internal shelf q's help needed!!!

[suckerfree]

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Hi, I have the internal shelf exam coming up in about a week. I need help!!! What do the internal shelf exam q's look like? I have heard some people say it is harder than MKSAP, and MKSAP is harder than PreTest. The q's between all three sources (MKSAP, blueprints, and PreTest) are all quite different. What are the actual internal shelf q's supposed to be like exactly in terms of level of difficulty? Do any of these sources appear more representative than others? How good was MKSAP?

I have read First Aid about 2x, I have gone through 90% of PreTest and have it memorized, and I will have gone through MKSAP 2x with it mostly memorized as well. I also saw the q's in the back of the blueprints. I hope this will be enough to pass (I need to get 5th percentile). I didn't do a lot of good learning on the job during the clerkship.

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[QuinnB]

If you did all of the stuff you mentioned, you should be fine I suppose. I guess I can't make promises, and a lot of it depends on how well you test, but you should be okay. I did MKSAP 2 and 3 one time each (didn't get to the last 3-4 sections of 3) and I read a lot of stuff on up date on each of my patient's major conditions (probably 40 total different conditions over 3 months). I had really good seniors that taught a lot as well and ended up with a 90th%.

The questions were generally in the form of a clinical history with pertinent physical exam findings (often pathognomonic) and rarely a slide or radiograph. It was a pretty hard shelf. You have to know your basics b/c they are represented fairly well (anemia, COPD, CHF, MI, PNA, etc...)

 

[suckerfree]

are the questions on the exam the same level of difficulty as the MKSAP? Thanks!

 

[QuinnB]

It is hard to tell...it seems that the MKSAP questions were taken directly from a landmark paper in the field (e.g., carvedilol or spironolactone in CHF, etc...) whereas the shelf questions are more obscure. I would say that overall, the shelf questions are more difficult in that they approach the questions differently. What I mean is that they were a few questions that would ask the next step in the diagnosis (CT vs US vs MRI vs biopsy vs resection in adrenal masses, etc...) whereas MKSAP didn't focus too much on this. The shelf will also have some very straight forward questions (macrocytic anemia, etc...) and rare obscure questions whereas MKSAP tended to be more of the most common things.

I hope this helps, this is all I really remember.