anyone NOT doing usmleworld and just qbank?

Step 1 is a lot about memorizing details. Uworld gives an illusion of step 1 being about mechanisms rather than details which makes people less frustrated.

Illusion maybe, but at least going through the mechanisms helps solidify the details in your head. They are also repeated ad nauseum on usmleworld so you remember them. I also love the little tips in the objectives for the answers saying effectively, "know this or you are screwed".

FWIW, Kaplan is not bad for testing knowledge and has some pretty good questions. UWorld just does a really good job explaining things in detail, whereas Kaplan descriptions are usually too short to get much out of them.

I don't think you would be at any disadvantage by using only kaplan qbank and not UWorld.

psychforme said:

Step 1 is a lot about memorizing details. Uworld gives an illusion of step 1 being about mechanisms rather than details which makes people less frustrated.

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I hope this isn't true I'd like to think that if you can do fairly well on UW then you should have no problem with Step 1. Also, it always seemed to me that people thought UW was harder than Kaplan... is that not the case?

The NBME exams don't really seem to be sticklers for the details. I guess it depends how much you know and they seem pretty straight forward.

I was not originally someone who likes to do practice questions before exams, however I am glad I am using UW. It is very interactive and taught me to think about what the exam is asking me. Or I guess concentrate on what they are asking me. Also to quickly think about everything else that may not be written in the stem. I will tell you when I write my step1 and when I get my score if it worked.

UW for similarity to test day conditions and for relatively fair and decent questions.
Qbank for its media (video lectures, audio (mainly heart sounds)) and attention to detail (which can get fairly frustrating).

I did about half of Qbank and finished UW. Might go and load up just the media questions for qbank.

I did all of UW and about 20% of Kraplan. If I had to do it over I'd never have even bought Qbank. UW is so much better it's ridiculous. I have some friends who used the Elsevier USMLEConsult as their second qbank, and heard that it was also not as good as UW, but I'm not sure how it stacks up to Kaplan.

Anyway, I would definitely do UW and only a second one if you're going to finish UW and have a lot of time left over.

The USMLE Step I does, from my experience, test a lot of details. I feel that having finished QBank, I knew a lot of important details that are going to help answer questions quickly on the test. The "trivia" helps when you can cut down the time having to think about a question.

Tyger said:

The USMLE Step I does, from my experience, test a lot of details. I feel that having finished QBank, I knew a lot of important details that are going to help answer questions quickly on the test. The "trivia" helps when you can cut down the time having to think about a question.

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I suppose it has to do with whatever form you get on test day too.. I think UW in addition to my book studying (which wasn't any more extensive than anyone elses) was more than sufficient. I think I only had one really picky question on my exam - something about "which DNA polymerase blah blah blah." It was in First Aid though even if it wasn't in a UW question. And there were some questions that I got on my exam (one about Meniere's Disease) which wasn't included in FA and I don't even remember if it was in my BRS Patth book, but was def tested in UW and the only reason I knew the answer. Overally I think most people only have enough time to dedicated to one question bank unless they have a non-traditional schedule or if they pretty much ONLY use FA/MedEssentials + questions. If you're in that boat then I think most people would agree that UW is a very good simulation of the real exam, both visually and in terms of the questions

braluk said:

UW for similarity to test day conditions and for relatively fair and decent questions.
Qbank for its media (video lectures, audio (mainly heart sounds)) and attention to detail (which can get fairly frustrating).

I did about half of Qbank and finished UW. Might go and load up just the media questions for qbank.

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well qbank seems to be testing some details that are even beyond the scope of usmle, like the ratio between glucose 1 phosphate/glucose (increased glucose 1 phosphate means less branching and hence anderson's dz, i think). Kaplan is the only time i saw anything close to crap like that. I did 65% of it and pretty much didn't learn anything from it...

and also, with kaplan, you can pick out the answer just by reading the answer choices cause sometimes its ridiculously obvious, my score was 20% higher than what I was getting in UWorld at the time.

pretty much kaplan is garbage and all those bells and whistles they throw in (video explanations, interactive this or that) is also garbage.

I have lots of friends who did extremely well on this exam (>260's) with Kaplan only and they didn't even touch goljan. It's possible. At our school, however, we can take the exam after clinical rotations, so that might make a huge difference in the scores, as the Step I is becoming more and more clinical and after 3rd year, the diagnosis part is a piece of cake.

I, personally, am not a fan of Qbank, but when combined with UWorld, I think both together can be a powerful tool.

I don't think that is wise. I did both, and I can tell you UW is by far superior, but hey, if thats the way you want to do it, I can't argue with you...I just am certain you won't score as well as you could have.

i did all of uw and all of qbank and i thought both were pretty good for preparing.

the actual step felt like a mix of uw and qbank with a few 'wtf ru serious' questions thrown in.