Advice - stop USMLE Rx or finish?

[BMSc2DO]

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Good morning everyone,

I am seeking some guidance as to how to approach my board studying from hereon out. I am taking the USMLE May 27.

As of now, I have completed 1500 USMLE Rx questions via 1 block of questions (44), timed, random, each day. My average is 85% with a predicated USMLE score of 275+ (not sure how reliable this is...).

Anyways, my original schedule had me finish all of USMLE Rx by Feb 13th, and to start UWORLD Feb 15th. However, due to USMLE Rx constantly adding more questions (a good thing) and me getting behind a few days, I find myself with 1000 USMLE Rx's questions left to do.

The question: Should I stop Rx with 1000Qs left, and switch to UWORLD as planned, or spend another 3 weeks to knock out these 1000Qs, completely finish USMLE Rx, and then switch to UWORLD?

Thank you for your help.

 

[Entadus]

Don't let your perfectionism get the best of you (and we all do sometimes!). Switch to UWorld as intended. There's no way to finish every resource so you need to prioritize. It is basically unanimously agreed upon that UWorld is more helpful/higher yield. Go for it and don't look back

Maybe you can finish UWorld early and then go back and finish Rx?

 

[Transposony]

Those newly added questions are one of the best quality questions I have seen on USMLERx.
I was in a similar situation but finished the USMLERx by doing 3 blocks a day and more on weekends (1 block in 40 minutes and review it in 20 minutes X 3= 3 hrs/day).
Finished it in 10 days and am glad that I did since those new questions were the best.
You still have over 3 1/2 month before your test. So, why not finish it?

 

[iceman55]

20 minutes reviewing 44 Qs?

 

[Transposony]

20 minutes reviewing 44 Qs?

There isn't much to review if you have been reading FA since they mostly quote pages from FA.

 

[BMSc2DO]

Thank you everyone for the advice. I am still unsure. Any more input would be great. My concern is that if I delay UWorld to finish the remaining USMLE Rx questions, I may not be able to get through UWorld twice. On the other hand, I am unsure if I would benefit from going through UWorld twice. All input is appreciated.

 

[Phloston]

Thank you everyone for the advice. I am still unsure. Any more input would be great. My concern is that if I delay UWorld to finish the remaining USMLE Rx questions, I may not be able to get through UWorld twice. On the other hand, I am unsure if I would benefit from going through UWorld twice. All input is appreciated.

Do not do uworld twice. Do it thoroughly and well once. The more questions you do the better. So do uworld once and rx if you can.

 

[mymembernames]

Why not do UWORLD now and if you have time remaining you can finish up Rx?

 

[BMSc2DO]

Do not do uworld twice. Do it thoroughly and well once. The more questions you do the better. So do uworld once and rx if you can.

If it is recommended to do UWorld once, then I think I will finish USMLE Rx in the next 3 weeks, and switch over to UWorld. That will give me ~ 2 1/2 - 3 months to go though UWorld once and the NBME examinations. Does that sound reasonable?

 

[Postictal Raiden]

Those newly added questions are one of the best quality questions I have seen on USMLERx.
I was in a similar situation but finished the USMLERx by doing 3 blocks a day and more on weekends (1 block in 40 minutes and review it in 20 minutes X 3= 3 hrs/day).
Finished it in 10 days and am glad that I did since those new questions were the best.
You still have over 3 1/2 month before your test. So, why not finish it?

Holy crap. It takes me 3hrs to do/review a block of 44 random qs.

 

[DoctorInTheMaking14]

Holy crap. It takes me 3hrs to do/review a block of 44 random qs.

Same here! I have to prep my brain to not hate doing the questions just because the answers are so time consuming.

 

[plasmodium]

If it is recommended to do UWorld once, then I think I will finish USMLE Rx in the next 3 weeks, and switch over to UWorld. That will give me ~ 2 1/2 - 3 months to go though UWorld once and the NBME examinations. Does that sound reasonable?

