Psychopathology said:
If you were down to about a week or so, and were deciding between a second stroll through HY Biochem or HY Cell & Molecular, which resource would help you prepare the most for the test you just took?
based on the test I just took, even with my general weakness in biochem and cell and molecular, I would not have spent any more time on either! I thought I had really dropped the ball by not spending more time on mol bio, but it worked out fine (at least right now I think it did).
Every moment I spent on the Goljan lectures was worth it, for in-depth understanding of fundamental topics. That is what you need to get through this beast! There is so much good stuff in there, which you don't really appreciate until you go through it in detail at the end.
This is what sticks out for me:
- NBME a much better indicator of question style than Qbank
- NBME practice test qs generally correspond to hardest q on real thing
- real thing had many more very straightforward questions
- still had plenty of convoluted and difficult qs, but they did not dominate my exam
- really had to read questions! often realize that what they are asking for is not what you assume at first glance
- ran out of time on one block, really had to move on every other to get done in time
- real thing much more straightforward in answer choices than qbank, much more clear-cut, easy calculations
- no under-representation of any particular area: I had anatomy, biochem, cell and mol, behavioral, stats proportionately; not nearly as much biochem/cell as others are reporting; all systems represented, had mostly straightforward phys, some difficult path, pharm generally straightforward. Neuro images in particular were often hard to read; there would be some fuzzy glob and you would be trying to figure out what it was.
- Bizarre repetition of topics, like 4 q on pts with acanthosis nigricans, 2 q on pinworm, 3-4 on informed consent, 2-3 on how to treat minors, 3 on Hox. A few q with coxibs as answer choices, which I didn't expect.
- plenty of eponymous names e.g. foramen of Monro, etc. Also a few bizarre and novel eponyms that I had never seen before!
)
It was so bad. I thought Qbank SUCKED as far as being representative of the test. It didn't matter if you knew the diagnosis or didn't, they didn't ask about it. They just asked some random crap...they'd give a case of a smoker/alcoholic who had kidney issues, lung issues, skin issues...so what was wrong with his heart? 
