not popular, but doesn't look bad

[Arctic Char]

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question bank - USMLE Steps 123

a friend asked what i knew about it and i said i knew nothing. BUT, after looking into it and seeing Goljan's name in the reviewer list, i started to get interested.

does anyone have any experience with it? is there a reputation associated? i'd love to hear what people think about it relative to Qbank, UW, URx, etc etc . . .

hope i get some responses

 

[Arctic Char]

i just finished the trial run of this qbank, and i must say that i kind of like it. the explanations are good - and not too long or verbose. and i get access to most of the books i have available through student consult (RR path, etc).

pretty cool. anyone else have a more thorough experience?

and, in case anyone is skeptical, i am just MtMed, a poor MS2 . . . i WISH someone would pay me to evaluate review materials. most people have seen me here plenty, so don't go thinking i'm a solicitor . . .

so, yea, it looks pretty good . . . .???

 

[Secondyear]

I think the questions are wayyyy too easy and don't test real 2nd order or third order reasoning. For example - I just had a question that asked what drug relieves pain and also interferes with platelet function. The answer was aspirin.

Maybe this qbank would be ok to do over spring break or something before you've started to review at all?

 

[doctorp82]

I thought it was kind of easy too. Seemed heavy on general mechanisms and more physiology stuff. After a hundred or so questions I was averaging 79%+

Test banks I've used so far have been Kaplan, UW, and USMLESteps123. Difficulty would go Kaplan > UW > Steps123. Kaplan only over UW because of the rediculous nitpicking on many questions, but maybe also because I finished it completely and am now starting UW, and that kinda makes UW a bit easier.

One thing I thought was cool about the USMLESteps123 bank is that on each question there's two timers: there's an overall time remaining and there's a time spent on current question timer. That's a nice pacing tool if you need to work on your testing speed. I usually finish way ahead of time though, so I just thought it interesting.