Amboss Review After Taking My Neurology and Psych Shelf

[afib123]

Hey guys,

I am a third year medical student and just wanted to share my experience on a new product for the wards called Amboss. Some of you might have heard of it and some not.

A quick background, I scored 250+ on my STEP 1 and scored high scores on the NBME exams the first 2 years. The first 2 years had good resources in Pathoma, Sketchy, Uworld, etc but I felt third year was pretty lacking in high yield comprehensive resources except for Online Med Ed and Uworld. I thought case files and pre-test really did not help me on my first 2 shelf exams. But what did help was amboss, so wanted to share my opinion on that.

I used this for my neurology and psych shelf and want to say it is the best question bank out there at least for my neurology and psych shelves. I scored 90+ percentiles on both the neuro and psych shelves and have to attribute my high scores to the Amboss Q Bank.

Uworld Qbank was nice but was frankly pretty underwhelming when it came to these shelves. There were lot of questions that I was able to get right on my shelf exams because of Amboss that Uworld did not cover. Amboss qbank was extremely comprehensive for these two shelf exams and somehow was able to better predict the kind of questions that would come up on the shelf exams.

It was also immensely helpful for my OSCE because of the practice cases they had. If someone is struggling on shelves, I think this is a great question bank to check out.

OME and Uworld were helpful in addition to Amboss, but the other resources people talked about like Blueprints, Case Files, Pre-Test was extremely low yield for me.

If you want to try it out, you can get a free 2 week trial with this code:

code: AMBOSS-XWRG-0PQH-KTC9

Can be redeemed here: go.amboss.com/now

Disclaimer: I am working with Amboss but I am not getting paid for this review. I am working with them as an ambassador from my school and getting a couple months of free subscription but that’s about it. I am also not being forced to write this review. I am genuinely writing it because it has helped me immensely on my shelf exam.

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[Redpancreas]

Congratulations on your Step score. That's a decent score. Kudos to you.

In a nutshell though, they get free promotion (written very well, I must add...Kudos to you) in exchange for you to use their service so I wouldn't call that an unbiased review. Thanks for putting your free trial up though. I hope users give it a shot AND POST BACK IN THIS FORUM. I'm going to be very straight-forward. My opinion is that you are lying about all this. I don't care if you have a 50 post history with threads in the Step 1 thread. I think you are completely lying AMBOSS. I think what's happening is that you're a good test-taker and you are attributing your scores to AMBOSS after the fact. I'm not sure what you have to gain from AMBOSS from this, but I believe what you are doing is completely wrong.

To AMBOSS: Guys, why can't you just come on SDN with a promoter account and cut the crap? I'm tired of seeing you advertising through random users here. Set up a promoter account, start an Official AMBOSS USMLE/Shelf thread, give free trials, and people will come. If your product is REALLY THAT GOOD
("and have to attribute my high scores to the Amboss Q Bank.Uworld Qbank was nice but was frankly pretty underwhelming when it came to these shelves. There were lot of questions that I was able to get right on my shelf exams because of Amboss that Uworld did not cover. Amboss qbank was extremely comprehensive for these two shelf exams and somehow was able to better predict the kind of questions that would come up on the shelf exams.It was also immensely helpful for my OSCE because of the practice cases they had. If someone is struggling on shelves, I think this is a great question bank to check out.)

then you are shooting yourself in the foot with the classless advertising because no one is taking you seriously and you're honestly a few shameless promotions away from being classic SDN parody fodder.

@afib123 : I welcome a response. It would be nice if you gave details/specific examples of what exactly AMBOSS so allegedly epic.

 

[afib123]

Congratulations on your Step score. That's a decent score. Kudos to you.

In a nutshell though, they get free promotion (written very well, I must add...Kudos to you) in exchange for you to use their service so I wouldn't call that an unbiased review. Thanks for putting your free trial up though. I hope users give it a shot AND POST BACK IN THIS FORUM. I'm going to be very straight-forward. My opinion is that you are lying about all this. I don't care if you have a 50 post history with threads in the Step 1 thread. I think you are completely lying AMBOSS. I think what's happening is that you're a good test-taker and you are attributing your scores to AMBOSS after the fact. I'm not sure what you have to gain from AMBOSS from this, but I believe what you are doing is completely wrong.

To AMBOSS: Guys, why can't you just come on SDN with a promoter account and cut the crap? I'm tired of seeing you advertising through random users here. Set up a promoter account, start an Official AMBOSS USMLE/Shelf thread, give free trials, and people will come. If your product is REALLY THAT GOOD
("and have to attribute my high scores to the Amboss Q Bank.Uworld Qbank was nice but was frankly pretty underwhelming when it came to these shelves. There were lot of questions that I was able to get right on my shelf exams because of Amboss that Uworld did not cover. Amboss qbank was extremely comprehensive for these two shelf exams and somehow was able to better predict the kind of questions that would come up on the shelf exams.It was also immensely helpful for my OSCE because of the practice cases they had. If someone is struggling on shelves, I think this is a great question bank to check out.)

then you are shooting yourself in the foot with the classless advertising because no one is taking you seriously and you're honestly a few shameless promotions away from being classic SDN parody fodder.

@afib123 : I welcome a response. It would be nice if you gave details/specific examples of what exactly AMBOSS so allegedly epic.

