Minor complaint about Kaplan QBank - has anyone solved this issue...

[Phloston]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I've just started Kaplan QBank.

I've noticed that whenever their new Fred2 system (or whatever they brag about) enters a multi-part question, the pixel-setting changes on their interface, and it becomes zoomed-in to the point that I can't see the bottom of the webpage anymore. I then have to exit out of the QBank and open it up on a different question in order to get around this. Quite vexing. Makes me despite Kaplan more than I already do.

Has anyone gotten around this issue somehow?

 

[Belleza156]

Only happens on my ipad and my android phone. Doesn't happen on my computers, both PC and MAC
You also can't watch the Videos on ipad. Worst Qbank ever btw. I just reset it and have it until October and it's so crappy I don't want to bother redoing the Qbank.

 

[Phloston]

Only happens on my ipad and my android phone. Doesn't happen on my computers, both PC and MAC
You also can't watch the Videos on ipad. Worst Qbank ever btw. I just reset it and have it until October and it's so crappy I don't want to bother redoing the Qbank.

Interestingly though, I can tell the QBank already is highly valuable, and I've only done ~10% of it.

During the FIRST block I had done, I encountered a question that was pretty much identical to one I had gotten wrong on NBME3 a day earlier. In other words, if I had done Kaplan QBank first, I would have had that NBME question correct, so Kaplan does provide a score increase beyond what USMLE Rx and the other question sources (excluding UWorld) provide.

I'm going to try and go through the entire thing a second time during the second-to-last month-out from my exam, but instead at a rate of 322 Qs/day, rather than the ~150/day that I'm doing now.

 

[thinkenergy]

During the FIRST block I had done, I encountered a question that was pretty much identical to one I had gotten wrong on NBME3 a day earlier. In other words, if I had done Kaplan QBank first, I would have had that NBME question correct

You cannot judge a QBank based on one question that appeared on an old NBME. You will soon realize that Kaplan is heavily testing on low yield details of little clinical significance and is sometimes really nick picky on the answer choices.

Use it w/ caution, don't pay too much attention. It is a good thing that you have quite some time to your exam.

 

[alternatego]

You cannot judge a QBank based on one question that appeared on an old NBME. You will soon realize that Kaplan is heavily testing on low yield details of little clinical significance and is sometimes really nick picky on the answer choices.

Use it w/ caution, don't pay too much attention. It is a good thing that you have quite some time to your exam.

I've done around 70% of Kaplan Qbank, and this is not true. UW and Qbank overlap so much that now, at 60 something % completion of UW, I've only had to annotate a little extra info into my FA because most of what I've encountered during UW I had seen previously on Qbank.

Plus, Qbank's physio question are way superior to UW's, and at least in this category their explanations are way, way better.

 

[Belleza156]

Ok ill give you that in terms of physio kaplan is better. They also have more diagrams than uworld, which I did like. And they have the Qtutorials which was good, j think I even remember seeing Dr. Raymond in some. But nevertheless, qbank doesn't even begin to compare w Uworld. Not even close. The kaplan questions are either too easy or too ridicously nitpicky.

Pholston I hope you are planning on doing Uworld! Don't redo kaplan. There's too much overlap between all the qbanks.

Sent from my PC36100 using SDN Mobile

 

[MrBeauregard]

Not a single physiology concept stressed by Kaplan Qbank showed up on my exam. UWorld physiology concepts were all over my Step.

I think it was VisionaryTics who said that the best part about Kaplan was their behavioral science questions, and I definitely agree with this. I also personally found their pharm questions to be very good.

 

[NewYorkDoctors]

you'll never forget Tangier Disease... let's put it that way

 

[MrBeauregard]

you'll never forget Tangier Disease... let's put it that way

Nor will you see or treat it.

 

[JustWannaBeAnMD]

If you think Kaplan is good, you are in for a big surprise come test day! UWORLD is the most helpful bank by far, I'm telling you this because I did both banks and just recently took the exam. UWORLD tests very high yield concepts that will come test day, unlike Kaplan which test very low yield concepts as someone said above.

