assuming 10 hour days, how long to finish qbank

[MedicalStudent5]

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Assuming 10 hr days how long would it take to finish each of these.

-kaplan

-usmlerx

-uworld

Trying to plan my studying. Thx

 

[Aclamity]

Assuming 10 hr days how long would it take to finish each of these.

-kaplan

-usmlerx

-uworld

Trying to plan my studying. Thx

Well, most people have trouble getting through more than 2 blocks of 46q/day (of UW); the questions take 1 hr and the explanations (if you do it right) will take 1.5-2 hrs. Kaplan is a bit quicker and I have no clue about Rx

 

[Phloston]

Rx took me 8-10 hrs/day x ~48 Qs/day x ~2 months. This included full annotations and reading of the explanations + PrntScr images of FA.

I did Kaplan at ~100 Qs/day x ~1 month. I'm not sure why this went faster. I had thought Kaplan would have been slow, but it really wasn't that bad.

I'm working on UWorld right now, and it's taking me so f'ng long. By that, I mean it takes me about 6-8 hours to do 50 questions with annotations. I had thought that I'd get through it at the same speed as Kaplan, but the explanations are so good and dense with info that you need to spend time on them if you want to get the most out of the QBank. I've decided it's to my benefit to just deal with the slower speed and study carefully than to expeditiously blast through the QBank and not learn as much. Once you do UWorld you'll realize that everything else you've done in the past just doesn't compare. However I'd still recommend doing it last so that most of it is review.

 

[thehundredthone]

I'm working on UWorld right now, and it's taking me so f'ng long.

Agree wholeheartedly. It takes at least 1.5-2hrs per block to read explanations, if you read them all.

How's the average coming along, phloston? Still at 85 or climbing?

 

[Phloston]

Agree wholeheartedly. It takes at least 1.5-2hrs per block to read explanations, if you read them all.

It takes me a lot longer than 1.5-2 hrs per block to read the explanations and annotate.

How's the average coming along, phloston? Still at 85 or climbing?

I'm at 83% (94th %tile) through ~650 questions at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because I've always viewed previous posters' final UWorld averages as highly reflective of actual exam performance; now that I'm 3 months out from my exam, I thought I'd be doing better, but I'm trying not to worry. My weakest in UWorld are anatomy and histo (76 and 75th %tile) and strongest are pathology and genetics (97 and 99th). It's a bit odd because you'd think histo and path go hand in hand. It's also making me realize that I need to pray on not getting an anatomy-heavy exam, because we could be talking about at least a 5-8-point swing versus if I get heavy path.

 

[phd89]

It takes me a lot longer than 1.5-2 hrs per block to read the explanations and annotate.



I'm at 83% (94th %tile) through ~650 questions at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because I've always viewed previous posters' final UWorld averages as highly reflective of actual exam performance; now that I'm 3 months out from my exam, I thought I'd be doing better, but I'm trying not to worry. My weakest in UWorld are anatomy and histo (76 and 75th %tile) and strongest are pathology and genetics (97 and 99th). It's a bit odd because you'd think histo and path go hand in hand. It's also making me realize that I need to pray on not getting an anatomy-heavy exam, because we could be talking about at least a 5-8-point swing versus if I get heavy path.

once you get to Biochem you'll realize that, some of the Biochem Questions were a pain like the cloverleaf tRNA specifics and perhaps some physio Cardio questions

 

[thehundredthone]

It takes me a lot longer than 1.5-2 hrs per block to read the explanations and annotate.

I haven't found there to be that much more for me to annotate from Uworld into FA, most of the mistakes I'm making are poor recall/misinterpretation of the question.

I'm at 83% (94th %tile) through ~650 questions at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because I've always viewed previous posters' final UWorld averages as highly reflective of actual exam performance; now that I'm 3 months out from my exam, I thought I'd be doing better, but I'm trying not to worry.

I'm at 79% (91st) through half the Qbank at 5 weeks out now and not really climbing. You can have my frustration too if you like. I've only done 1 pass of FA though so I'm hoping that some of the pure recall facts will sit better when I start to revise. Anatomy is my weakest but simply because I can't be bothered with some of those nitty-gritty details (just like with biochem). I'm going to sit down with BRS/Snell's clinical anatomy and take my medicine soon though.

