Kaplan QBank vs. USMLE Step 1 level of difficulty?

[DrWBD]

For those who used Kaplan's QBank before taking the Step 1: what did you think? Were the Kaplan questions similar in difficulty to the real deal?

I'm scheduled to take the USMLE on Thursday, and my performance on the Qbank, when using random questions, ranges between 60 and 75%. Is this good or bad?

Also, I'm assuming that the NBME-provided questions are easier than the real test. Is this true also?

Thanks in advance for your help

-wanna_be_DO

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Snoopy]

I used Kaplan's Qbank to prepare for Step 1 and thought it was awesome. If I had known how helpful it was going to be I would have spent a lot more time using it. There were several questions on my test that appeared to be Kaplan questions word-for-word. Seriously! Several other people in my class found this was the case on their exams as well. I found that the real exam was easier than the practice questions provided by NBME. The pass mark on Step 1 (according to www.usmle.org) corresponds to getting 55-65% of the questions correct so it sounds like you are in pretty good shape.

Overall I thought Qbank and First Aid helped me the most on the exam. I got at least an extra dozen points from items I picked up in First Aid in the few days right before the exam.

Good luck! It wasn't as bad as I thought.

 

[Becket]

I agree that QBank is a good tool. It's a great prep for the real thing as far as how questions are phrased; as far as content, the USMLE was definitely easier with not as much focus on little details and obscure diseases that sometimes came up in QBank. This was especially true, for me at least, in path and pharm. Compared to other practice tests I did (like NMS),however, QBank was without a doubt the closest to reality. I think if you've done QBank and know First Aid cold, you should be in great shape.

Good luck

 

[DrWBD]

Thanks for your responses