10 BIGGEST mistakes med students make with UWorld
The following is a guest post by Med School Tutors.
At Med School Tutors, we rely heavily on UWorld in our work with students. Over the last five years, UWorld has become widely recognized as the gold standard Qbank for all steps of the USMLE. This is due primarily to the quality of its questions and rigor of its explanations. UWorld content is updated throughout the year, which keeps the Qbank incredibly current in the changing world of medicine and medical testing. Students who use UWorld achieve consistently top-flight results, but where do they go wrong?
1. Not starting UWorld early enough
Many students come to us concerned about starting questions too early. They say they're not ready to tackle a Qbank as difficult as UWorld. However, the best approach to studying is to incorporate questions early and often. Even if you have not finished all of the material five months before your exam, there will certainly be some content you've covered. Attempting difficult questions is a great way to focus your studying and highlight areas of deficiency. Try to do questions on the topics you're learning in coursework. The earlier you expose yourself to difficult case vignettes, the more efficient your question-based studying will be later on.
2. Not spending enough time reading explanations in UWorld
This may be one of the biggest and most damaging mistakes med students make when utilizing Qbanks. The true value of UWorld lies in its high-quality explanations. Doing the questions alone and skimming the explanations is NOT enough to achieve mastery of the material. UWorld is best used as a learning tool, and most of the learning happens when reviewing explanations—especially the incorrects. If there are 5 answer choices and only 1 correct answer, 80% of the content will focus on the incorrect answers. We must read all of the explanations—every word—to get the most out of the question. Med School Tutors has found that students should spend twice as long reviewing explanations as completing sets. This review includes looking up content in HY resources and making flashcards.
3. Not linking explanation review to First Aid
First Aid is the key book to use for Step 1 prep, and must be effectively integrated with Qbank review. We think about the Qbank as a tool for illuminating or animating the content in First Aid. What we've found from our own study experiences and through our extensive work with students is that linking UWorld to First Aid is an incredibly effective way to make the book content stick. This means that optimal Qbank review entails having a copy of First Aid ready to annotate.
4. Prioritizing percentage correct over learning content
Med students are data-driven individuals. We all love numbers, percentages, trends, etc. However, we fall into a trap when we allow the numerical information provided by UWorld to overwhelm the learning component. Students become overly enamored of percent correct and cumulative results, when what really matters is how much we are learning from the explanations. We cannot stress this point enough: UWorld is primarily a LEARNING tool, NOT an assessment tool. Additionally, students who focus too much on numbers are more likely to suffer study inertia. Why? Because these students are afraid to move on to the next question block until they've mastered the material. This leads to more reading, more watching of passive videos, more review of notes. Let go of your concerns about numbers! Nobody will see your percentages. Keep the focus on where it should be: learning the exam content and improving test-taking skills.
5. Working through the Qbank once only
What students often do not realize is that there is an overwhelming amount of content in this Qbank, again, found primarily in the explanations. It takes multiple passes through the Qbank to embed the key points in our minds and derive the full benefit of this wonderful learning tool. Most students do not have photographic memories (we don't either), which means that repetition is the key to learning the material.
6. Doing too many blocks on tutor mode
By overusing "tutor and timed tutor mode," and underutilizing timed mode for question blocks, you're doing yourself a real disservice. The purpose of doing questions is not just to learn material, but to rewire our brains to make them pattern-recognizing question-answering machines. We want to train our brains to be 100% "on" for an hour at a time, which is exactly what timed mode does. When we use tutor or timed tutor, we build a pattern of repeatedly throttling and braking. You will be much better served by coming out firing, answering questions for a full hour, then reviewing those 40 answered questions over the next 2 hours.
7. Using UWorld on-the-go
You find yourself with an extra 8 minutes between lectures, and decide to use that time to knock out 2 or 3 UWorld questions. While you may internalize a factoid or two during this time, you will not make significant progress in your studying. UWorld is intended to be used in a controlled study environment with 100% focus—it should simulate exam conditions. It should not be used casually for a few minutes in a noisy lecture hall, walking through the hallways, or at traffic lights.
8. Glossing over questions you hate
We can’t tell you how many students, when reviewing questions blocks with us, say something like this:
“I saw the [insert difficult and painful concept here] image, and just skipped it. I’m bad at these kinds of questions.”
The topic could be anything: histology, pressure-volume tracings, EKGs, gross pathology... you name it. Just seeing a question type like this induces tachycardia, anxiety, and the realization that the student has not yet internalized this concept. If you have a question type like this, set aside an hour or two, however long it will take to figure out the concept, and LEARN it inside and out. UWorld will help identify the question types that you hate, and should inspire you to master them. Bolster your knowledge base so that next time you see a question like this, you can conquer it with confidence instead of skipping it due to fear.
9. Postponing question blocks because you are “not ready”
A common issue that we see as tutors is students not getting around to UWorld blocks that they’ve been assigned. Postponing UWorld blocks because you haven’t mastered the subject matter is no excuse. If you are short on time, you should err on the side of answering questions. There is absolutely no substitute—it’s the only way to get better at test-taking. If you only get 32% of those questions correct because of “underpreparedness,” that means you have 68% to learn from.
10. Foregoing NBME exams in favor of UWorld questions
Even if you get through UWorld’s 2000+ questions twice, you should still be taking NBME exams, as they offer you information that UWorld doesn’t. As you will go through far fewer NBMEs than UWorld blocks, they carry more gravity and importance and can command more attention than your “average question block.” They offer an amazing assessment of your strengths and weaknesses to help guide your studying, and they will tell you how far you are from your goal score.
When you are utilizing UWorld to its full potential alongside our other recommended resources, and combine this with expert instruction and planning, you are poised for Step 1 mastery. Give every question the full attention it deserves, whether you got it right or wrong. Never get in the habit of saying, “I knew that one, and I got it right,” and moving on without investing in every explanation. For the next couple of months, you’ve got a new best friend, and its name is UWorld. Use all of these tips to ensure that your new relationship thrives!
Brian Radvansky is an anesthesiology and critical care resident, works with Med School Tutors, and blogs at the Med School Tutors’ blog.
