NBME Shelf Exams

[Lady Tokimi]

For those who have taken Shelf exams......what books do you recommend getting to take the individual exams?? And was the exam difficult??

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[Powel6016]

I use Kaplan lecture notes for each subject along w/ the videos and pretest series, a good qbank series. People also used BRS series and High yield series. Physiology was all pathophysiology which was hard, kind of threw me off guard, biochem was alright, microbiology was hard. The rest were alright. I'm just talking about the basic science

 

[pincheeric]

Hmm...we haven't had any physiology shelf exams. I'm assuming the shelf exams you're talking about are for your 3rd and 4th year core clerkships. I'm not familiar with any other shelf exams. That said, there is HUGE variation in what books students use in the various rotations. The most popular series are PreTest, Lange, Blueprints, CaseFiles. In general, what I've done is read one overview text (e.g. Blueprints) and then just done 1-3 question books (e.g. PreTest). The summary text gives you a good foundation and then the question books solidify that information. I would recommend against using any large texts such as Williams' Obstetrics because it's WAY more information than you need and you'll just end up wasting your time.

As for the difficulty of the shelfs it again varies by rotation, but I think everyone would agree that the most difficult part is the time crunch. You have 2hr10min for 100 questions. The last 10 or so questions usually have options A-P or something ridiculous (I do those questions first since they actually tend to be the easiest, but are easy to miss if you have no time at the end). Most people stay for the entirety of the test, I usually finish 20 min early and then go back over my test. I know many people who have had to fill in random answers for the last couple questions because they run out of time.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Hmm...we haven't had any physiology shelf exams. I'm assuming the shelf exams you're talking about are for your 3rd and 4th year core clerkships. I'm not familiar with any other shelf exams.

There are shelf exams for the preclinical courses as well, same structure as the clinical ones but variable # of questions and exam length depending on the subject. I wouldn't sweat these, since they're fairly difficult to fail and equally difficult to do extremely well. But BRS is a good bet in general.

 

[blabbyblab]

Internal Medicine: Step-Up, MKSAP 3, usmle world questions, pocket medicine
NeuroPsych: Blueprints Neuro, Pretest Neuro, HY Psych, Pretest Psych
Surgery: Kaplan Pestana review, bootleg kaplan questions, Pretest Surgery

Family: Case Files, Pretest, course material, USPSTF website
Peds: Blueprints, Blueprints Q&A, Pretest
OBGYN: Kaplan Review, Pretest, Case Files

This is just one opinion but a lot of these suggestions I got off this forum.

 

[blabbyblab]

oh wait this is for the first two years, man i forget those

cell biology histology - BRS cell bio
biochem - lippencot/pretest
anatomy - brs + any question source
physiology - BRS physiology
pathology - rapid review path + web path + other question source
pharm - rapid review pharm + questions
micro - MMRS if you want, i just used lecture notes and some kaplan questions

 

[drjds]

Are you students required to take shelf exams for basic sciences (in preparation for Step 1) at allopthic schools?

 

[Yakko]

Some, not all, allopathic schools require it.

 

[pdp2001]

i had to do nbme shelf for all of my finals in ms2 - every reference/review book has the same information. it's just in a different format, with a different emphasis but all the important stuff (ie stuff on the tests) is in there. just study hard for the course throughout the year and the shelf will be fine. you don't need anything extra, you just need to pick a source and learn the material.