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Hello there,
I just took the USMLE exam and got my score back recently, and so I wanted to give a little perspective because I used all 3 major qbanks (Kaplan, USMLERx and USMLE World).
I started studying about 2-3 months out and the majority of my studying was using qbanks. If it is any justification for trying to give some advice on these qbanks, I ended up doing fine (250). I realize that on SDN that is nothing special, but still, I'm sure someone would have asked eventually. For the love of God, do as many (GOOD) questions as humanly possible. If you have a bad set of questions, don't do them (and you'll know if they are bad questions, I'm looking at you Lange).
I started off by using Kaplan Qbank. The explanations for these questions are truly fantastic, sometimes (though rarely) even better than the UWorld explanations. However, the questions, especially in some topics (I'm looking at you, micro), are just ridiculously nit-picky. With that said, the explanations are very well done and the amount of topics covered is quite good. I would recommend this qbank if you have quite a bit of time (I'll speak on this later). This qbank will help you a lot on day to day basis though after the exam (and trust me, there is a large period after the exam, really). The understanding it fosters is really quite impressive.
Second, I did USMLERx. This was a qbank that I really wanted to hate (I like tough questions, I like questions which really challenge you), and these questions, for the most part, do not do that. They are not meant for you to think very critically. They are meant for you to recognize patterns, associations and simple facts. With that said, I have to have to highly recommend this qbank. Some say that you just need First Aid, and you don't need this qbank, and I can attest that I have friends who also scored in the 250s who never used this bank (and as you probably all know, people all approach this test differently and many do very well regardless). With that said, I hated (still do, btw) First Aid with a passion. It is a great great resource, I have to recommend it, but again, I hate random jumbles of facts without context. THEREFORE, if you have the time, please please go through this qbank, because it's sole purpose is to learn First Aid, and it does so in a way which is far more bearable than reading that god-forsaken book day in and day out.
The questions are very straightforward and very annoying, but it will literally drill in at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the information of First Aid into you (and I mean really, by the time I was finishing up the qbank, almost every question I either knew the answer or knew the answer they were looking for, but just forgot the little First Aid bullet detail). Therefore, the pros for this one is that it will drill First Aid into you. Do you need it? Probably not if you are focused enough to read First Aid, but before you just blow off the expensive qbank and read First Aid instead, I want you to think to yourself, can you really really identify a minute detail in a clinical scenario/step 1 question? Possibly, I wouldn't take that chance. Therefore, if you have the time, please get this qbank. Also, the qbank's software sucks, it crashes a lot and sometimes when you scroll down some of the text disappears. My advice is get through this qbank quickly simply to have less days dealing with the terrible software.
Third, I used USMLEWorld. This thing is literally as good as everyone says it is (which is pretty ridiculous by SDN standards which tends to be critical of just about everything). I remember the first day I used this and I thought, my god, the questions and the explanations on this thing (and specifically, the images, the visual aids, the charts) were all so fantastic, that I thought I made a mistake starting this just about a month out. But I ended up being fine. Start this around a month or 1.5 months or so before your test and you should do well. This is the only qbank I ended up reviewing my answers at all. Do this qbank. Don't even think about not doing it, you will regret it.
So my advice, and then a little caveat about the exam.
Kaplan: As much as I liked this qbank, I can't recommend it unless you have at least 2-3 months. It is great, and the explanations are great, but the questions are not very similar to the exam, and the level of detail and context doesn't match up too well. With that said, the explanations did help me answer at least quite a few tough questions on my real exam, and I can say for certain that my general understanding of the underlying topics tested on Step 1 (you will have to know the principles after Step 1, please remember that) is very strong because of Kaplan.
USMLERx: Didn't want to like this qbank, but it really does drill in the important facts. If you have 2 months, please use this as well as USMLEWorld. It will drill important facts that you will see on the exam (look below for the caveat).
USMLEWorld: There is no question, use this qbank. Nothing more needs to be said.
A caveat on the exam (5 of them): I wish someone told me this stuff before I took my exam.
1. Not exactly like USMLEWorld: First off, the scary thing is that a lot of questions are NOT like USMLEWorld, despite that 1:1 correlation you always hear about on these boards. The hard questions will be like USMLEWorld and, here's the kicker, the EASY questions are pretty much exactly like USMLERx questions. Kaplan questions, though again I love them and I think they will get you some points based on pure understanding, really are not as accurate if you ask me. I wish the exam was all UWorld questions. I would have a lot more respect for the exam if it did. Although I did fine on the exam, I still hate it, I think it tests nothing and I think the world would be a better place without it, but still, what can I do.
