Out of curiosity - Prep only with 2 qbanks?

[Tristy]

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I remember reading a post (didn't get into it and now I can't find it) that an OP said that his only source of materials were UW and another Qbank. No FA. No RR. Nothing else. Is this remotely possible? And I believe his score was an SDN type score.

Just curious. I have 7 weeks still, and I will do DIT's, RX, UW, Webpath, and some review books (RR Path).

 

[MilkmanAl]

It's possible, for sure. UWorld is going to be the vast majority of my studying. That said, I wouln't advise doing qbanks only. Even if all you do is read Goljan's margin notes, you need something else to fill in the gaps. I think the SDN standard of UWorld, Goljan, and FA is your best bet for core materials you go back to repeatedly.

 

[Tristy]

Then it was probably your post I read 😳

I find that I learn more from doing questions, and then going to my sources, or anotating important stuff that I always miss or haven't quite memorized.

Thanks for the input though!

 

[lildave2586]

If you have a good background from your basic science years, there is no reason why only using Qbanks could not get you a good score. I bet you could even break into the 240s. This is assuming that you learned the material well the first time around and your board review will actually be a "review."

 

[MilkmanAl]

I'd even take it a step further. There's quite a lot of material in UWorld that I had either totally forgotten or had never used as the questions expected me to. 2 weeks and one near-complete pass through it, I know most of that stuff cold. I think a 240 is very well within reach if you really bust your butt on qbanks.

 

[username456789]

I'm not very far into UWorld, but it really does seem great. I'd imagine if you've laid a good foundation down the last two years, you could do a lot with just UWorld.

MilkmanAl, when are you taking the exam?

 

[MilkmanAl]

D-Day is June 21. I have a long way to go. 🙁 ...or maybe 🙂, depending on how you look at it.

 

[TexasTriathlete]

I've learned more from UWorld than I did in my first two years of med school.

Well, that might be exaggerating, but there's something about missing questions and then having the explanation right there for me that can hammer a point home in a way that just reading lecture handouts just can't. At least for me.

Obviously, you have to at least know the basics, to have a frame of reference, but I am finding that the qbanks have been tremendous teaching tools for me.

 

[DoctaJMa]

It's possible, for sure. UWorld is going to be the vast majority of my studying. That said, I wouln't advise doing qbanks only. Even if all you do is read Goljan's margin notes, you need something else to fill in the gaps. I think the SDN standard of UWorld, Goljan, and FA is your best bet for core materials you go back to repeatedly.

Just to clarify...when people say Goljan they are talking about the RR Path right?

 

[kryptik]

Just to clarify...when people say Goljan they are talking about the RR Path right?

right, ideally with the audio

 

[mordounhas]

Often they mean both the bootleg lectures and RR path. Margin notes are a reference to blue text on the sides of pages in RR path (which is supposed to be higher yield).

 

[metalrex]

I've learned more from UWorld than I did in my first two years of med school.

Well, that might be exaggerating, but there's something about missing questions and then having the explanation right there for me that can hammer a point home in a way that just reading lecture handouts just can't. At least for me.

Obviously, you have to at least know the basics, to have a frame of reference, but I am finding that the qbanks have been tremendous teaching tools for me.

Ditto here, Now I feel like med school classes were just for that darn attendance.

Were full of mindless rote memorization😡 When you actually start studying for usmle , you realize there was collossal chunk of info you did not know before.

 

[Tristy]

Thank you all for your responses!

I am finding that I enjoy doing questions more; I am doing them in tutor mode so I'm killing 2 birds with one stone (a spanish saying 😳) because even if I get it right I review the other choices which I may not know well, I read the section in FA, do FC's if it is something I am dumb enough that I cannot hammer into my brain, and also go to Goljan, or whatever other book.

I will be starting UW today and see how that goes. I just find it so tedious to sit and read for hours and hours a book and retain so little. Questions are just (or at least it seems like it) giving me more bang for my buck. I won't be doing that for micro though. That will be awful rote memorization, ugh.

PS: I also have a dedicated notebook (a suggestion from a book I bought) to write tibdits of info from the answers, draw diagrams, or how I got to an answer in a biostat/epidemio question (which is my nemesis unfortunately)

 

[HTxFrog]

yeah you can learn pretty much everything you need to know from goljan FA and uworld. I kind of like usmlerx for some stuff too especially pharm. Everyone says that all you need to know for pharm is what is in FA and if you go through every pharm question on usmlerx and read each explanation (which includes a picture of the page in first aid) you can have pharm down cold. All I did for the pharm shelf was scan FA pharm once verrry quickly and do all of those questions over 2 solid days of doing question after question in tutor mode and I had already seen everything and thought it was pretty easy. I highly recommend that strategy for pharm. and I'm thinking about doing it again before step 1 at some point just to hammer pharm

 

[Tristy]

Totally agree with the pharm part. There are questions that I'm just "WTF???". Total application of concepts of pharmacokinetics (like the one about partial agonists)

But then there are other questions, e.g. on bacterial genomics or something like that, that I have not been able to find not even in FA, MCMRS, HYCMB, etc... it's about the darn ribosomal subu's (I'll stop there 😉)

But other than that, I think it's a pretty decent bank.

Oh great, it's going to rain, booooo.