Step3 to do or not to do!

[eyestar]

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hi!
I have my step3 in two weeks. I am not doing so well in the kaplan q-bank-getting 45%! I can't believe it.
I don't have enough time to buy books, but seriously 45%-is that bad?
It seems the questions are vague and the ans choices are sometimes puzzling-like i have never heard those before.
Any body who has taken step3-did you do q-bank?
What should i do in 2 weeks?
And i am able to do only 50 questions a day!
Don't know what's wrong with me! 🙄
And my permit is re-expiring so couldn't postpone it further 😱

 

[backontop]

hi!
I have my step3 in two weeks. I am not doing so well in the kaplan q-bank-getting 45%! I can't believe it.
I don't have enough time to buy books, but seriously 45%-is that bad?
It seems the questions are vague and the ans choices are sometimes puzzling-like i have never heard those before.
Any body who has taken step3-did you do q-bank?
What should i do in 2 weeks?
And i am able to do only 50 questions a day!
Don't know what's wrong with me! 🙄
And my permit is re-expiring so couldn't postpone it further 😱

ummm. are your step 2 scores okay>>?? Don't expect your score to deviate too much from that. sucks cause it is more expensive than the other tests. remember there is no benefit to doing well on step 3 you only need to pass. i'm sorry i can;t comment on the q-bank since i didn't use it. If it's reexpiring, that tells me that you have been part time studying for quite some time. You latest Qbank questions could just be a poor sample size and you are actually okay.

My advice: If you got >200 on step 2, take it!

 

[AF_PedsBoy]

Gods this sucks - my Step 3 is on Monday and my inpatient rotations leading up to it have been insane so I haven't gotten a chance to study. Guess I'll just have to suck it up and take them... it doesn't help that since I had a call added on I'll have broken 100 hours the week leading up 😡

 

[AF_PedsBoy]

Just took the first half of Step III - my team in Portsmouth gathered around and let me just do mornings on Saturday-Sunday instead of call which freed up 14 more hours to study and sleep in my own bed! The damn thing is grueling but it was about 10% freebies, 30% I got it down to 2 choices and I think I got the right one, 40% I got it down to 2 choices and I'm picking one at random, and 20% what the hell is this???

One more day to go, and then I'm on call again, yay!!!

P.S. Anyone who's taking Step III DEFINITELY do the computer sim on the disk - the feedback sucks but learning how to use the interface is invaluable! 🙂

 

[Crypt Abscess]

I agree with the other comments, EXCEPT for deviating from your Step 2 scores. I just got my Step 3 results back, and I was a little surprised. I went down almost 25 points on Step 3. (I did pretty well on Step 2- mid-240s). I really didn't think the test was that hard, and I really didn't put that much effort into studying (I think maybe a total of 15-20 hours), and I carefully did the USMLE CD sim questions as well. I did about 300-400 pirated Kaplan questions and was getting around 60% range correct. I am a medicine resident, so I think the peds/ob/gyn really got me. Hope this helps. Crypt

 

[NoSz]

I did not do Kaplan, but I had 60% at most on the NMS questions and I just got my results back- 237/98. Right after the test I was sure I had failed...

Few clear-cut easy questions, just try to reduce the number of possible answers and go with your guts.

All my CCS cases were in First Aid.
Most were really easy, except for one long-term care case of chromosomal disorder. Could not remember a thing to do with the patient.

Oh- BTW I took it before residency. Used First Aid, NMS and my own old excerpts for Step 2. Had a look at Swanson's but did not like the question style. Not very similar to Step 3.

Good luck!

 

[AF_PedsBoy]

FINISHED! (I hope)
Step 3 was as hard as I thought it would be considering I've been living Peds for 10 months and suddenly I have all these adults with HEART ATTACKS???

Step 3 CSS however was fun - except for one thing. The vignettes scream at you what the diagnosis is, and the only thing you have to do is a) treat it so they don't die; and b) order the tests to confirm it and rule out everything else you KNOW it isn't, but that you have to let THEM know you know. That I know. That they know. Wait I think I just got lost in that sentence. Be prepared though - the system is PAINFULLY slow when processing orders, and although they SAY the system compensates for it, it doesn't. I've watched the order screen sit there and load after processing the orders and then watched my "real time" jump two or three minutes - especially frustrating when you know what you want to do, but it takes so long to get the computer to agree. So much so that I got all the right labs - but I never got to advance time enough to see all the results come back (yes yes, I was using the time advance, it just took so long to ok each result.)

