Please Do Not Discuss REMEMBERED QUESTIONS FROM STEP I

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lord_jeebus

lord_jeebus

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'Tis the season for Step I and I know many are tempted to discuss some of the tricky questions they've recently encountered.

Please resist the temptation.

Not only is it not permitted by our rules, but the NBME does not like it either. I have heard that in the past they have investigated people who have posted details about actual USMLE questions on public forums -- you don't want that.
 
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lord_jeebus said:
'Tis the season for Step I and I know many are tempted to discuss some of the tricky questions they've recently encountered.

Please resist the temptation.

Not only is it not permitted by our rules, but the NBME does not like it either. I have heard that in the past they have investigated people who have posted details about actual USMLE questions on public forums -- you don't want that.
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I understand that this may be an unfair advantage to those that haven't taken the exam yet, but honestly, out of their entire question bank, do they really think that we'll encounter most of these discussed questions and will it really make that big of a difference in scoring?
 
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GynGuy1983 said:
I understand that this may be an unfair advantage to those that haven't taken the exam yet, but honestly, out of their entire question bank, do they really think that we'll encounter most of these discussed questions and will it really make that big of a difference in scoring?
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If you have read some recent threads, multiple people on this forum alone have gotten the same questions.

I know many people who have encountered some of the same questions I have.

The question bank may not be as large as is widely believed.

In any case, the NBME seems to have taken this very seriously in the past.
 
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I understand the need for SDN to police the site, as to avoid legal conflict with the NBME. However, some of the discussions really aren't specific enough for the NBME to claim their questions have been reproduced. For example, why was the thread on a laryngeal lesion on an infant closed? It did not reproduce either the question or the answer choices. If I say I had a question on CF and one on Tuberous Sclerosis, that is clearly not reproducing through memory any of the NBME's copyrighted material.
 
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Alexander Pink said:
I understand the need for SDN to police the site, as to avoid legal conflict with the NBME. However, some of the discussions really aren't specific enough for the NBME to claim their questions have been reproduced. For example, why was the thread on a laryngeal lesion on an infant closed? It did not reproduce either the question or the answer choices. If I say I had a question on CF and one on Tuberous Sclerosis, that is clearly not reproducing through memory any of the NBME's copyrighted material.
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since that other thread was closed...laryngomalacia is a lesion of the larynx that's common in infants. it presents as insp stridor due to shortened aryepiglottic folds causing obstruction. the condition resolves spont by age 2.
 
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Alexander Pink said:
I understand the need for SDN to police the site, as to avoid legal conflict with the NBME. However, some of the discussions really aren't specific enough for the NBME to claim their questions have been reproduced. For example, why was the thread on a laryngeal lesion on an infant closed? It did not reproduce either the question or the answer choices. If I say I had a question on CF and one on Tuberous Sclerosis, that is clearly not reproducing through memory any of the NBME's copyrighted material.
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You can make all the arguments you want, of course there is no fine line between what is or is not appropriate. In general whenever there is a question, we and you all as well should err on the side of caution and not posting it.

That thread on laryngeal lesions was getting too specific.
 
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And I wish you would delete my response in the thread because it got closed. (larynx lesion) At the time I thought it wasn't a big deal - I didn't give any detailed info about the question that was asked, but I guess its better safe than sorry.
 
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Alexander Pink said:
I understand the need for SDN to police the site, as to avoid legal conflict with the NBME. However, some of the discussions really aren't specific enough for the NBME to claim their questions have been reproduced. For example, why was the thread on a laryngeal lesion on an infant closed? It did not reproduce either the question or the answer choices. If I say I had a question on CF and one on Tuberous Sclerosis, that is clearly not reproducing through memory any of the NBME's copyrighted material.
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Instead of starting threads with "I had this question on the real thing", had the poster started with "I have a question, say a patient has Tuberous Sclerosis.....", there would have been no problem. Clearly, we are free to discuss medical concepts; nobody has a copyright on the body of medical knowledge. In any case, at the end of the day we all trust the judgment of the moderators and submit to the rules of SDN. 🙂
 
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LUBDUBB said:
Instead of starting threads with "I had this question on the real thing", had the poster started with "I have a question, say a patient has Tuberous Sclerosis.....", there would have been no problem. Clearly, we are free to discuss medical concepts; nobody has a copyright on the body of medical knowledge. In any case, at the end of the day we all trust the judgment of the moderators and submit to the rules of SDN. 🙂
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Bingo!

