How to prepare for Drug Advertisements and Research Abstracts CK Questions

[saleemfr86]

I have a question regarding the new type of drug ads and research articles/abstracts questions in usmle step 2 ck appearing in August, How can we practice for such questions?

and does studying for Epidemiology and biostatistics is enough to handle these questions in the exam?

I searched the net but unfortunately I got nothing concerning this problem, but I think Kaplan does have plan for that but of course not for us i.e home studying dudes and it might be only for their CenterPrep.

Any way can you guys help about it.

Thank you

[StepTaker]

For drug ads check this link
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesFo...ng/default.htm

For article abstracts check this link
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/706399_2

Also your biostatistics and epidemiology prep should help you a lot in tackling both types of these questions.

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[saleemfr86]

Very helpful, thank you

[witecloud]

Hi. This link might help you guys regarding drug ads.
Best of luck to you all!

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesFo...ng/default.htm

[aksyonez]

Can someone explain to me the new abstracts that will be on the test because i don t get it. Will there actually be abstracts we have to read during the exam?
I m confused

[busterbee]

yes dude...we'l have ad and abstract question in exam..my exam is in oct..i dont know how to command on these Q..uw has few questions and they are a little difficuilt....
when is your exam

[aksyonez]

I am doing UW right now i do see some abstract in the explanations, but not in the questions, this is where my confusion lies . My exam is for october , this is a source of stress for me i do not know wht to expect from this new format because i have seen no examples.

[step1an]

USMLE sample question have been updated to reflect the new format. You can also check these out.

I haven't started UW yet but i have heard UW has also added some new question to include the topics drug add & abstracts. So i think u might not have come across these new questions yet.

Also this might help...

Originally Posted by StepTaker

For drug ads check this link
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesFo...ng/default.htm

For article abstracts check this link
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/706399_2

Also your biostatistics and epidemiology prep should help you a lot in tackling both types of these questions.

-

[busterbee]

Originally Posted by aksyonez

I am doing UW right now i do see some abstract in the explanations, but not in the questions, this is where my confusion lies . My exam is for october , this is a source of stress for me i do not know wht to expect from this new format because i have seen no examples.

man you have the same misperception which i had...the references at the end are not the ad/abstract thing...they are articles from journal..i did them for 20 blocks..now i'm skipping them....
abstract are questions...you'l come across them soon...
they are not that tough but lenghty...

[amberafzal]

i just attempted two in one ov d uworld blocks...n ov course dint find them manageable. first ov all d biostats knwledge dat they require was beyond what kaplan provides(eg parallel and factorial design ov stuies) plus there isnt much time to go thru d abstract in detail to understand it fully..so i think in order to be able to answer them correctly, there shud be sum text dat guides us wid d basic principles and there has to be sum technique ov being able to luk at wat d question requires and ignorin d rest ov d stuff. wat do u people say? if it has been included it shud be manageable..all we have to do is to luk into d way it has to be solved..plz share ur experience and conclusions here.

[amberafzal]

Originally Posted by busterbee

man you have the same misperception which i had...the references at the end are not the ad/abstract thing...they are articles from journal..i did them for 20 blocks..now i'm skipping them....
abstract are questions...you'l come across them soon...
they are not that tough but lenghty...

did u actually find these questions easy? i did them for d first tym today n found them tuff..maybe havin 44 q in a block wid two 2 step abstract questions made it tuffer

[harlesmd]

Originally Posted by amberafzal

i just attempted two in one ov d uworld blocks...n ov course dint find them manageable. first ov all d biostats knwledge dat they require was beyond what kaplan provides(eg parallel and factorial design ov stuies) plus there isnt much time to go thru d abstract in detail to understand it fully..so i think in order to be able to answer them correctly, there shud be sum text dat guides us wid d basic principles and there has to be sum technique ov being able to luk at wat d question requires and ignorin d rest ov d stuff. wat do u people say? if it has been included it shud be manageable..all we have to do is to luk into d way it has to be solved..plz share ur experience and conclusions here.

Those questions are testing the application of biostatistics and epidemiology rather than asking you to calculate the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV etc. This type of questions are actually very relevant to our medical practice but for exam purpose, it looks hard because we have limited time to digest the abstracts / drug ads. In my opinion, Kaplan Lecture Notes for step 1 basically covers all the basic knowledge in order to answer those questions (at least the one given in USMLE world). This is my approach to tackle this question. I always read the questions first before reading the abstract to get an idea what they are going to ask so I can read specifically those section. Although at the end you have to read the whole abstract, at least you will spend more time to those section pertinent to the question which is most of the time the result part of the research and skim the rest.

