Preparing for abstract/drug ad questions on Step 3

[Knicks]

What kind of questions do they ask?

Any resource out there to practice for these? (ie: Does UW cover questions like these?)

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[Lavan]

I think I remember UW having a few examples of these questions.

There are only a few on the test, so there's no need to stress too much. The questions themselves aren't particularly crazy. They tend to ask stats and epidemiology questions in this context now, but it's mostly just critical reading of a non-clinical vignette. You have to understand the definitions and how terms like sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, etc are all used in abstracts/drug ads. If you can get the typical USMLE stat questions correct consistently, I don't really think the new format ads a significant degree of difficulty.

 

[path or no path]

Not worth worrying about at all, unless you absolutely want to kill it. Knowing the basics of biostats might help, but most questions are just so random and even if you could google it, you wouldn't find the answers. I guessed on most of those questions and still did decent.

 

[Knicks]

Not worth worrying about at all, unless you absolutely want to kill it. Knowing the basics of biostats might help, but most questions are just so random and even if you could google it, you wouldn't find the answers. I guessed on most of those questions and still did decent.

You say "not worth worrying about at all", but the USMLE sent out an email saying that in late October [or November] there will be changes to Step 3, and that these changes are based on abstract/drug ad questions. I don't wanna take this too lightly...


What's the best way/source to prepare for these "changes" in your opinion?


Thanks