2. Unknown questions: There were still a bunch of questions which I had never heard of or thought of before. Not surprisingly, they tend to correlate with your weaker subjects.
After doing upwards of like 5,000 questions, I thought they couldn't throw anything new at me. They did, god knows where they found those questions, but they did. I have no idea how to prepare for them.
And the thing which really just shocked me is they asked questions about the TOPICS I ALREADY KNEW. It's like you are on one of those married gameshows where they ask you questions about your spouse. You go in all confident because you've seen that person day in and day out for like 20 years, and then they ask you something like "what's your wife's favorite type of sushi?" or "what does your wife think about skydiving" and you just think, by God, that's a good question but I never even thought about asking that. Then your wife looks at you begrudgingly because not only did you not win any money, but she also thinks you are an insensitive jerk, and you obviously got a low step score as well (sorry for that analogy).
Just know that it is ok, and you can still get a good score if you had a significant number of questions being unknown (I usually did a first pass of questions I knew for sure and ended up with about 8-12 questions left; did a second pass of questions I was pretty sure about or down to 2 choices and ended up with around 5-6 questions left and then had 5-6 questions where I just thought, god damn it, I hope that the answer is B). You will find that it is very hard to predict your performance because much of your performance comes down to these 8-12 or 5-6 questions in which it is either B or C (pray that it is B). I have no idea how to prepare for it. I would just go with my first response or gut response (or B). I'm sure someone has a better answer. I'll leave that to another more wiser individual.
3. The kicker: I talked to a few people about how their exams (btw, don't recommend this unless you are a masochist like myself; when you are done, be done and go get some ice cream) went and the scariest thing of all is that our exams seemed very different, but in an interesting way. Everyone got questions on high yield topics and such (there was a good amount of variability in difficulty, btw, so don't think that an easy or hard exam has any bearing on your score), but everyone had a "kicker" subject. By this I mean that everyone had a low yield topic in which they had a fairly significant percentage of questions, much higher than otherwise predicted, on their exam as opposed to other relatively low yield topics (for example, I had quite a bit of anatomy on my exam, a friend of mine had a bunch of behavioral science, another had a bunch of cell bio). This is probably the scariest part of the exam if you ask me, because you can't prepare for every lower yield topic, but you really will get one which has a fair number of questions and every other low yield topic you essentially get no questions at all (I spent my last day of studying on neuroanatomy because I hate neuroanatomy with a passion and thank the heavens I had like 2 questions on it on my exam). Solution: Pray to God that the kicker subject is not the one you aren't prepared for. This will have a serious impact on your exam (I have no doubt that this is one of the main things that separates 250s from 260s), and there's not much you can do about it.
4. This is a minor caveat: This test is long as hell. I don't know if you realize what it's like to be in a sterile PROMETRIC center for like 8 hours, but by the last two blocks, I was honestly just bored and exhausted. I wasn't nervous, I wasn't excited, I was just plain bored and wanted to go home. Bring some snacks, fruit etc. for your break periods.
5. Sleep the night before: I'm not even going to pretend and say "get a good night's rest the night before." Unless you are some ridiculous buddhist monk or are heavily medicated, you aren't going to get a good night's sleep the night before; in fact, you'll be nervous as all hell, but honestly, the adrenaline will carry you through the exam and you'll be fine. Just watch a nice movie, listen to some good music or go for a good walk the day before, because you sure as hell are not getting sleep. And the day of the exam, since you don't have any sleep, it helps every now and then to think back on that nice movie or walk or music, it sure helped me.
Well, that was a lot longer than I expected. Spend 2-3 months at most studying for this exam, and do just a ton of questions, and you will do fine. If you carry around First Aid your first year, I will give you a stare of death and I will not want to talk to you, and if I was a girl, I would refuse to date you, and that is 100% true. It does nothing for your score, and it just makes everyone around you nervous and angry (I equate first years with the first aid book with that antibiotic disk-diffusion test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby-Bauer_antibiotic_testing). I spent most of my pre-clinical years sleeping in, watching movies and reading books (some of which were medical books, but only because they were interesting to me), and I'm far prouder of that than my step score.
Anyway, best of luck. The exam sucks, but if you take my advice, I think you may breathe a little easier when your time finally comes. Please realize that this exam is just a terrible idea, and a good or bad score says nothing about you as a future doctor (and as a person). Anyone worth their salt will judge you much more on your hard work and your character. Prepare well and do well, but know that there are far more important things in life than your step score.
Best of luck to you all.
-Dr. P.
