usmle secrets and "step up" books, which is better?

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Summer.Thunder

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usmle secrets and "step up" books, which is better?
i have the step up book. but i wonder if i should get the secrets book too?

what do you think?

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Just my opinion, but I think First Aid is much more comprehensive than Step up or Secrets.

Secrets is kind of like the First Aid Cases book. It's easy to read a couple cases here and there and it helps to reinforce the info, but it's not a comprehensive reference like First Aid. I read a lot of Secrets last summer, and while it does hit a lot of the info in First Aid, it's not really set up to just sit down and review a specific subject, eg. diuretics. The good part about secrets is that it is an easy read and it puts a lot of the facts into a clinical context which might help with recalling and applying the info.

One of the strengths of FA is that they have taken a lot of the really good diagrams from some of the most highly recommended books in each subject ie Katzung for Pharm, Levinson for Micro, and put them in one spot. I flipped through Step up, and while it looked OK, basically very similar to FA, the lack of these high yield diagrams was one thing I noticed.
 
Step 1 Secrets is about 200 pgs and def not as comprehensive as FA, but is a great read and the question format makes me feel like I'll retain more. It is in a format and very clinical that I feel I will still use for rotations.
 
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