Question Banks for 3rd Year

[Deferoxamine]

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So this whole MS3 thing officially begins on Monday for me. I've heard the phrase "Q-bank" thrown around on these parts as well as from classmates, to use as prep for 3rd-year rotation shelf exams and such.

Which Q-banks would you recommend for my rotations, and for which ones? Money is a slight issue, so I don't wanna be shelling out tons of cash for a year-long subscription if possible. I'm still stuck in Question bank mode as that's what I used for the past 4+ months prior to Step 1 as a nice side-source for review, and I think this will continue to work well for me.

And yes, I'm sure there are 100+ old threads on this topic somewhere, but I'm just far too lazy to search right now.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Gute]

I'm in a similar position and there isn't a huge consensus on this. 3rd year seems to be more about reading up on your patients and doing extra reading to cover gaps in knowledge from what you don't see on the floor. Many people have said to buy the UW step 2ck qbank and I think this is what Im going to try. Its expensive though, $400 for a year. Maybe just using it during the medicine rotation would be good enough? Everyone raves about UW, and its Step1 qbank was awesome.

 

[EBI831]

it's probably totally ok to get it only for medicine really. i bought world for step 2 ck and it's about 2000 questions and 1200 of those are medicine, about 120 surgery, 200 peds, 180 ob, and the rest is psych and neuro or something like that. the point is, it's mostly medicine. i've been using it for another rotation and while it's great (b/c you can expect no less from world) there's nothing here that i havent already seen in case files, pretest, Lange Q&A and first aid.

 

[Gute]

it's probably totally ok to get it only for medicine really. i bought world for step 2 ck and it's about 2000 questions and 1200 of those are medicine, about 120 surgery, 200 peds, 180 ob, and the rest is psych and neuro or something like that. the point is, it's mostly medicine. i've been using it for another rotation and while it's great (b/c you can expect no less from world) there's nothing here that i havent already seen in case files, pretest, Lange Q&A and first aid.

Good points! Do you think the added cost is worth splurging for UW since its computer-based instead of a book? I hate the pretest series since it involves so much page-flipping.

 

[tfom08]

Having just finished up 3rd year, here is my sage advice. If you have friends you can share books with so you don't have to buy every book for each rotation, I think it is cheaper and just as effective to just study from books without a qbank. The other benefit here is that you can save the qbank for when you take step 2 since you are going to want some new questions for that too. As someone else was saying, a qbank would probably be most helpful for medicine, but MKSAP has about 400-500 questions that you will definitely want to do and reading Step Up to medicine will easily take up the rest of your time.

I asked the same question about qbanks when I was starting the 3rd year and thinking it would help a lot on the shelves and I eventually decided to just save the money because I was sharing books and only bought 5-6 books all year. If you are buying every book that you study from, you might be better off just buying one book per rotation and going with a qbank, but I still think you will spend more that way. Try it without a qbank for one rotation and you will probably see that it's not necessary. The book recommendations here on SDN are very good.

 

[Gute]

Having just finished up 3rd year, here is my sage advice. If you have friends you can share books with so you don't have to buy every book for each rotation, I think it is cheaper and just as effective to just study from books without a qbank. The other benefit here is that you can save the qbank for when you take step 2 since you are going to want some new questions for that too. As someone else was saying, a qbank would probably be most helpful for medicine, but MKSAP has about 400-500 questions that you will definitely want to do and reading Step Up to medicine will easily take up the rest of your time.

I asked the same question about qbanks when I was starting the 3rd year and thinking it would help a lot on the shelves and I eventually decided to just save the money because I was sharing books and only bought 5-6 books all year. If you are buying every book that you study from, you might be better off just buying one book per rotation and going with a qbank, but I still think you will spend more that way. Try it without a qbank for one rotation and you will probably see that it's not necessary. The book recommendations here on SDN are very good.

Are you referring the MKSAP 4? There's 15 editions of that thing!

 

[tfom08]

Are you referring the MKSAP 4? There's 15 editions of that thing!

Yeah I did 4. I don't believe it is like most books that republish the same thing with only minor changes just to make money. I think the questions are actually different. I do not know that for certain, that is just my understanding from talking to others. But I would do the most recent one just so all of the treatment protocols and recommendations are up to date. If you finished it and needed more questions, I'm sure that the other ones would be good resources too. For me, between reading Step Up (best resource, this is key) and doing MKSAP, the 400-500 questions in MKSAP 4 were enough for me. Sure, you can do more, but the law of diminishing returns applies here. MKSAP isn't going to hit every little detail, but it is going to make sure you know the important stuff well. For the details, I think reading Step Up will have you covered.

 

[m250]

I recently finished 3rd-year as well, and as tfom08 mentioned, sharing books with friends in your class is the best way to go. I only purchased 2 books throughout the entire year, and both were one or two editions old from half.com. I spent a total of maybe $40-50. I then switched my books with friends (who each also bought 1-2 books) throughout the year, and had all of the necessary material needed to do well in each rotation. I honored every rotation except pediatrics.

A great question resource for medicine was MKSAP, which I checked out from the library (the most recent version). I also got a disc from a fourth-year for free, which I downloaded on my computer. I used UW for Step 1 and loved it, and I also plan on using it for Step 2 CK, but purchasing it to use during third-year is excessive in my opinion. Sure, if money isn't an issue for you then by all means spend it as you wish.

Point being, there is no need to spend hundreds of $$$ on UW or every book imaginable throughout 3rd-year in order to do well. Use the books from the library, from friends, from 4th-year students who no longer need them, or get an older edition for significantly less. I would rather spend any extra money I have on going out with friends, any one of my non-medical related hobbies, or anything else other than unneccessary books that I will maybe read for 1-2 weeks and then throw in the back of my closet never to be seen again. I hope this helps at least a few of you who trying to decide, "Is this book/question bank really worth it?"

-m

 

[doogoshly]

Are you referring the MKSAP 4? There's 15 editions of that thing!

MKSAP 2-4 are for med students with MKSAP4 being the newest one. from what i understand MKSAP 13-15 and such are more geared towards residents.

 

[AZDO]

Hello-

My school is making us purchase Kaplan QBank to use in preparation for the NBME post-rotation shelf exams. Nearly everyone I have talked to has said UWorld is better than Kaplan, but that has always been in relation to step2, not necessarily for shelf exams. Does anyone have any experience with both to say which is better? I know for step1, UWorld blew Kaplan away..

Thanks!

 

[Deferoxamine]

Update: I bought UWorld last week. I love it. 😀

 

[Pinkertinkle]

good call

 

[jope]

I thought UW was useful and worth the 400 dollars for the whole year. I'm from Canada so I don't have to worry about wasting questions for step 2.

But all the questions in UW were new and when it comes to shelf exams, I think doing problems over and over is the best way to study.

Managed to get over 90% for all shelf exams, and 98 on Internal. If you really want to save cash then at least get UW for internal and do all questions during your rotation.

 

[superflyDO]

I liked UWorld a lot!!