Seriously, after reading the bolded text, there really isn't anything anyone, any mod, anyBODY can say to "prevent" people from discussing medicine.
 
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Knicks said:
Bingo!

Seriously, after reading the bolded text, there really isn't anything anyone, any mod, anyBODY can say to "prevent" people from discussing medicine.
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They can't prevent you from discussing medicine, but they can prevent you from discussing it on this site. SDN isn't a democracy and you don't have a right to a fair trial. If they really want to, they can ban you for misspelling a word and when it comes to something like this, I don't blame them. I would hate to see the NBME come after this site for discussing questions.
 
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^^ lol, huh? Who's condoning the discussion of nbme questions?

This site is all about discussing medicine. Just because the discussions sometimes include questions (not necessarily from nbme, but maybe from a question book) doesn't mean threads need to be closed.

🙂
 
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The NBME is pretty serious about keeping their questions secret. Prometric examination centers have pretty extreme security systems set up in order to prevent this type of "cheating" and everyone has to agree to keep mum about the material in order to take the test (with the threat of your test being made null if you break your word). I, especially as a moderator, should've NEVER participated in such a thread, but I'm afraid this test has really scrambled my mind (and apparently my judgement as well), and I made a mistake. Anyway.... whether or not the NBME is right or not about keeping their material a secret doesn't really matter. Every test taker makes a promise to not share the material, and therefore, thats what should be done.

I guess all sorts of crazy cheating occured before such measures were adopted (individuals had other people take their test for them, for instance). Its no wonder they are protective of their material.
 
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Knicks said:
^^ lol, huh? Who's condoning the discussion of nbme questions?

This site is all about discussing medicine. Just because the discussions sometimes include questions (not necessarily from nbme, but maybe from a question book) doesn't mean threads need to be closed.

🙂
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I completely agree. We should limit our discussion to questions that come from question books or other sources. To avoid any confusion, we should clearly state in the thread title that the questions we are discussing come from question books and not STEP I.

i.e. "Question about Charcot Marie Tooth NOT from STEP I"
 
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lilnoelle said:
The NBME is pretty serious about keeping their questions secret. Prometric examination centers have pretty extreme security systems set up in order to prevent this type of "cheating" and everyone has to agree to keep mum about the material in order to take the test (with the threat of your test being made null if you break your word). I, especially as a moderator, should've NEVER participated in such a thread, but I'm afraid this test has really scrambled my mind (and apparently my judgement as well), and I made a mistake. Anyway.... whether or not the NBME is right or not about keeping their material a secret doesn't really matter. Every test taker makes a promise to not share the material, and therefore, thats what should be done.

I guess all sorts of crazy cheating occured before such measures were adopted (individuals had other people take their test for them, for instance). Its no wonder they are protective of their material.
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Why don't the mods just delete all threads that include discussion of specific questions?
 
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1) if the mods are so interested in protecting the NBME's copyrighted material, why don't they seem to care about all of the threads regarding the NBME 1-6 practice exams (which are still copyrighted, and 45 bucks a pop.)

2) maybe the NBME should be a little less goddamn lazy and expand their question bank to larger than 3,000 testable items, considering how many thousands of people take this exam every year.
 
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zahque said:
1) if the mods are so interested in protecting the NBME's copyrighted material, why don't they seem to care about all of the threads regarding the NBME 1-6 practice exams (which are still copyrighted, and 45 bucks a pop.)
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We do care, as noted in Lee's "Read This First" sticky at the top of the forum, about NBME questions as well. I only singled out Step I in the title because of a recent increase in such posts.

We don't always have the time to read every thread, and some copyrighted material may have been missed. Users are welcome to report questionable posts and threads using the "report post" button; this is the best way to bring threads to our attention.
 
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So...what level of detail is too much? There are a lot of posts saying "I had a question on X topic," which seems alright to me in general, but sometimes even that can get a little specific. Obviously posting the actual text from the question and all the answer choices would be bad, but there's a lot of grey area in between. Maybe a couple more examples of what is OK would be helpful?
 