I just took the USMLE exam and got my score back recently, and so I wanted to give a little perspective because I used all 3 major qbanks (Kaplan, USMLERx and USMLE World).
I started studying about 2-3 months out and the majority of my studying was using qbanks. If it is any justification for trying to give some advice on these qbanks, I ended up doing fine (250). I realize that on SDN that is nothing special, but still, I'm sure someone would have asked eventually. For the love of God, do as many (GOOD) questions as humanly possible. If you have a bad set of questions, don't do them (and you'll know if they are bad questions, I'm looking at you Lange).
I started off by using Kaplan Qbank. The explanations for these questions are truly fantastic, sometimes (though rarely) even better than the UWorld explanations. However, the questions, especially in some topics (I'm looking at you, micro), are just ridiculously nit-picky. With that said, the explanations are very well done and the amount of topics covered is quite good. I would recommend this qbank if you have quite a bit of time (I'll speak on this later). This qbank will help you a lot on day to day basis though after the exam (and trust me, there is a large period after the exam, really). The understanding it fosters is really quite impressive.
Second, I did USMLERx. This was a qbank that I really wanted to hate (I like tough questions, I like questions which really challenge you), and these questions, for the most part, do not do that. They are not meant for you to think very critically. They are meant for you to recognize patterns, associations and simple facts. With that said, I have to have to highly recommend this qbank. Some say that you just need First Aid, and you don't need this qbank, and I can attest that I have friends who also scored in the 250s who never used this bank (and as you probably all know, people all approach this test differently and many do very well regardless). With that said, I hated (still do, btw) First Aid with a passion. It is a great great resource, I have to recommend it, but again, I hate random jumbles of facts without context. THEREFORE, if you have the time, please please go through this qbank, because it's sole purpose is to learn First Aid, and it does so in a way which is far more bearable than reading that god-forsaken book day in and day out.
The questions are very straightforward and very annoying, but it will literally drill in at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the information of First Aid into you (and I mean really, by the time I was finishing up the qbank, almost every question I either knew the answer or knew the answer they were looking for, but just forgot the little First Aid bullet detail). Therefore, the pros for this one is that it will drill First Aid into you. Do you need it? Probably not if you are focused enough to read First Aid, but before you just blow off the expensive qbank and read First Aid instead, I want you to think to yourself, can you really really identify a minute detail in a clinical scenario/step 1 question? Possibly, I wouldn't take that chance. Therefore, if you have the time, please get this qbank. Also, the qbank's software sucks, it crashes a lot and sometimes when you scroll down some of the text disappears. My advice is get through this qbank quickly simply to have less days dealing with the terrible software.
Third, I used USMLEWorld. This thing is literally as good as everyone says it is (which is pretty ridiculous by SDN standards which tends to be critical of just about everything). I remember the first day I used this and I thought, my god, the questions and the explanations on this thing (and specifically, the images, the visual aids, the charts) were all so fantastic, that I thought I made a mistake starting this just about a month out. But I ended up being fine. Start this around a month or 1.5 months or so before your test and you should do well. This is the only qbank I ended up reviewing my answers at all. Do this qbank. Don't even think about not doing it, you will regret it.
So my advice, and then a little caveat about the exam.
Kaplan: As much as I liked this qbank, I can't recommend it unless you have at least 2-3 months. It is great, and the explanations are great, but the questions are not very similar to the exam, and the level of detail and context doesn't match up too well. With that said, the explanations did help me answer at least quite a few tough questions on my real exam, and I can say for certain that my general understanding of the underlying topics tested on Step 1 (you will have to know the principles after Step 1, please remember that) is very strong because of Kaplan.
USMLERx: Didn't want to like this qbank, but it really does drill in the important facts. If you have 2 months, please use this as well as USMLEWorld. It will drill important facts that you will see on the exam (look below for the caveat).
USMLEWorld: There is no question, use this qbank. Nothing more needs to be said.
A caveat on the exam (5 of them): I wish someone told me this stuff before I took my exam.
1. Not exactly like USMLEWorld: First off, the scary thing is that a lot of questions are NOT like USMLEWorld, despite that 1:1 correlation you always hear about on these boards. The hard questions will be like USMLEWorld and, here's the kicker, the EASY questions are pretty much exactly like USMLERx questions. Kaplan questions, though again I love them and I think they will get you some points based on pure understanding, really are not as accurate if you ask me. I wish the exam was all UWorld questions. I would have a lot more respect for the exam if it did. Although I did fine on the exam, I still hate it, I think it tests nothing and I think the world would be a better place without it, but still, what can I do.
