Kaplan Q Bank: Extraneous Public Health Knowledge?

[2017ms2]

Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, but I can't seem to find much discussion about it. I'm in my dedicated prep period and have been using Kaplan's Q-bank as an extra source of questions (specifically, when I'm too mentally drained to spend 2-3 hours doing and reviewing explanations in
UWorld, and would rather just knock a block out quickly). I'm sure this is not a novel concept, but when I do UWorld, I treat every piece of information in the explanation as important and testable. Does this also hold true for the Kaplan explanations?

Specifically, I feel like every block has at least 2-3+ questions related to the inner workings of a hospital that are not even mentioned in FA2017. Recent examples:
PDSA quality control model
anchoring heuristic
types of adverse medical events

I knew Kaplan has a reputation for being "nitpicky" in basic sciences questions, but I'm less concerned about extra details and more concerned about whether it is important to learn complete concepts that are not even mentioned in FA.

Any input would be appreciated!

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[Surgeria]

SURVEY RESULTS: 2016 USMLE Step 1 Correlation Survey Results • r/step1
According to this survey only 25% of examinees used kaplan bank, but this was last year maybe before this type of questios has been introduced. But even though I am not seeing much people using kaplan now, maybe they use it in non-dedicated period? I am also struggling between using or not kaplan bank, I have time for it. I just don't know how much will be productivity of spending one month on kaplan bank. People are stating that usmle questions now has changed and they get more picky strange questions. I asked several persons on this forum about the kaplan bank, they stated that kaplan contains many questions with low yield information, not picky and strange questions like on real deal, just cases with low yield information in answers. Nothing can prepare us to that strange questions that has 2 very similar answers and you struggle between the two.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

The public health questions in Kaplan are stupid. Turn off that section when you do your questions

 

[yankees527]

Kaplan qbank has some RIDICULOUS public health questions. Just ignore those

 

[Surgeria]

Does this meen that for example it's better to do uworld 3 times then doing 2 times uworld + 1 kaplan? Hammer and master uworld 100% doing it three times or be like 80-85% uworld second run + kaplan once?

Any ideas? ... Can't decide which one is better.

 

[yankees527]

Does this meen that for example it's better to do uworld 3 times then doing 2 times uworld + 1 kaplan? Hammer and master uworld 100% doing it three times or be like 80-85% uworld second run + kaplan once?

Any ideas? ... Can't decide which one is better.

Good point. Idk if you take good notes and throughly go through uworld once kaplan may be the way to go in certain areas. That may be what i end up doing tbh

 

[Surgeria]

Good point. Idk if you take good notes and throughly go through uworld once kaplan may be the way to go in certain areas. That may be what i end up doing tbh

What do you mean under certain areas? - areas that will appear weak on assessment tests (nbme,uwsa)? Or subjects that are considered by students to be high yield and well written? - I heared that micro,biochem,physio,anatomy,behavior, biostat is good enough. I can't figure out how this subjects are considered good if the bank is overall low yield? - This subjects are more high yield than others, like for example pharm or pathology? Now I know that public health is crap. This is important decision because it will take time, much time.

 

[yankees527]

What do you mean under certain areas? - areas that will appear weak on assessment tests (nbme,uwsa)? Or subjects that are considered by students to be high yield and well written? - I heared that micro,biochem,physio,anatomy,behavior, biostat is good enough. I can't figure out how this subjects are considered good if the bank is overall low yield? - This subjects are more high yield than others, like for example pharm or pathology? Now I know that public health is crap. This is important decision because it will take time, much time.

Yea i meant, in kaplan you check off subjects like physiology for example if you feel weak in it. I think if you have a good grasp of things in first aid, you can sift through the ridiculous kaplan questions.

I mean we all know kaplan is not uworld, but its also not completely useless....you can get something out of it for your weak areas, because more practice is always better than less practice, no matter if 10-15% may be low yield questions.

 

[Surgeria]

Yea i meant, in kaplan you check off subjects like physiology for example if you feel weak in it. I think if you have a good grasp of things in first aid, you can sift through the ridiculous kaplan questions.

I mean we all know kaplan is not uworld, but its also not completely useless....you can get something out of it for your weak areas, because more practice is always better than less practice, no matter if 10-15% may be low yield questions.

Thank you for your reply,
I think I will use uworld/kaplan subjectvise for my weak areas according to nbme. The other variant that I am thinking about is to do full kaplan bank with reading only the explanations and hot all the wrong answer as I am doing for the uworld. I uworld I am reading all the corrects and all the incorects and it take hell amount of time, around 4 hours for 40 questions, 6 minutes per question, doing all the corect/incorects, but I am sure that this way I retain and take maximum out of uworld ... maybe I am wrong )