 

[Phloston]

I haven't found there to be that much more for me to annotate from Uworld into FA, most of the mistakes I'm making are poor recall/misinterpretation of the question.


I'm at 79% (91st) through half the Qbank at 5 weeks out now and not really climbing. You can have my frustration too if you like. I've only done 1 pass of FA though so I'm hoping that some of the pure recall facts will sit better when I start to revise. Anatomy is my weakest but simply because I can't be bothered with some of those nitty-gritty details (just like with biochem). I'm going to sit down with BRS/Snell's clinical anatomy and take my medicine soon though.

79% is fantastic based on only having done one pass of FA.

After I read FA for the second time, I definitely noticed an improvement, albeit small. Just food for thought in case you were wondering whether a second-pass is genuinely helpful.

I've also made about 20 unforgivable errors so far too. Very annoying. You've gotta figure that everyone makes these and that they somewhat cancel out percentile-wise among test-takers. On the real exam day though, I just hope I'm not a ******.

And also, the more questions we do the harder it is for the cum% to change, so it's not like I'm expecting to climb much higher either, but if the final 500 Qs perhaps are of a stronger baseline, I'll be generally content.

I agree with you about anatomy. It's the easiest subject (pure memorization and nothing abstract required) but the most aggravating and boring to learn.

 

[thecalccobra]

It takes me a lot longer than 1.5-2 hrs per block to read the explanations and annotate.



I'm at 83% (94th %tile) through ~650 questions at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because I've always viewed previous posters' final UWorld averages as highly reflective of actual exam performance; now that I'm 3 months out from my exam, I thought I'd be doing better, but I'm trying not to worry. My weakest in UWorld are anatomy and histo (76 and 75th %tile) and strongest are pathology and genetics (97 and 99th). It's a bit odd because you'd think histo and path go hand in hand. It's also making me realize that I need to pray on not getting an anatomy-heavy exam, because we could be talking about at least a 5-8-point swing versus if I get heavy path.

Very nice percentage right there. What did you use for patho? I'm at 70th percentile for it and looking to improve. I've gone through Goljan 2x. Thinking about starting Pathoma. What do you say?

 

[thecalccobra]

Also, for UWorld it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has to spend 5-6 hours after every block just annotating and reading the explanations.

 

[MedicalStudent5]

How many Q's are there in world and Kaplan? Thx for replies

 

[loveoforganic2]

It takes me a lot longer than 1.5-2 hrs per block to read the explanations and annotate.



I'm at 83% (94th %tile) through ~650 questions at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because I've always viewed previous posters' final UWorld averages as highly reflective of actual exam performance; now that I'm 3 months out from my exam, I thought I'd be doing better, but I'm trying not to worry. My weakest in UWorld are anatomy and histo (76 and 75th %tile) and strongest are pathology and genetics (97 and 99th). It's a bit odd because you'd think histo and path go hand in hand. It's also making me realize that I need to pray on not getting an anatomy-heavy exam, because we could be talking about at least a 5-8-point swing versus if I get heavy path.

Doesn't an 83% predict >260? If that's the case, it's kind of douchey venting about "lack of progress" sitting that high at 3 months out and fighting for points that really don't matter. A 260+ is going to make the cutoff for getting your application looked at at any program, and 3 months of highly productive research is going to make more of an impact in admission chances than bumping up to a 270+ (by orders of magnitude). I feel like you're just kind of needlessly grinding your gears - finish world asap, take one nbme if you must, and get it over with

Obviously it's your choice though, be it a good or incredibly OCD one 😉

How many Q's are there in world and Kaplan? Thx for replies

~2200

 

[ijn]

Doesn't an 83% predict >260? If that's the case, it's kind of douchey venting about "lack of progress" sitting that high at 3 months out and fighting for points that really don't matter. A 260+ is going to make the cutoff for getting your application looked at at any program, and 3 months of highly productive research is going to make more of an impact in admission chances than bumping up to a 270+ (by orders of magnitude). I feel like you're just kind of needlessly grinding your gears - finish world asap, take one nbme if you must, and get it over with

Obviously it's your choice though, be it a good or incredibly OCD one 😉



~2200

I'm just glad he's finally taking it. I'll be half way through third year by the time he takes STEP 1 and we both started posting on this subforum a lot around the same time in the spring/summer of 2012. I know he's on an IMG time table, but it still feels weird. I don't think you can fault him for wanting to guarantee a 260+. Even if you're getting X% on UWORLD or 260+ on NBMEs you still have a huge range of scores you can get depending on which 322 questions you're given on judgement day.