2. Unknown questions: There were still a bunch of questions which I had never heard of or thought of before. Not surprisingly, they tend to correlate with your weaker subjects.
After doing upwards of like 5,000 questions, I thought they couldn't throw anything new at me. They did, god knows where they found those questions, but they did. I have no idea how to prepare for them.
And the thing which really just shocked me is they asked questions about the TOPICS I ALREADY KNEW. It's like you are on one of those married gameshows where they ask you questions about your spouse. You go in all confident because you've seen that person day in and day out for like 20 years, and then they ask you something like "what's your wife's favorite type of sushi?" or "what does your wife think about skydiving" and you just think, by God, that's a good question but I never even thought about asking that. Then your wife looks at you begrudgingly because not only did you not win any money, but she also thinks you are an insensitive jerk, and you obviously got a low step score as well (sorry for that analogy).
Just know that it is ok, and you can still get a good score if you had a significant number of questions being unknown (I usually did a first pass of questions I knew for sure and ended up with about 8-12 questions left; did a second pass of questions I was pretty sure about or down to 2 choices and ended up with around 5-6 questions left and then had 5-6 questions where I just thought, god damn it, I hope that the answer is B). You will find that it is very hard to predict your performance because much of your performance comes down to these 8-12 or 5-6 questions in which it is either B or C (pray that it is B). I have no idea how to prepare for it. I would just go with my first response or gut response (or B). I'm sure someone has a better answer. I'll leave that to another more wiser individual.
3. The kicker: I talked to a few people about how their exams (btw, don't recommend this unless you are a masochist like myself; when you are done, be done and go get some ice cream) went and the scariest thing of all is that our exams seemed very different, but in an interesting way. Everyone got questions on high yield topics and such (there was a good amount of variability in difficulty, btw, so don't think that an easy or hard exam has any bearing on your score), but everyone had a "kicker" subject. By this I mean that everyone had a low yield topic in which they had a fairly significant percentage of questions, much higher than otherwise predicted, on their exam as opposed to other relatively low yield topics (for example, I had quite a bit of anatomy on my exam, a friend of mine had a bunch of behavioral science, another had a bunch of cell bio). This is probably the scariest part of the exam if you ask me, because you can't prepare for every lower yield topic, but you really will get one which has a fair number of questions and every other low yield topic you essentially get no questions at all (I spent my last day of studying on neuroanatomy because I hate neuroanatomy with a passion and thank the heavens I had like 2 questions on it on my exam). Solution: Pray to God that the kicker subject is not the one you aren't prepared for. This will have a serious impact on your exam (I have no doubt that this is one of the main things that separates 250s from 260s), and there's not much you can do about it.
4. This is a minor caveat: This test is long as hell. I don't know if you realize what it's like to be in a sterile PROMETRIC center for like 8 hours, but by the last two blocks, I was honestly just bored and exhausted. I wasn't nervous, I wasn't excited, I was just plain bored and wanted to go home. Bring some snacks, fruit etc. for your break periods.
5. Sleep the night before: I'm not even going to pretend and say "get a good night's rest the night before." Unless you are some ridiculous buddhist monk or are heavily medicated, you aren't going to get a good night's sleep the night before; in fact, you'll be nervous as all hell, but honestly, the adrenaline will carry you through the exam and you'll be fine. Just watch a nice movie, listen to some good music or go for a good walk the day before, because you sure as hell are not getting sleep. And the day of the exam, since you don't have any sleep, it helps every now and then to think back on that nice movie or walk or music, it sure helped me.
Well, that was a lot longer than I expected. Spend 2-3 months at most studying for this exam, and do just a ton of questions, and you will do fine. If you carry around First Aid your first year, I will give you a stare of death and I will not want to talk to you, and if I was a girl, I would refuse to date you, and that is 100% true. It does nothing for your score, and it just makes everyone around you nervous and angry (I equate first years with the first aid book with that antibiotic disk-diffusion test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby-Bauer_antibiotic_testing). I spent most of my pre-clinical years sleeping in, watching movies and reading books (some of which were medical books, but only because they were interesting to me), and I'm far prouder of that than my step score.
Anyway, best of luck. The exam sucks, but if you take my advice, I think you may breathe a little easier when your time finally comes. Please realize that this exam is just a terrible idea, and a good or bad score says nothing about you as a future doctor (and as a person). Anyone worth their salt will judge you much more on your hard work and your character. Prepare well and do well, but know that there are far more important things in life than your step score.
Best of luck to you all.
-Dr. P.
