3rd Semester advice?

[camryllionareMD]

How does one exactly tackle 3rd semester with its infamous Patho? Do we need all the books on the required list, and are there any that are not on the list that are that are must haves? I'm thinking of getting the Robbins question book in addition to the text, but am thinking of skimping on Psych and getting just the BRS for that. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

[the_punisher]

http://www.valuemd.com/st-matthews-university-school-medicine/154002-3rd-semester-books-what-do-we-need.html

[camryllionareMD]

Thanks, I was just so overwhelmed by all these books I forgot the question got answered before! Looks like I'm getting all new books, was gonna do old, but I actually got a tax return this year so it'll be a good place to spend it.

[the_punisher]

you can always look for used books at amazon.com. i know that a few $$$ wont make any difference but in times like these, you want to save whatever/where-ever you can. i would only get NEW Robbins Qbank because sometimes the used ones have answers marked. you can also download most of these books from the library website... i know that they have robbins qbank because i downloaded it for myself.

[WSUCougar]

you can always look for used books at amazon.com. i know that a few $$$ wont make any difference but in times like these, you want to save whatever/where-ever you can. i would only get NEW Robbins Qbank because sometimes the used ones have answers marked. you can also download most of these books from the library website... i know that they have robbins qbank because i downloaded it for myself.

son of a bizzzzzz......... I just bought the Robbins qbank from our bookstore, which I hate, but... I had to due to my ace being here for the break. Oh well.... I have a hard time focusing and reading the pdf textbooks anyways. I do much better when I have an actual paper copy of them.

I also got Goljan Rapid Review for Path with his audio lectures, then Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple, then Lippincott for Pharm

[aaron1483]

The only books you will need will be pathology and Psych.....for pathology get the Robbins book and just read the material he covers in lecture, for psych use fadem which is a really easy read.....as far as pharm and micro, stick to the powerpoints and you will be fine.

[camryllionareMD]

Amazon.com made a pretty penny off of me, and so my carry-on will be nice and heavy as always. I didn't know about the qbank on the library website but that's alright coz I figure I can do my questions wherever whenever.

[Pokerslut]

I found USMLE World helpful because you can pick and choose the type of questions you want. So for example if you want to practice some Pharm Cardio you can click on two tabs and choose how many questions you want to practice.

USMLE World is a Step I question bank. It was highly recommended by many on the message boards and personal friends.

I found it extremely helpful. In fact, I wish I had it for second semester.

[Future MD | DM erutuF]

I found USMLE World helpful because you can pick and choose the type of questions you want. So for example if you want to practice some Pharm Cardio you can click on two tabs and choose how many questions you want to practice.

USMLE World is a Step I question bank. It was highly recommended by many on the message boards and personal friends.

I found it extremely helpful. In fact, I wish I had it for second semester.

The cost is prohibitive to some, especially if you're going for a subscription for 4 months. I'd save it for board prep and use the Kaplan Qbanks instead for course work. There's also WebPath, and it's free.

[Pokerslut]

But the rationale why I got it earlier is I figured that I will order it sometime for board prep and instead of paying 300? for 4 months I can pay 400 and get it for one year.

I've done half of the questions and my confidence is improving. It is really easy to use and the language/explanations are well written. And the questions are challenging.

My plan is to finish all the questions this semester. Do Kaplan Q bank, which apparently is easier, and go through USMLE World one more time.

I think the cost to take STEP I is about $700? I like to think of the 400 dollars as an investment to save another $700 and the stress of having to retake an exam.

Kind of off topic but am I the only who giggles when I hear one of my classmates say "that is what Kaplan is for" when they talk about STEP I preparation. By this I mean, Kaplan is not enough and anybody who is thinking so is only setting themselves up for failure.

[camryllionareMD]

So USMLE World is $400 for a year? How much does Kaplan Qbank cost? I think I wouldn't mind at all spending $400 for a year since I'll be a 3rd semester, so I'll have the questions 'til May of '09. If anything I can forfeit an extra trip flying back to the states and spend it on that.

[Future MD | DM erutuF]

The reason I'd save UWorld for board prep is because I'd like to see questions for the 1st time while doing them at this time. After seeing questions before and remembering how your struggled through a question quite frequently stores that information to the long-term, and you'd be surprised at what you can remember. Going through UWorld a second time will artificially inflate your score, and although UWorld isn't really supposed to be predictive of your Step 1 score, I've found that people who consistenly score in the 60's and above in 50 random timed blocks should be able to pass well.

But that's just me, and some people who have scored well did do UWorld more than once. I just think that the effort can be wisely spent elsewhere during basic sciences.

[camryllionareMD]

Oh, I see. So it's one set of questions. In that case, I could just save them. I don't think $400 is that bad though. I've blown that on clothes and vacations before.

[Pokerslut]

First Aide was useful for high yield information. It had some good pneumonics for Pharm. "Loops loose calcium", Potassium STAys for K sparing Diuretics;


Micro; pay attention in class for emphasis on certain topics and in some cases she will give you heads up on what might be on the exam.

Pathology; just stay on top of lectures and don't get behind.

It always helps to study with others; but the key is finding people you mesh with-- same motivation level and ability to ask insightful questions. For example I studied last minute with a classmate quizzing each other questions and he helped me get at least 2 more questions that I wouldn't otherwise. That made the difference between a 89.3 and a 89.0. Point being every little bit helps as long as you are getting something out of your study sessions.

