Reading through FA vs. doing USMLE RX

[badasshairday]

So I just got USMLE RX, and it is actually pretty good thus far. I was thinking about reading a chapter of first aid, ie. Biochem, then doing all the biochem related questions in RX afterward. But reading is so passive, and RX has the references of the pages anyways. Plus with RX doing the random blocks lets me hit a little bit of all the topics which I think is important as test day nears. Also I can do a block of 48 every day and not feel like I am wasting the subscription. If i read, I won't be able to work on questions everyday. It would be more like read 1 day, then do questions the next day.

I only signed up for RX for a month, then will sign up for UWORLD for one month. So I basically have 2.5 months left till test date. Any suggestions?

How are you guys working through it? Read then RX? Or just RX then read?

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[12loser12]

It kind of depends where you are on your studies, but if you have a decent grasp of some topics already it might benefit you to do questions and then read on the material you struggle with in the questions. That way, you get questions done and the reading that you accomplish is a little more focused

 

[Phur]

I know what you mean. I did an extensive week of FA memorization of each section and would do 40-50 questions once I finished a section or organ system. After that, I did just questions and pounded it the details that I didn't pick up. Worked out pretty well for me.

 

[DiverDoc]

Read a chapter and then do Rx as you said. If you;re like me, youll be reading something in FA and be like "ya ya, I know the symptoms" but then Rx forces you to recall something you falsely thought you had down. It strongly reinforces FA contents.

 

[McGillGrad]

Read a chapter and then do Rx as you said. If you;re like me, youll be reading something in FA and be like "ya ya, I know the symptoms" but then Rx forces you to recall something you falsely thought you had down. It strongly reinforces FA contents.

Agreed

 

[vicinihil]

Are you talking about FlashFacts or the questions? Would you say the same for the Goljan questions on Student Consult?

 

[badasshairday]

hmm. I find myself doing the questions and taking super long reading through the FA facts (they literally put in the page with the information related to the question). So it is basically like doing questions and then reading through first aid. It helps because I read the info they want to reinforce plus it puts into the context of a question so it sticks better than just reading FA by itself.

It just takes really long. I did a block of 48q's and took several hours reading through the FA facts, so it was like basically reading through ~40 pages of FA (for instance a question about neurofibromatosis 2 association with schwanomas, they reference the whole page on CNS tumors and I read the whole thing rather than just a blurb on schwanomas). I learned a crap ton just by doing that. It makes me look at it and think about it in a way that I haven't done so. Totally makes things stick.

But I can't keep reading through the referred to pages or it will take me forever to get through a significant chunk of the RX questions, plus I will fall behind in classes. I need to streamline the studying somehow...

 

[kryptik]

yeh takes a couple of hrs to do a block of 48q, thats normal, as you get through you will pick up speed.

On another note can anyone who did both rx and uworld compare their percentages in both banks and their real score? My average is in the 70s in rx and will be starting world pretty soon.