much as to which set of books you use...but rather that you go thru the set completely as a review. you may find that using the spread of books you used for class might make the review easier since you've seen things before.

i've known people who go a bit book crazy and end up doing partial jobs on each one...and seen their scores suffer because of it.

i personally used Kaplan 4 vol set + first aid + qbank + all the nbme practice tests online.


people find that UW tends to have harder questions (a given person taking a random set of questions from UW would score lower % wise than a person taking a random set from qbank) and therefore people seem to favor it more. For step 2 most of the people i know used UW, for step 1 most of the people i know used Kaplan qbank. UW is cheaper than qbank btw.

ymmv.

Sometimes it could be late for kids who haven't tried a set of books beforehand and started their book list late in the year. However, you want to stick to a few books on the material you are covering not 2 different sources for the same subject. It does throw you off when you read too many sources on the same topic..so find out what you like first! I will be doing q-bank early in the year and get it out of the way and use UW as i approach close to the boards since UW seems to be the better book according to a lot of rockstars on SDN.

 

[BarronBlack]

I agree with all the post. If you need more tips, check out the post I had written earlier.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=514571