Chip away at Rx now?

[Spectreman]

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1st semester of 2nd year. Did above avg for midterm of Block 1 and feel like I should hit Rx questions on these topics now so UWorld goes better next semester. Doing Zanki to retain the rando markers and such.

Would Firecracker cases be good enough for that or should I throw down the $150ish for Rx? We get all of December off, so I was thinking maybe crank through it at that time? I know this is nuance, but any opinion would be appreciated.

 

[popopopop]

I'm forcing myself to use RX to learn FA and to get use to the clinical vignette style of the questions. Sometimes the explanations are pretty good and I even learn a bit extra.

Even if you do 10-15 questions a day per organ block ,you should be able to finish them. My winter is probably going to be use to hit biochem hard.

 

[Black Coffee 24/7]

If I could go back in time, I would finish all of Rx 1st semester of 2nd year. Don’t worry about not learning every material. Just do everything on random including stuff that you haven’t learned.

Dedicated an Anki deck to Rx wrong key concepts. If it’s a concept that you haven’t learned, learn it then.

Same thing for UW in 2nd semester. If you do these two things well along w/ Sketchy Micro and Sketchy, I’m confident that you can bust out at least a 230 if you do both UWSA and at least 3 NBMEs.

 

[Spectreman]

If I could go back in time, I would finish all of Rx 1st semester of 2nd year. Don’t worry about not learning every material. Just do everything on random including stuff that you haven’t learned.

Dedicated an Anki deck to Rx wrong key concepts. If it’s a concept that you haven’t learned, learn it then.

Same thing for UW in 2nd semester. If you do these two things well along w/ Sketchy Micro and Sketchy, I’m confident that you can bust out at least a 230 if you do both UWSA and at least 3 NBMEs.

I have to admit, the idea of doing Rx randomly when I haven’t even had 3/4 of the material seems crazy. Doesn’t it seem more sensible to do their questions in chunks as I’m learning those systems and then be ready for random Uworld starting next semester?

 

[Black Coffee 24/7]

I have to admit, the idea of doing Rx randomly when I haven’t even had 3/4 of the material seems crazy. Doesn’t it seem more sensible to do their questions in chunks as I’m learning those systems and then be ready for random Uworld starting next semester?

Nope. Just do it. If you get it wrong and haven’t learned the concept, that’s when you look it up online and make Anki flash cards. You will thank me later.

You could do it in blocks if you want but that’s not my recommendation.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I have posted this before, but I do not agree or think doing board specific question banks with your systems is beneficial for a few reasons:

1. Most of the board questions you are going to get are going to be more superficial than the types of questions you should be getting in your actual class. For example, on boards they may as you what the most common gene mutation is for a certain disease...but in class they can ask you the 2nd-4th common mutation. This is just an example, but you get my point. If you are taking a class (repro, for example), you should be CRUSHING any board type of question. It's a lot different when 5-6 months down the road you are asked board questions on repro and you are trying to remember things. This is why I think you should be using another resource to LEARN the material (PreTest, Robbins questions, online questions other than boards question banks) because it will force you to learn the material more in depth.

2. If you are using a Q-bank, RX for example, in December and you come across a really good factoid, what are the chances you are going to remember that in June-July when you take boards? Not very. I think the best way to use your boards banks is to start with Kaplan, then RX, then UW. Start Kaplan 5 months out from your exam when you start reviewing for boards. That way everything is much more "fresh" in your mind.

This is just my opinion on this and I know many people believe in doing questions with classes...so you just gotta choose which works best for you.

 

[Spectreman]

I have posted this before, but I do not agree or think doing board specific question banks with your systems is beneficial for a few reasons:

1. Most of the board questions you are going to get are going to be more superficial than the types of questions you should be getting in your actual class. For example, on boards they may as you what the most common gene mutation is for a certain disease...but in class they can ask you the 2nd-4th common mutation. This is just an example, but you get my point. If you are taking a class (repro, for example), you should be CRUSHING any board type of question. It's a lot different when 5-6 months down the road you are asked board questions on repro and you are trying to remember things. This is why I think you should be using another resource to LEARN the material (PreTest, Robbins questions, online questions other than boards question banks) because it will force you to learn the material more in depth.

2. If you are using a Q-bank, RX for example, in December and you come across a really good factoid, what are the chances you are going to remember that in June-July when you take boards? Not very. I think the best way to use your boards banks is to start with Kaplan, then RX, then UW. Start Kaplan 5 months out from your exam when you start reviewing for boards. That way everything is much more "fresh" in your mind.

This is just my opinion on this and I know many people believe in doing questions with classes...so you just gotta choose which works best for you.

Thank you, I guess my thought process was that Gray’s Anatomy questions helped me a ton with lecture for anatomy and I never really utilized a similar resource for practice questions in my other classes during 1st year. I figured a Qbank would be a nice consolidated source for practice questions, but what you’re saying makes sense about them not going into any real depth. I went ahead and bought 3 months of the Rx qbank and set it to start on October 1st. Thinking I’ll finish up Boards and Beyond by then and give it a go. Probably won’t retain much, but I’ll make an Anki from my missed questions like the previous guy suggested and hopefully that’ll help. Idk, I still feel like I don’t have a good plan of attack for all this, but I’m trying to do good by my wife and kids by not screwing this up.