Uworld self-assessment

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soccerpunk60

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hey everybody, just quick question. i bought these 2 self-assessments from uworld along with the Qbank. has anyone heard anything about them? are they full length tests? are they better/worse than doing an NBME? any help is much appreciated. thanks!
 
hey everybody, just quick question. i bought these 2 self-assessments from uworld along with the Qbank. has anyone heard anything about them? are they full length tests? are they better/worse than doing an NBME? any help is much appreciated. thanks!

1. They are not full length, they are 200 questions, just like the NBMEs.

2. I don't know about better/worse, but they:
-Are generally considered "harder" than NBMEs, but are graded on an easier curve. Whether or not this overpredicts as SDN has it, I'm not really sure.
-Use the FRED v2 software, so it's more like your actual test day experience. The practice NBMEs use the old interface.
-Provide answers and explanations, unlike NBMEs.

For what it's worth, I've only done 2 practice NBMEs, and in 1 UWSA there were several questions that were direct repeats from those NBMEs, so it was nice to actually get an answer for them. Maybe I'll get lucky and those will repeat themselves on the real thing. Doubtful, but I have heard of people seeing questions either exactly like or very similar to their UWSA questions.
 
I took one today, after taking a couple of the NMBEs and it felt MUCH MUCH harder. Much more of the Uworld style clinical scenario and then 2 choices which seem equally correct. That being said, the scoring (to me) seemed more lenient. Doing the questions plus going over the answers will feel long enough, believe me.
 
To those who have taken NBME's and UWSA's, would you say the UWSA exams are pretty good score predictors relative to your NBME scores? With 4.5 weeks to study, I want to take two practice tests, but the NBME's seem like a waste of time because they don't even let you review the questions. But then again they seem to be gold standard for score prediction....
 
To those who have taken NBME's and UWSA's, would you say the UWSA exams are pretty good score predictors relative to your NBME scores? With 4.5 weeks to study, I want to take two practice tests, but the NBME's seem like a waste of time because they don't even let you review the questions. But then again they seem to be gold standard for score prediction....


This doesn't directly answer your question, but I chose to do an NMBE for my first practice exam before starting my all-out studying, because I really had no desire to sit there and sift through explanations afterwards, I just wanted a rough estimate of where I stood, no more no less.

Maybe take a UWSA during the first couple weeks while you still have time to go through explanations. I'm guessing that as the test day approaches, you'll have less patience for that (although it is UW, so the explanations are great), and maybe you'd benefit more from just a quick run through of an NMBE to make sure you're not showing up to a gunfight with a knife.
 
To those who have taken NBME's and UWSA's, would you say the UWSA exams are pretty good score predictors relative to your NBME scores? With 4.5 weeks to study, I want to take two practice tests, but the NBME's seem like a waste of time because they don't even let you review the questions. But then again they seem to be gold standard for score prediction....

I have about the same time as you and plan to take one of the UWSA's next week plus # 2 few days thereon and NBME 7 closer to test day- wanna take UWSA's earlier cuz you can actually learn so much from em and gauge your weaknesses to work on.
 
Do you think these are worth the extra money? Esp if I'm working and short on time? I don't even know if I can get through all the UWorld questions.
 
I took UW #2 yesterday, it was HARD.. and i have 4 weeks left of studying.. (see the post made by me on the first page for my feelings about it) But on the flipside you're basically paying $30 for 2 high quality tests and you get to see the explanations just like you do in the actual qbank so to me its a no brainer to get them.

I dont think sacrificing an NBME exam for a UW exam is a bad move.


http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=733857
 
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