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BRS Behavioral Science:
The only reason I read the book was because behavioral science, psychiatry and biostats were my worst three areas in USMLE Rx.
I very much hate everything about behavioral science but tried to just man up and deal with this inevitable subject area.
The best thing about this book is that the chapters are literally no more than 4-5 pages-long, at the most, followed by ~15-30 questions. Now, if you're like me, you probably get ADD with stuff you're not interested in. I was so glad these chapters were short. I made it a commitment to just read a chapter a day (26 total) over this past month before starting my other material. This made the read quite manageable.
The book has ~650 questions, which is a plus. Most of them are fairly weak (as are BRS Pathology's as well), however they do serve to just reinforce, in a very one-step fashion, the material over any chapter's previous 4-5 pages. At the end of the book, there is a 132-question exam. The explanations for the questions, however, are very poor- mostly one-liners for the correct answer or simply just lack of acknowledgement for incorrect answers, that were also seemingly true, for which I wanted more discussion.
I would say that although the questions were fairly lame, maybe one out of every 15 or so hit a concept/topic that taught me something new. In other words, I have by no means come out from having read this book feeling like I've gained a thorough, comprehensive foundation in behavioral science as much as I feel as though I've learned probably 60-80 tidbits that merely complement the info in FA/QBanks.
There are some topics such as abortion, euthanasia, abuse, sex/sleep problems that are covered fairly well. I even learned a little about different health insurance plans, which was a nice change.
The book is also good for giving you an idea of some of the ambiguous wtf-question stuff, such as when to call hospital security vs merely trying to calm the patient down, or how to address an upset patient (when the answer choices are all similar). I've read some people's posts on this forum about encountering behavioral science questions that "did not have an answer." This book helps clear things up.
There was also a little pharmacology reinforcement that was good, in a way that touched upon specific benefits/cons that are not in FA, such as TCAs being the best for immediate relief bc they're fastest acting, or escitalopram being the most specific of the SSRIs, or fluoxetine being the only SSRI that causes weight loss, not gain (a vignette of a depressed pt worried about putting on more weight), etc. So yeah, there was definitely some helpful pharm in there that was both reinforcement / new for me.
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High-Yield Behavioral Science:
I read about half of this book during my second year of med and about half within the last month. Quite frankly, I don't know how FA2012 rates this as "A." It's terrible. Why do I say that? Although it covers a good breadth of material as a succinct package, it fails to mention tons of important details; even for the important details that it does mention, I found that it doesn't emphasize them enough. There were many times that I would pass over a particular topic and think, "dude, they should say this," or "they should have said this," or "this is really important to know; I'm glad they touched upon it, but why are they not emphasizing it?" In general, now that I've done probably 6-7000 practice questions so far and am fairly familiar with FA, HY Behavioral is just way to vague to be truly effective. It doesn't help with answering board questions. I can just feel that, and effectively so. It helps with building an initial foundation if you're in first-year med and haven't seen the info at all previously. So if you're in first-year, HY Behavioral could be a possibility for a quick read at times when you don't feel like doing real studying, but for the sake of actual Step1 prep, BRS Behavioral is much better. There were also no questions in the book and the chapters were long and dry.
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Bottom line: I believe that if I encounter 30 behavioral science questions on my future USMLE, based on having read BRS, I might get 2-3 additional ones correct that I may not have relative to just having gone through FA / the QBank questions I've done so far. HY Behavioral was generally worthless and it earned me zero additional questions on my future exam. It's appalling that FA lists this latter resource as an A. I would give BRS Behavioral A- (bc of its weak explanations) and HY a B. In terms of FA though, the only reason BRS might earn an A is bc those resources are relative, not absolute, grades, so they have to recommend at least one top resource.
The only reason I read the book was because behavioral science, psychiatry and biostats were my worst three areas in USMLE Rx.
I very much hate everything about behavioral science but tried to just man up and deal with this inevitable subject area.
The best thing about this book is that the chapters are literally no more than 4-5 pages-long, at the most, followed by ~15-30 questions. Now, if you're like me, you probably get ADD with stuff you're not interested in. I was so glad these chapters were short. I made it a commitment to just read a chapter a day (26 total) over this past month before starting my other material. This made the read quite manageable.
The book has ~650 questions, which is a plus. Most of them are fairly weak (as are BRS Pathology's as well), however they do serve to just reinforce, in a very one-step fashion, the material over any chapter's previous 4-5 pages. At the end of the book, there is a 132-question exam. The explanations for the questions, however, are very poor- mostly one-liners for the correct answer or simply just lack of acknowledgement for incorrect answers, that were also seemingly true, for which I wanted more discussion.
I would say that although the questions were fairly lame, maybe one out of every 15 or so hit a concept/topic that taught me something new. In other words, I have by no means come out from having read this book feeling like I've gained a thorough, comprehensive foundation in behavioral science as much as I feel as though I've learned probably 60-80 tidbits that merely complement the info in FA/QBanks.
There are some topics such as abortion, euthanasia, abuse, sex/sleep problems that are covered fairly well. I even learned a little about different health insurance plans, which was a nice change.
The book is also good for giving you an idea of some of the ambiguous wtf-question stuff, such as when to call hospital security vs merely trying to calm the patient down, or how to address an upset patient (when the answer choices are all similar). I've read some people's posts on this forum about encountering behavioral science questions that "did not have an answer." This book helps clear things up.
There was also a little pharmacology reinforcement that was good, in a way that touched upon specific benefits/cons that are not in FA, such as TCAs being the best for immediate relief bc they're fastest acting, or escitalopram being the most specific of the SSRIs, or fluoxetine being the only SSRI that causes weight loss, not gain (a vignette of a depressed pt worried about putting on more weight), etc. So yeah, there was definitely some helpful pharm in there that was both reinforcement / new for me.
---
High-Yield Behavioral Science:
I read about half of this book during my second year of med and about half within the last month. Quite frankly, I don't know how FA2012 rates this as "A." It's terrible. Why do I say that? Although it covers a good breadth of material as a succinct package, it fails to mention tons of important details; even for the important details that it does mention, I found that it doesn't emphasize them enough. There were many times that I would pass over a particular topic and think, "dude, they should say this," or "they should have said this," or "this is really important to know; I'm glad they touched upon it, but why are they not emphasizing it?" In general, now that I've done probably 6-7000 practice questions so far and am fairly familiar with FA, HY Behavioral is just way to vague to be truly effective. It doesn't help with answering board questions. I can just feel that, and effectively so. It helps with building an initial foundation if you're in first-year med and haven't seen the info at all previously. So if you're in first-year, HY Behavioral could be a possibility for a quick read at times when you don't feel like doing real studying, but for the sake of actual Step1 prep, BRS Behavioral is much better. There were also no questions in the book and the chapters were long and dry.
---
Bottom line: I believe that if I encounter 30 behavioral science questions on my future USMLE, based on having read BRS, I might get 2-3 additional ones correct that I may not have relative to just having gone through FA / the QBank questions I've done so far. HY Behavioral was generally worthless and it earned me zero additional questions on my future exam. It's appalling that FA lists this latter resource as an A. I would give BRS Behavioral A- (bc of its weak explanations) and HY a B. In terms of FA though, the only reason BRS might earn an A is bc those resources are relative, not absolute, grades, so they have to recommend at least one top resource.
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