How accurate are the %'s in Q-Banks?

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How accurate are the percentages they give in the various Q-banks about how many students got a certain question correct?

 

[RadOncRocks]

How accurate are the percentages they give in the various Q-banks about how many students got a certain question correct?

Depends on what you mean by "accurate." My personal experience is that while statistically I'm sure they aren't making a calculation error they don't reflect my true experience. My hypothesis is that there is a group of people, probably fairly small, who use these purely as educational tools and don't mind looking up the answers as they go. This is going to skew the percent correct up.

I know a lot of people on SDN wouldn't dream of looking up an answer, but I really think it happens. I can score lowly compared to others on a Qbank, and then score in the top 5% on an NBME. So just my two cents.

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

The only definitives I can say about the QBanks is that if the right answer hovers around 20%, everyone guessed.

If it is above 50%, then that means those individuals either went to a good medical school (not mine) or learned an important concept on their own.

 

[raynor123456]

...My hypothesis is that there is a group of people, probably fairly small, who use these purely as educational tools and don't mind looking up the answers as they go. This is going to skew the percent correct up...

That, and people who do blocks on systems they just studied. It's easy to study the hell out of a system and get 70%, but doing it on a first pass random 46 block isn't quite as easy o_0

At least, I hope that's the case. Because, I really would like to do okay on this exam 😱

 

[ArcGurren]

What's already been said - not everyone does it in timed blocks of 46 and a lot of people use it PURELY as a learning tool and not as an assessment.

Of course, if that's really the case, well, be glad if you get an answer right that had "30% correct" or something to that effect 😀.

 

[ArcGurren]

The only definitives I can say about the QBanks is that if the right answer hovers around 20%, everyone guessed.

If it is above 50%, then that means those individuals either went to a good medical school (not mine) or learned an important concept on their own.

Or it could just be a general concept which is drilled into everyone's heads from day 1 (like "female with discharge of gram negative diplococcus" = gonorrhea) in medical school.

I don't know what to think about the questions on Kaplan where it says "9% got this right"... I'm inclined to think those are more just dickish or bad questions and not necessarily "hard concept" questions.

 

[michigator04]

I think Rx made up a lot of their percentages. There were some really basic questions with a 25% correct rate, some really obscure ones with a 60+% correct rate, and then to top it all off, half the time the percentages didn't add up to anywhere near 100%.

 

[quepatho]

On that note, are the people taking this exam really terrible at simple math? I keep getting simple math questions right (biostatistics) that only "26%" of people got right. Questions I could have gotten right in high school. Anyway, what's up with that?

I have *never* been a math person in my life. Avoided it like the plague.

(Too bad the rest of the test isn't going like that...)

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

On that note, are the people taking this exam really terrible at simple math? I keep getting simple math questions right (biostatistics) that only "26%" of people got right. Questions I could have gotten right in high school. Anyway, what's up with that?

I have *never* been a math person in my life. Avoided it like the plague.

(Too bad the rest of the test isn't going like that...)

A lot of people wanted to be doctors so they did NOT have to engage in mathematics.

 

[fahimaz7]

First 500 @ 69% correct (46 questions, random, timed, unused) from Uworld. Hope this is a sign of good things to come!

I did do about 1000 questions from RX prior to getting into uworld, and my cumulative percent was 67% (blocks of 50, random, timed, unused).

I think I'm the exception and not the rule though.

 

[unsung]

Ok, what I want to know is how well do your own scores correlate with the "% of people who chose this answer" info?

As in, I find myself getting many of the Qs that 30% to 40% of ppl get right... and then on the flip side, I'll get like 4 or 5 Qs WRONG that 70% of ppl get right. 🙄

This means, my overall score is in the 60ish%... which is slightly above average. But this is isn't 'cuz I'm getting the "hard" Qs wrong, it's 'cuz I keep getting supposedly "easy" Qs wrong!

...Is this happening to anyone else?

I have no idea how this happens. I wonder if I just have these huge GAPS in my medical knowledge that other people knew even from their pre-med days (things about Hib vaccine, for ex)... or what.

And I'm also not sure how to rectify the situation.

 

[raynor123456]

A lot of people wanted to be doctors so they did NOT have to engage in mathematics.

Math is easier in many ways... rote memorization is practically torture. 😱

I personally wanted a secure job that, at the end of the day, I can feel really good about performing. Plus, when you've got the basic knowledge and finally start connecting dots clinically, it starts to become fun.

 

[raynor123456]

I have no idea how this happens. I wonder if I just have these huge GAPS in my medical knowledge that other people knew even from their pre-med days (things about Hib vaccine, for ex)... or what.

IMO, it's just the mega-rote-memorizers regurgitating answers on the stupid minutia questions (most med students) vs the thinkers (you). No more complicated than that.

I'll NEVER, EVER, EVER understand why in the hell anybody wants me to remember precisely which genes are associated with what cancers, which receptors are associated with what 2nd messenger system, etc, etc. It's just so, so stupid and I have a hard time convincing myself to sit down and study that stuff, not to mention the fact that it's nearly impossible to sit down and actually rote memorize for more than 5 minutes at a time.

 

[235009]

maybe the % correct are calculated only among those ppl who did the question in timed mode. I've been using the qbank as purely a study tool so far and i've done everything in tutor mode untimed and of course I look stuff up every now and then.

I find it hard to believe that they lump together stats from the people who spent 1 minute on the question with people who spent 15 minutes lol ...maybe they go by how long you spent on the question and have some sort of cutoff ...who knows