NBME Pharmacology Subject Exam

[PharMed2016]

Long story short, I'm required to take the NBME Pharmacology Subject Exam in order to waive pharmacology for my MS-2 year. I've been trying to find out the style and difficulty of the questions found within the subject exam in order to gauge how much study time I will need to devote to reviewing pharmacology.

I've looked at the sample pharmacology questions that are posted on the <<NBME Content Outlines and Sample Items>> and they seemed rather simple and straight forward. Based on my own evaluation, I should be able to pass now and do well with a little brushing up. How indicative are these questions of actual questions on the exam? Which resources would you recommend that are geared towards the type of questions that would be found on the exam? Lastly, how indicative are the subject exams of questions that would be found on the USMLE Step-1?

My current plan is to review lippincott's pharmacology and maybe Kaplan USMLE pharmacology review. I did fairly decent on the Kaplan pharmacology assessment exam but my previous experiences have been that Kaplan exams aren't indicative of the actual in terms of difficulty. The assessments tend to overstate the difficulty.

Thanks ahead of time for the responses.

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[Stellar Clouds]

I found that the pharmacology section of USMLERx was an excellent review for the shelf.

 

[Kaustikos]

Uh... First Aid. They had every drug I needed to know for my Pharm NBME shelf and I've rarely had to go anywhere else for sources. The Step-Up Step 1 pales in comparison. I only missed questions because my mind drew a blank on a couple but the drugs ARE there. And they have a very good pharm section that explains pharmacokinetics/dynamics.


Well, minus the reason why Nitro is taken sublingual. The intuitive answer about first-pass is wrong...

 

[PharMed2016]

Uh... First Aid. They had every drug I needed to know for my Pharm NBME shelf and I've rarely had to go anywhere else for sources. The Step-Up Step 1 pales in comparison. I only missed questions because my mind drew a blank on a couple but the drugs ARE there. And they have a very good pharm section that explains pharmacokinetics/dynamics.


Well, minus the reason why Nitro is taken sublingual. The intuitive answer about first-pass is wrong...

Thanks a bunch. Looks like I'll be reviewing First Aid.

 

[evilbooyaa]

First Aid + Step 1 UWorld questions in Pharmacology got me through it. However, the minimum requirement was pretty low for me, so I don't know what your school's requirement is to test out of pharm.

 

[drjonneedshelp]

I'm reading a lot that kaplan Q bank is much easier than the pharm NBME shelf exam will actually be? Does anyone know of a good source that can properly gauge that level of the questions I can expect on the shelf exam? What about Uworld questions?

 

[DryHopped]

Not sure about all that Kaplan stuff, but First aid, usmlerx, and uworld is enough to do really well on that test.

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