UW for Shelfs or save for step II?

[PokerDoc]

I was wondering what most people do with UW this time around. I loved it on step I and I am hesitant to use it for anything other than step II prep. But if I do that, I am not really sure what to use for practice questions on all the third year shelf exams.

Is there a kaplan qbank for it or something else I am not thinking of that is of high quality that I can use in lieu of UW during the year?

Thanks

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[Depakote]

I'm taking Step II next week. I used UWorld to prep for shelf exams then reset to prep for step II and I don't regret it one bit.

I did well on the shelf exams and retained a lot of material. My UWorld scores are high the second time around (as I expected) but I'm doing well on NBME practice exams too.


My other argument would be that it's more important to score well in your third year clerkships than it is on Step 2 as third year grades probably have a higher impact on ranking you for residency (or at least offering you an interview) than your CK score.

 

[PokerDoc]

Interesting perspective, thank you for the input. I think I am going to talk to the radiology residency director at my hospital and ask him for his advice too.

 

[jackieMD2007]

Depakote is right about third-year clerkship grades meaning more than Step 2, but of course, everything counts.

To do well on shelf exams I used UWorld (especially in Medicine, Surgery and Psychiatry). We have a subscription to the online APGO questions for Ob/Gyn which I thought was most helpful for that shelf. I also liked Case Files & the NMS series (especially Surgery).

I think I used maybe 25% of UWorld during the year and I am studying for Step 2 now and it is no problem.

 

[PokerDoc]

Depakote is right about third-year clerkship grades meaning more than Step 2, but of course, everything counts.

To do well on shelf exams I used UWorld (especially in Medicine, Surgery and Psychiatry). We have a subscription to the online APGO questions for Ob/Gyn which I thought was most helpful for that shelf. I also liked Case Files & the NMS series (especially Surgery).

I think I used maybe 25% of UWorld during the year and I am studying for Step 2 now and it is no problem.

I bought NMS case files and also surgical recall which i just started reading and really enjoy. I am actually trying to convert it all into flashcards that I can pull up on my iphone so i dont have to carry the book everywhere. I can type almost as fast as i can read lol

P.S. in effort to not make another thread. does anyone have the link to board scores for each residency from the AAMC? I cant seem to find it

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

I bought NMS case files and also surgical recall which i just started reading and really enjoy. I am actually trying to convert it all into flashcards that I can pull up on my iphone so i dont have to carry the book everywhere. I can type almost as fast as i can read lol

P.S. in effort to not make another thread. does anyone have the link to board scores for each residency from the AAMC? I cant seem to find it

Pokerdoc, if you do that PLEASE share it with me . I just bought surgical recall the other day and had the same idea (but I was thinking of doing it on Anki). Anyways, if you end up turning the book into flash cards, let me know .

 

[IMGUSMLEStep1]

I bought NMS case files and also surgical recall which i just started reading and really enjoy. I am actually trying to convert it all into flashcards that I can pull up on my iphone so i dont have to carry the book everywhere. I can type almost as fast as i can read lol

P.S. in effort to not make another thread. does anyone have the link to board scores for each residency from the AAMC? I cant seem to find it

Is this what you're talking about?
http://www.aamc.org/programs/cim/chartingoutcomes.pdf

 

[Brain]

I was wondering what most people do with UW this time around. I loved it on step I and I am hesitant to use it for anything other than step II prep. But if I do that, I am not really sure what to use for practice questions on all the third year shelf exams.

Is there a kaplan qbank for it or something else I am not thinking of that is of high quality that I can use in lieu of UW during the year?

Thanks

I did UW during third year, and I credit it for why I did as well on my shelf exams as I did.

I reset it and used it again when I studied for Step 2. I did not find it too much of a problem because I had forgotten many of the questions I did at the beginning of the year (medicine was my first rotation and so I did the bulk of UW early on). I rocked Step 2 as well, so it worked for me. Good luck!

 

[PokerDoc]

I did UW during third year, and I credit it for why I did as well on my shelf exams as I did.