When are you going for STEP 2 CK, Phloston?

 

[RadicalRadon]

It takes me a lot longer than 1.5-2 hrs per block to read the explanations and annotate.



I'm at 83% (94th %tile) through ~650 questions at the moment. It's a bit frustrating because I've always viewed previous posters' final UWorld averages as highly reflective of actual exam performance; now that I'm 3 months out from my exam, I thought I'd be doing better, but I'm trying not to worry. My weakest in UWorld are anatomy and histo (76 and 75th %tile) and strongest are pathology and genetics (97 and 99th). It's a bit odd because you'd think histo and path go hand in hand. It's also making me realize that I need to pray on not getting an anatomy-heavy exam, because we could be talking about at least a 5-8-point swing versus if I get heavy path.

lol that's because it's true. I know folks who come off wards, study for 3 weeks and put up 260+ because they are good test takers, intelligent, and already had a broad base of knowledge. The year long, memorize everything approach you've taken is not likely to ultimately lead to a super high score.

Law of diminishing returns, my friend.

 

[Phloston]

Very nice percentage right there. What did you use for patho? I'm at 70th percentile for it and looking to improve. I've gone through Goljan 2x. Thinking about starting Pathoma. What do you say?

I never read Goljan's RR, but I own it. I also only listened to about half of the lectures. They were good, but I'm too impatient to listen.

First half of MS2 I did nothing but read big Robbin's. This approach was okay but I wouldn't recommend it.

The second half of MS2 I used big Robbin's as more of a reference, but still skimmed it. I primarily memorized BRS Path the best that I could, went through DejaReview USMLE Step1, and from there started doing lots of questions; Utah Webpath and Robbin's Review of Path questions were great during MS2. That was my foundation. From there, I've just been doing lots of questions.

How many Q's are there in world and Kaplan? Thx for replies

Kaplan:

150 diagnostic test
2200 QBank
322 full-length exam #1
322 full-length exam #2
= 2994

UWorld:

2145 QBank
200 UWSA #1
200 UWSA #2
= 2545

Doesn't an 83% predict >260? If that's the case, it's kind of douchey venting about "lack of progress" sitting that high at 3 months out and fighting for points that really don't matter. A 260+ is going to make the cutoff for getting your application looked at at any program, and 3 months of highly productive research is going to make more of an impact in admission chances than bumping up to a 270+ (by orders of magnitude). I feel like you're just kind of needlessly grinding your gears - finish world asap, take one nbme if you must, and get it over with

Obviously it's your choice though, be it a good or incredibly OCD one 😉

Loveoforganic, I'm aware that if I were to sit the exam 3 weeks from now, I would likely perform very similarly to how I will 3 months from now. Ijn has it right above. Although a 270 would obviously be nice, as an IMG wanting to keep my options open, I'm more just trying to solidify 260+, so all of this extra work is just potential energy really (i.e. aiming to prevent a poor performance on a difficult question allotment vs merely trying to get the highest score possible). Now that I'm getting closer to the Step and have to be realistic about how things might go, I have way too many wrinkles to iron out (as I've learned from UWorld so far) to take the exam any sooner than mid-December.

I'm just glad he's finally taking it. I'll be half way through third year by the time he takes STEP 1 and we both started posting on this subforum a lot around the same time in the spring/summer of 2012. I know he's on an IMG time table, but it still feels weird. I don't think you can fault him for wanting to guarantee a 260+. Even if you're getting X% on UWORLD or 260+ on NBMEs you still have a huge range of scores you can get depending on which 322 questions you're given on judgement day.

When are you going for STEP 2 CK, Phloston?

I'll likely take 2CK in December of 2015 or January of 2016. I'm not really sure. I finish the PhD in November of 2014 and will start MS3 in January of 2015.

