what are your top five board review books?

[sophiejane]

I want to start using some board review books to focus my studying (I am an MS-1, but want to get a feel for the material and start understanding what is important and what is not from this fire hydrant of information spewing into my face 24/7).

I plan to take the USMLE and the COMLEX.

So let's hear it from some of the veterans of the game--preferably people who have taken at least Step I and did well (or if you didn't do well and blame it on your prep materials, tell me what books you'd steer clear of). I have First Aid for the USMLE (2003), but nothing else.

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[DrQuinn]

Biggest advice to you is to not even think about Step 1, until you are a M2, even then not until the start of your spring semester M2 year.

That being said, I used (in what order I think is important):

1999 Kaplan USMLE Review Books
Board Review Simlutor Series (I would do two of the tests in each book)
OMT Review by Savarese, the only OMM book you'll ever need.

That's it. I barely used First Aid or Step Up... I would read them superificially, and I did not memorize them like many of my classmates did.

I scored a 93%ile on COMLEX I.

Q, DO

 

[bustbones26]

Here is the deal. I agree that studying for boards is not worth the effort until you second year.

My self, I am osteopathic student. Northwest Learning offers a COMLEX review for two weeks that cost approx $1500. The course has a guarantee and if you do not pass the COMLEX they pay for you to take it again. Teh course if offered by people that make questions for the COMLEX. I know people that have taken the course and state they never would have passed without it. I also know people that failed step I, went and took tthis course, then aced their re-take!

Now here is the problem, you will have to travel to take this course. If you get enough students interested in your class, they can arrange to come to your school.

Myself, my schoool would not accomodate NOrthwest and nobody in my class was interested in the course. I didn't want to travel to take the course so what I found was Youel's prep.

Dr. Yoeul offers his course at home! What you do is buy his course and you get a videotaped session of his course sent to your home, approx. 30 videotapes. Along with this, you get two study books and a book full of sample exam questions.

Youel will prepare you for both USMLE and COMLEX minus OMM of course. If you are a DO then I can tell you that a "blue book" I think the new verson is now green called OMT review by Robertson is all you need to pass the OMM questions on your boards.

Anyways, back to Youel, he gives you a 1-800 number so if ytou hvae any questions, you can call him personally and ask him questions. This course if expensive too but worth every penny I could not have passed without it!!!

The two books that are given are approx 900 pages. In the beggining of the first videotape Dr. Youel states, "You can pass your boards if you go and read all 10,000 books in your medifcal school's library, or you can read the 900 pages I gave you.

I highly recommend this to anybody, there were so many questions on my COMLEX I just answered corretly in less than a second thanks to this course.

www.youelsprep.com

 

[sophiejane]

so you guys don't think it would be good just to focus on material on the boards as I am studying now in my classes? Seems like we get a lot of stuff that may not show up on the boards in our classes. I am just wanting to get a feel for what is important, not start preparing in earnest for the boards.

 

[Idiopathic]

I am in my second year...I am filling in both StepUp and First Aid with notes from lectures. Who knows if it will help, but I enjoy the system-based review in StepUp. Also, OMT Review by Savarese is a must.

 

[DrQuinn]

My opinion on Youel's is that it is the worst. My school offered it to us after we finished second year. I went to one lecture and was AUDI 3.0 CVT! My friends who stayed for the whole coures thought it was horrible, and they did not score nearly as well as I thought they should have.

Q, DO

 

[DOtobe]

My top 5 (I didn't do as outstanding on the COMLEX as some of my classmates, but I beat the mean, so take this for what it is worth...)

First Aid
BRS Pathology
BRS Physiology
Micro Made Ridiculously Simple
OMT Review

As for what is important during class for boards...do your professors give you any hints? At LECOM our professors always tell us "mark this as BQ, mark this as BQ" and a lot of them were right on the money. So listen and see if your professors give you any hints. But I think you can supplement your studying with some board review books as they can sometimes clarify what you may not understand in class.

 

[marchiafava]

I would say that what you use to study depends highly on what type of learner you are. If you like to do questions I would highly reccomend QBank and the pretest books as they were key for both the Comlex and USMLE. If you like to read more than definitely get First Aid or Step Up(either will be fine), BRS Pathology(An absolute must!!!!!!), Pharm recall has all the pharm that you need to know for both tests, especially the USMLE because they hardely test on pharm(that's a fact), Any micro book of your choice will suffice(MY favorite was Micro for the Boards and Wards, incredible book). I personally used many many books and took a little something from each and QBank and scored 99% on COMLEX and 240 on USMLE.