 

[Dallas]

If you think Kaplan is good, you are in for a big surprise come test day! UWORLD is the most helpful bank by far, I'm telling you this because I did both banks and just recently took the exam. UWORLD tests very high yield concepts that will come test day, unlike Kaplan which test very low yield concepts as someone said above.

Kaplan is the Apple of review material.

They are shiny, pretty and overpriced but inferior in raw performance quality to competitors products. If you buy or commit to one of their products you have to get them all. Just like an iPod, Mac, iPhone whatever..

What I mean is, the qbank will test you on stuff they TEACH you in their overpriced review courses or medessentials book. So you have to buy their courses to perform well on their qbank.

Steve Jobs would have been proud of Kaplan if he owned it.

 

[alternatego]

If you think Kaplan is good, you are in for a big surprise come test day! UWORLD is the most helpful bank by far, I'm telling you this because I did both banks and just recently took the exam. UWORLD tests very high yield concepts that will come test day, unlike Kaplan which test very low yield concepts as someone said above.

I'm doing both, so I'll find out when I take my exam, but Qbank is definitely not awful as you seem to suggest. And at least IMO they both test more or less the same material, just that UW has more convoluted questions (which is good btw).

I must insist that its my honest advice to anyone that has the time to do both, because just as I've seen UW tested concepts on the NMBE's I've taken (12 and 13), I've seen Qbank's concepts too (and Qbanks CV audio is superior to UW, I don't know why they recorded those heart sounds to make them sound like AM radio transmission)

 

[RedSoxSuck]

Not a single physiology concept stressed by Kaplan Qbank showed up on my exam. UWorld physiology concepts were all over my Step.

I think it was VisionaryTics who said that the best part about Kaplan was their behavioral science questions, and I definitely agree with this. I also personally found their pharm questions to be very good.

I get almost all of the behavioral science questions correct on uworld but i miss around 7 on a NBME (have taken 3 so far). I don't think reading FA will help. Do you suggest doing kaplan qbank behavioral questions? I have the screen shots. Thanks!


Question is for anyone has used it or currently using it. Thanks

 

[MrBeauregard]

I get almost all of the behavioral science questions correct on uworld but i miss around 7 on a NBME (have taken 3 so far). I don't think reading FA will help. Do you suggest doing kaplan qbank behavioral questions? I have the screen shots. Thanks!


Question is for anyone has used it or currently using it. Thanks

Yeah I would definitely recommend doing them.

I found Kaplan to be much more beneficial than most people around here. I also found it to be more difficult than UWorld due to the fact that many of the questions were nit-picky (but I don't always think this is a bad thing). My opinion on the three best aspects of Kaplan Qbank were 1) behavioral sciences, 2) pharmacology, and 3) microbiology, believe it or not. They had some ridiculous bacterial genetics/replication questions, but overall, I found their micro questions to be very helpful for me.

I'll be glad to answer any more questions about the Qbank.

 

[Phloston]

I haven't found Kaplan QBank to be too nitpicky so far, although there was some ridiculous question I had yesterday though on Ki-67, when they clearly were trying to trick you into putting GFAP.

I can tell that if I had done Kaplan early in my prep, I would have thought it to be full of minutiae, but I've already done so many questions that I realize it's not really that overkill after all. If anything, I'm thankful that one of the above posters says that the Kaplan physio concepts weren't on the exam. Physio is probably Kaplan's hardest area, because they always have some obscure way of presenting the info (more of an IQ test than anything else, imo).

Nevertheless, as I said above, I'm still early in the QBank, so I won't give an opinion as though I understand its intricacies until I at least finish it, which will be at the end of this month.

 

[RedSoxSuck]

Yeah I would definitely recommend doing them.

I found Kaplan to be much more beneficial than most people around here. I also found it to be more difficult than UWorld due to the fact that many of the questions were nit-picky (but I don't always think this is a bad thing). My opinion on the three best aspects of Kaplan Qbank were 1) behavioral sciences, 2) pharmacology, and 3) microbiology, believe it or not. They had some ridiculous bacterial genetics/replication questions, but overall, I found their micro questions to be very helpful for me.

I'll be glad to answer any more questions about the Qbank.

