Gameplan

[psipsina]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hey, before you jump on me for being a first year, I'm not starting studying or anything crazy like that but I'm on a super tight budget and need to figure out how much I need to have put aside for exam preparation next year. . .

Anyway I went to a kaplan presentation at my school to try and get an idea of cost and know that I want to do Qreview but am iffy about their notes/books. I plan on using FA as a basis and annotating in it from other sources. My current debate is to 1) buy kaplan lecture notes online w/o the web lectures because I'm not an audio learner 2) buy kaplans home study book series or 3) buy HY/BRS style books for each individual subject. Also has anyone used score95.com and is that worth it?? What do y'all think??

Again, just trying to figure out what I'm going to do so I can start saving up for it, as I am podunk poor . . . not being a crazy gunner so please don't slam me for being a first year in the USMLE thread.

 

[39094]

There are a lot of low-cost options out there for Step 1. As question banks go you really don't need to invest in the $500+ Qreview but can just stick with regular Qbank and save some money. IV Qbank and the other stuff offered by Kaplan really aren't that fantastic. I had an old copy of the Kaplan class books, but didn't find them as helpful as the HY/BRS books. I suppose they would be more helpful if you were learning from scratch, but as pure review books they're not compressed enought to be useful.

USMLERx (financial disclosure: they paid me a small sum to write questions for the bank) is another great low-cost option and is turning into a question bank to rival Qbank (not quite there yet, Qbank is still a proven resource).

I bought most of my books used from upperclassmen or on ebay/half.com. Saved a bundle that way, and for most subjects older versions aren't that different from newer ones (has anatomy changed in the last 50 years???) As a first year you can wait till July when everyone will be dumping their books en masse onto ebay and probably find some great deals. I'd get the FA for the year you're going to take the exam though because they do change it year-to-year based on student reporting of what's on the real thing.

Hope that helps

 

[exmike]

for less than the price of qbank ($400) - which by the way I dont think is very good, not to mention it would stop working every night around 2am or for a couple days at a time...

$35 - First Aid 5/5 stars. Duh, this is backbone
$45 - Robbins Review of Pathology 5/5 stars
$35 - NMS Review 850q 4/5 stars
$35 - Kaplan qBook - better than qbank 4.5/5 stars
$180 - NBME forms 1-4 - 6/5 stars. yes they are THAT good for prep. best money you'll spend
$0 - Goljan Audio - 5/5 stars. This guy is money.
$0 - USMLE released questions 3.5/5 stars
$0 - Tommy's Notes/questions (google it) or from valuemd.com 3/5 stars
$0 - blackwells online? people said there is a free set from the publisher

Dont know anything about usmlerx but I do remember that one of their questions was wrong in the 10 free questions they give you to sample it. There was a thread about it. I'm sure its decent though. and cheaper.