[ashishkabir]

Hi there - is anyone else finding that the Kaplan qbank questions that are in the current qbank, not so much the one from like a year ago but the one that is available now, are super difficult compared to earlier questions? I just signed up for UW as well and I find that the UW questions are about the same if not slightly lower difficulty than the recent Kaplan questions...

Maybe it has to do with my level of prep... I'm a little confused so I thought I'd post..

Also, anyone else find Wikitestprep fairly direct sometimes?

Whenever I see questions that are direct or not multi step reasoning, I worry they are not USMLE level... On that note - are the old NBME forms still valid for gauging your performance on the USMLE? Weren't they written a couple of years ago? The exam has changed since right?

 

[Kabutar111]

A friend just cleared the exam he told me that level of exam was quite different from last years and was bit hard than normal pattern of USMLE

 

[khanar]

I agree

Hi there - is anyone else finding that the Kaplan qbank questions that are in the current qbank, not so much the one from like a year ago but the one that is available now, are super difficult compared to earlier questions? I just signed up for UW as well and I find that the UW questions are about the same if not slightly lower difficulty than the recent Kaplan questions...

Maybe it has to do with my level of prep... I'm a little confused so I thought I'd post..

Also, anyone else find Wikitestprep fairly direct sometimes?

Whenever I see questions that are direct or not multi step reasoning, I worry they are not USMLE level... On that note - are the old NBME forms still valid for gauging your performance on the USMLE? Weren't they written a couple of years ago? The exam has changed since right?

Yes, I agree with whatever you said.
Kaplan Qbank has been changed dramatically within the last 6 months and the evidence for that is that most of the questions do not show the percentage of students who answered them correctly they say "we are still gathering info" which means that question is new and most of their questions are now in that category.

I guess they realized that USMLEWorld is better than them simply because it is more difficult and that's why they want to show their muscles now and be more difficult than UW.

Also, you are right Wikitestprep has lot of direct questions. But I heard that in the real exam you do get such direct "untwisted" questions but they don't constitute a big percentage.

 

[rasheed]

Kaplan getting more difficult

I guess they realized that USMLEWorld is better than them simple because it is more difficult and that's why they want to show their muscles now and be more difficult than UW.

More on that point here
http://www.usmle-forums.com/usmle-articles/2293-kaplan-uworld-race-goes.html

 

[rasheed]

Regarding the validity of the NBME

On that note - are the old NBME forms still valid for gauging your performance on the USMLE? Weren't they written a couple of years ago? The exam has changed since right?

The exam format and style might have changed recently but the topics, the content, and most importantly the level of difficulty have remained the same.
Therefore, I still think that the NBME is an excellent predictor of your performance.
Furthermore, the new NBME form 7 is not that old it has been released six or seven months ago.

 

[ashishkabir]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! Glad to know I'm not alone... Dr. Rasheed thanks for the link and suggestions... I agree completely that UW and Kaplan neither approximate the real exam perfectly and in all likelihood the NBME is closest to the real exams..

I'll leave Form 7 till a week before the exam but I'm going to try and do some of the other forms beforehand to truely gauge performance. As I near exam day, I worry more and more that I am using the wrong material or focusing on the wrong points or of course, procrastinating too much but it's good to have the advice and suggestions of other forum members.

Thanks again!