If you're studying First Aid side-by-side while finishing USMLE Rx, don't concern yourself with overanalyzing the explanations in USMLE Rx too much. It certainly should not take you hours to go through a USMLE Rx block of explanations (this may happen to you when you begin UWorld, though). Focus on the explanations for questions that you get wrong, but breeze by the ones you get right so that you can move on to Kaplan QBank or UWorld as soon as you can. In my experience, USMLE Rx was far behind both Kaplan QBank and UWorld in terms of organization, question difficulty, content relevance, quality of question, and quality of explanation. It should be low priority, and finishing it shouldn't consume your time if you are behind on your schedule. Of course, this is just my opinion, just like every post before mine is based on the opinion of the author. Take what you read with a grain of salt, implement a bit of trial and error in your own approach, and figure out what works for you.

 

[Phloston]

If it is recommended to do UWorld once, then I think I will finish USMLE Rx in the next 3 weeks, and switch over to UWorld. That will give me ~ 2 1/2 - 3 months to go though UWorld once and the NBME examinations. Does that sound reasonable?

Two months is a good amount of time for UWorld once. And yes absolutely spend your extra time doing questions from a different Qbank. It is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous and baneful myths perpetuated that UWorld should be done more than once. And not to mention it's probably one of the most frustrating things to hear people think is actually ideal.

 

[plasmodium]

Two months is a good amount of time for UWorld once. And yes absolutely spend your extra time doing questions from a different Qbank. It is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous and baneful myths perpetuated that UWorld should be done more than once. And not to mention it's probably one of the most frustrating things to hear people think is actually ideal.

Agreed.

 

[walakin25]

If you're studying First Aid side-by-side while finishing USMLE Rx, don't concern yourself with overanalyzing the explanations in USMLE Rx too much. It certainly should not take you hours to go through a USMLE Rx block of explanations (this may happen to you when you begin UWorld, though). Focus on the explanations for questions that you get wrong, but breeze by the ones you get right so that you can move on to Kaplan QBank or UWorld as soon as you can. In my experience, USMLE Rx was far behind both Kaplan QBank and UWorld in terms of organization, question difficulty, content relevance, quality of question, and quality of explanation. It should be low priority, and finishing it shouldn't consume your time if you are behind on your schedule. Of course, this is just my opinion, just like every post before mine is based on the opinion of the author. Take what you read with a grain of salt, implement a bit of trial and error in your own approach, and figure out what works for you.

very well said @plasmodium, i did rx before uw and after doing both banks what you've written very eloquently above, i can confidently say thats how i felt about rx qbank.

 

[BMSc2DO]

Two months is a good amount of time for UWorld once. And yes absolutely spend your extra time doing questions from a different Qbank. It is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous and baneful myths perpetuated that UWorld should be done more than once. And not to mention it's probably one of the most frustrating things to hear people think is actually ideal.

I think I will finish USMLE Rx in the next 3 weeks and then switch to UWorld and go through it one solid time in 2 1/2 months. Thanks everyone for the help.

 

[Postictal Raiden]

It is interesting to see the different prospectives on issue. I have spoken to two individuals who scored above 260, and both of them recommended that I go thru UWorld multiple passes. In fact, one of them didn't do anything other than UFAP.

It seems like there's no universal formula for this. Just do what you feel that will benefit you more. For some, it's more advantageous to do as many different questions as possible. For others, they benefit more from sticking to one or two sources and mastering them. Personally, I think I belong to the second school of thought. I feel that both Rx and UWorld are dense with information and multiple passes may be necessary to drive the message home.

 

[mymembernames]

I guess everyone has different opinions about this but a lot

It is interesting to see the different prospectives on issue. I have spoken to two individuals who scored above 260, and both of them recommended that I go thru UWorld multiple passes. In fact, one of them didn't do anything other than UFAP.

It seems like there's no universal formula for this. Just do what you feel that will benefit you more. For some, it's more advantageous to do as many different questions as possible. For others, they benefit more from sticking to one or two sources and mastering them. Personally, I think I belong to the second school of thought. I feel that both Rx and UWorld are dense with information and multiple passes may be necessary to drive the message home.

I agree, UWORLD in of itself contains a ton of information

 

[Firefly90]

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