Are exam questions in US med schools similar to USMLE questions?

[NeedToStudy]

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As someone who went to a foreign school I've always wondered about this. For ex. say you have an anatomy exam or a CV system exam, will the questions on the exam (assuming you're at a US med school or DO school) be similar to the questions they have on the qbanks or usmle? Or will they just be simple questions such as "How many chambers does the heart have?"? I'm obviously being sarcastic but I guess you get the point.

BTW when I say similar I don't' mean same, I mean in the same format as the qbanks or usmle.

 

[Ismet]

For the most part, no. There might be a couple vignettes thrown in here and there, especially if the professor happens to be a question writer for NBME and is accustomed to writing those kinds of questions, and we had a couple NBME shelf exams in the 1st 2 years, but for the most part, in-house exams are nothing like boards questions.

 

[NCBI]

Some of our classes used old USMLE questions...not all of the questions, but some.

 

[Pisiform]

In my school, it varies with subject. For example, anatomy question are way off the board types ... too many details with just one or two clinically relevant questions. As the above poster said, for most part no

 

[AlmostAnMD]

Our school switched over a few years ago. Every. Single. Question. Long crazy vignette.

Made board studying a bit easier I guess. Or maybe that's just what I told myself.

Don't care done with step 1 lol

 

[operaman]

The NBME published a paper about this a few years ago in one of the academic journals. They looked at class exam questions from various med schools and reviewed them by the same standards used for actual NBME questions that get scored. They found that class exams tend to have much poorer questions, many with technical flaws, others with misleading vignettes, etc. They did find that faculty trained in writing questions tended to write better questions than untrained faculty.

For further reading:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11841981

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23469935

 

[cbrons]

As someone who went to a foreign school I've always wondered about this. For ex. say you have an anatomy exam or a CV system exam, will the questions on the exam (assuming you're at a US med school or DO school) be similar to the questions they have on the qbanks or usmle? Or will they just be simple questions such as "How many chambers does the heart have?"? I'm obviously being sarcastic but I guess you get the point.

BTW when I say similar I don't' mean same, I mean in the same format as the qbanks or usmle.

Are you kidding me? You should see some of the garbage that is on preclinical exams. It's so bad that I almost think LCME should require all exams be in NBME/USMLE format and review/written by someone trained by the exam writers.

 

[BestDoctorEver]

I was told some profs at my school (MD) use 'retired' NBME questions.

 

[NickNaylor]

Our questions were nothing like USMLE questions. I imagine this is very school- and even professor-dependent.

 

[BamaNicole]

My school uses USMLE style questions for every exam.

 

[DermViser]

The NBME published a paper about this a few years ago in one of the academic journals. They looked at class exam questions from various med schools and reviewed them by the same standards used for actual NBME questions that get scored. They found that class exams tend to have much poorer questions, many with technical flaws, others with misleading vignettes, etc. They did find that faculty trained in writing questions tended to write better questions than untrained faculty.

For further reading:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11841981

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23469935

And guess who does the training: http://www.nbme.org/schools/faculty.html

Ridiculous, IMHO, that medical schools don't send every one of their faculty to this type of stuff, considering how much of our money they are happy to waste - like on iPads and Google Glass.

 

[DermViser]

Our questions were nothing like USMLE questions. I imagine this is very school- and even professor-dependent.

Were they rote memorization, nit-picky questions?

 

[DermViser]

I was told some profs at my school (MD) use 'retired' NBME questions.

They're "retired" for a reason.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

The level of training for pre-clinical faculty in how to teach and how to write exam questions is incredibly variable and in general quite poor.

In a rare win for student government, we actually got a junior professor in major trouble after a student in my class discovered he was plagiarizing his lectures off of the internet (the student googled something to try and clarify some point from the lecture and found wholesale paragraphs of lifted material). It was brought to the dean, the professor was removed from teaching medical students partway through the semester, and left the institution at the end of the academic year.

But the problem for this guy, I'm sure, is that he was a junior professor whose division head was making him do these lectures, despite no training other than being a grad school TA. He was totally lost in front of a lecture hall, and his exam questions were so terribly written.

 

[SBR249]

The level of training for pre-clinical faculty in how to teach and how to write exam questions is incredibly variable and in general quite poor.

