USMLERx - Question Difficulty

[Richspiders07]

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So, we are all aware that the standard question bank is World.. or Kaplan. As a supplement I am using USMLERx [mainly because its crazy cheap]. Ive seen posts about how this question bank is extremely easy compared to world. However, each time I do a set of questions, the average score for all users is in the mid-low 60s.

Why such a discrepancy? Is it just because there are more "easy" questions.. but in the end they even out with the random ones that only like 10% get right??

ps: How ridiculous is their "score predictor." It has a +/- of 20 points... a bit of a range, dont you think?

 

[ENThopeful]

its way easy i hear. if its anything like first aid qna (which i do while on the toilet), its straight recall from first aid, literally

 

[jiy76]

Its good if u have done uw and want to run through some questions that hit the important points.There is very little thinking required in rx its either u know it or u dont.Its a good tool to make sure u can recognize different presentations of various diseases or abnormalities.

 

[maybepsych]

So does anyone know how the accurate the score estimator is for USMLERx?

And how does the level of difficulty of the questions compare to that of step 1? I keep hearing that USMLEworld is harder than step 1.

Thanks

 

[Richspiders07]

Right.. its "way easy." So why are people only getting 62% of questions right [as per my last 4 blocks of 48]?

 

[hj0517]

maybepsych: I averaged 79% on Rx, did quite a few (probably 4) simulations that were 7 blockers and each time scored 265 +/- 20, my final score on the actual test was 245.

I agree with the chap who said Rx questions are you know it or you dont. Its a good way of consolidating FA. Sometimes stuff you *think* you know catches you out on Rx, I dont regret using it especially because it was quite cheap.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Right.. its "way easy." So why are people only getting 62% of questions right [as per my last 4 blocks of 48]?

Well, you can either take us (who have tried USMLErx and found it inferior, and have actually taken the real thing) at our word, or you can ignore or advice.

IMO, there is a reason Rx is so cheap and why it is used by so few students compared to the other two. It's just not very good.

 

[Richspiders07]

Which is why it is being used as a supplement to World....

Perhaps its not being used is because it is new and few people know about. Being able to simulate a full exam multiple times (7+) for less that 130 dollars seems like a great deal, even for just endurance purposes.

Besides, if people say if you have FA down cold you should do well on the exam.. why wouldnt u want to do the 3000 questions that will prove to you whether you are solid for that text?

 

[GMDMD]

Besides, if people say if you have FA down cold you should do well on the exam.. why wouldnt u want to do the 3000 questions that will prove to you whether you are solid for that text?

I have never used the product but for one thing 3000 questions takes an assload of time.

 

[ENThopeful]

Right.. its "way easy." So why are people only getting 62% of questions right [as per my last 4 blocks of 48]?

why are you defending the product?

 

[Richspiders07]

why are you defending the product?

I'm not defending jack. My lord, I never asked if it should be a primary qbank, or how it compared to world/kaplan... I just want to know why people do poorly on these questions if everyone keeps saying it simple regurg. type questions. Pretty sure that was clear.

 

[hj0517]

ok, clearly nobody reads my posts... richspiders - I think that as you progress through the questions you will hit the higher numbers average wise. Whilst it isn't straight recall as in verbatim FA, it is useful as a supplement to memorizing FA because of its vignette form. As for why the average % is low when people say its straight recall I have no idea.

A lot of people say its inferior but we have no way of judging that considering Rx is mostly used as a 2nd qbank as far as I know. People have a habit of following crowds and going with the "fashion" - some people even start to regurgitate what they may have read rather than experienced, ahhh memes are very intriguing!

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Besides, if people say if you have FA down cold you should do well on the exam.. why wouldnt u want to do the 3000 questions that will prove to you whether you are solid for that text?

Because for me, the point of doing questions wasn't to prove I'd memorized FA, it was to effectively prepare for the exam. USMLERx questions don't help with that, IMO, because they don't really resemble the real thing - they are too straightforward and don't have the kind of 2 or 3 step reasoning of the real test.

 

[39094]

Hi guys, I'm a 4th year who has worked on USMLERx for the last several years. As a disclosure I am reimbursed for my work but can at least give some perspective on what we're doing to improve the bank. The entire bank is written by students who have just taken their exam and the questions go through a rigorous peer and faculty review process.

