What I noticed about the non First Aid step 1 and non step 1 study sources...

[SlaveOfTCMC]

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I recalled a lot of questions from my real test

( but I did not reconstruct in physically and please don't ask me for details because I don't want to be marked for suspicious activity )

Anything that was not in first aid step 1 or world, other qbanks, high yield , or Brs

Basically anything clinically oriented


Was literally all in First Aid Family medicinE, first aid step 2 CS, Kaplan CS sources and first aid internal medicine

Bates physical exam isn't too shabby either


Bottom line? I should have used those sources more stringently than I did

 

[Vertices]

I'm intrigued by this, but would appreciate some clarification. 3 questions...

Are you saying that there are questions on Step 1 that would be easier to answer having studied texts geared toward rotations and Step 2 because they present the material with more focus on clinical context, or because the material on the test was completely beyond the books made for Step 1? I could see how Step 2 books might make difficult concepts seem really simple in terms of the Step 1 questions.

How much material/questions are we talking about...just a few?

And which of those books would you choose if you could only choose one? Because it seems like I will have my hands full with the regular Step 1 study material, so maybe I could supplement that with ONE of those books, but certainly not multiple books.

Appreciate any feedback, thanks!

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

Wel I cannot give you exact numbers

But in terms of gut feeling


I would say about 75-80% of the questions were straight up first aid step 1 and other step 1 review books

If you knew these books cold you would get these no problem

The remaining questions were clinical questions

What I mean is that there were "difficult interviews", various new physician-patient interviews, and a bunch of basic science questions based on clinical topics

Basically if you recallEd your art of medicine course and guest clinical lecturers during the school year and thought " oh this is low yield pointless nonsense..."

( which is what I thought)

Then you may be kicking yourself after the test

Ultimately these questions can be reasoned out (some cannot) butif you recall the material or looked at the clinical review books and gained the conviction to answer the question confidentially then you will

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

Moreover I used Brattons Family Medicine board review qbank when preparing for my schools tests


And after step 1 I thought ....

I'm glad I did those but I wish I could have paid more attention

 

[fahimaz7]

I still think that first aid has 95% of the test material, and that adding another 1500 pages of dense text is a recipe for disaster.

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

If it had 95% of it wouldn't more people be scoring 95% raw score thus totally eliminTing the normal curve?

 

[dude1344]

If it had 95% of it wouldn't more people be scoring 95% raw score thus totally eliminTing the normal curve?

That's assuming everyone can know everything in FA... which of course you know is untrue.

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

Another comment: sorry for spamming posts but I am on a smartphone and cannot edit as easily

There a number of retooled nbme questions

If not cosmetic changes, then they took the main idea of a question and asked a different aspect of it

(for example i the nbme question asked about pathophysiology of a disorder , the real test may ask for treatment

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

That's assuming everyone can know everything in FA... which of course you know is untrue.

It doesn't require Genius just maniacal dedication

 

[dude1344]

Another comment: sorry for spamming posts but I am on a smartphone and cannot edit as easily

There a number of retooled nbme questions

If not cosmetic changes, then they took the main idea of a question and asked a different aspect of it

(for example i the nbme question asked about pathophysiology of a disorder , the real test may ask for treatment

sounds reasonable to me. I mean, there's only a certain number of commonly studied diseases. 🙂

 

[speedyk]

I still think that first aid has 95% of the test material

No way. 1st aid has barely any anatomy in it at all for starters. It's also skimpy on behavioral sciences. Also my step exam had several step 2 type questions about clinical priorities which 1st aid doesn't even cover. I also had 4 stains mentioned on my exam in micro which were not covered in 1st aid and some embryo.

 

[jfgavina]

Can you tell us what book would be more HY for step 1?

first aid internal medicine?
first aid step 2?

what would you recommend?

 

[SeekerOfTheTree]

No way. 1st aid has barely any anatomy in it at all for starters. It's also skimpy on behavioral sciences. Also my step exam had several step 2 type questions about clinical priorities which 1st aid doesn't even cover. I also had 4 stains mentioned on my exam in micro which were not covered in 1st aid and some embryo.

