Final crunch week First aid or Uworld?

[rodmichael82]

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I feel like Uworld kind of repeats the same concepts over and over again. In the final crunch month would First aid with Pathoma more high yield?

 

[J ROD]

I would do a review of FA and esp Pathoma. If you have not done all of UW, then I would do some questions too.

If you have already done UW, I would do at least 1 NBME prefer two.

By now, you should know the books well and can do mostly skimming over some concepts that might not be that concrete.
Every time, I go over FA I find I still can not remember everything. There is so much info in that book.

 

[4thQTHailMary]

Personally, I would skim FA with a fine tooth comb. Believe it or not, there actually were a couple of one liners that I happened to recognize on test day that were slam dunks. And yes, take the NBMEs and free questions. While much different than the real thing, they were the best practice.

 

[Psai]

Thanks for the advice guys

 

[rodmichael82]

Personally, I would skim FA with a fine tooth comb. Believe it or not, there actually were a couple of one liners that I happened to recognize on test day that were slam dunks. And yes, take the NBMEs and free questions. While much different than the real thing, they were the best practice.

Did you feel like the real exam was more like Uworld or NBME or a mixture or neither? lol

 

[Petypet]

Did you feel like the real exam was more like Uworld or NBME or a mixture or neither? lol

Mine was like uworld in the way it was presented, but a little harder and a few more ambiguous questions.

 

[notbobtrustme]

Mine was like uworld in the way it was presented, but a little harder and a few more ambiguous questions.

ya, but the same slam dunks were slam dunks on the real deal.

 

[cyanide12345678]

I haven't taken the USMLE yet, but as of today, I have 9 days left. This is my plan for the last 6 days (I'll be done with 85% of uworld by then but I've decided that FA > uworld). I'll basically spend the first hr or 2 of my day looking at answers to questions I got wrong. And then the rest of the day will be spent with FA. I think not having done FA recently will result in missing some points on really easy questions because one can't remember the information correctly.

 

[cyanide12345678]

Mine was like uworld in the way it was presented, but a little harder and a few more ambiguous questions.

A little harder than uworld ??? Seriously? In what way ?

 

[YeahNoMind]

I love the fact that you guys call them slam dunks.

 

[ChessMaster3000]

i didnt answer your poll because i dont feel UW or pathoma are good choices for the last week. UW causes you to overthink and you dont want that in the last week. pathoma is not efficient enough for your last week. stick with first aid and remember to take the last 1.5-2 days off.

 

[Petypet]

A little harder than uworld ??? Seriously? In what way ?

I don't know its hard to explain. After doing uworld 2x, I felt like uworld has a way of asking questions and steering you toward an answer. Hence when I did their assessment exam, I did pretty well, because you are used to the way that their writers ask questions. I would maybe rephrase my statement and say some subjects, biochem, pharm, cv were easier on the real exam, but topics like GI, repro, genetics, developmental questions, and general knowledge were tougher. I felt less sure of most of the questions that I answered, meanwhile in uworld, I had a good sense of I got this one incorrect and I got this one correct.

 

[J ROD]

I prefer straight up. But, they are for teaching anyways. NBMEs are for seeing where you at

 

[cyanide12345678]

I don't know its hard to explain. After doing uworld 2x, I felt like uworld has a way of asking questions and steering you toward an answer. Hence when I did their assessment exam, I did pretty well, because you are used to the way that their writers ask questions. I would maybe rephrase my statement and say some subjects, biochem, pharm, cv were easier on the real exam, but topics like GI, repro, genetics, developmental questions, and general knowledge were tougher. I felt less sure of most of the questions that I answered, meanwhile in uworld, I had a good sense of I got this one incorrect and I got this one correct.

Yes, but in theory people scoring around 80% in uworld end up with 250+ on the real deal (or so SDN makes it seem like so atleast). And scoring 80+ on uworld blocks consistently is quite a challenge itself. Whereas, getting 80% right on the real deal usually comes to a score of 220 on the NBMEs. So technically the real deal should be easier ??? Ofcourse I haven't even taken the thing yet, what would I know 😛

 

[Petypet]

Yes, but in theory people scoring around 80% in uworld end up with 250+ on the real deal (or so SDN makes it seem like so atleast). And scoring 80+ on uworld blocks consistently is quite a challenge itself. Whereas, getting 80% right on the real deal usually comes to a score of 220 on the NBMEs. So technically the real deal should be easier ??? Ofcourse I haven't even taken the thing yet, what would I know 😛

The real deal puts a lot more stuff on the exam that may not have been covered in one's review, so it gives the impression its tougher. I only found a few of those questions on the NBMEs and thus, it was personally easy for me to score 85-90% on some of the nbmes. Also keep in mind that the NBMEs are used to gauge a predictive three digit score, that is what they have been shown to accurately predict, not necessarily percentages correlating vs uworld and vs the real deal. The nbme exams are generally older exam questions where NBME has an established bell curve, whereas the SDN bell curve or even http://clinicalreview.com/ClinicalReview/resources/usmle-score-calculator.html say 70+% is a 250. I averaged around 70% first pass and I am not confident that I can say I should be scoring around 250, given the amount of curveballs on the exam.