Undoubtedly, the two most popular qbanks in USMLE preparation are
Kaplan Qbank and
USMLEWorld. These two companies have been thriving on our pockets for quite a while now.
And it seems that the best way to attract the idiot "Genius" students is by simply increasing the questions difficulty. The more the bank is difficult the more its perceived as better. This is human nature, they always go for the challenge.
So our two buddies have been upping their difficulty levels year after year to the point that a race has developed behind the doors.
However, they tackle this issue quite differently.
Kaplan, always inserting questions about "never-heard-of" facts. They find the rarest possible syndrome and the latest journal update and put it there. It seems working, coz people will say "wow, I never knew that".
UW, on the other hand, seems to stick to the high yield topics. So their method of increasing the difficulty is by making the most ever twisted, screwed, spiraled, wiggled, and zigzag thought processing in order to inflict mind bogging! It also seems working. coz people will say "wow, am so stupid not to answer that question".
In reality, none of these strategies is being followed by our "uncles" in the NBME. Yes, there are difficult questions in the real exam but they are not difficult in that sense, they are difficult in the sense of "Rarest of common and Commonest of Rare". So they'll ask you about the weirdest thing you'll ever imagine in a diabetic patient, yet they'll ask you a very simple superficial fact about a very rare syndrome such as I-cell disease.
And so my friends let's keep watching this interesting race and see who wins!
Post your thoughts about this ...
Btw, you are absolutely right about the strategy of each question bank, as well as their correlation to the real thing.
