Quick question about UWSAs

[Phloston]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Super-quick question (just trying to prioritize time-wise):

Are the UWorld self-assessment exams merely just questions followed by a predicted score, or do the questions also come with explanations, just like the QBank?

Thanks,

 

[islandCrazy]

They come with explanations like UW. Its almost as if you are doing 4 blocks of UW questions as your average comes up at the end of the blocks.

 

[exudate]

They come with explanations like UW. Its almost as if you are doing 4 blocks of UW questions as your average comes up at the end of the blocks.

Personally, I think UWSA are a better way to simulate the real exam day, because as people are saying, the Step uses the FRED software, which is what UWORLD uses. I am probably going to do both UWSA 1/2 back to back a week before the actual exam to simulate a real exam day, just to see if I can actually sit for 7-8 hours and take the exam!!

 

[thehundredthone]

Personally, I think UWSA are a better way to simulate the real exam day, because as people are saying, the Step uses the FRED software, which is what UWORLD uses. I am probably going to do both UWSA 1/2 back to back a week before the actual exam to simulate a real exam day, just to see if I can actually sit for 7-8 hours and take the exam!!

Just don't get carried away by the score, that's another thing everyone seems to be saying.

 

[Phloston]

They come with explanations like UW. Its almost as if you are doing 4 blocks of UW questions as your average comes up at the end of the blocks.

Thanks.

Personally, I think UWSA are a better way to simulate the real exam day, because as people are saying, the Step uses the FRED software, which is what UWORLD uses. I am probably going to do both UWSA 1/2 back to back a week before the actual exam to simulate a real exam day, just to see if I can actually sit for 7-8 hours and take the exam!!

Yeah, that would be incentive to sit them fairly close to the real exam, however I would think the explanations + annotations would still take considerable time, which is why I think it's better to do them immediately after the first pass of the QBank, regardless of the scores. That's just me though.

Just don't get carried away by the score, that's another thing everyone seems to be saying.

Yeah, they seem to be a wildly over-inflated, particularly UWSA#2, although probably about 10% of the time, they predict fairly accurately (the p-value is probably .40).

 

[ijn]

The score caps out at "265+" no matter how many questions you get correct. It's probably not that useful as a predictive tool close to test date if you're already scoring in that range. I'd use it earlier on primarily as a learning tool.

 

[thehundredthone]

The score caps out at "265+" no matter how many questions you get correct. It's probably not that useful as a predictive tool close to test date if you're already scoring in that range. I'd use it earlier on primarily as a learning tool.

How about as a confidence boost days before the exam? I still have UWSA1 left to do.

 

[LuckiestOne]

I don't know if it would be good for confidence boost, only reason why people score highly on these is because the curve is generous. I felt like I was lost during the self-assessments and got 265 on both.

 

[Aclamity]

The scores are definitely inflated, so I wouldn't take them at face value. But I did find that the UWSAs were more predictive of exam difficulty than the NBMEs (which were too easy) or the normal UW qbank (which were too hard). Yes, you'll find that the UWSA questions are a bit easier than the other UW questions, probably because UWSA is meant as an assessment tool while the qbank is more of a teaching tool.

 

[exudate]

The scores are definitely inflated, so I wouldn't take them at face value. But I did find that the UWSAs were more predictive of exam difficulty than the NBMEs (which were too easy) or the normal UW qbank (which were too hard). Yes, you'll find that the UWSA questions are a bit easier than the other UW questions, probably because UWSA is meant as an assessment tool while the qbank is more of a teaching tool.

Agreed!

 

[thehundredthone]

The scores are definitely inflated, so I wouldn't take them at face value. But I did find that the UWSAs were more predictive of exam difficulty than the NBMEs (which were too easy) or the normal UW qbank (which were too hard). Yes, you'll find that the UWSA questions are a bit easier than the other UW questions, probably because UWSA is meant as an assessment tool while the qbank is more of a teaching tool.

So it's the percentage correct that's the best predictor on the UWSAs?