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mudphudwannabe said:
So...what level of detail is too much? There are a lot of posts saying "I had a question on X topic," which seems alright to me in general, but sometimes even that can get a little specific. Obviously posting the actual text from the question and all the answer choices would be bad, but there's a lot of grey area in between. Maybe a couple more examples of what is OK would be helpful?
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Again, it's hard to set the line and we err on the side of caution.

Imagine that the NBME read your post, tracked you down, and revoked your score. If you went to court to argue that you did not break the agreement not to reproduce your questions in whole or in part, would you be confident that the court would side with you?

Or, would reading your post increase the likelihood that someone would be able to answer that question on the real test, without increasing their knowledge of closely related topics? ie. saying to learn personality disorders in depth vs. saying to consider narcissistic personality disorder when given a particular unorthodox presentation

In my judgement I would not delete something like

"I had a question about the rotator cuff with an MRI"

or

"I had a question about the urea cycle"

but would delete

"I had a question about the rotator cuff with an MRI that asked to identify the supraspinatus"

and

"I had a question that asked about the cellular location of the reaction in the urea cycle catalyzed by ornithine transcarbamylase"

But it is a case-by-case thing. If you have any recommendations for concrete criteria to differentiate what is and isn't ok to post on a public forum, please let us know. If there's something you want to discuss and really aren't sure, you are also welcome to ask me before you post it.
 
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What's a urea cycle? How many wheels does it have?
 
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Rule of thumb: If there is any doubt, just don't post it. There are plenty of things to talk about without getting worked up about specific questions. Each question matters so little in the grand scheme of thing that you should not worry too much.
 
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Monica Lewinsky said:
I'm shaking in my panties.
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Granny or thong?

Female med students and doctors alike really need to spice up their choice of undergarments. Full cut underwear went out with mullets and Rick Astley, and I seriously hope that the former does not make a comeback.
 
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My apologies...I replied to the wrong thread. As future physicians and the supposed ethical leaders of society I deem it appropriate to conserve the integrity of Step 1 by not discussing questions from the exam. 🙂
 
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Just a reminder that (knowing what I know now), the NBME has investigated people who have shared remembered questions, and they reserve the right to void your scores and ban you from future testing, which basically means that you would never be eligible for a medical license.

Is it worth it? Really?
 
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lord_jeebus said:
Just a reminder that (knowing what I know now), the NBME has investigated people who have shared remembered questions, and they reserve the right to void your scores and ban you from future testing, which basically means that you would never be eligible for a medical license.

Is it worth it? Really?
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I think that really puts things into perspective. Thanks for the warning. It is pretty easy to trace user IDs to an actual person so it's not far fetched for them to find us if they really wanted to.
 
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SeekerOfTheTree said:
I think that really puts things into perspective. Thanks for the warning. It is pretty easy to trace user IDs to an actual person so it's not far fetched for them to find us if they really wanted to.
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i wonder how this would happen... doesn't the forum have a right to refuse divulging any info
 
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hyrule said:
i wonder how this would happen... doesn't the forum have a right to refuse divulging any info
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If you read the agreement you sign when you create the user account it says

"Respect copyrighted information. Selling or trading illegally copied materials is a federal offense; when discovered, SDN may report such piracy to copyright holders and appropriate agencies. Copying information from other Web sites hurts those sites ability to make revenue. Read the DMCA notice"

So if the Q bank is copyright and we discuss it on here the forum is allowed to report us. Just saying. If there was the threat of a lawsuit directed towards SDN I'm pretty sure they would turn us over quicker than a prostitute turns over tricks.
 
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Really nice job bumping this thread into life again.👍

I doubt that "question posters" nowadays have seen that sticky thread at the top of the first page "Read this Thread First: Important Notice - updated Sept. 2008" where admins warn people not to post copyrighted questions. (although it is common sense).

That thread would have been more apparent/seeable if it had a more staight forward title (like this thread's title) , wouldn't it?
 
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redcard said:
Really nice job bumping this thread into life again.👍

I doubt that "question posters" nowadays have seen that sticky thread at the top of the first page "Read this Thread First: Important Notice - updated Sept. 2008" where admins warn people not to post copyrighted questions. (although it is common sense).

That thread would have been more apparent/seeable if it had a more staight forward title (like this thread's title) , wouldn't it?
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Well, these days, posting remembered questions is a pretty rare thing. Plus, the guy who offered to share remembered questions did it by posting on this very thread so I don't think it's a great deterrent.
 
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