How much of the USMLE-1 knowledge comes from class?

[Ezekiel20]

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Dear all

I was wondering if those of you who sat the USMLE-1 could tell me roughly how much of the knowlede needed for this exam comes from what was taught in class?

From what I can gather from various threads, a lot of it seems to be self-study with books (like First Aid etc) since many med schools have their own curricula which may or may not reflect what is needed for the USMLE.

I am asking this question as I am studying in Australia, and am still undecided as to whether I should write this exam. Med schools here have less of an emphasis on the pure sciences, focusing more on clinical sciences - which means I would have to pretty much study on my own for subjects like biochem, genetics, etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bertelman]

From my experience, maybe 50% of the exam was from class. another 20-30% could be found in various review books and questions. This represents the stuff that isn't necessarily clinically relevant or even that common, but for whatever reason consistently shows up on these board exams. This is why doing ~2,000 practice questions is key for this exam.

The final 20%...you may never see anywhere in your studies, your classes, or another question bank. Or maybe you saw it once, thought to yourself, "there is no way this will be on the exam". And here it is. This is the kind of question that your only chance of getting it right is to eliminate the few answer choices you can, and use your knowledge of basic sciences to formulate a best guess.

Hope this helps.

 

[colbgw02]

i think it depends on the school. some schools do a good job of teaching to the exam, or, if you go to a school like i did, you can have a bunch of folks talking to you about their own lab's research. in that case, the study books are more helpful.

if you're looking for good books, then first aid is an absolute must. then use their section in the back to decide on which other books you want. as mentioned before, practice questions are very important, imo, as well.

 

[mikedc813]

I think that it varies a little bit based on how your school teaches . I think that much of what is on the exam you have learned during your first and second year classes. However, a lot of it probably has been forgotten since you haven't looked at it for some time. I found that studying for Step 1 was a combination of remembering things that I once knew and also learning some new things that I never learned. I truly believe that if you studied hard and also did well during the first 2 years you will do just fine on Step 1. I have found that those who have not done well during the first 2 years have struggled. I think it's fair to say that your class rank will roughly tell you how you will do on Step 1 (i.e. you will almost certainly do well if you're in the top 10, but may struggle if in the bottom 10). This is my personal experience....

 

[Law2Doc]

I think it's fair to say that your class rank will roughly tell you how you will do on Step 1 (i.e. you will almost certainly do well if you're in the top 10, but may struggle if in the bottom 10). This is my personal experience....

There is some good correlation for sure, but always a few top students who tank the test and a few folks at the bottom who surprise folks at every school. Also there are some schools which intentionally make their courses harder than the boards such that someone who may not be excelling in such classes might actually know enough to do decently on Step 1. And there are schools which do better jobs of preparing their students for the boards such that a top student at a school that teaches "its own thing" (excessive PBL, etc) may be worse off in terms of preparation than a lower ranked student at a more board focussed school. Bottom line, there is some statistical truth to what you say, but folks better study a helluva lot for Step 1 regardless of how well they did in school.

 

[lord_jeebus]

I guess it depends on your school.

For me 90% of questions were answerable with material from class.

99% were answerable with information available in a review book or question bank that I had used. Although people say that 10-20% of it is out of left field, I think this can be attributed to the fact that it is often very hard to figure out what basic science concepts a given question is trying to test.

 

[jocg27]

I'm an m2, so I'm curious about the answer as well, and have no personal experience about the test...

Just to spread some of the thoughts I've heard from the class above me though...It seems that one of the biggest differences between classes and the board, and so one of the things that makes it harder, is how much the questions integrate material from all your classes...In class, you learn everything separately, within the context of it's own subject, whether its micro or path or pharm or whatever...But one question on the exam might need you to call on knowledge from multiple courses...

Anyone who's taken it care to say how accurate they think that is?

 

[Law2Doc]

In class, you learn everything separately, within the context of it's own subject, whether its micro or path or pharm or whatever...But one question on the exam might need you to call on knowledge from multiple courses.

There are many schools that integrate a lot of these courses, rather than teach them separately, precisely for the reason you suggest. For instance, quite a few schools do not have a distinct "pharmacology" class, but cover all the same drugs in other classes.

 

[Taus]

I'm an m2, so I'm curious about the answer as well, and have no personal experience about the test...

Just to spread some of the thoughts I've heard from the class above me though...It seems that one of the biggest differences between classes and the board, and so one of the things that makes it harder, is how much the questions integrate material from all your classes...In class, you learn everything separately, within the context of it's own subject, whether its micro or path or pharm or whatever...But one question on the exam might need you to call on knowledge from multiple courses...