One thing - did anyone do a vignette and have it suddenly end on you early? I had a non-urgent case, figured it out right away, entered all the labs I thought it needed, and then when I hit "wait for result", the case ended at five minutes real time and went to the finishing screen. I figured i either nailed the s**t out of it ...or my patient died in my office before the first lab got back SOMEONE tell me they got cut short like this too!!!

 

[SteelEyes]

FINISHED! (I hope)
Step 3 was as hard as I thought it would be considering I've been living Peds for 10 months and suddenly I have all these adults with HEART ATTACKS???

Step 3 CSS however was fun - except for one thing. The vignettes scream at you what the diagnosis is, and the only thing you have to do is a) treat it so they don't die; and b) order the tests to confirm it and rule out everything else you KNOW it isn't, but that you have to let THEM know you know. That I know. That they know. Wait I think I just got lost in that sentence. Be prepared though - the system is PAINFULLY slow when processing orders, and although they SAY the system compensates for it, it doesn't. I've watched the order screen sit there and load after processing the orders and then watched my "real time" jump two or three minutes - especially frustrating when you know what you want to do, but it takes so long to get the computer to agree. So much so that I got all the right labs - but I never got to advance time enough to see all the results come back (yes yes, I was using the time advance, it just took so long to ok each result.)

One thing - did anyone do a vignette and have it suddenly end on you early? I had a non-urgent case, figured it out right away, entered all the labs I thought it needed, and then when I hit "wait for result", the case ended at five minutes real time and went to the finishing screen. I figured i either nailed the s**t out of it ...or my patient died in my office before the first lab got back SOMEONE tell me they got cut short like this too!!!

I just finished Step III today. I had several cases end prematurely. I'm pretty sure that means you did everything necessary. In some cases it was pretty surprising how quickly it ended. Sometimes I was disappointed I wouldn't see labs come back, even though I knew what they would say for the most part. Overall I thought the cases were pretty straight forward, I had only 1 outpatient case that seemed like it wasn't going anywhere and I wasn't really sure what the endpoint was.

I lucked out and my computer was loading very quickly. I didn't have to wait more than a count of 3 for anything.

I used First Aid also, but I had only 4-5 out of 9 cases mentioned in the book. But reading through the 100 they do have gets you in the right frame of mind.

Well assuming I passed *knock on wood* I can now forget everything I know about medicine, ob, peds and psych! Although I paid too much money to learn this stuff, I'll wait till my dementia tears it away one synapse at a time . . .

 

[eyestar]

Sorry for the late reply. Took test last week, kind of disappointed-not sure of half the answers. In ccs i also had the case end abruptly and asking me to type my final orders, what frustrated me was when you type those final orders even if its trivial like vitals, you cannot see the results-not sure what to do, and one case with gi bleed took forever.
My biggest panic came after the test-i had vivid memory of typing the final diagnosis for all except one. Don't know what to make of it-did i not type the final diagnosis, did the case move abruptly-don't know.
I hope i don't have to take this test again-but very uneasy feeling!
Questions i thought were ok, except some I KNOW both answers were correct-so either i didn't prepare well or they were experimental
They should make this just 1 day-don't you agree?

 

[SteelEyes]

I think the whole test should be case simulations. They were borderline fun, at least compared to the multiple choice. Plus I think these scenarios test "real life stuff" more than the multiple choice questions. Just my $0.02.

 

[Lady In Rad]

Sorry for the late reply. Took test last week, kind of disappointed-not sure of half the answers. In ccs i also had the case end abruptly and asking me to type my final orders, what frustrated me was when you type those final orders even if its trivial like vitals, you cannot see the results-not sure what to do, and one case with gi bleed took forever.
My biggest panic came after the test-i had vivid memory of typing the final diagnosis for all except one. Don't know what to make of it-did i not type the final diagnosis, did the case move abruptly-don't know.
I hope i don't have to take this test again-but very uneasy feeling!
Questions i thought were ok, except some I KNOW both answers were correct-so either i didn't prepare well or they were experimental
They should make this just 1 day-don't you agree?

I had this happen to me when I swear I was not prompted to put a diagnosis for every patient. From the tutorial, I think the diagnosis part and reason for consultation part is not scored. Is this right? So it sounds like the diagnosis does not get scored.