We've gotten a lot of feedback on how "easy" the bank is and that has been the major focus of this year's update process. We have drastically increased the number of 2 and 3 step questions in the bank and upped the difficulty level significantly. These new questions are coming online daily and we are also constantly retiring questions that are rated as poor or too easy.

I would also disagree that USMLERx is just a regurgitation of FA in question form. Authors are not given specific FA topics to cover, rather they write their questions and we then pair up appropriate facts with these questions. All questions must have primary literature to back it up, not just FA or another review book.

 

[Atomic1000]

no disrespect intended, but what are you guys doing to ensure that usmlerx is free of mistakes? Obviously with a pedigree like yours (First Aid products - used by thousands) you guys needed very little work to attract customers and to dominate the market. i dont want to try to figure out why few people use rx, what worries me the most when I hear of an association with First Aid products is the quality of the product - the errata. First Aid editors are obviously either disinterested in this fact or are doing nothing becuase unlike q-banks out there there is no competition. FA2008 is abound with errata carried over from the year before. Many of these errata were not found in older editions of FA. i have yet to buy 2009 due to this reason.

Given that students write questions errata issue becomes much more of a topic for discussion. Especially when you are talking about 2-3 step questions Somehow users are expected to report on them and things get fixed by posting some pdf file. This is kind of scary closer towards the test as one may inadvertently actually learn an incorrect fact/association just because another STUDENT! didnt notice it? Makes me think of an unfinished product that is out there just because no one has yet offered a better one.

nothing personal here. i just wanna make a point (=rant) and i really hope that you also provide some kind of an offer where one has about 2 -3 days to cancel subscription if quality is found to be below expectations.

thanks.

Hi guys, I'm a 4th year who has worked on USMLERx for the last several years. As a disclosure I am reimbursed for my work but can at least give some perspective on what we're doing to improve the bank. The entire bank is written by students who have just taken their exam and the questions go through a rigorous peer and faculty review process.

We've gotten a lot of feedback on how "easy" the bank is and that has been the major focus of this year's update process. We have drastically increased the number of 2 and 3 step questions in the bank and upped the difficulty level significantly. These new questions are coming online daily and we are also constantly retiring questions that are rated as poor or too easy.

I would also disagree that USMLERx is just a regurgitation of FA in question form. Authors are not given specific FA topics to cover, rather they write their questions and we then pair up appropriate facts with these questions. All questions must have primary literature to back it up, not just FA or another review book.

 

[39094]

no disrespect intended, but what are you guys doing to ensure that usmlerx is free of mistakes? Obviously with a pedigree like yours (First Aid products - used by thousands) you guys needed very little work to attract customers and to dominate the market. i dont want to try to figure out why few people use rx, what worries me the most when I hear of an association with First Aid products is the quality of the product - the errata. First Aid editors are obviously either disinterested in this fact or are doing nothing becuase unlike q-banks out there there is no competition. FA2008 is abound with errata carried over from the year before. Many of these errata were not found in older editions of FA. i have yet to buy 2009 due to this reason.

Given that students write questions errata issue becomes much more of a topic for discussion. Especially when you are talking about 2-3 step questions Somehow users are expected to report on them and things get fixed by posting some pdf file. This is kind of scary closer towards the test as one may inadvertently actually learn an incorrect fact/association just because another STUDENT! didnt notice it? Makes me think of an unfinished product that is out there just because no one has yet offered a better one.

nothing personal here. i just wanna make a point (=rant) and i really hope that you also provide some kind of an offer where one has about 2 -3 days to cancel subscription if quality is found to be below expectations.

thanks.

I can't speak to how the FA books are edited as I have only been involved with USMLERx. I do know that those questions go from author, to peer reviewer, to junior editor, to senior editor to faculty member, back to junior editor, senior editor and finally someone who looks them over for grammar, etc. It's a complicated process and a question is bounced around for a long time before it makes it onto the bank. All USMLERx questions can also be flagged for mistakes and we take those seriously. We collect all that data and things that are constantly being flagged are taken down and fixed.

I know we offer some sort of test drive but I don't think it gives you access to the whole question bank.

