- Joined
- Jun 25, 2005
- Messages
- 251
- Reaction score
- 2
Hello all.
I just took Step 2CK yesterday (7/9), and I thought I would share my experience with the two main resources I used to prepare. I started with First Aid for Step 2CK for a refresher to my 3rd year clerkships, and then a BUNCH of practice questions, namely Kaplan Q-bank & USMLEasy. I like practice questions to learn the material and to help build testing stamina (Its 368 questions after all!).
I was initially doing practice questions just from Kaplan, but when I completed them all a buddy showed me some of the questions he was doing from USMLEasy and I thought they were more difficult. So out of fear, I subscribed to USMLEasy with 10days left to go.
I am not advocating that persons must do both sets of question banks to do well, far from it, I was just obsessive/fearful enough to do both and was probably unnecessary.
So after completing all 1250+ Kaplan questions and approximately 900 USMLEasy questions, here is my breakdown of the two services.
Kaplan Q-bank
Approximately 1250 questions for $149 (one month subscription)
Long question stems that are similar to Step 2
Right and wrong answer choices explained
Relatively few minutia questions
Few radiology image questions
Cannot copy & paste, or print questions
Includes the explanations to the USMLE released Step 2 CK practice questions (as a PDF file)
Unable to clear test history
USMLEasy (McGraw-Hill)
Approximately 3300 questions for $99 (one month subscription)
Shorter question stems then on my Step 2
Often the wrong answer choices are not explained to why they are wrong choice.
Many clinical vignette questions a case scenario followed by multiple questions.
A lot of minutia questions
Many radiology image questions.
Can copy and paste questions to a Word document for latter review.
Able to clear test history
My subjective recommendation - if you are deciding between Kaplan & USMLEasy, I would suggest Kaplan. There are fewer questions, but they more closely approximate the feel of the Step 2CK questions. The feel of the Step 2CK is very much like the NBME shelf exams, if you have done well on these exams, I bet you will do well on Step 2. Also note that the sample Step 2CK questions released by the USMLE are easier than the actual test.
Disclosure - I am in no way affiliated with either Kaplan or McGraw-Hill. 😉
I just took Step 2CK yesterday (7/9), and I thought I would share my experience with the two main resources I used to prepare. I started with First Aid for Step 2CK for a refresher to my 3rd year clerkships, and then a BUNCH of practice questions, namely Kaplan Q-bank & USMLEasy. I like practice questions to learn the material and to help build testing stamina (Its 368 questions after all!).
I was initially doing practice questions just from Kaplan, but when I completed them all a buddy showed me some of the questions he was doing from USMLEasy and I thought they were more difficult. So out of fear, I subscribed to USMLEasy with 10days left to go.
I am not advocating that persons must do both sets of question banks to do well, far from it, I was just obsessive/fearful enough to do both and was probably unnecessary.
So after completing all 1250+ Kaplan questions and approximately 900 USMLEasy questions, here is my breakdown of the two services.
Kaplan Q-bank
Approximately 1250 questions for $149 (one month subscription)
Long question stems that are similar to Step 2
Right and wrong answer choices explained
Relatively few minutia questions
Few radiology image questions
Cannot copy & paste, or print questions
Includes the explanations to the USMLE released Step 2 CK practice questions (as a PDF file)
Unable to clear test history
USMLEasy (McGraw-Hill)
Approximately 3300 questions for $99 (one month subscription)
Shorter question stems then on my Step 2
Often the wrong answer choices are not explained to why they are wrong choice.
Many clinical vignette questions a case scenario followed by multiple questions.
A lot of minutia questions
Many radiology image questions.
Can copy and paste questions to a Word document for latter review.
Able to clear test history
My subjective recommendation - if you are deciding between Kaplan & USMLEasy, I would suggest Kaplan. There are fewer questions, but they more closely approximate the feel of the Step 2CK questions. The feel of the Step 2CK is very much like the NBME shelf exams, if you have done well on these exams, I bet you will do well on Step 2. Also note that the sample Step 2CK questions released by the USMLE are easier than the actual test.
Disclosure - I am in no way affiliated with either Kaplan or McGraw-Hill. 😉
