Step I Micro/Immuno shelf

[newbie123]

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I'm an MS1 and our school is having us take the Micro/Immuno shelf exam as our final exam for that course in May. Can anyone recommend a good review book? An MS2 is letting me borrow his Lange but that thing is massive. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[kcrd]

we had to take the micro/immuno shelf, too. the test was 2 days after our course final, so I just reviewed by reading through the 'ridiculously simple' micro book, and studied the end-of-chapter charts. I didn't review immuno, but I think the brs micro/immuno is a good review for that (the test was mostly micro, and I remembered the immuno material pretty well). good luck!

 

[newbie123]

do you know if any of the other "ridiculously simple" books are worth buying? I heard the only good one was the micro but I was wondering if there is anyone out there that thought any of the other ones were helpful.

 

[kcrd]

The only one worth buying is micro. I bought anatomy and physio, and didn't use them at all. There are much better review books out there for other subjects.

 

[kd]

I took the Micro shelf a few weeks ago and did quite well (93rd percentile nationally.) What helped me the most was doing lots of practice questions. Levinson and Jawetz's Examination & Board Review had hundreds of questions and was VERY helpful. Most of the practice questions were divided up by subject (bacteriology, parasitology, virology, mycology, immunology)- so what I did was start by doing all the questions in a section. Then, I reviewed what I missed by looking it up and reading the relevant chapters (which are mercifully SHORT! Some chapters are just a page or two long!) There are also 2 comprehensive USMLE-style practice exams, which I took at the end for a final review. It's not as entertaining a book as Made Ridiculously Simple, but I personally found it more useful because of all the practice questions.
Another helpful option is if you're going to sign up for Qbank for boards review- go ahead and sign up now so you can do their micro and immuno questions for practice.