Best way to study Biostats/Behavioral for boards?

[WizardHowl]

Hey Guys,
I know this question has been asked by others but I thought I might get a different response if I explained a little about myself.

Biostats is perhaps my worst subject of all time (worse than any other nonmedically related subject). I've never been good at stats, I've never learned it well, and I nearly borderline failed our Biostats exam in med school (after studying this 2 x's harder than I would for any other test). It is just one of those subjects that I just can't seem to grasp very well. Reading through the experiences threads, it seems like a general consensus is that people are pretty surprised how much they had of Biostats. I feel like so many people find biostats easy when I just don't understand it at all.

Behavioral science is also a subject I'm worried about. I'm not saying I'm not ethical/heartless, but mainly I do not want to underestimate this section on the boards (lots of people complained about underestimating this.

Given these situations, I was wondering what review books would you guys would suggest to help me with these two subjects? I did hear reviewing UW biostat questions helped a lot.

Thank you very much for your help!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[GMDMD]

As I posted in another thread, Kaplan Qbank had quite a few really good biostats and ethics questions. The only two subjects I felt Kaplan was strong at. I thought they were very valuable.

 

[VFib911]

I think UW is a great resource for everything, but for learning from a text I too think Kaplan biostats/ethics was excellent. I found the Kaplan DVDs were also worth watching for the biostats (goes along with the book). FA is a good review once you feel like you have it down. PPV, NPV, Sens, spec, nnt, arr, rr, or, cohort, case control, chi square... Know it well, and understand it. I had between 10-13 Q's on this stuff alone today.

Good luck.

 

[laxman310]

Part of it is about memorizing, and part about understanding.

For biostats, what I found most helpful was to write out the 2x2 chart everytime I got a sens/spec/false-negative/false-positive question.
I like the mnemonic snout-snac, for sensitivity, rule out, a/(a+c).

The rest of the stuff mostly comes from doing practice questions. If you have done research or have read/analyzed papers, stats will make much more sense.

As for behavioral, seeing it made all the difference for me.

 

[spospo]

biostats is not my greatest subject. i think i make it more complicated than it needs to be. i've read through the 2008 experiences where, of course, there is a variety opinions and experiences - it was easy, FA was enough, FA wasn't enough, used HY behavioral, used kaplan. now my question is, is the biostats in HY behavioral enough (in combo w/ FA)? any opinions anyone?