I reset it and used it again when I studied for Step 2. I did not find it too much of a problem because I had forgotten many of the questions I did at the beginning of the year (medicine was my first rotation and so I did the bulk of UW early on). I rocked Step 2 as well, so it worked for me. Good luck!

well then its settled.. i will do UW for shelfs! Just a couple more questions

1) Is there a list of the breakdown for how many questions there are in each rotation (i.e. surg, peds, IM, etc).

2) I was told the medicine shelf is very similar to step II.. i actually have medicine last.. I was thinking of stacking step II right behind it, maybe a week or 2 later, so I still had all that in my head.. good idea or no?

 

[wAyRadikull]

Speaking of doing UW through out rotations, are you using a review book to take notes in? or was that a step 1 thing haha

 

[Msrockssocks]

well then its settled.. i will do UW for shelfs! Just a couple more questions

1) Is there a list of the breakdown for how many questions there are in each rotation (i.e. surg, peds, IM, etc).

2) I was told the medicine shelf is very similar to step II.. i actually have medicine last.. I was thinking of stacking step II right behind it, maybe a week or 2 later, so I still had all that in my head.. good idea or no?

1. There is a breakdown, once you buy UWORLD you'll be able to see it. The majority of questions are IM and are broken down by subspecialty (Heme, GI, Cards). The remainder are divided by each core clerkship except family, which is included in the IM questions.
2. I found the medicine shelf to be much harder than Step II. If you rock it, you're definitely amply prepared. That said, you do need all the other clerkships to do well on the boards. Stacking step II right before or after the end of your third year is a great idea (took it 2 weeks before my peds shelf, had peds last). If you have medicine last, I would definitely go for it. Take an NBME practice test right after your medicine shelf, and if you don't like the score you can always delay.

For reference, I used USMLE world throughout the year and did most of the questions for each subject before each shelf. I got 80s and 90s on all the shelfs. Like I said, took Step II two weeks before the last shelf (Peds) and I'm very happy with my score. Best part? I can cruise through 4th year and focus on residency apps.
Good luck!

 

[2DEG]

I feel really stupid to ask this (I am not disputing the fact that I am really stupid) -- If you are using UW Qbank for psych, IM .. then you would need to subscribe for 6 months or more. 6 months $299 and a year subscription runs $399. So painfully expensive!

But is that what everyone is doing - subscribing for 6 months or more?

1. There is a breakdown, once you buy UWORLD you'll be able to see it. The majority of questions are IM and are broken down by subspecialty (Heme, GI, Cards). The remainder are divided by each core clerkship except family, which is included in the IM questions.
2. I found the medicine shelf to be much harder than Step II. If you rock it, you're definitely amply prepared. That said, you do need all the other clerkships to do well on the boards. Stacking step II right before or after the end of your third year is a great idea (took it 2 weeks before my peds shelf, had peds last). If you have medicine last, I would definitely go for it. Take an NBME practice test right after your medicine shelf, and if you don't like the score you can always delay.

For reference, I used USMLE world throughout the year and did most of the questions for each subject before each shelf. I got 80s and 90s on all the shelfs. Like I said, took Step II two weeks before the last shelf (Peds) and I'm very happy with my score. Best part? I can cruise through 4th year and focus on residency apps.
Good luck!

 

[PokerDoc]

I feel really stupid to ask this (I am not disputing the fact that I am really stupid) -- If you are using UW Qbank for psych, IM .. then you would need to subscribe for 6 months or more. 6 months $299 and a year subscription runs $399. So painfully expensive!

But is that what everyone is doing - subscribing for 6 months or more?