Are you sure they didn't just put the cultures on to throw you off? Were they necessary to answer the qs?

 

[Mace1370]

Are you sure they didn't just put the cultures on to throw you off? Were they necessary to answer the qs?

I can't speak for speedy, but I had a question with 5 answer choices of different stains. I had heard of two of the five, and they definitely weren't the right answer.

 

[SeekerOfTheTree]

I can't speak for speedy, but I had a question with 5 answer choices of different stains. I had heard of two of the five, and they definitely weren't the right answer.

Dang. That's sucky.

 

[jfgavina]

Can you tell us what book would be more HY for step 1?

first aid internal medicine?
first aid step 2?

what would you recommend?

someone, please?

thanks

 

[dozitgetchahi]

Wel I cannot give you exact numbers

But in terms of gut feeling


I would say about 75-80% of the questions were straight up first aid step 1 and other step 1 review books

If you knew these books cold you would get these no problem

The remaining questions were clinical questions

What I mean is that there were "difficult interviews", various new physician-patient interviews, and a bunch of basic science questions based on clinical topics

Basically if you recallEd your art of medicine course and guest clinical lecturers during the school year and thought " oh this is low yield pointless nonsense..."

( which is what I thought)

Then you may be kicking yourself after the test

Ultimately these questions can be reasoned out (some cannot) butif you recall the material or looked at the clinical review books and gained the conviction to answer the question confidentially then you will

Ok, so with regards to the "difficult interviews" I thought my ethics class helped me a lot with some points that weren't in FA and/or the kaplan qbank ethics qs (qbank's ethics questions are arguably the best of the 4 major question banks - it's the one area in which qbank is clearly out on top).

As for the step 2 clinical material - I'm not sure I agree with you. I used Step-Up to Medicine as a supplemental source for my clinical med blocks and I'm not sure that it bought me any additional points.

For clinical-type anatomy, I definitely recommend these websites:

http://www.med.wayne.edu/diagradiology/anatomy_modules/Page1.html
(Helped immensely with CTs - doubt I would have gotten those right w/o it.)

http://usmle.8m.net/
(More radiology/anatomy stuff.)

http://www.learningradiology.com/medstudents/22 Musts Flash/22_must_see_diagnoses.html
(Super valuable - seemed esoteric at first, but there were a few repeats on the real thing.)

- Webpath (including the quiz questions!)

- I also made a Powerpoint of whatever slides/pedigrees/random junk I didn't know as I was going through the question banks. This proved to be quite useful too.

 

[bbydoc]

For clinical-type anatomy, I definitely recommend these websites:

http://www.med.wayne.edu/diagradiology/anatomy_modules/Page1.html
(Helped immensely with CTs - doubt I would have gotten those right w/o it.)

http://usmle.8m.net/
(More radiology/anatomy stuff.)

http://www.learningradiology.com/medstudents/22 Musts Flash/22_must_see_diagnoses.html
(Super valuable - seemed esoteric at first, but there were a few repeats on the real thing.)

- Webpath (including the quiz questions!)

- I also made a Powerpoint of whatever slides/pedigrees/random junk I didn't know as I was going through the question banks. This proved to be quite useful too.

thanks a lot for the links!

 

[SlaveOfTCMC]

Then let's agree to disagree


Anyway, remember, the extraneous sources I mentioned are not High Yield by any stretch of the imagination.

THey merely take out the "oh no, I didn't see this before! It MUST be experimental" nature of a select # of the questions.

 

[winkleweizen]

No way. 1st aid has barely any anatomy in it at all for starters. It's also skimpy on behavioral sciences. Also my step exam had several step 2 type questions about clinical priorities which 1st aid doesn't even cover. I also had 4 stains mentioned on my exam in micro which were not covered in 1st aid and some embryo.

So say you had 5 or 6 anatomy questions that werent in first aid (i think proably on the high side for what anyone would get on the step.), several step 2 questions=3, and then 4 stains...thats 13 questions or like 4% of step 1 😉