Customer Reviews

Kaplan Medical USMLE Step 3 Qbook (Kaplan USMLE Qbook)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a third year pediatric resident, I was worried that I was very out of touch with bread and butter medicine and used this book for practice. I passed with flying colors. The questions were almost identical to the ones on the exam in terms of content, format, style, and length. Some questions on the exam seemed to be straight out of this book. They do a really good job of explaining the answers in the back. I would recommend this book to anyone who has more than a few days to study for Step 3. I also used Crush Step 3 to prepare. But this book helped me put the high-yield facts in Crush in context and taught me how to approach the questions. Often, these exams aren't about how much you know, but how good you are at answering the questions.

With the current sale on Amazon, this is a very good price for a good book. The materials may be a little too detail for what you need, and dang it, the book is heavy. But if you have the time, it is a good book to go through with. As in 2005, I will still prefer NMS over Qbook if I can only pick one. But I will go with both if I have the time. I'll think twice though if NMS does not come up with any new edition in 2006 or later. Now, I have always been curious if Qbook consists of the majority of questions in Qbank. Kaplan won't tell, of course.

Compared to the NMS Q/A book, I believe the Kaplan Qbook is the most similar to the format and content of Step 3. Sure, the questions are long and the book is heavy and thick, but the explanations are thorough. It also breaks up the question into subspecialties. With Crush Step 3, this will be an adequate review book for step 3.

I thought that this was extremely helpful. I used this with Secrets and aced the test.

This is better than NMS. You will still need a nice topical review to help tie everything together and so you will not fail the CCS sections. I really like Strong Medicine step 3.

I tried using this book and found the questions to be too easy and superficial, NMS is far superior and I think if had used this book as my sole preparatory source, I would not have passed. Save your money and go with NMS.

I bought both NMS and QBook and ended up using QBook as my main study source, together with Crush. This turned out to be a smart move because it most closely approximated the questions in the Step 3. I thought NMS would be an even better study source, but found the questions either too obscure or not challenging enough. Step 3 is all about recognising buzzwords and associations, and Crush does this well while QBook gives you lots of practice with question length and complexity that is similar to the exam. For CCS I looked through First Aid, which was more helpful than Strong Medicine or Crush. In the end I did well, and that is all thanks to Crush and QBook.

I used this book as preparation for the USMLE step III and found that it covered the material in excessive detail, far more than what was reflected on the actual exam. It was so "specific" that I got lost in the minuitia. It requires you to know much more than is required, which hurt me in the end. The CCS portion and dermatology sections were not well represented. I did poorly on these portions of the exam and would recommend an additional text or interactive CD for those components of the exam. Take the CCS section very seriously, for it is a whopping 20% of your score which is very important!

There are no pictures in this text, which makes it less optimal. I also used Swanson's Family practice book which was not any better, despite its raving reviews. The format was not at all reflective of that of the USMLE Step III. May your outcome be better than mine! Best wishes.