OVERALL, which Q-bank is more STEP 1-specific?

[Knicks]

I just read someone's post that although he/she liked usmleworld better than kaplan's q-bank, the kaplan q-bank was more representative in his/her real exam.

Being that everyone's real exam is "different", which q-bank is more representative of the STEP 1 overall?


Thanks.

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[tfom08]

I just read someone's post that although he/she liked usmleworld better than kaplan's q-bank, the kaplan q-bank was more representative in his/her real exam.

Being that everyone's real exam is "different", which q-bank is more representative of the STEP 1 overall?


Thanks.

Being that everyone's exam is different, how can a person be qualified to judge which qbank is more representative overall? Unless a person fails one or more times, each person will only see one test. The concensus is that UW is more realistic and I doubt this thread will discover much more than that. In reality, I think that if a person studies diligently and uses a question bank to test retention and make sure they are learning it really doesn't matter that much which qbank is used. Like everyone else, I like to ask all kinds of questions and make sure I get the "best" qbank that everyone else likes, but I bet if a study signed up 50 equal students for each qbank and then see how they do on step 1, the results will be basically the same. There is no magical qbank that helps people kill step 1. Each qbank has some strengths and weaknesses. People who use kaplan score 265 and people who take UW fail the exam and vice versa.

 

[Knicks]

Well, if many people post which Q-bank they thought was more step1-specific, we can come to a generalization of which one is in fact more step1-specific.


But yeah, you make some valid points.

 

[peter90036]

my friend studied for step 1 with old k books and kap qbank before usmleworld was available, and scored >270.

Its all in the quality of your studying, getting concepts making the right connections.

but, i have seen the current Kap qbank and i got UW which i feel has much better quality explanations, and also does some interesting twists to make you think.

 

[diosa428]

I think it depends upon what you mean. Do you mean which qbank has questions that are most like the exam (in terms of content, length, difficulty, format), or do you mean which qbank tests material that is similar to the exam (in terms of facts).

 

[GMDMD]

Kaplan might be more representative (ie more wading through long bs vignettes) but hands down IMO UWorld is a much much much better teaching tool.

In the grand scheme of things knowledge trumps test taking skills.