Which boards resource is overrated?
Started by slowthai
I found Sketchy to be extraordinarily overrated. It didn't help me at all. Having said that I don't really consider myself to be a visual learner so for people who do I can see how it would be very helpful. And I might get some heat for this but although I do think Zanki it a good resource, I don't think it's the end-all-be-all that people make it out to be. If I had to do it all again I would probably spend much more time on practice questions and maybe do one or two more question banks rather than trying to do as much of Zanki as possible.
What heretic put BnB?
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I honestly love all of them . I am a very visual person so for me sketchy is a god sent .
I know, right ?🙂))) I wouldn’t survive medical school without it . Hahahahaha
BnB for me, in my opinion, it's good, but not great. Some sections are amazing and some are meh imo. I'm viewing this more from a first pass perspective though. BnB seems like it would be incredible for reviewing/refreshing. I think as a whole it's the most complete by far, but Costanzo, Pathoma, and Sketchy combo >>> BnB (again for primary learning, obviously if you're reviewing you might not have that much time).
Sketchy would be grossly overrated if someone isn't a visual learner, but I love it. Also rarely to never use FA (again, not talking about during dedicated).
Sketchy would be grossly overrated if someone isn't a visual learner, but I love it. Also rarely to never use FA (again, not talking about during dedicated).
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Those are all solid IMO. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of kaplan
What does everyone mean by costanzo? The book?
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sketchy and anki, years later i still conjure up images of the sketch to answer questions, yes it deteriorates, but so does all information you dont use often.
Yep this is what I have Physiology - 6th Edition. It's a physiology book that is written in an extremely easy way to understand (in the preface she says she wrote it specifically for med students). It's not a super concise thing like most board resources are, it flows really well and she hits some things multiple times.
Definitely not for everyone, but taught me physio so well (and the cards in Zanki are made from costanzo, so it was a super easy workflow). There is also BRS Physio, also written by her in bullet point format.
I loved the BRS biochem questions. Just ordered physio. I don’t super learn well from just reading textbooks but I liked BRS.
Sketchy is best accomplished by doing the Anki cards and either watching the vids once or not at all. Excellent resource but final pics plus a symbol key would have been better than most of the videos.
I maintain that using sketchy as they intended is a huge waste of time compared to watching once at 2x plus Anki to actually memorize the sketches.
I maintain that using sketchy as they intended is a huge waste of time compared to watching once at 2x plus Anki to actually memorize the sketches.
Brs physio is amazing (for class and boards)
BnB is over-rated. it's not detailed enough as a primary resource, and it's not as good as anki for retaining the high-yield points
FA. Has a near cult following, yet is really just the bare bones basics and lacks stuff you do need to know,
The bareness of the slides and the monotone narration make going through BnB a real slog for me. I gave up on watching the BnB lectures and now just use the slides as supplements to First Aid.
Can't vote; all of those are great resources. I would vote Sketchy Path if it was up there
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My wife showed me sketchy pharm, wasn’t impressed. Surprised pic monic isn’t talked about more on the forum. It was such a great resource to learn micro and pharm. 6 years later I still remember the photos! (No, I do not work for the company lol). However it worked wonders!
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I’m guessing you mean picmonic lol. I’ve tried it. It was okay.
Haha as a member of the FA cult following I’ll say it is good for what it is meant to do.
I’m usually happy enough with how my school does things but the bugs would’ve been impossible to learn from just the lecture slides without
FA (+/- Sketchy).
A lot of people think it's overrated, trust me, lol
This is exactly how I do it. lolnotacop + Zanki pharm and 2x the vids, that's it.
To be honest with you guys, I don't think any of these resources are overrated. They all serve their purposes well. I will say that I do struggle with BnB. People always say that he just reads off of FA, lol. I can't verify that because I don't own a copy, nor do I care to check. The thing is that he hardly makes things "click" for me relative to the amount of time I spend watching him (almost every single day). The depth (that I'm looking for) just doesn't seem to be there. They say that Physeo does better at this. I may end up using it later on, so we'll see.
This is my rating of all the resources.
Pathoma: 9.5/10
Sketchy micro: 8.5/10
Sketchy Pharm: 7.5/10 (Points off for the girl's voice and not only terrible, but distracting jokes lol)
BnB: 7/10
This is my rating of all the resources.
Pathoma: 9.5/10
Sketchy micro: 8.5/10
Sketchy Pharm: 7.5/10 (Points off for the girl's voice and not only terrible, but distracting jokes lol)
BnB: 7/10
It’s not overrated, it’s just misused. It’s not supposed to be the be all end all. It’s supposed to be a condensed resource of the bare minimum you need to know and then you annotate and fill in the gaps. If all you do is memorize first aid, you will be missing a lot.
I can’t say I think pathoma is much better than BnB. I have watched both and find that I mostly get what’s in pathoma in BnB. And a few of his videos have had incorrect info (well, either he was incorrect or BnB, uptodate, FA, and Robbins were all wrong lol). I know every resource is going to have errata but I guess I just don’t see what’s so much better about pathoma than BnB.
Pathoma just makes everything make so much more sense. He truly connects the dots and removes the veil, so the speak. I'm just in awe of his teaching ability. He truly inspires me, lol. BnB just feels like he does more surface level explanations. That's the best way I can describe it, lol
lol I do enjoy his videos. Maybe I'll try out doing pathoma and Costanzo for a bit and see how I like it.
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Suggest putting in an answer for: none of the above
Each resource is excellent in its own way
Each resource is excellent in its own way
The question is overrated. It can be a good resource but be overrated.
ahaha damn auto correct, yes picmonic. will edit
Zanki.
*jumps in foxhole*
*jumps in foxhole*
Or not if you're just doing NBMEs and boards...
Can confirm. Attempted to use it, hated it. Life improved when I gave myself permission to not use the “bible “.
Agreed. I switched to cheesy lightyear because I thought zanki was lacking. LY is way better, but it still not some holy grail. I have to add my own cards for stuff it doesn’t even cover.
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A couple are inexcusably bad tho. The macrolides vid was garbage... dad-jokey Thee Olden Thymes narration coupled with a dark drawing where objects were hard to discriminate between
That said you still have lots of quality videos like Class I antiarrhythmics and adrenergic agonists so I like the resource overall
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Truly blasphemous.
I didn't use BnB much until dedicated, where I watched a handful of videos on stuff I felt weaker on. I wasn't a huge fan...it was a nice refresher, but I don't think I would've enjoyed using it while actually in school. Also agree with others here. I watched the Sketchy pharm videos on like 2x and then just did the Anki cards, I probably could have forgone watching the videos themselves all together as all you really need is the final image + flashcards.
It's still better than the 100 slide lectures clinicians give lol
Okay, just got BRS phys and path in the mail. They look nice.
Quick question for everyone, those preparing for Step 1 and those done with Step 1 - do you guys find that the third-party USMLE materials are a great supplement for med school content? Such that if you didn't have to take the boards, you'd still supplement your study with one or more of the prep materials?
@AnatomyGrey12
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@AnatomyGrey12
@Lucca
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Absolutely without a doubt. Even if step 1 wasn't a thing I have zero regret with how I essentially did one half-assed pass of school material right before each test after actually learning everything from good resources.
Honestly, school lectures are the supplement, lol. Boards resources are the foundation. 10/10 I'd do it again if step was p/f for me.
Oh my. What a burn
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