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Do people use the UW Qbank to study for shelf exams during third year, or some other qbank?
UW Qbank for Shelfs?
- Thread starter SeminoleFan3
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I'd like to know the answer to this too!
Damn. Psych that hard? UWorld not that representative (I'm trying to chug through all these questions now)? Or people just dont care as much on psych?
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I bought it before my Medicine and Peds exams. I felt like it helped a lot for Peds (and was my primary study source), but not so much for Medicine. Medicine is such a broad topic that I think MKSAP better helps to hone in on what you need to know for the shelf. Can't comment about how it is for other shelfs.
Just my $0.02.
Just my $0.02.
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My school gave me a year of Kaplan for free, would I be at a major disadvantage using it instead of UW for the clinical rotations and then using UW for the month before step2? I liked UW's explanations better for step 1 but I can't wrap my head around spending another $600 when I already have kaplan . . .
Ok so it seems that most people these days are using UWorld and a review text as their only resources for Step 2 study...wouldn't using UWorld for third year shelves make it less useful for step 2? really just wondering...
to answer my own question world was pretty spot on..no clue how i did but the world was as good as it gets for it.
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I didn't use it because of this. Plus it is much cheaper to only buy it for a month during step 2 study than to buy it for a whole year. You definitely don't need UW during the year to do well on the shelf exams, but I guess if you want to be ultra prepared for the shelf and don't mind the yearly subscription fee then it is worth it. I thought it was better to save it for later, though.
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I am at this moment struggling with: Should I get UWorld for the year or save it for next summer for Step2 so it's all new and fresh? I don't care about the $400 price tag for the year, it'll be well worth it if it helps me prep. I am only worried that if I burn through it all, then I may just run through the motions next summer.
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I wanted to save it for step 2, and I didn't feel it hurt me on shelf exams (mostly in the 80's, medicine in the 90's). Who knows, maybe it will boost your score a little bit on each exam, nobody can say. One of the large reasons I chose not to is that I know UW is one of the best ways to predict how you will do on Step 2 ck (medfriends calculator) so I really wanted to save it for that so I could gauge myself. If I was performing much less than my goal score on UW, I could adjust my test date accordingly. If I had used UW during the year, let's say I was scoring 80% on UW, who knows if that was from remembering questions or knowing the information cold. To me, I think if you go through the questions again prior to CK, there won't be a problem with learning the info I think the problem will be only if you want a clear prognostication of your preparedness for the exam. I think the question bank will still be a good learning bank the second time around because you won't remember the majority of questions. But let's say you remember 5-10% of the questions. That is going to inflate your predicted score. Having said that, you can always just take NBME tests for prognostication and then the UW stats don't really matter and you can just use it for learning.
Only other point is that there are a couple hundred q's for most clerkships and about 1500 q's for medicine. I think that between doing Step Up and working on MKSAP questions, 1500 q's is just way too many considering you will be working hard on medicine. Some people swear by it though. There are many ways to skin a cat, that's the main point. My overall advice for each clerkship would be that how dedicated you are to studying will matter more than which source you choose. Good luck!
