Which question banks teach/offer best explanations?

[esposo]

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Which q-banks did you feel offer the best and most complete explanations? I'm doing the First Aid 1000 Q/A book and the explanations are great. They explain why each answer choice is wrong and the writing is concise and clear. I know those questions are easy but I'm using questions to learn the material as opposed to testing myself.

I heard USMLEworld is great for teaching. Are their explanations well written or just lengthy? I don't mind if answers are long if they are well written. I feel the First Aid authors of USMLErx are good writers and can explain concepts well.

I heard the Board Simulartor Series offers the most difficult and unrealistic questions but teaches concepts well. Are the explanations well written or just verbose and lengthy.

 

[smalley]

i find uw explns very good.....really helps in clearing the concepts......
dont know about bss..

 

[beastmaster]

UW explanations are mostly verbose. Despite the praises here, the explanations are pretty bad. The 1-2 sentence "objective" at the bottom make up for it. The questions though, are more than worth it, and I've been more than happy to just hop out of the java applet and into my online robbins or katzung or whatever for my own explanation before ever looking at theirs.

Most of their questions are referenced to lange micro/pharm, robbins, and the pictures are from images.md... so just go to the source and get a much better written explanation.

BSS explanations are #1, I used to occasionally read them like study material without even looking at the questions. Many are written by G man so what do you expect. Kaplan would probably be #2. UW is not as well written, but not the worst out there.

 

[domer621]

UW explanations are the best, in my experience. They remind me of BSS explanations, except UWorld uses lots of diagrams to explain further.
I think beastmaster is the first person on here who has not thought that UWorld explanations were better than Kaplan.
I'm not impressed with explanations from Kaplan QBank.

 

[SkylineMD]

I haven't had any experience with BSS but I think the explanations from UW are pretty good. I don't think i've run across any sort of explanation that resemble's some that Kaplan's qbank uses: "Choices A and B make no sense / are nonsense".

 

[esposo]

Thanks for the feedback so between BSS and USMLEworld, which is better in your opinion?

 

[cdql]

I've gone through about half of Kaplan's Qbank thus far. Very disappointing in terms of explanations but I'm going to continue with it as I keep hearing its the "gold standard" of test banks among students and past students at my school.

I'm probably going to subscribe to USMLEWorld as well and see how much I can get through as it seems to be the test bank of choice among students on this board.

No idea yet if I'll have the time or motivation to move onto USMLErx (While it comes with great explanations, I've heard this bank is too easy) or BSS (No experience whatsoever with this one).

 

[esposo]

I've gone through about half of Kaplan's Qbank thus far. Very disappointing in terms of explanations but I'm going to continue with it as I keep hearing its the "gold standard" of test banks among students and past students at my school.

I'm probably going to subscribe to USMLEWorld as well and see how much I can get through as it seems to be the test bank of choice among students on this board.

No idea yet if I'll have the time or motivation to move onto USMLErx (While it comes with great explanations, I've heard this bank is too easy) or BSS (No experience whatsoever with this one).

Let me know what you think of USMLEworld. You can post your feedback on this thread. If you like it, I'll probably check it out myself.

USMLErx is great for teaching and I don't think that point has been made. All I've read is how horrible it is and that's far from the truth. Yes, it's easy so if one is trying to guague his or her abilities, I wouldn't subscribe to it. If you are a student like me who learns from doing a lot of questions, it's gold!

 

[mudphudwannabe]

I agree that UW explanations are great. I haven't used Kaplan, so I can't compare, but UW usually give a little paragraph explaining why the right answer is right -- the important points of the pathophys, etc, and then a sentence for each incorrect answer explaining why it was wrong or in what situation this answer would apply (if it's one of those random answers that you might pick if you guessed but really doesn't make any sense). They are to the point but have enough detail that I haven't felt to need to consult another source to understand the concepts.

 

[esposo]

I agree that UW explanations are great. I haven't used Kaplan, so I can't compare, but UW usually give a little paragraph explaining why the right answer is right -- the important points of the pathophys, etc, and then a sentence for each incorrect answer explaining why it was wrong or in what situation this answer would apply (if it's one of those random answers that you might pick if you guessed but really doesn't make any sense). They are to the point but have enough detail that I haven't felt to need to consult another source to understand the concepts.

That's good to know. Some people were saying the explanations were really long like 2-3 paragraphs long

 

[mudphudwannabe]

I guess looking at some of the explanations, they are technically 2-3 paragraphs..but the paragraphs are usually short, like 3 sentences each. Some of the explanations are a bit longer, but I think it is worth your while to read them. Each sentence is a potentially testable piece of information, so they're not just wasting words. In my opinion, it's better to have a more detailed explanation than to be left wondering and have to look up explanations in a separate source. You can always skim or just read the "Educational Objective" at the end, which is a 2 sentence summary of the key purpose of the question.

 

[abhishek1003]

Thanks for the feedback so between BSS and USMLEworld, which is better in your opinion?

are we talking about the BSS cd-rom or book? i haven't touched the book but I have a set from like 2000.

thanks.

 

[craigkes]

We have been hearing how the UWorld is so much closer to the "real deal" than kaplan's QBank is. Would someone explain how the questions are closer to the real thing as compared to kaplan (maybe an example of a question). Does kaplan ask to many nitpicky details? Is the test more straightforward than kaplan leads us to believe? I am just curious if I should be waisting my time with the kaplan qbank. Thanks.

 

[cdql]

So is the common consensus that students should go with Qbank and USMLEWorld? (if they have the time of course)