- Joined
- Jun 20, 2007
- Messages
- 54
- Reaction score
- 1
The motown low down show down.... the gloves are off, baby...
And the New Kid on the Block is ready to take on Kaplan toe to toe...
Ring the bell, suckah, school's in session....
As Apollo Creed said at the end of Rocky III, "DING, DING...."
USMLE World is absolutely fantastic. Its CBT is pretty much IDENTICAL to the one used at the Prometric Centers for the USMLE Step 1. The questions are well thought out and structured just the same.
The explanations are even better. For every right or wrong answer, you are given a detailed explanation as to why one answer is correct and the others aren't, complete with diagrams and charts that you should use to hone your knowledge of a given area.
The USMLE World staff is great at following up with your questions. If you have any problems or comments, which I have written to them twice for, they will reply to you within an hour with a good explanation as to why something is so that you don't get hung up with an issue, if you happen to have one.
USMLE World suggests that you use its program as a Study Guide and NOT a tool for self-assessment. What this means is, instead of studying for the exam and then taking some U-world questions to see how you are doing, you instead do the U-World questions, read the explanations, and then, if you are so inclined, go on to different sources for enrichment. Again, it is designed to be studied from, not for.
As for Kaplan, they ask a great deal of 1-step questions. You either know it, or you don't. Where as, on the boards, they give you a stem, often times without a diagnosis, and you come up with the answer for a mechanism, or other manifestations of a disease process or diseases that may look like it, etc. In the latter, you can get questions right, fairly easily, without knowing the actual disease, but just knowing what types of things go together. Kaplan is not good at asking questions like that, and often times, will make you feel as though you are studying irrelevant material that will be of no use to you come board time.
Also, in Kaplan, the explanations are rather sub-par. More often then not, they'll give a fair explanation as to why something is correct, but they fail to elaborate on why the other choices are wrong. They will make a sentence about the other choices, but just not enough.
In U-World, they will fully explain the wrong answers, with complete discussions about what disease process they represent, or where they DO apply, and why they have nothing to do with the question stem. Kaplan simply has not put the time into matching the quality of questions you get from U-World, and most certainly, has not taken the time to give quality explanations either.
All in all, U-World takes the cake by far. Use U-World, memorize it from Top to bottom. The questions, the explanations. It is the best tool I have found out there. Supplement it with some Goljian Audiotapes while you're on a long drive. And if you have Kaplan Q-bank, use it simply for assessment and seemingly unnecessary enrichment.
Congratulations to our new Heavy Weight Champion of the World. The Italian Stallian... oops, I mean, ah, you get the point...
And the New Kid on the Block is ready to take on Kaplan toe to toe...
Ring the bell, suckah, school's in session....
As Apollo Creed said at the end of Rocky III, "DING, DING...."
USMLE World is absolutely fantastic. Its CBT is pretty much IDENTICAL to the one used at the Prometric Centers for the USMLE Step 1. The questions are well thought out and structured just the same.
The explanations are even better. For every right or wrong answer, you are given a detailed explanation as to why one answer is correct and the others aren't, complete with diagrams and charts that you should use to hone your knowledge of a given area.
The USMLE World staff is great at following up with your questions. If you have any problems or comments, which I have written to them twice for, they will reply to you within an hour with a good explanation as to why something is so that you don't get hung up with an issue, if you happen to have one.
USMLE World suggests that you use its program as a Study Guide and NOT a tool for self-assessment. What this means is, instead of studying for the exam and then taking some U-world questions to see how you are doing, you instead do the U-World questions, read the explanations, and then, if you are so inclined, go on to different sources for enrichment. Again, it is designed to be studied from, not for.
As for Kaplan, they ask a great deal of 1-step questions. You either know it, or you don't. Where as, on the boards, they give you a stem, often times without a diagnosis, and you come up with the answer for a mechanism, or other manifestations of a disease process or diseases that may look like it, etc. In the latter, you can get questions right, fairly easily, without knowing the actual disease, but just knowing what types of things go together. Kaplan is not good at asking questions like that, and often times, will make you feel as though you are studying irrelevant material that will be of no use to you come board time.
Also, in Kaplan, the explanations are rather sub-par. More often then not, they'll give a fair explanation as to why something is correct, but they fail to elaborate on why the other choices are wrong. They will make a sentence about the other choices, but just not enough.
In U-World, they will fully explain the wrong answers, with complete discussions about what disease process they represent, or where they DO apply, and why they have nothing to do with the question stem. Kaplan simply has not put the time into matching the quality of questions you get from U-World, and most certainly, has not taken the time to give quality explanations either.
All in all, U-World takes the cake by far. Use U-World, memorize it from Top to bottom. The questions, the explanations. It is the best tool I have found out there. Supplement it with some Goljian Audiotapes while you're on a long drive. And if you have Kaplan Q-bank, use it simply for assessment and seemingly unnecessary enrichment.
Congratulations to our new Heavy Weight Champion of the World. The Italian Stallian... oops, I mean, ah, you get the point...
