Is USMLEWorld less minutiae oriented than Qbank?

[Red Beard]

I've been using Qbank for a little while, and have now also taken the CBSE through my school and NBME 3. (Did ok on those) Niether of these two tests had anywhere near the number of minutiae type questions that I get in an average Qbank block.

The minutiae focus of Qbank is annoying me so much that I am thinking of switching to UWorld. For those who've used both, is UWorld going to be much different in this respect?

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[Red Beard]

Argh, posted to wrong forum by accident.

Mods, can you move to the step I forum?

Thanks!

 

[doc20]

yes you are somewhat right, qbank sometimes gets very detailed on micro then actual step 1 questions, specially gram stains morphology etc etc, which step 1 really dont care that much about that

 

[All4MyDaughter]

Moving to Step 1 forum per OP request.

Next time, please use the "report post" button to let us know you'd like a thread moved. It will allow us to accomodate your request faster.

 

[osli]

I completed about 1500 Kaplan Qbank questions and have done about 1000 USMLE World questions so far. Both seem to have their areas where they are more "detail" oriented. Kaplan's is obviously micro, where the questions are just ludicrous. In 1000 UWorld questions, I've had exactly one on mechanism of acquisition of genetic resistance to antibiotics, and that was for strep pneumo since it is only one of a few that can be transformed. Seems reasonable, if maybe low yield. In 1500 Kaplan questions I know I had at least ten, and they were for random bugs where the genetic transfer from one bug to another is nothing special but entirely forgettable. Very low yield IMO.

On the other hand, UWorld has been a little more detailed in some areas of pharm, covering drugs that aren't in FA and that I never encountered in Kaplan. They are also pretty stiff on drug mechanisms... in fact, sometimes I wonder if the question is really pharm or if it should be more biochemistry. But I think that is their point, to cover several things in one question. Behavioral and biostatistics have more difficult questions on UWorld, but I'm not sure I'd call them "detail" oriented.

All in all, I think UWorld meets its goal of preparing you for the 30-50% of your test that may not be straight forward and will separate you from an average score. Kaplan probably does as well, but their questions have a greater span... from very easy to ludicrous, while UWorld seems more focused on the range from moderately easy to fairly difficult. Like my exacting classifications?

 

[Red Beard]

Like my exacting classifications?

Yeah, I do. Thanks for the critique!

 

[sparkygalore]

I dabbled in Qbank while finishing up classes -- definitely found their question stems long winded and a little picky, but loved their explanations. Hitting USMLE world hard core now, and find the questions take a little more thought ("what are the getting at here?") but the info needed to answer them is a little more straight forward. However, the USMLE explanations stink. They need to hire some Kaplan people.

The big difference I noticed (and maybe it's just me) was that Qbank was really in line with FA (despite being so detailed, many of the details were mentioned somewhere in there) while USMLE world has entire diseases that FA has completely ignored. I am occasionally torn between loving USMLE world for teaching me/reminding me about more obscure stuff, and annoyed that it might be less high yield.

I suppose it's a matter of preference (it seems that people have gotten awesome scores using either) -- would you like to learn a lot of details about a few things, or a few details about a lot of things?

 

[osli]

I agree with the "what are they getting at here" sentiment. I finished a block of 50 questions tonight and missed 3 due to an intentionally vague stem that left the diagnoses (and thus related answer) open to too much interpretation. In their effort to not "give away" the question, I think they sometimes make it too ambiguous to have a single clear answer. Such as the question describing a tumor cell being mostly clear with a peripherally located nucleus, and asking where the primary cancer was located, with no other terribly helpful details. Depending on whether you thought they were describing a signet ring cell or a renal clear cell you could pick two different answers. I guess knowing that renal mets to the lung are more common epidemiologically than gastric signet cell (though it can met there as well) would have given you the correct answer, but that seems pretty far down the list of info worth remembering for step 1. A picture is worth a thousand (vague) words.