Id imagine, anyone who is using Uw for their clerkships got it for a year

 

[nogolfinsnow]

I did not use UWorld for my clerkships. On the 4 rotations I liked (IM, Peds, Fam, Surg) I scored 88 once and in the 90s 3 times. On the two I didn't like (OB, Psych) my scores were quite a bit lower. I didn't use world because 1) I'm a cheapskate and 2) I wanted to save it for Step II. However, now I don't think that either of those are great reasons. I think if I had it do do all over again I might get World for the entire year. The feedback I've heard from people is overwhelmingly positive, and I think on the rotations that you find less interesting, and thus are less inclined to read a lot on your own, World can probably keep you more involved. I just post this to let you know that it is possible to get good shelf scores without using world. But as many have pointed out, your 3rd year grades probably fall higher on the list of "important things for residency app" than your step II score, so if you feel that a question bank will help you should go for it.

 

[go lakers]

I did not use UWorld for my clerkships. On the 4 rotations I liked (IM, Peds, Fam, Surg) I scored 88 once and in the 90s 3 times. On the two I didn't like (OB, Psych) my scores were quite a bit lower. I didn't use world because 1) I'm a cheapskate and 2) I wanted to save it for Step II. However, now I don't think that either of those are great reasons. I think if I had it do do all over again I might get World for the entire year. The feedback I've heard from people is overwhelmingly positive, and I think on the rotations that you find less interesting, and thus are less inclined to read a lot on your own, World can probably keep you more involved. I just post this to let you know that it is possible to get good shelf scores without using world. But as many have pointed out, your 3rd year grades probably fall higher on the list of "important things for residency app" than your step II score, so if you feel that a question bank will help you should go for it.

I've been using it so far for ob/gyn (~200 questions). It's pretty helpful and the explanations to each question, like typical UW fashion, are quite thorough.

 

[PokerDoc]

now heres my followup question: I get UW for the year, do I use the questions over and over throughout the rotation or do I save the questions for the last 50% of the rotation as i get closer to the shelf (i.e. the last 4 of my 8 surgery weeks now).

 

[kdburton]

now heres my followup question: I get UW for the year, do I use the questions over and over throughout the rotation or do I save the questions for the last 50% of the rotation as i get closer to the shelf (i.e. the last 4 of my 8 surgery weeks now).

Here is the breakdown for the number of questions in each specialty:
[1513] Internal Medicine
[212] Obstetrics & Gynecology
[266] Pediatrics
[148] Psychiatry
[181] Surgery

So basically besides your IM rotation, if you did one set (44) of questions per night you'd finish each the specialties within one week. I generally did the USMLE questions more than one time during all rotations except for IM (just because there are so many IM ?s). But even within the IM questions there are so many questions that cover the same concept that even if you do them once you'll still effectively cover a lot of important topics twice. Since there are so few questions for all other specialties I usually spent the earlier weeks of my rotations doing other question resources (PreTest, Lange, Blueprints Q&A, etc) based on what I read here and was told from upperclassmen. Then since USMLE World is always said to be the "gold standard" for everything I would save those questions for the last week of the rotation. And FWIW I've commented on the topic in the original post in other threads before, but here is my take... After getting through 50% of USMLE World for my Step 2 studying as of right now I've only come accross a handful of questions that I actually remember the answer because I remember doing the question previously (these are usually the weird questions that <20% got correct) and keep in mind that I've done many questions multiple times throughout 3rd year. If your school is anything like mine your shelf exams will contribute a lot to your final clerkship grade, so it is important you do well on them. In fact if you look at program director surveys these grades count A LOT more than your Step 2 score. With that said, even if you think you're going to remember all the questions in USMLE World and thus would "ruin" its contribution to your Step 2 studying it makes more sense that you use UW where it counts - which in my case was during my clerkships. I never scored less than the mid-80s in terms of percentile on a shelf exam and had multiple scores in the high-90th percentile. This contributed to me getting excellent 3rd year grades.

 

[syncrhodes]

I was wondering what most people do with UW this time around. I loved it on step I and I am hesitant to use it for anything other than step II prep. But if I do that, I am not really sure what to use for practice questions on all the third year shelf exams.

Is there a kaplan qbank for it or something else I am not thinking of that is of high quality that I can use in lieu of UW during the year?

Thanks

I personally found that the Pre-Test assessments were pretty good.