Exam Master Online

[SharkyMD]

I know a lot of schools offer free subscriptions to Exam Master Online, but it seems nobody's discussed it in a few years, and even then, remarks were few.

So, does anyone here use it? What do you think?

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[turkeyjerky]

That's b/c exam master is, literally, the worst qbank in existence. It's as if someone set out to create the worst possible bank of questions, that exemplify everything the usmle is not, and succeeded, and then tricked a bunch of schools into buying it.

Exam master is that rare creature where the time spent going through it is so utterly wasted, that you're better off skipping it entirely. Take a few minutes a do some questions out of it--you'll see what I'm talking about, it's that bad.

There are way too many decent question sources out there to waste your time with that trash, trust me.

 

[Encephalectomy]

That's b/c exam master is, literally, the worst qbank in existence. It's as if someone set out to create the worst possible bank of questions, that exemplify everything the usmle is not, and succeeded, and then tricked a bunch of schools into buying it.

Exam master is that rare creature where the time spent going through it is so utterly wasted, that you're better off skipping it entirely. Take a few minutes a do some questions out of it--you'll see what I'm talking about, it's that bad.

There are way too many decent question sources out there to waste your time with that trash, trust me.

seconded

 

[DRJJ1]

seconded

so it may not be the best but you can learn a lot from the questions too don t underestimate the value of these questions YOU CAN LEARN FROM THESE TOO

 

[DrDrToBe]

I know a lot of schools offer free subscriptions to Exam Master Online, but it seems nobody's discussed it in a few years, and even then, remarks were few.

So, does anyone here use it? What do you think?

I was wondering the same thing too! My school has bot USMLEasy and Exam Master's but I haven't been able to get any opinions on them. I am trying to find a QBank to use early on before I buy UWorld. Are these Qbanks totally not worth it even for this purpose?

 

[JPanda]

the questions are poorly written, the questions are not representative of the boards, and the answers can be wrong. for those reasons, people on this board to tend to shy away from exam master. nonetheless, a few people who did really well on the step claimed that it helped.

 

[SharkyMD]

Exam master is that rare creature where the time spent going through it is so utterly wasted, that you're better off skipping it entirely. Take a few minutes a do some questions out of it--you'll see what I'm talking about, it's that bad.

Ok, so it's clearly not going to replace any other QBank, but that's a bit harsh.

Since I posted this, I've done 600 questions already. Since nobody else seems to have much info, I'm going to post my opinion so far.

Of those 600, 2 had a spelling error and 1 had a questionable answer (i.e. two answers were equally reasonable). 95% have very good explanations, 5% of the explanations suck. The question difficulty can vary a bit, and it's clear the qbank was written by many different authors.

EM has a great categorization system, and it allows you to easily see which subjects and systems you're weakest in. It seems pretty accurate as well.

As for subjects, their genetics and statistics questions are well outside the scope of anything my school teaches. They also throw in some clinical questions on par with Step II. (e.g. psychiatry, pediatrics, IM, surgery questions - they are identified separately in the question breakdown) Fortunately, those are rare. I'd have to say that the questions were almost certainly written by very knowledgeable authors.

It's also a great tool for learning. Not only are the explanations good, but question stems contain prevalence information and realistic case presentations.

So if nothing else, I figure by the time I get through all 10,000 questions, I will be in a good position to begin studying for the boards.

Overall, I won't say that it sucks, but I can't say that it's particularly great - just like my medical school.

 

[InnominateMind]

Ok, so it's clearly not going to replace any other QBank, but that's a bit harsh.

Since I posted this, I've done 600 questions already. Since nobody else seems to have much info, I'm going to post my opinion so far.

Of those 600, 2 had a spelling error and 1 had a questionable answer (i.e. two answers were equally reasonable). 95% have very good explanations, 5% of the explanations suck. The question difficulty can vary a bit, and it's clear the qbank was written by many different authors.

EM has a great categorization system, and it allows you to easily see which subjects and systems you're weakest in. It seems pretty accurate as well.

As for subjects, their genetics and statistics questions are well outside the scope of anything my school teaches. They also throw in some clinical questions on par with Step II. (e.g. psychiatry, pediatrics, IM, surgery questions - they are identified separately in the question breakdown) Fortunately, those are rare. I'd have to say that the questions were almost certainly written by very knowledgeable authors.

It's also a great tool for learning. Not only are the explanations good, but question stems contain prevalence information and realistic case presentations.

So if nothing else, I figure by the time I get through all 10,000 questions, I will be in a good position to begin studying for the boards.

Overall, I won't say that it sucks, but I can't say that it's particularly great - just like my medical school.

I just took a few questions from this bank and I am quite pleased, the questions are clearly clinically oriented and no factual errors were present. One great thing seems to be the huge number of questions available in the bank.. 550 for anatomy is just awesome. So , it can be a great tool for learning a subject in depth. Not a "high yield " bank , but might be a good bank for someone who wants to brush up one a little bit more.

I am quite pleased and will make it part of my preparations, I score around 70% in the Kaplan Qb but this one took my score down to 60pct..clearly due to other people writing the questions... ive taken the Kaplan review course.

Well i hope this helps others, good luck guys,🙂