Does the NBME throw out questions from Pathoma?

[witzelsucht]

Obviously Pathoma covers a lot of ground, but do you think they get rid of some of the gimmies that Sattar gives out on purpose? For example, the mutated vs non-mutated transthyretin in cardiac amyloidoses...I can't imagine many people got that right before his tapes came out, they must've noticed the % correct on that Q going up by a lot, do they care?

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[Ionian]

Obviously Pathoma covers a lot of ground, but do you think they get rid of some of the gimmies that Sattar gives out on purpose? For example, the mutated vs non-mutated transthyretin in cardiac amyloidoses...I can't imagine many people got that right before his tapes came out, they must've noticed the % correct on that Q going up by a lot, do they care?

Yes, the exam writters are vindictive, and when they see a source that covers topics they want to cover they throw out the questions or make it more obscure.

Then they go open up all the books people could have studied and learned things from like Robbins and Guyton and they curse the authors for just giving students all this testable information, and throw that all that out too.

-.-

The exam is not created to try and trick you, and make your life miserable.
It is created to assess your knowledge and aptitude as an up and comming physician.
They test key concepts to make sure you learned them, so they can know if its safe to allow you to practice, they really don't care how you learned the information, and could care less about pathoma.

 

[sazerac]

I was wondering why the last couple NBME exams don't have questions anymore about which prostaglandin causes feeeeeeeeever and pain. I think you are onto something here.

 

[ArmyTiger]

I was wondering why the last couple NBME exams don't have questions anymore about which prostaglandin causes feeeeeeeeever and pain. I think you are onto something here.

I keep trying to find the answer choices for emfiiiisema to no avail.

 

[dyspareunia]

If the NBME did stuff like that then the new FA edition would be vastly different every year.

 

[ninjasurgeron]

You can also view it from the opposite perspective:

"Hey, majority of the students seems to have a pretty good grasp on these set of questions already. We already have these circulating in the current and older NBMEs, gotta make some more room in the latest one for questions that seem to be challenging."

 

[dyspareunia]

Do NBME test writers need to sign some kind of conflict-of-interest clause preventing them from also writing prep books? I would guess yes, but am interested if anyone has experience in the matter or a definitive answer.

 

[ChessMaster3000]

Do NBME test writers need to sign some kind of conflict-of-interest clause preventing them from also writing prep books? I would guess yes, but am interested if anyone has experience in the matter or a definitive answer.

I'm sure they have something about not giving any direct test questions or hints of it, but i doubt NBME can prevent them from writing a test book altogether (freedom of speech and all that). But I highly doubt they can advertise themselves as "former NBME test question writer" so then its just a random person writing a prep book that no one will buy (and even if they did advertise themselves as such, I would still argue FA/UW/Pathoma only)

 

[metukah]

What I wonder is do newer versions of NBMEs and Steps have less and less questions that are similar to those in question banks (ie. Uworld). From all the NBME's I've done, it seems like the older versions 6-12 have more questions that can be found in UWorld, etc...whereas the newer forms (13-16) seem to have become more "creative" in how the same concepts are asked....

 

[DCBFan]

I'm sure they don't scan through review materials in order to fool students, but I'm equally sure that they DO track statistics on how their questions are performing. If a question that used to be a "discriminator" starts getting answered correctly by 95% of test-takers they might swap it out.

 

[Fatalis]

I was wondering why the last couple NBME exams don't have questions anymore about which prostaglandin causes feeeeeeeeever and pain. I think you are onto something here.

because its "particularly high yield....and examiners like to go after it " lol
either way, exam or no exam, Dr. S is probably one of the best teachers out there!

 

[witzelsucht]

So, to use another example that maybe highlights more what I am asking:

In FA2013 (and pathoma, and RR 4e, and my school) they talk about c-ANCA and p-ANCA for wegeners and MP/CS vasculitides. In FA2014 that has mysteriously been updated to MPO-ANCA and PR3-ANCA. Now, I'm not saying that the NBME is being quite so malicious as to change the name solely because it is in pathoma or goljan, but what is driving that change? Is it a statistical thing, where just too many people knew c-ANCA was a/w Wegener's so they had to change it?

And as far a the NMBE wanting us to be good doctors blah blah not being tricky, then why on earth are they testing things like Thorotrast and Phenacetin, which haven't been used in decades?

Edit: reason I'm asking is because I'm paranoid about putting all my path-eggs in one path-basket, so to speak, so it'd really burn me if this is the year they decide to change all the pathoma qs.

 

[DeeJay2728]

You're right!!! I saw Thorotrast on a Kaplan question...

 

[DermViser]

So, to use another example that maybe highlights more what I am asking:

In FA2013 (and pathoma, and RR 4e, and my school) they talk about c-ANCA and p-ANCA for wegeners and MP/CS vasculitides. In FA2014 that has mysteriously been updated to MPO-ANCA and PR3-ANCA. Now, I'm not saying that the NBME is being quite so malicious as to change the name solely because it is in pathoma or goljan, but what is driving that change? Is it a statistical thing, where just too many people knew c-ANCA was a/w Wegener's so they had to change it?

And as far a the NMBE wanting us to be good doctors blah blah not being tricky, then why on earth are they testing things like Thorotrast and Phenacetin, which haven't been used in decades?

Edit: reason I'm asking is because I'm paranoid about putting all my path-eggs in one path-basket, so to speak, so it'd really burn me if this is the year they decide to change all the pathoma qs.

Aren't those listed in BRS Pathology? Same as Carbon Tetrachloride causing hepatic steatosis?

 

[witzelsucht]

They're in a lot of sources, my point was that there must be some criteria other than "need to know to be a good doctor" for what is and is not on the test.