USMLE world

[Tastebuds]

For those who have taken Step 1, how do the questions on the real test compare to the questions on USMLE world?

thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[canedoc]

I think USMLEworld does a great job of recreating the test environment and question difficulty. You are always going to have a few questions on the real exam that come out of nowhere and basically you can't prepare for adequately. That's just the honest truth. You'll be surprised though that some of those questions out of left field might be more easily answered if you have a background in research.

If I was prepping for the exam again (which I sincerely hope I am not going to be after yesterday) I would be focusing on doing USMLEworld. For $75 it's a heck of a lot better than Qbank and the answers are more than adequate. I don't work for them and I have no vested interest in whether they sell well or not, I just wouldn't want to see other students suffer using inferior materials.

Another good set of books are the Pretest set. The questions are a bit more difficult in some cases, and in others they have too many hints in the answer choices (that you can eliminate by logic rather than knowledge), but overall the questions and especially the lengthy answers add to your fund of knowledge in a way that BRS path and FA simply cannot.

Get USMLEworld...you'll love it, trust me. Make sure you read all the explanations to most questions, especially those you get incorrect. For the ones you get correct or ones you miss and you knew what mistake you made, you can just read the fast summary at the bottom of the explanation rather than the whole thing. Very intelligently designed I'd say.

 

[Scottish Chap]

For those who have taken Step 1, how do the questions on the real test compare to the questions on USMLE world?

thanks

The second and third-order questions are similar and I would say better than other commercial Q banks out there. Overall, it's a good question bank for preparation, but to be frank: no question bank or practice exam replicates Step 1 accurately. If you work hard with whatever resources you have, you'll be fine....

 

[Tastebuds]

What is your best advice to do during the last 3 weeks of studying. I am coming upon this crucial time...and dont know if I should study First aid, my notecards that I made during my review process, both....or do you recommend something else.

Thanks guys

 

[cdql]

What is your best advice to do during the last 3 weeks of studying. I am coming upon this crucial time...and dont know if I should study First aid, my notecards that I made during my review process, both....or do you recommend something else.

Thanks guys

I'd suggest using FA and then going back to additional sources for areas where you might need work (e.g. for me, it was renal, pulmonary, and gallbladder diseases. I looked up RR Path for those)

You can use your notecards in a similar manner (e.g. brushing up on areas where you feel FA is insufficient)

 

[smq123]

For those who have taken Step 1, how do the questions on the real test compare to the questions on USMLE world?

thanks

The really great thing about USMLE World is that the interface is almost exactly like the real test. There's almost no need to even do that "tutorial" thing because you should already know how the buttons work after doing UWorld.

 

[Tastebuds]

From someone who has taken Step 1, are the questions pretty similar in regards to difficulty level?

 

[discreet44]

From someone who has taken Step 1, are the questions pretty similar in regards to difficulty level?

On the actual exam the question difficulty varies significantly. Many of the questions are roughly the same difficulty level as UWORLD, while some (20-30%) will be straightforward and much easier. You'll likely see a handful of questions that are more difficult, but not too many of these. On the whole, if you did a practice exam with 350 random UWORLD questions, it would probably feel slightly more difficult than the real exam.

 

[Law2Doc]

From someone who has taken Step 1, are the questions pretty similar in regards to difficulty level?

The biggest difference is that on the real thing a lot of questions are significantly longer than most of what's in world, so if you are used to using all 60 minutes on 50 questions on world, you won't be on a good pace on the real thing.

 

[Old_Mil]

On the actual exam the question difficulty varies significantly. Many of the questions are roughly the same difficulty level as UWORLD, while some (20-30%) will be straightforward and much easier.

Based on that...70% of the exam is like USMLE world, 10% is harder, 20% is easier.

Ignoring experimental questions for the moment...

...35 brutal questions, 70 easy ones, 195 that are ~ Uworld.

You need, I'm guessing, around 220 correct just to pass (65% correct).

If you're batting in the 50% range on Uworld...that gives you about 100 correct...

...which means you had best get all the easy ones and most of the brutal ones just to pass?

Or have I screwed up my math somewhere? The UWorld Qbank reports that 50% of the users are scoring worse than 5x% percent. So how does this all work out?

 

[blz]

Based on that...70% of the exam is like USMLE world, 10% is harder, 20% is easier.

Ignoring experimental questions for the moment...

...35 brutal questions, 70 easy ones, 195 that are ~ Uworld.

You need, I'm guessing, around 220 correct just to pass (65% correct).

If you're batting in the 50% range on Uworld...that gives you about 100 correct...

...which means you had best get all the easy ones and most of the brutal ones just to pass?

Or have I screwed up my math somewhere? The UWorld Qbank reports that 50% of the users are scoring worse than 5x% percent. So how does this all work out?

he's exaggerating. the majority of the questions were more straightforward than usmleworld. there's a lot of people still jaded by the 'difficulty' of their exams.

 

[drguy22]

he's exaggerating. the majority of the questions were more straightforward than usmleworld. there's a lot of people still jaded by the 'difficulty' of their exams.

about 40% just as easy as the 150 releases Q
about 40% same level as UW world
about 20% in between

for me:
Kaplan Qbank: not very helpful (worthless) i would no do it again if i had the choice

USMLERx: helps u memorize FA

UWorld: EXCELLENT!