Anyone who's taken it care to say how accurate they think that is?

that is one of the major reasons that a lot of medical schools have (or are) switching to an integrated "systems" based curriculum. (ie when learning about the heart you learn "Cardiology" - the path, phys, micro, pharm, etc....so the material from basic sciences that pertains to the cardiovasc system isn't disjointed and taught months or over a year earlier from its path and pharm.....test questions can then be made to integrate all of this material in clinical situations)

 

[tupac_don]

Dear all

I was wondering if those of you who sat the USMLE-1 could tell me roughly how much of the knowlede needed for this exam comes from what was taught in class?

From what I can gather from various threads, a lot of it seems to be self-study with books (like First Aid etc) since many med schools have their own curricula which may or may not reflect what is needed for the USMLE.

I am asking this question as I am studying in Australia, and am still undecided as to whether I should write this exam. Med schools here have less of an emphasis on the pure sciences, focusing more on clinical sciences - which means I would have to pretty much study on my own for subjects like biochem, genetics, etc.

Thanks in advance.

Hey,

It's tough to tell you, b/c you are in a different boat, you are studying in an Australian school not an American one. So emphasis will be different. From what I heard, if you do well in your classes, you will generally do well on the boards and it will be a lot easier to review for the boards in 4-6 weeks that you have then if you didn't do too well in classes. There is a saying that best board prep is to do well in your classes. The better you learn this stuff the first time around the easier it will be.

If you want to come to US and practice, I would really focus on getting a good step I score, b/c US residencies want really give a rat's a** about how well you did on your courses in Australia, they will care how you did on step I and II. So what I would suggest, get some review books early, also buy QBank, that's important b/c you need to get a feel for how the questions are asked on Step I.

But be warned, these review books, are pretty weak if you are trying to study from them only, you need pretty good background, to be able to really use this books to their full potential. Some of these books, just have bullet points. First aid is just a collection of facts.

If you want something solid, to really get a good grasp for Step I it would be Kaplan books (the black books). Which I would reccommend to you since you are not schooling in an American school. They are little more wordy and extensive for USMLE, but they give you a very solid foundation and they tend to focus on stuff tested on step I. Maybe your school doesn't focus on stuff that is tested, so you could be at a disadvantage.

My reccommendation is that you start studying for step I early and take your time and then take another 6weeks plus to really solidify stuff. And do lots of questions and you should be good to go. let me know if you have any more questions mate. Later.

 

[njbmd]

Dear all

I was wondering if those of you who sat the USMLE-1 could tell me roughly how much of the knowlede needed for this exam comes from what was taught in class?

From what I can gather from various threads, a lot of it seems to be self-study with books (like First Aid etc) since many med schools have their own curricula which may or may not reflect what is needed for the USMLE.

I am asking this question as I am studying in Australia, and am still undecided as to whether I should write this exam. Med schools here have less of an emphasis on the pure sciences, focusing more on clinical sciences - which means I would have to pretty much study on my own for subjects like biochem, genetics, etc.

Thanks in advance.

I would say that nearly 100% of USMLE Step I came from my coursework. I had two weeks to review and then take the test. I scored extremely well and had done well in my coursework. During those two weeks, I reviewed (with Kaplan's Q-Bank) about 8 hours daily and that was it. If I had not had a very strong coursework base, the review would not have been enough.

You review for USMLE Step I and study for your course exams. 🙂

 

[rowan]

I strongly agree with the above post. The single best thing you can do for yourself in regards to preparing for Step 1 is to do well in class and be sure to have a solid base of knowledge when it comes time to review. I think a lot of students make the mistake (esp in the second year) of diving headfirst into board study at the expense of coursework. I know you think (I did also) that there is no way to retain all that information from class and you will just end up having to re-learn it anyway, but you will be surprised at, one, how much you can retain, and two, even the things you have forgotten, how easily they come back with just a bit of review if you have learned them correctly before. It seems that most students seem to miss the connection between coursework and Step 1 prep...I have heard students say, "I'm not going to waste my time with class when I could be studying for boards." I think the important thing to realize is that studying for class is studying for boards.

Hope this helps.

 

[ddmo]

95% easy. I found that most of the questions could be had from First Aid. Those that weren't probably weren't in any review book and came from class. I was shocked how much stuff I remembered from my courses while taking the exam.

 

[Ezekiel20]

Thanks for the great advice guys.