BTW, USMLE World is over 2,000 questions. If you want to see it before you make the plunge drop me a PM and you can check it out. You have to log on to the internet to do questions. It keeps a record of your tests and you can keep track of questions you have done before, etc.

The layout/format is the same exact as the real thing--from what I've heard from several reliable sources.

I agree that USMLE World is extra and should not replace doing Robbins questions and going over powerpoints for example for Path. USMLE World however is great for breaking up the monotony of simply reading powerpoints and Robbins questions.

[WSUCougar]

A little advice for future 3rd semester students

Don't get over confident after block 1 exams, because 2nd block exams are the "equalizer"/"bring you back to reality" exams.

Pharm Block I avg = 90%
Pharm Block II avg = 67%

I'm pretty sure a lot of people wanted to assume the fetal position in yesterday's exam. I'm not going to lie, but I contemplated it myself after realizing there was 30 minutes left and I still had 35 questions :shock:.

Luckily I passed, and now that feeling of my Aorta dissecting due to the stress of waiting for my grade has now subsided. :cool:

[azulpanther]

A little advice for future 3rd semester students

Don't get over confident after block 1 exams, because 2nd block exams are the "equalizer"/"bring you back to reality" exams.

Pharm Block I avg = 90%
Pharm Block II avg = 67%

I'm pretty sure a lot of people wanted to assume the fetal position in yesterday's exam. I'm not going to lie, but I contemplated it myself after realizing there was 30 minutes left and I still had 35 questions :shock:.

Luckily I passed, and now that feeling of my Aorta dissecting due to the stress of waiting for my grade has now subsided. :cool:


i remember block II for pharm I. boy was it horrible. I got 30 points lower on block II than what I got for the pharm shelf.

[camryllionareMD]

A little advice for future 3rd semester students

Don't get over confident after block 1 exams, because 2nd block exams are the "equalizer"/"bring you back to reality" exams.

Pharm Block I avg = 90%
Pharm Block II avg = 67%

I'm pretty sure a lot of people wanted to assume the fetal position in yesterday's exam. I'm not going to lie, but I contemplated it myself after realizing there was 30 minutes left and I still had 35 questions :shock:.

Luckily I passed, and now that feeling of my Aorta dissecting due to the stress of waiting for my grade has now subsided. :cool:
Tell me about it.
I'd also like to petition the late comers and talkers to stop so we don't get any more retaliation from profs in the form of impossible exams. In the end we're the ones that suffer.

[gschneid]

What was so difficult about it? I didn't see anything on there that they didn't talk about in class or that wasn't on the ppts. Most of it Dr. K told us would be on the test. They even gave us 5 bonus minutes.

Actually, my ranking of exams from the toughest would be: Path, Psych (because there is so much grey area in questions), Pharm, then Micro.
Coincidentally, my grades followed this ascending pattern. I guess it makes sense.

[WSUCougar]

What was so difficult about it? I didn't see anything on there that they didn't talk about in class or that wasn't on the ppts. Most of it Dr. K told us would be on the test. They even gave us 5 bonus minutes.

Actually, my ranking of exams from the toughest would be: Path, Psych (because there is so much grey area in questions), Pharm, then Micro.

I agree.... I'm not saying that I took anything for granted, I knew my stuff and ended with a decent score. I'm just saying that the "layout" of the exam is what tore us apart. We had what around 2 questions per page. We've never seen questions like that. I did Kaplan, BRS, Pretest, and ExamMaster and I never saw any questions like these. Although the answer would be a beta blocker or a cholinergic antagonist, the process of reading the half page question, then analyzing a graph, then answering a secondary question from that is what caused a lot of problems for me. Apparently an old exam leaked out, and so Dr. K changed the exam (rightfully so), if some students got an old exam and just memorized it, then they deserved everything they got when they took this exam. Remember when we were told that nearly the same percentage of the class missed "every" question, that's a sign that most people were guessing. I hear the grade distribution was horrendous, avg was a 67, but.... there was a huge gap between the grades. For the most part, you either got a score above a 70, or below a 50, not a whole lot of grades in between.

I do agree that, all of the 2nd block exams were tough. Path will always be hard, and Psych is just one that I can't wait to put behind me. I have a hard time answering subjective questions.

[gschneid]

A lot of people didn't understand the concept of "choose the best answer" on the psych exam. For instance, one of our classmates was up in arms about the systematic desensitization question with the puppy. They contended that showing young children playing with the puppy should have been an acceptable answer. But that is clearly an example of modeling and not S.D. In the real life situation you may use that as a first step in S.D. but in testing the concept, it is not correct. People read too much into the particular situations instead of just realizing they are trying to test concepts.

[camryllionareMD]

Mmmmm.... my fave would be Micro , and Psych isn't too bad either. Path was hard, but turned out okay. You get your bang for your buck there. My prob with pharm was time. I felt it was worse than Physio in regards to the amount of steps you had to go through to figure out one question. Not that I didn't know the material, just that to figure out the question in 1 min was hard for me to do. Oh well, that's what the cushion in 1st block was for.

[azulpanther]

A lot of people didn't understand the concept of "choose the best answer" on the psych exam. For instance, one of our classmates was up in arms about the systematic desensitization question with the puppy. They contended that showing young children playing with the puppy should have been an acceptable answer. But that is clearly an example of modeling and not S.D. In the real life situation you may use that as a first step in S.D. but in testing the concept, it is not correct. People read too much into the particular situations instead of just realizing they are trying to test concepts.

funny thing is that i got my highest grade in psych in the 3rd semester. ITs interesting to see how different people find different things easier or harder