What do you recommend for Gross Anatomy apart from Kaplan Anatomy and Q bank qs......HY or BRS Gross Anatomy and also for Behavior Science...(BRS vs HY)...Thank you
Well, this is a question with no clear single answer, I'll try to explain few facts and few options and you may pick up what fits you the best depending on your own circumstances:
FACTS:
Studying Gross anatomy is a delicate balance because you don't want to spend to much time and effort on something that is not highly tested while affecting your performance on the other disciplines of higher importance. on the other hand you want to score as high as you can, thus you want to lose less and less questions for wrong answers as possible during the real test.
Gross anatomy is not so heavily tested and pure anatomy questions were not so many during the vast majority of the experiences I have seen including my own test.
Gross anatomy is really bulky and to master it you may have to study a 600+ pages text book.
In my real test the pure Gross anatomy questions were new to me and I have never encountered such question during my whole preparation period, more over, I am an old graduate, I have studied Gross Anatomy almost 10 years ago, So I think if someone has just recently done this subject at college so he/ she would definitely perform much better than I did.
From the above BULKY and NOT heavily tested ====> Spending more time and effort on preparing for the gross anatomy questions does not necessarily mean a much higher performance in this discipline in the real test, and more over a much higher performance at Gross anatomy does not necessarily means a much higher score. ( While The opposite is true for subjects like Pathology, physiology. Pharmacology .. the more effort the higher performance and the higher score, is just in almost a linear correlation)
OPTIONS
1.Stick to the most common and the general knowledge provided by the most commonly used preparation materials like Kaplan lecture notes, UWorld. if you master those you will end up with at least a decent performance. And this way you can make use of the extra time to master other subjects that you can make sure that you will perform better and score higher by putting more effort on them.
2. Push it a bit further and study a good review book that contain extra details that you don't find in the most commonly used study materials mentioned in the first options... I think this is the most balanced way to do it, having extra knowledge without wasting too much time of low yield information.
3.Push it hard and go a head to study a bulky text book.. Generally I don't recommend doing that, Generally I don't recommend doing any bulky text during the review preparation period.
ALL IN ALL
Do Kaplan and UWorld and if you have the ability and the time to push it a bit further try to add on one of the recommended review books like HY Gross anatomy, or another resource that covers the material in a concise, USMLE questions targeted way.
Try to concentrate on CTs and MRIs for the different parts of the body Head and Neck, Abdomen and pelvis, and lower limbs those are very high yield to do, train to know the different structures directly from the radiology image.
Always keep it balanced, so that you reach the highest score possible not just to perform high in one of the discipline, remember after all we are all studying for the score. meaning any information that is not USMLE important is worthless during the review period.
Sorry for not having a direct answer for you question, But hopefully this reply can help.
I can't say much about behavioral science but I found that Kaplan lecture notes + the amazing Dr. Dautry's videos are great for the concepts and UWorld questions will do the rest.. all you have to add is Dr. Fischer's book for Master the Board for Ethics.. The other books you mentioned may be even better but I can't tell because I have no idea about them.
GOOD LUCK
, oh well I am hoping for the best