In a rare win for student government, we actually got a junior professor in major trouble after a student in my class discovered he was plagiarizing his lectures off of the internet (the student googled something to try and clarify some point from the lecture and found wholesale paragraphs of lifted material). It was brought to the dean, the professor was removed from teaching medical students partway through the semester, and left the institution at the end of the academic year.

But the problem for this guy, I'm sure, is that he was a junior professor whose division head was making him do these lectures, despite no training other than being a grad school TA. He was totally lost in front of a lecture hall, and his exam questions were so terribly written.

That sounds a bit harsh. I'm not defending plagiarism but the way it's portrayed it sounds almost like the students had a vendetta against this dude.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

That sounds a bit harsh. I'm not defending plagiarism but the way it's portrayed it sounds almost like the students had a vendetta against this dude.

Not at all.

The students identified that he had plagiarized. They reported it to the school administration. That was the extent of their involvement in the process from there on out.

And I don't think it's particularly harsh when they have a zero tolerance honor policy for students, to have a double standard for the teachers.

 

[SBR249]

Not at all.

The students identified that he had plagiarized. They reported it to the school administration. That was the extent of their involvement in the process from there on out.

And I don't think it's particularly harsh when they have a zero tolerance honor policy for students, to have a double standard for the teachers.

That's why I said the way it was portrayed. I doubt when a student is punished for plagiarism the administration treats it as a win.

 

[NickNaylor]

Were they rote memorization, nit-picky questions?

More rote memorization. A lot of the questions during MS2 weren't even presented in vignette format.

 

[DermViser]

More rote memorization. A lot of the questions during MS2 weren't even presented in vignette format.

Wow, I'm surprised. I would think top schools would write their questions differently, but I think those are the schools least likely to "standardize" their curriculum (i.e. using NBME shelf exam questions, etc.) as they feel they are above that and don't want to "lower" themselves by "teaching to the test". Not to mention they recruit the type of student who will do the extra legwork no matter what to superachieve anyways.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

That's why I said the way it was portrayed. I doubt when a student is punished for plagiarism the administration treats it as a win.

I meant win in the sense that the administration took students' concerns seriously. There is a general sense that student governments are powerless and in this case, the appropriate channels were followed and the administration took the concern seriously.

And while I don't agree the students involved had a "vendetta" - I do think it's absolutely reasonable for students to be upset that they were being taught by someone who was blatantly plagiarizing.

 

[CrimsonKing]

Our M1 questions varied widely, but our M2 questions were actually very NBME shelf-y, not very Step 1 like. They were much more focused on management and judgement, versus simple understanding and memorization. It made preparing for Step 1, with it's greater emphasis on memorization, a bit more challenging, but the few weeks we had dedicated for Step were more than enough to memorize all the little factoids to complement our education.

Our M2 preparation has been great for shelf's as an M3, which require you to have memorized and understood things as a prerequisite, but then expect you to make the next "most correct" step in management. I am hoping that this will be useful for Step 2, but who knows. Everything is kind of a cluster-f at this stage of the game

 

[DermViser]

Our M1 questions varied widely, but our M2 questions were actually very NBME shelf-y, not very Step 1 like. They were much more focused on management and judgement, versus simple understanding and memorization. It made preparing for Step 1, with it's greater emphasis on memorization, a bit more challenging, but the few weeks we had dedicated for Step were more than enough to memorize all the little factoids to complement our education.

Um, no. Just...no. NBME shelf exams are more memorization if anything. Step 1 is not.

 

[CrimsonKing]

Um, no. Just...no. NBME shelf exams are more memorization if anything. Step 1 is not.

I dunno, I personally felt Step 1 was very memorization focused, where knowledge of small details or picking up on a buzzword was sufficient.

My shelf exams have instead required more understanding and algorithmic approaches, all about "best answer". Memorization is still important, but my argument is that you can still work around NBME shelf exams if your memorization of minutiae is not as complete as it was for Step 1. Again, this is all imo.

 

[DermViser]

I dunno, I personally felt Step 1 was very memorization focused, where knowledge of small details or picking up on a buzzword was sufficient.