 

[thehundredthone]

I'm just glad he's finally taking it. I'll be half way through third year by the time he takes STEP 1 and we both started posting on this subforum a lot around the same time in the spring/summer of 2012. I know he's on an IMG time table, but it still feels weird. I don't think you can fault him for wanting to guarantee a 260+. Even if you're getting X% on UWORLD or 260+ on NBMEs you still have a huge range of scores you can get depending on which 322 questions you're given on judgement day.

IMGs hardly all have the same timetable. I'm giving the Step1 in October, Step 2 in March and will probably give Step 3 by next October/November lol. But we do need those high scores even for "non-competitive" residencies. And that last statement of yours makes me shudder.

I'll likely take 2CK in December of 2015 or January of 2016. I'm not really sure. I finish the PhD in November of 2014 and will start MS3 in January of 2015.

I'm interested in getting into medical research post residency/fellowship. Maybe even pursue a PhD someday haha. December 2015! Wow that's a protracted course.

How early do you suggest I start looking at Webpath? Should I wait till I've finished with UWorld (another week or so) or put some time in with it every day right away?

 

[Phloston]

During MS2 I typically did Webpath questions at the end of every SoM topic (i.e. organ system). I alternated between these and Robbin's Review of Path questions. When I was preparing for my final exams at the end of MS2, I had pretty much gone through all of the Webpath questions and they definitely helped me big time. For instance, there were people arguing on our SoM forum about a repro question we had had on our exam, but I had literally seen a similar one on Webpath. As far as when you do the questions is up to you, but in order of importance (imo):

Webpath > Robbin's Review of Path general path questions > Robbin's Review of Path organ system questions

My SoM also pulled two MCQs from FA Q&A for one of our mid-sems.

 

[thehundredthone]

I have access to Robbin's Review of Pathology at the library, I intend to go over those questions during the second half of this month, along with the Kaplan Qbook questions I haven't done, Lange's Q&A and offline NBMEs (1-6).

 

[Phloston]

I have access to Robbin's Review of Pathology at the library, I intend to go over those questions during the second half of this month, along with the Kaplan Qbook questions I haven't done, Lange's Q&A and offline NBMEs (1-6).

Skip Lange's Q&A. I own three of their question books and have gone through some of them and they are ****. Do your other big name question sources.

And btw, months ago I had planned to go through the Lange questions also. It was only after having spent several hours on that route that I realized it was time to re-prioritize.

 

[MedicalStudent5]

When. You say web path, is that the questions or the learning modules or both.

 

[Phloston]

When. You say web path, is that the questions or the learning modules or both.

Do all of the examination questions.

I never used the learning modules for path. I used a few of them for anatomy.

 

[phd89]

I never read Goljan's RR, but I own it. I also only listened to about half of the lectures. They were good, but I'm too impatient to listen.


I'll likely take 2CK in December of 2015 or January of 2016. I'm not really sure. I finish the PhD in November of 2014 and will start MS3 in January of 2015.

wow phloston thats still a long way to go? how many years is an MD/PhD in the Australia? Honestly you probably could've gotten into an American MD/PhD there easier than MD alone to get in. I heard that things are starting to get pretty tight in terms of Residency applications increasing in my opinion its best to get a residency ASAP. A PhD is always good but don't know how much it can really help out with the increasing US applicants pushing IMG's out of the pool

 

[Phloston]

wow phloston thats still a long way to go? how many years is an MD/PhD in the Australia? Honestly you probably could've gotten into an American MD/PhD there easier than MD alone to get in. I heard that things are starting to get pretty tight in terms of Residency applications increasing in my opinion its best to get a residency ASAP. A PhD is always good but don't know how much it can really help out with the increasing US applicants pushing IMG's out of the pool

I'm doing the PhD because I want to do professorial work and research in the future in addition to just surgery.

In terms of residency, yeah, it would be nice if it helped out getting a spot, but that's not actually why I'm doing it.

I also felt I got lucky here landing my particular advisor. He had worked at Cleveland Clinic for 20 years before moving to Australia, and it scares me with how much he knows.

The PhD is three years intercalated between MS2 and 3.

My school in Australia is the only program I had applied to for med school, and I hadn't thought about the dual-PhD route until after MS1; practicing in the USA hadn't been a consideration of mine until almost the end of MS2.