Kaplan Lecture Notes & Audio

[VeggieGal]

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Hi all,

I was wondering what y'all thought about the Kaplan Lecture Notes and audio lectures for the various subjects. I was planning on reviewing first year classes material over winter break, but wanted to know whether kaplan is sufficient for boards prep. Do they cover all the topics we need to know or is it necessary to supplement with additional books? Does it depend on the subject? If so, what subjects do you think are particularly well covered?

I would greatly appreciate any advice y'all might have. Thanks so much!

 

[ertugrul]

...Kaplan Lecture Notes and audio...

Kaplan lecture notes will be enough, I'm not sure what they teach you in first year but my overall impression is good for kaplan notes.
For audios, if you're talking about webprep, it's not cover all materials in lecture notes but higher yield chapters.
Main issue here is, do you have enough time to read & listen all?

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Hi all,

I was wondering what y'all thought about the Kaplan Lecture Notes and audio lectures for the various subjects. I was planning on reviewing first year classes material over winter break, but wanted to know whether kaplan is sufficient for boards prep. Do they cover all the topics we need to know or is it necessary to supplement with additional books? Does it depend on the subject? If so, what subjects do you think are particularly well covered?

I would greatly appreciate any advice y'all might have. Thanks so much!

The complete set of Kaplan Notes is very comprehensive and I think very highly of them. However you don't want the audios, you want the Live Prep videos. These are probably twice as long as the audio lectures in length and will cover everything in the note set. You can always convert them to audios.

If you are reviewing first year subjects I think they are sufficient. For second year subjects a few books will be useful supplements.

 

[tony montana]

So what are you saing?

Are you saying kaplan materials is enough to combine with UW and do very well? (> 230) within reason...

 

[Pinkertinkle]

So what are you saing?

Are you saying kaplan materials is enough to combine with UW and do very well? (> 230) within reason...

That's right. Plus first aid of course, I'd say >240.

 

[tony montana]

That's right. Plus first aid of course, I'd say >240.

Now jdu talkin to me and Dat I like! 😎

 

[Law2Doc]

That's right. Plus first aid of course, I'd say >240.

Well, I don't know that the resources are what gets anyone a good score, so it's kind of misleading to suggest this. There are folks who could have the Kaplan lecturers actually come and sit in their house for a year and still not break the average. I am positive there are folks who have used everything you suggest and not broken 240, and people who use none of what you have suggested (eg. RR, High Yield and qbank) and have broken 240. In the end, it's more about the person than the resource that is used.

And the vast majority of people who study for this test, even with Kaplan materials, won't break 220, let alone 240. If they did, I suspect Kaplan would be advertising that fact like you wouldn't believe. (They don't). In fact they don't seem to have data showing that their students do much better than the average on the Step. (Some med schools even go out of their way to tell students to save their money and use cheaper resources, because statistically it doesn't seem to make much difference). If it works for you, that's great. But let's not get carried away and start suggesting that folks will be scoring 20+ points above average. Some will, but most simply won't. Or the average would already be much higher, and people would be flocking to these companies in droves.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Well, I don't know that the resources are what gets anyone a good score, so it's kind of misleading to suggest this. There are folks who could have the Kaplan lecturers actually come and sit in their house for a year and still not break the average. I am positive there are folks who have used everything you suggest and not broken 240, and people who use none of what you have suggested (eg. RR, High Yield and qbank) and have broken 240. In the end, it's more about the person than the resource that is used.

And the vast majority of people who study for this test, even with Kaplan materials, won't break 220, let alone 240. If they did, I suspect Kaplan would be advertising that fact like you wouldn't believe. (They don't). In fact they don't seem to have data showing that their students do much better than the average on the Step. (Some med schools even go out of their way to tell students to save their money and use cheaper resources, because statistically it doesn't seem to make much difference). If it works for you, that's great. But let's not get carried away and start suggesting that folks will be scoring 20+ points above average. Some will, but most simply won't. Or the average would already be much higher, and people would be flocking to these companies in droves.

Of course the score depends on the individual as well as the material he/she uses. I believe the information in Kaplan plus a few other resources is enough on the material side to get above a 240, whether the individual can make full use of it and actually do so is another matter.

 

[Law2Doc]

Of course the score depends on the individual as well as the material he/she uses. I believe the information in Kaplan plus a few other resources is enough on the material side to get above a 240, whether the individual can make full use of it and actually do so is another matter.

Agreed -- The material is certainly adequate to do quite well. But most people still won't be above average just because they use those resources over others. (I had actually recalled you suggesting otherwise in a different thread). Truth of the matter is that most people will not be capable of getting in the ballpark 240 regardless of what resources they use, much in the same way that most people didn't break 35 on the MCAT.

Just because you have all the tools you need to build a house doesn't mean you are going to be able to build that house, or if you do, that it will look habitable.

 

[ertugrul]

Agreed -- The material is certainly adequate to do quite well. But most people still won't be above average just because they use those resources over others. (I had actually recalled you suggesting otherwise in a different thread). Truth of the matter is that most people will not be capable of getting in the ballpark 240 regardless of what resources they use, much in the same way that most people didn't break 35 on the MCAT.

Just because you have all the tools you need to build a house doesn't mean you are going to be able to build that house, or if you do, that it will look habitable.

Agreed too, in fact it's not possible for everyone to be in -say- 10% percentile regardless of how much studied/done well on exam. There is an Gaussian distribution and someone has to be in the left side of the curve.

 

[Law2Doc]

Agreed too, in fact it's not possible for everyone to be in -say- 10% percentile regardless of how much studied/done well on exam. There is an Gaussian distribution and someone has to be in the left side of the curve.

And the fact that Kaplan doesn't advertise that it's average is higher than national (which they used to do for some other tests BTW), suggests to me that folks who use those resources probably fall into the same distribution as everyone else. Some are smarter and do well, and some not so much. In the end, it's all about you, not the resources.

There are folks out there who do great on the step with < $200 in resources (eg World for a month, FA, and one or two HY books) and folks who do great spending $2000 in resources. The info is all there either way, it's more about presentation than anything else. But there are as many folks who do poorly in each group, and the average still ends up about the same. It's really not about the resources, it's how well you pack the info into your brain at the end of the day.