So i went through kaplan screen shots for behavioral, but there were total of 50 and only 3 ethics questions. Not sure if its the same in the actual kaplan qbank? I have no problem with psychology related questions but i do struggle with ethics questions so i wanted more practice regarding those. I also did the ones in BRS behavioral in ethics chapter. I looked into First aid questions and answers book and only found 2 ethics questions. Looked into kaplan question book and found 3 ethics questions. Is there any other source that i can use? Thanks

 

[Aclamity]

So i went through kaplan screen shots for behavioral, but there were total of 50 and only 3 ethics questions. Not sure if its the same in the actual kaplan qbank? I have no problem with psychology related questions but i do struggle with ethics questions so i wanted more practice regarding those. I also did the ones in BRS behavioral in ethics chapter. I looked into First aid questions and answers book and only found 2 ethics questions. Looked into kaplan question book and found 3 ethics questions. Is there any other source that i can use? Thanks

Dunno if you're looking at the right one then. IIRC there were several ethics questions in the qbank (>30 for sure)

 

[RedSoxSuck]

Dunno if you're looking at the right one then. IIRC there were several ethics questions in the qbank (>30 for sure)

Whats IIRC?

 

[Phloston]

Lol.

"If I recall correctly."

Don't worry, we're not talking about cancer staging...

 

[RedSoxSuck]

Lol.

"If I recall correctly."

Don't worry, we're not talking about cancer staging...

LOL. BTW, how about them sawx? suck it!! haha

 

[Phloston]

LOL. BTW, how about them sawx? suck it!! haha

How about them? I don't even know how they're doing. I'm not lying when I say we're pretty isolated down here and quite a few people don't even know what baseball is. They're too caught up with AFL and cricket (and drinking goon).

 

[Phloston]

Just thought I should point out that I wrote Kaplan about the compliant and they've extended my month-long subscription by one week.

I'm actually excited about that because I was planning on needing to get through the entire thing (with review of all incorrects) in that limited time frame, but now I have a little breathing room. Also, that extra week costs $35 if you purchase it.

 

[Achillesurstrul]

I haven't found Kaplan QBank to be too nitpicky so far, although there was some ridiculous question I had yesterday though on Ki-67, when they clearly were trying to trick you into putting GFAP.

I can tell that if I had done Kaplan early in my prep, I would have thought it to be full of minutiae, but I've already done so many questions that I realize it's not really that overkill after all. If anything, I'm thankful that one of the above posters says that the Kaplan physio concepts weren't on the exam. Physio is probably Kaplan's hardest area, because they always have some obscure way of presenting the info (more of an IQ test than anything else, imo).

Nevertheless, as I said above, I'm still early in the QBank, so I won't give an opinion as though I understand its intricacies until I at least finish it, which will be at the end of this month.

I agree with you Phloston. The Q Bank is not as bad as people say.

 

[yayitsnay]

I've just started Kaplan QBank.

I've noticed that whenever their new Fred2 system (or whatever they brag about) enters a multi-part question, the pixel-setting changes on their interface, and it becomes zoomed-in to the point that I can't see the bottom of the webpage anymore. I then have to exit out of the QBank and open it up on a different question in order to get around this. Quite vexing. Makes me despite Kaplan more than I already do.

Has anyone gotten around this issue somehow?

Hi, I'm having the same problem with the qbank on my Mac. I can't end the test nor scroll down to read the entire explanation. I searched on google for a solution and that's how I got to this forum. Have you figured out how to fix it yet? I tried changing the screen resolution as told on kaplan FAQ's to 1024x768 but i still have the same problem (using chrome and safari). If you know how to solve this please help...it's getting a bit annoying during a block. Thanks!!!

 

[Phloston]

Hi, I'm having the same problem with the qbank on my Mac. I can't end the test nor scroll down to read the entire explanation. I searched on google for a solution and that's how I got to this forum. Have you figured out how to fix it yet? I tried changing the screen resolution as told on kaplan FAQ's to 1024x768 but i still have the same problem (using chrome and safari). If you know how to solve this please help...it's getting a bit annoying during a block. Thanks!!!

I found that Ctrl(-) never worked for me when this happened. However, occasionally, when I clicked the LEFT side of the screen (i.e. to the left of the column of question #s), THEN did Ctrl(-), it worked. So try that. Pressing Ctrl(-) after you click on the question box itself never works.