How important is Kaplan Q-bank for 250+?

[Lothric]

Hey guys,

For my dedicated period of 8 weeks: UFAP. It will be my 3rd time through FA at this point. Dedicated starts in June next year (I'm from Sweden).

Right now I'm focusing on going through FA once (still on page 577/688; takes me 1h to go through 2 pages... It'll be faster the second-run maybe?) and I'm working on the RX-Qbank. Plan is to knock out both of these before start of November.

In addition to above, I want to run through FA a second time + doing all relevant NBMEs and learn from those as well (can you? Do they provide answers?)

If I add kaplan Q-bank to this my second run through FA might take a hit (and I honestly feel like I'm really weak at remembering all those drug/microbe/ 6th arch aorta gives ductus arterosus etc...). Between my school curriculum and the time it takes to go through Kaplan, I really do feel time constraints.

Goal for step1 is at least 250.

How important will Kaplan be? It's either choose Kaplan on the expense of being a bit weaker on FA, or be better at FA.

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[Murrish]

Hi
Also from Sweden and got my result back 2 days ago(240-245). You have almost a year to go you can probably go through 3 qBanks without any problem. I did uworld + usmleRx in 10 weeks although was free from school at the time.
I myself havent tried Kaplan but ive heard it definitely adds some value however I dont think its absolutely neccessary for 250+ but what do I know I didnt score 250+.

 

[Lothric]

Hi
Also from Sweden and got my result back 2 days ago(240-245). You have almost a year to go you can probably go through 3 qBanks without any problem. I did uworld + usmleRx in 10 weeks although was free from school at the time.
I myself havent tried Kaplan but ive heard it definitely adds some value however I dont think its absolutely neccessary for 250+ but what do I know I didnt score 250+.

Hey!

How many hours/week did you work on the qbanks?

240-245 is still above average though! It's a really good score!

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Hey guys,

For my dedicated period of 8 weeks: UFAP. It will be my 3rd time through FA at this point. Dedicated starts in June next year (I'm from Sweden).

Right now I'm focusing on going through FA once (still on page 577/688; takes me 1h to go through 2 pages... It'll be faster the second-run maybe?) and I'm working on the RX-Qbank. Plan is to knock out both of these before start of November.

In addition to above, I want to run through FA a second time + doing all relevant NBMEs and learn from those as well (can you? Do they provide answers?)

If I add kaplan Q-bank to this my second run through FA might take a hit (and I honestly feel like I'm really weak at remembering all those drug/microbe/ 6th arch aorta gives ductus arterosus etc...). Between my school curriculum and the time it takes to go through Kaplan, I really do feel time constraints.

Goal for step1 is at least 250.

How important will Kaplan be? It's either choose Kaplan on the expense of being a bit weaker on FA, or be better at FA.

I did Kaplan, RX and UW

252

 

[DoubleGopher]

I am a native English speaker, so I can't speak to the difficulty of taking the test in a second language, but I used Pathoma, Sketchy Micro/Pharm (NOT sketchy path), FA (x2), ~1500 questions in UWorld (+1 of the UWorld self assessments), and 3 NBMEs.

For the NBMEs they tell you if you get a question wrong, but they don't tell you the correct answer. If you do some googling of the test # and some of the key words from the question stems you can find helpful threads where folks offer up answers/explanations.

My advice is to start a spreadsheet of questions that you get wrong, the correct answer, and the reason why you missed it. Review these facts in the 10 days leading up to your exam. Also use this time to review the high yield facts in the back of FA. Step 1 is a test that actually rewards some cramming- my NBME score 10 days before the exam was 250 and my final Step 1 score was 261.

At my school they tell us the additional Qbanks are usually not worth it because the material is most closely associated with UWorld and FA (Pathoma and sketchy Micro/Pharm are really just to help with memorizing).

As an aside for step 2CK, I used only UWorld (x2) and 2 UWorld self assessments and ended up getting a 270- don't bother with any additional resources there.

 

[humblethinker]

I did Kaplan, RX and UW

252

Hi, would you mind explaining the timeline when you used each of these resources? and any tips on how you used them effectively for learning? Thanks!

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

What were your percentages?? Did you do timed, tutor, by system, random, etc.

RX: 80%
Kaplan: 78%
UW: 86%

Untimed, tutor mode, random.

I would do your first two banks untimed, tutor mode. I would do at least half of UW on timed mode doing 40 question blocks just to get into the swing of things.