I appreciate your reply and I am not into these forums to know how the rules work here.
But the Amboss Qbank worked out very well for me and since I am getting a couple of months of free subscription for them, I wanted post my review.
There is nothing epic about it. It just had amazing questions that were better than Uworld ( in my opinion) for the neurology and psychiatry shelf. It is another qbank like the multiple q banks in the market.
I get your point about my test taking skills being good, but I am a smart guy and know what works for me and what doesn't. If it wasn't for Amboss, I would have not been exposed to a lot of questions that I saw on my shelf. I can't give the specifics because I don't want to violate any NBME rules, but they somehow are better predicting the questions for the shelf exam than Uworld. It is a pretty simple equation, they were just better at least for those 2 shelves.
Again, I am not sure how these forums work. I get your point about why they can't create a promoter account. I would definitely let them know, but I don't think their intention is to cheat anyone. They just made a product and they want to get the word out.
They are not forcing anyone to buy anything. They are giving a 2 week free trial for people to test it out.

 

[afib123]

Congratulations on your Step score. That's a decent score. Kudos to you.

In a nutshell though, they get free promotion (written very well, I must add...Kudos to you) in exchange for you to use their service so I wouldn't call that an unbiased review. Thanks for putting your free trial up though. I hope users give it a shot AND POST BACK IN THIS FORUM. I'm going to be very straight-forward. My opinion is that you are lying about all this. I don't care if you have a 50 post history with threads in the Step 1 thread. I think you are completely lying AMBOSS. I think what's happening is that you're a good test-taker and you are attributing your scores to AMBOSS after the fact. I'm not sure what you have to gain from AMBOSS from this, but I believe what you are doing is completely wrong.

To AMBOSS: Guys, why can't you just come on SDN with a promoter account and cut the crap? I'm tired of seeing you advertising through random users here. Set up a promoter account, start an Official AMBOSS USMLE/Shelf thread, give free trials, and people will come. If your product is REALLY THAT GOOD
("and have to attribute my high scores to the Amboss Q Bank.Uworld Qbank was nice but was frankly pretty underwhelming when it came to these shelves. There were lot of questions that I was able to get right on my shelf exams because of Amboss that Uworld did not cover. Amboss qbank was extremely comprehensive for these two shelf exams and somehow was able to better predict the kind of questions that would come up on the shelf exams.It was also immensely helpful for my OSCE because of the practice cases they had. If someone is struggling on shelves, I think this is a great question bank to check out.)

then you are shooting yourself in the foot with the classless advertising because no one is taking you seriously and you're honestly a few shameless promotions away from being classic SDN parody fodder.

@afib123 : I welcome a response. It would be nice if you gave details/specific examples of what exactly AMBOSS so allegedly epic.

Just to add to what I posted above, I don't want get into arguments with anyone here. I just posted my review and a 2 week trial that people can check out. It helped me and it could help you. Try it out for a shelf exam before buying it. If it helps you, great buy it. If it doesn't, do not.
All these resources are base on individual opinion and this is one person's opinion.
And yes, I could be lying but I am not. The only way this will hurt you is you might waste some time trying it out. But that is how anything works. You make a decision based on the information you have.
I read people's posts about Firecracker and completely wasted my time and money on that. I could have gotten a 260-265 if I didn't waste first few months of M1 on firecracker but I can't complain. That is the decision I made. At the same time, I read reviews here about Boards and Beyond, which immensely helped me. So do NOT spend money without trying it out and after that, it is completely your call.

 

[Redpancreas]

No real issues with you. This feud is between me and AMBOSS’ SDN/Reddit advertising practices. They’re trying to introduce their product in really shady ways. If they’re so good, they should openly market their product and let it compete instead of trying to make it out to be one of those “personal trainers hate him, ladies love him” by having one personal come out about it as if it’s this secret weapon, European thing that’s just hit the market that no one knows about. It’s annoying.

 

[tejas514]

No real issues with you. This feud is between me and AMBOSS’ SDN/Reddit advertising practices. They’re trying to introduce their product in really shady ways. If they’re so good, they should openly market their product and let it compete instead of trying to make it out to be one of those “personal trainers hate him, ladies love him” by having one personal come out about it as if it’s this secret weapon, European thing that’s just hit the market that no one knows about. It’s annoying.

Im starting to think you're working for a competitor to AMBOSS.

 

[ForHumors]

Im starting to think you're working for a competitor to AMBOSS.

Status:
Pre-Medical

 

[tejas514]

Status:
Pre-Medical

what?

 

[afib123]

Wanted to bump this as the year went on and update as the year went on. My main go to resource is Amboss now. I use u-world as a supplement for more questions.

My shelf exam scores in OB/Gyn, IM, Family were all in the 80-90th percentile range and enough for me to honor the clerkships. I use amboss library as a review book then do the questions for each shelf. I have seen it become more and more popular through the year, so I can say pretty confidently it's a solid question bank that can be stand-alone without anything else if someone chooses to.

I had to say how good it was more strongly earlier in the year, but I don't think many people are going to question the fact that it is a solid resource/question bank and probably better than U-World in terms of comprehensiveness (at least for me)

you want to try it out, you can get a free 2 week trial with this code:

code: AMBOSS-XWRG-0PQH-KTC9

Can be redeemed here: go.amboss.com/now

Disclaimer: I am working with Amboss but I am not getting paid for this review. I am working with them as an ambassador from my school and getting free subscription, and I am also not being forced to write this review.