Answer discrepancy

[leviathan]

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I just signed up and started doing USMLEWorld questions. Overall it's pretty good, but just like Kaplan QBank, I find there is an occasional flawed question.

I just did a question that asked what you would say to a patient who was just told her child has Down syndrome, and she laments that God must be punishing her. In Kaplan review, they say that you should first address why they feel this way. In the UWorld question, I picked that as my answer, but it was wrong. They say that you should empathize with them and explain what Down syndrome is, and that asking them why they feel that way is getting too 'personal'.

Does anyone have a definitive answer to what is the correct answer for this?

 

[knuckles]

I just signed up and started doing USMLEWorld questions. Overall it's pretty good, but just like Kaplan QBank, I find there is an occasional flawed question.

I just did a question that asked what you would say to a patient who was just told her child has Down syndrome, and she laments that God must be punishing her. In Kaplan review, they say that you should first address why they feel this way. In the UWorld question, I picked that as my answer, but it was wrong. They say that you should empathize with them and explain what Down syndrome is, and that asking them why they feel that way is getting too 'personal'.

Does anyone have a definitive answer to what is the correct answer for this?

live and learn, bro

 

[aashkab]

she said that god is punishing her so its implying that she's got some "messed up" personal history probably. aka, the baby might be a bastard. at least that's what i was thinking as to not pry into her personal life but EMPATHIZE about the situation at hand rather than stroll down memory lane.

i think you may find that UWORLD REALLY stresses complete objectivity + empathy in the present situation. i answer questions as if i were a robot, and only then do i get it right.

 

[leviathan]

So forget Kaplan, UWorld....does anyone know how the NBME would like us to answer a question like this?

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

One of the best pieces of advice that I think the DIT course gives you is that for these questions, if you can narrow it down to 2 choices, you are really doing the best you can. Then go with your gut, answer the question and move on. The presence/absence of one little word can make the difference between 2 situations requiring 2 different courses of action.

 

[leviathan]

My gut feeling was to go with the UWorld correct answer. Here's another bull**** one today: Drunk guy wants to sign out AMA, can you let him? Kaplan review course says he is competent, but UWorld says you have to wait until he has sobered up. Great.....I would have chosen UWorld answer but once again Kaplan screwed me over with their ****ty teaching.

So I guess there's nowhere on the NBME site where they post the correct way to answer THEIR questions???

 

[xx216xx]

after doing all those questions and after taking step i've come to the conclusion that there really is no right answer. I know that there is some criteria that such number of people have to agree that the answer chosen is indeed the best but really i think the majority of the questions (especially on step) can be argued and sometimes aren't even realistic solutions. So i've pretty much decided that picking whatever answer you feel is best is the only way to go about those questions. I could narrow it down to two choices usually but who knows that either of the ones that i narrowed it down to were even the correct answer. It's frustrating too because there is no formula for picking the right answer; sometimes you have to pick the touchy-feely answer and sometimes you have to pick the one where you're a d*ck and usually there is no way to tell which is the right route. So don't even sweat which answer is which becuase honestly, you won't be prepared for these types of questions come test day...i really don't see how anyone could be