When do you do Question Banks?

[username456789]

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I was planning on getting the Kaplan QBank here in a few days and doing questions and annotating into my First Aid from it.

How do/did you guys work these into your daily schedules, what with actual class work and all? Some questions at night before heading to bed? In the middle of the day?

And in a more broad sense, at what point, if any, did you feel it was acceptable to worry a little more about board prep perhaps at the expense of some extra points on your class exams? In other words, was there a point where you were ok with getting a lower grade on exams because of increased focus on board prep? I know second semester M2 for most is pretty high yield stuff and realize that not giving it your all may be short-changing yourself. I'd just like ot hear some input.

 

[username456789]

Also, would anyone recommend reviewing first year course material (specifically biochem) during the year (as an M2)? I did well in biochem last year, but never had any biochem in undergrad so it was my first exposure to it and I'm not sure the retention was very good. I know it's not the highest yield subject, but I'd still like to have a head start if possible.

 

[mbf2010]

I did pretty well on step 1... I used a lot of questions. I tried to find as many as possible, and the key was not to just do the questions, but also read the answers! I think that is the key to success...

MBF

 

[footcloud]

How long does it take to generally go through the entire USMLE World Question bank? I have 3 weeks of solid study time (nothing else planned) and 7 weeks of working + study on nights/weekends (although not hardcore) so 10 weeks in the summer.

I don't want to pay for 3 months of USMLE World if it only takes like 1 month to really go through all the questions.

 

[greg1184]

I would like to add something to this thread instead of making one of my own. Did you do full blocks of questions? Or did you do fewer, but timed? I am going to start doing questions by subject on Kaplan qbank this weekend and am figuring out if I should do full blocks or not.

 

[footcloud]

I also had another question about the question banks, particularly USMLE World. How does the interface work? Can you repeat a test multiple times or can you only do it once? Can you sign on different computers at the same time?

 

[username456789]

Christ.

No offense, guys, but you're cluttering up my original questions (which have yet to be answered, really). Kind of annoying.

 

[vicinihil]

Do question banks as early as possible to study for your classes. I did that and feel its helpful in doing well. Also tests whether or not you understood the material. I'm using Kaplan Qbank for targeted organ system study right now.

1 month before my test, I'm going to get UWorld and do random 48q blocks. This way, I'm not exhausting questions from specific topics and I can get the benefit of both Qbanks as well.

As a person generously mentioned about, doing as many questions as possible will definitely help you. As to when to do questions? It doesn't really matter....you can do it while crapping, eating breakfast, lunch, in class as long as you feel like you're learning something.