[sana akbar]

i dont any any idea abt these abstract questions...i have been doin UWORLD Qbank,bt hav't come across these questions...can anyone put up an example of those abstract questions?

[busterbee]

Originally Posted by amberafzal

did u actually find these questions easy? i did them for d first tym today n found them tuff..maybe havin 44 q in a block wid two 2 step abstract questions made it tuffer

give them 2 extra minute because in exam the block with ab.ad Qs will be of 42 Qs...
to tell you the truth they are tough, the more we practice the more we learn..big thing is time managment and number of Qs we practice..uw has only 5 Qs...I did uw ad/ab questions twice, each time have to read the entire detail again....

[Fady_Saeed]

I've encountered two research abstract questions in UW till now, they are so weird, and both depends mainly on understanding of the Hazard Ratio (HR) concept, and the accompanying explanation is insufficient.
Any well explanatory resources are available?

[sana akbar]

Originally Posted by Fady_Saeed

I've encountered two research abstract questions in UW till now, they are so weird, and both depends mainly on understanding of the Hazard Ratio (HR) concept, and the accompanying explanation is insufficient.
Any well explanatory resources are available?

can you tell me,where did you find those questions?i mean which unit?

[Fady_Saeed]

Originally Posted by sana akbar

can you tell me,where did you find those questions?i mean which unit?

Internal Medicine > Biostatistics

[tima]

Hey guys,

so im trying to do these abstract/ad questions and they are tough! does anyone one know how similar these questions are to the real exam?

Thanks!

[ruraldoc]

Originally Posted by tima

Hey guys,

so im trying to do these abstract/ad questions and they are tough! does anyone one know how similar these questions are to the real exam?

Thanks!

the uworld questions are more difficult than the abstracts on the exam.. know biostats.. read the questions before you read the article. i left them for last didnt want to waste my time on 2 questions and freak myself out

[amirh899]

http://www.cche.net/text/usersguides/therapy.aspthis link is very useful. I studied this for the abstract section. The ad section requires your general knowledge and capability of interpretation. Also, the the FDA link can be somehow helpful

[sana akbar]

Originally Posted by amirh899

http://www.cche.net/text/usersguides/therapy.aspthis link is very useful. I studied this for the abstract section. The ad section requires your general knowledge and capability of interpretation. Also, the the FDA link can be somehow helpful

can u post any abstract question frm uworld ?

[Rawalian]

hey can someone please post uw abstract questions ...
my uw subscription expired before they updated it...
thanxxx

[qurat21]

Oh come on!!! why not someone post a question here? that would be great help...

[fatharrahman]

I did USMLE step 2 ck in December I was surprised by the drug ads and abstract questions they were not in any of the regular format, I can recall the questions but this will consider as irregular behavior, what I can help with is to give you some hints about the questions, first of all they were very long, I mean about three pages long, I did not dare to read the questions because of the time; but the question is spinning about regular statistics, I mean every one if you can solve them but the problem would be how to read all these information they ere very few and I guess if you ignore them they wont affect your result

[fatharrahman]

Originally Posted by Rawalian

hey can someone please post uw abstract questions ...
my uw subscription expired before they updated it...
thanxxx

You can find example in Practice Materials

But be sure they are shorter than those in the actual exam!

[Aajj]

Useful thanks

[convalescence]

Originally Posted by amberafzal

i just attempted two in one ov d uworld blocks...n ov course dint find them manageable. first ov all d biostats knwledge dat they require was beyond what kaplan provides(eg parallel and factorial design ov stuies) plus there isnt much time to go thru d abstract in detail to understand it fully..so i think in order to be able to answer them correctly, there shud be sum text dat guides us wid d basic principles and there has to be sum technique ov being able to luk at wat d question requires and ignorin d rest ov d stuff. wat do u people say? if it has been included it shud be manageable..all we have to do is to luk into d way it has to be solved..plz share ur experience and conclusions here.

how do you spell parallel and factorial design, but you can't spell 'of' and 'the' ???? that is amazing

[podebrad]

Can someone please give me the Question ID of those drug ad questions in the usmle world? I wana do it but dont remember where they were. Please help!!!!

Thanks