To Step 1 Alums: Should I get 1 year subscription of UWorld?

[thzone1986]

I'm an upcoming MS2. I was thinking about subscribing to a year of Uworld. People have been saying how it really is a great teaching tool (in tutor mode). And I was thinking I could chip away at it during the school year (while reading rr path) till like March/April, then get my account reset and go through it again in test mode when I am really studying hardcore for the Step.

Price aside, do you guys feel that it's a good idea? Pls advise.

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[FutureInternist]

I guess it depends on how well you think your school prepares you for the boards. Doing those board-type Qs would help if your teachers were thinking the same way & not giving you crappy "Which of the following is NOT..." etc Qs.

I did a couple of blocks of Qs from UW, from a friend's account & actually remembered the answers, when I myself had my account (> 6 mos later). So you may fall into the trap of thinking you learnt the material rather than just recognized the Q.

Since you said, money aside, .....I would suggest doing something like Kaplan or ExamMaster during 2nd year & keeping UW for the hard-core studying b/w 2nd yr ending & your exam

Good Luck.

 

[kryptik]

i asked a similar question(post #10) sometime back you can follow it here http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=8250620#post8250620

 

[Cliff Huxtable]

I haven't taken the test yet, but I don't think I would've had time to use it during classes. That's just me.

 

[runx]

Just based on what I've seen on SDN it seems like UW is a gem you want to hold off on until crunch time. That said, I am definitely thinking along the same lines as you for my 2nd year and am considering others like Qbank.

 

[KYMedGuy2011]

I would probably hold off on UW until closer to the exam. As others have said, it really is shocking how many of the questions and answers you memorize (even if that's not your intention). When I went back over q's I'd missed during my first pass through the questions, I could recall what the answer was for several of them just after reading the first line or two - great for self-confidence but definitely not a good represenation of how well I was grasping the material. UW is definitely a great resource for studying but I think I got more out of it as an intensive review in the weeks before the actual exam than if I had used it over such a long period of time.

The one thing I did do throughout second year was write in notes in First Aid about different topics (especially pharm) as we covered them in class. Definitely reccommend that. There were some topics I thought were explained more clearly and in a manner that was easier to understand in my class notes than FA and it was nice to not have to dig through old notes last month to find them. I also went into my exam prep with a decent idea of which topics weren't covered well (or at all) that seemed important (at least to FA).

 

[silas2642]

I haven't taken the test yet, but I don't think I would've had time to use it during classes. That's just me.

I'm with Cliff here. I don't think that I would have had time to use it. Plus UWorld is a great tool. I don't think that I would have wanted to utilize it until later on in the year.

 

[Instatewaiter]

No.

Maybe getting another Q bank for during the year but use UW only during your board study.

 

[Currantjelly]

Well, I did the same thing. I bought UW in Dec of my 2nd year. And I did about 35% of the questions corresponding to the module at that time. Here's my take on it now.....To do 1300 questions in UW took me 1 week in my study time. So I was glad that I did the 700 questions prior. It saved me time. The downside was I really missed out on information that could have taught me a lot. At the time when I did those questions way back when, I just breezed thru them and really didn't learn much. Or if I did learn anything it certainly left my head a long time ago. It just so happens that the sections I did in UW with my courses...cardio, renal, and pulmonary are my weakest areas now. If I had to do it again, I would still probably buy the program when I did. If anything, purchasing the 1 year subscription allowed me 1 free reset which was key....so I get another pass through UW. Regarding the remembrance of questions......I did them so long ago it's like I am taking the questions for the first time again. A couple questions I've remembered the concept (e.g just now I had a question and I remembered it was "holiday heart" but I couldn't remember the associated EKG anomaly - answer = absent P waves).

 

[Glaxo]

Buy USMLErx to memorize first aid or buy robbins review of path to make sure you have the fundamentals buried in your subconscious. Absolute waste to get world early unless your goal is to memorize how to do well in world. Get kaplan maybe, their physio qbank is good to make sure you keep those first year concepts sharp.

 

[doogoshly]

no.

i just got FA and my school bought us kaplan qbank and that was all i used. and seriously, as an MS2, you'll be worried enough about studying for your classes.

 

[DocHolliday1]

I'll give a differing opinion than most above...
My school gives us NBME shelf exams throughout the year, and if I had done UWorld when we covered a sytem throughout the year, It would have been great.

If you do read RR and do UW throughout the year when it comes real study time, you will have a great base and can actually "study" instead of having to "learn" old topics, I think your study time when the year is over will be very efficient and much more productive

If you've got the drive to stick with it all year, I'd say do it
Good Luck either way

 

[Slide]

If you want a question bank to use concomitantly with classes, use Kaplan QBank. Kaplan QBank focuses on honing in specific knowledge and details, which would be better for classes. UWorld is better in integration and problem-solving in a medical context, and it's better to learn that skill after you have enough knowledge to do so. Plus, as other posters have said, you want to learn skill sets from UWorld, rather than just memorize the question variations, so taking UWorld longer may put you into that trap.

 

[silas2642]

If you want a question bank to use concomitantly with classes, use Kaplan QBank. Kaplan QBank focuses on honing in specific knowledge and details, which would be better for classes. UWorld is better in integration and problem-solving in a medical context, and it's better to learn that skill after you have enough knowledge to do so. Plus, as other posters have said, you want to learn skill sets from UWorld, rather than just memorize the question variations, so taking UWorld longer may put you into that trap.

I would just like to say that I f-ing hated that qbank. That thing made me want to throw my computer out the window. The only good thing about it was that it gave you the number to the page of First Aid where you could find the pertinent information to the nit-picky question that you missed. I actually was doing worse on that question bank than UWorld, which made me feel even worse.