 

[Atomic1000]

I can't speak to how the FA books are edited as I have only been involved with USMLERx. I do know that those questions go from author, to peer reviewer, to junior editor, to senior editor to faculty member, back to junior editor, senior editor and finally someone who looks them over for grammar, etc. It's a complicated process and a question is bounced around for a long time before it makes it onto the bank. All USMLERx questions can also be flagged for mistakes and we take those seriously. We collect all that data and things that are constantly being flagged are taken down and fixed.

I know we offer some sort of test drive but I don't think it gives you access to the whole question bank.

thanks. when do you think you will be done with the update?

 

[Diegokikn]

When I was choosing with what Qbank start my preparation for the test (of course UW would be the first one), I didn't know whether to pick Kaplan's or Rx as the second one...
As I own the Kaplan lecture notes and Qbook, I finally decided to get Rx. I can't talk about Kaplan's Qbank but I read in these forums that Kaplan's questions somehow relies on minutiae and "direct recall of facts" rather than 2 or 3 step thinking, I realized it was true by using its Qbook and questions from their lecture notes.
I have been using Rx and I agree its questions are sometimes a direct recall from FA, even though they have some good 2-3 step thinking questions as well, I'm still pretty happy I got it since I'm just starting my preparation, I got it just as a "warm up", to know what would I be facing while I'm still in "the Bullpen" lol. I will be using it for 2 months, and then I'll go for UW for another 2 months, right before taking my test hoping to throw a perfect game... I thought it was the smartest strategy to follow.
Maybe if you don't wanna "prove u learnt FA" and want to use it as your last choice before the examn, it isn't too smart... I have felt it's easy sometimes (I'm about 62% but sometimes I get questions from topics I haven't reviewed even if I specify just what I have) but sometimes I think I know some stuff, and then I get the question wrong...
Of course when I have reviewed everything and are done with rx, I'll start UW and see how it goes, and see what areas should I improve, and improve my 2-3-4 step thiking skills as well... no question that for that UW should be the Best Qbank

 

[39094]

thanks. when do you think you will be done with the update?

Updates are continuous and new questions are being uploaded on a regular basis. We usually cycle editors in the summer/fall so we're coming down to the end of this particular batch.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Updates are continuous and new questions are being uploaded on a regular basis. We usually cycle editors in the summer/fall so we're coming down to the end of this particular batch.

Thank you for your responses. I had a rather negative experience with USMLERx, but I am glad to see that you are working hard to make it a better resource, and respect that you are willing to come on here and stand behind your product.

 

[Teee]

for anyone that used usmlerx or any other qbank, were the predicted scores representative of your actual scores?

 

[Disinence2]

Hey,

I've been using USMLERx for some extra practice questions before my course exams and its working great. There are 3 difficulty selections based on the % of people who answered that question directly. So to generalize that its all "Easy" or "Hard" might not be the best way to look at it. Some questions are really hard, some are really easy. You can pick the setting you want to do the questions on.

In terms of pure regurgitation of First Aid, There are some questions that require knowledge outside of whats in FA. Also there is an easy to use Error reporting form on the website, which hopefully people use. I haven't come across anything major yet though.

 

[maybepsych]

I am wondering how the percent on usmlerx compares to NBME/step 1 scores.

I would appreciate it if anyone is doing rx and has taken NBME's or the step would mind posting their scores.

Guess I will start.

NBME 1 before reviewing - 460 ~ 209

Have done around 30% of rx and have a 64% average. The average of everyone on all the questions I have done is 62%. For whatever reason rx is not predicting my score. They say it needs more information.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Richspiders07]

I am still wrapping up coursework, so I haven't taken an NBME yet. However, I'm around 30% through, scoring 75%, and it predicts me at 253 +/- 20.

I'll update once I'm through finals and have taken an NBME.

 

[Teee]

thanks! I am also about 30% done along with coursework, my average on the main page is 73% and average on the compositon page is 80%. my predicted is 278 +/- 20. thats just too extreme plus i repeat lots of questions...

anyone else?

 

[Redrox]

Teee, the score calculator is based off your last two weeks of tests, as I understand it. If you have been doing a substantial amount of review questions recently, your score estimation is seriously skewed.

The formula the First Aid Team gives using the main page average is:
USMLERx(%)*2.64 + 47 = USMLE 3-digit score (+/- 20 for the 95% CI)

So by that calculation, you are estimated to be a 239, not a 278. But with plus or minus 20 points in their calculation, please that number with several fistfuls of grains of salt.