How are you actually getting UW questions for "each rotation"?? that's $$$

[ShyD33]

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That seems like a considerable amount of moneys, especially when adding books on top, per rotation.

Whats the best option, aside from books? get the whole year? 430$ ouch! Purchase a monthly, thing each rotation (so you can "reset" unused questions - example below)

Example: say I was doing IM Peds rotations (ours is combined) and wanna shoot for some pre-Sx questions, I would purchase the monthly, use what I need, then when its time for Sx, I wouldn't have "used" and never to retrieve again, "unused questions in Sx."

 

[alwaysaangel]

That seems like a considerable amount of moneys, especially when adding books on top, per rotation.

Whats the best option, aside from books? get the whole year? 430$ ouch! Purchase a monthly, thing each rotation (so you can "reset" unused questions - example below)

Example: say I was doing IM Peds rotations (ours is combined) and wanna shoot for some pre-Sx questions, I would purchase the monthly, use what I need, then when its time for Sx, I wouldn't have "used" and never to retrieve again, "unused questions in Sx."

I think monthly would add up worse. I plan on getting usmle rx for the year. I figure it will have good enough questions and its about half the price of Kaplan or UWorld.

Plus I plan to use question and cases books like Blueprints and pretest.

 

[QofQuimica]

I think most people use PreTest and/or other question books during rotations. (I have the Kaplan Qbook.) Buying an online qbank for a full year is too expensive for my budget, for sure.

 

[lord_jeebus]

At the time I did not get UW for clinical rotations because of the cost, but considering the huge impact of clinical grades on the match (greater than Step I in my opinion) and the great influence of shelf exams on those grades (at least at my school), I somewhat regret that decision. I used UW for Step II prep and they are in my opinion the best questions available for both shelf exams and Step II.

 

[ShyD33]

At the time I did not get UW for clinical rotations because of the cost, but considering the huge impact of clinical grades on the match (greater than Step I in my opinion) and the great influence of shelf exams on those grades (at least at my school), I somewhat regret that decision. I used UW for Step II prep and they are in my opinion the best questions available for both shelf exams and Step II.

thanks for the replies - it sounds like it may be a safe bet to pull the trigger now, and have UW all year long - it wouldn't be a "bad investment" necessarily...

 

[Pinkertinkle]

At the time I did not get UW for clinical rotations because of the cost, but considering the huge impact of clinical grades on the match (greater than Step I in my opinion) and the great influence of shelf exams on those grades (at least at my school), I somewhat regret that decision. I used UW for Step II prep and they are in my opinion the best questions available for both shelf exams and Step II.

I agree with this. I have been purchasing it two months at a time and it comes out about even cost wise to buying it for a year.

lordjeebus I am interested in hearing your opinion regarding use of clinical grades in the match, specifically how it is used when schools have many different grading systems and different grading criteria with regards to shelf vs evals, etc...

 

[FutureInternist]

I agree with this. I have been purchasing it two months at a time and it comes out about even cost wise to buying it for a year.

lordjeebus I am interested in hearing your opinion regarding use of clinical grades in the match, specifically how it is used when schools have many different grading systems and different grading criteria with regards to shelf vs evals, etc...

If the cost is the same then I would suggest buying the year long subscription since, I THINK, you can reset Qs only if you buy 6months or more.

 

[hardy]

I decided to get two one month subscriptions. The first month during medicine and the second when studying for step II. UW mostly consists of medicine questions so the utility during all the other rotations is marginal. Half the cost of a yearly subscription this way.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I agree with this. I have been purchasing it two months at a time and it comes out about even cost wise to buying it for a year.

lordjeebus I am interested in hearing your opinion regarding use of clinical grades in the match, specifically how it is used when schools have many different grading systems and different grading criteria with regards to shelf vs evals, etc...

My school was quite stingy with Honors grades - capped at the top 15%, and sometimes the clerkship directors would choose to give less than that.

My feeling from the impressions I got from interviews was that at programs that received applications from many of my classmates, it was known that the grading system was difficult and it was taken into account, but at programs more distant geographically, my grades were sometimes perceived as weaker.

Conversely, heard the surgery director at my school say that he was skeptical of applicants from a certain "top 10" school, because so many applicants seemed to get honors in everything. (However, this school has an exceptional match list so it probably works in their favor on the whole.)

What seems to matter most is the magic adjective in your MSPE, which at my school is derived mostly from 3rd year clinical grades. At one of my interviews, they gave interviewers our applications distilled to the size of a business card:

Name
School
MSPE Adjective
Step I
Step II

 

[ShyD33]

If the cost is the same then I would suggest buying the year long subscription since, I THINK, you can reset Qs only if you buy 6months or more.

I'm not familiar with this - resetting questions. If this is true - can anyone confirm this? - that would a huge asset for question taking!

 

[carn311]

I'm not familiar with this - resetting questions. If this is true - can anyone confirm this? - that would a huge asset for question taking!

Straight from UW's site: http://www.usmleworld.com/help.aspx



"I want to reset/delete my Qbank test history (or) start all over again, is this possible?
A reset is basically a permanent and irreversible purge (delete) of all of your test and performance data from our system. This option is available in only two scenarios outlined below:

Purchase of a new subscription: You purchased a brand new subscription (i.e. your previous subscription has expired and you did not renew) and still have the old information in your Qbank.
Continuous subscription for 6-months or more without a reset: For users who have continuously subscribed to a particular course for 6 months or more and whose subscription has never been reset, we provide a one-time only opportunity to reset your test information/Qbank.
If you purchased a 180-day or more subscription outright (6 months or greater duration when you purchased your active subscription) you can perform a reset yourself by accessing "Utilities" -> "Reset" section of your Java based qbank interface.
If you have held your active subscription continuously for 6 or more months without any intermediate breaks, please email us your reset request including your username on the day you would like for us to permanently delete your test and performance data.
Renewal of your active subscription does NOT qualify as a new subscription. Qbank test information cannot be deleted or reset in the middle of a subscription except in above two scenarios."

Seems like buying two 6 month subscriptions WITHOUT RENEWING would provide you with effectively 3 resets. Might be the way to go.