My shelf exams have instead required more understanding and algorithmic approaches, all about "best answer". Memorization is still important, but my argument is that you can still work around NBME shelf exams if your memorization of minutiae is not as complete as it was for Step 1. Again, this is all imo.

 

[CrimsonKing]

I thought Step 1 was challenging, but not in a real "thinking" way. More of a "try to remember what this small detail is associated with" way. Perhaps I just "went ham" on it, because I did quite well, or perhaps my mind is so advanced that I didn't even comprehend that I had to do a lot of thinking. Doubtful about that, though

Anyone else take Step last spring have thoughts on memorization v. comprehension?

 

[cbrons]

I legit had a biochem question during M1 year (yes, in medical school at an M.D. school) that asked what the name of the histone subunits were:

A. H2A, HB, H3, H4
B. HA, H2B, H3, H4
C. H2A, H2B, H3B, H4
D. H2A, H2B, H3, H4

I wish I was joking. And the sad thing was, there were other such TRASH questions in other classes as well.

 

[notbobtrustme]

I thought Step 1 was challenging, but not in a real "thinking" way. More of a "try to remember what this small detail is associated with" way. Perhaps I just "went ham" on it, because I did quite well, or perhaps my mind is so advanced that I didn't even comprehend that I had to do a lot of thinking. Doubtful about that, though

Anyone else take Step last spring have thoughts on memorization v. comprehension?

Step 1 is a well-disguised vocabulary/reading comprehension test.

I'd say questions that tested conceptual knowledge was probably 15% of my exam. The best example I can think of now is a question regarding endothelin/bradykinin levels in hemorrhage. This required integration of 2-3 concepts. Homeostasis, what endothelin/bradykinin does and the body's response to injury. This is a true conceptual question. I had far more questions asking me "what is the inheritence pattern of sickle cell" or "what nerve injury results in an inability to adduct the thigh". The sheer amount of information makes it difficult but not how the information is assessed.

I personally thought the MCAT was a much tougher exam because it involved inductive reasoning, extrapolation and conceptual thinking. Step 1 is medical trivial pursuit.

 

[DermViser]

Step 1 is a well-disguised vocabulary/reading comprehension test.

I'd say questions that tested conceptual knowledge was probably 15% of my exam. The best example I can think of now is a question regarding endothelin/bradykinin levels in hemorrhage. This required integration of 2-3 concepts. Homeostasis, what endothelin/bradykinin does and the body's response to injury. This is a true conceptual question. I had far more questions asking me "what is the inheritence pattern of sickle cell" or "what nerve injury results in an inability to adduct the thigh". The sheer amount of information makes it difficult but not how the information is assessed.

I personally thought the MCAT was a much tougher exam because it involved inductive reasoning, extrapolation and conceptual thinking. Step 1 is medical trivial pursuit.

That 15% is important esp. when you're trying to score 1 standard deviation or higher above the mean (which is constantly increasing). The other questions which you mention are "gimme" questions.

 

[Ismet]

I legit had a biochem question during M1 year (yes, in medical school at an M.D. school) that asked what the name of the histone subunits were:

A. H2A, HB, H3, H4
B. HA, H2B, H3, H4
C. H2A, H2B, H3B, H4
D. H2A, H2B, H3, H4

I wish I was joking. And the sad thing was, there were other such TRASH questions in other classes as well.

Your course director or whoever wrote your exam is extremely lazy and does not deserve to write exam questions.

 

[DermViser]

I legit had a biochem question during M1 year (yes, in medical school at an M.D. school) that asked what the name of the histone subunits were:

A. H2A, HB, H3, H4
B. HA, H2B, H3, H4
C. H2A, H2B, H3B, H4
D. H2A, H2B, H3, H4

I wish I was joking. And the sad thing was, there were other such TRASH questions in other classes as well.

I can't believe this was an actual medical school exam question. Boards isn't even close to this.

 

[Psai]

I legit had a biochem question during M1 year (yes, in medical school at an M.D. school) that asked what the name of the histone subunits were:

A. H2A, HB, H3, H4
B. HA, H2B, H3, H4
C. H2A, H2B, H3B, H4
D. H2A, H2B, H3, H4

I wish I was joking. And the sad thing was, there were other such TRASH questions in other classes as well.

answer is d easy points yawn also there is an h1 that connects between those tetramers