uworld passage lengths

[Hokie06]

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how does uworld qbank and nbme practice exam questions compare in length to the real thing? i'm trying to find a good balance b/w answering questions and managing time so I don't have any surprises on test day. Thanks!

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

I was wondering the same qusetion myself...


A third year told me tha the passages are more grueling overall... but he was the only one to have told me that so...

 

[MrAgreeable]

I heard longer than QBanks, but it would be highly illegal for someone to post it on here so don't expect an answer.

 

[ArcGurren]

There's a lot of myths floating around so

1. The real deal has very varied lengths of question stems. My longest was 10-11 lines plus lab values but my shortest was something like 2 or 3 lines.

2. I think the qbanks do a great job of predicting the question length. I've heard Step 2 and 3 have longer stems on an average but not as much with Step 1.

 

[ScubaStarved]

I'll never understand why so many test takers find this important. Can we find the best thread on this question and sticky it in some sort of FAQ?

How does passage length matter? What would you do with the information that the actual passages are shorter, the same length, or longer than question bank x, y, or z? What if someone could definitively tell you that the average length was 91.83 words?

One thing you should have discovered by this point is that passage length does not make the question more or less difficult and it only weakly correlates with time required to answer. My longest question stem, at 10+ lines, was a pharm question about the MOA of a psych drug. You needed NONE of the information in the stem. Conversely, some of the shortest questions are the most difficult because they require more rote memorization (sometimes of material not high yield enough to make it into review books) and less interpretation of tests and pattern recognition.

Probably the most essential "skill" of medical school should be developing your ability to quickly skim a lot of information for salient points (positive and negative) to arrive at a likely diagnosis, some alternates, and deciding on the next diagnostic and therapeutic steps. For test taking purposes, you must decide whether to read the questions and answers first or not. You probably know whether or not this step helps you. If not, test it out on UWorld, an NBME, or Kaplan Qbank. Their stems are all about the same length as the real thing.

 

[econdr]

I'll never understand why so many test takers find this important. Can we find the best thread on this question and sticky it in some sort of FAQ?

How does passage length matter? What would you do with the information that the actual passages are shorter, the same length, or longer than question bank x, y, or z? What if someone could definitively tell you that the average length was 91.83 words?

One thing you should have discovered by this point is that passage length does not make the question more or less difficult and it only weakly correlates with time required to answer. My longest question stem, at 10+ lines, was a pharm question about the MOA of a psych drug. You needed NONE of the information in the stem. Conversely, some of the shortest questions are the most difficult because they require more rote memorization (sometimes of material not high yield enough to make it into review books) and less interpretation of tests and pattern recognition.

Probably the most essential "skill" of medical school should be developing your ability to quickly skim a lot of information for salient points (positive and negative) to arrive at a likely diagnosis, some alternates, and deciding on the next diagnostic and therapeutic steps. For test taking purposes, you must decide whether to read the questions and answers first or not. You probably know whether or not this step helps you. If not, test it out on UWorld, an NBME, or Kaplan Qbank. Their stems are all about the same length as the real thing.

your reply is like a really long question stem

 

[Hokie06]

I'll never understand why so many test takers find this important. Can we find the best thread on this question and sticky it in some sort of FAQ?

How does passage length matter? What would you do with the information that the actual passages are shorter, the same length, or longer than question bank x, y, or z? What if someone could definitively tell you that the average length was 91.83 words?

One thing you should have discovered by this point is that passage length does not make the question more or less difficult and it only weakly correlates with time required to answer. My longest question stem, at 10+ lines, was a pharm question about the MOA of a psych drug. You needed NONE of the information in the stem. Conversely, some of the shortest questions are the most difficult because they require more rote memorization (sometimes of material not high yield enough to make it into review books) and less interpretation of tests and pattern recognition.

Probably the most essential "skill" of medical school should be developing your ability to quickly skim a lot of information for salient points (positive and negative) to arrive at a likely diagnosis, some alternates, and deciding on the next diagnostic and therapeutic steps. For test taking purposes, you must decide whether to read the questions and answers first or not. You probably know whether or not this step helps you. If not, test it out on UWorld, an NBME, or Kaplan Qbank. Their stems are all about the same length as the real thing.

I took your advice. I read the first and last sentence. Thank you!👍