[.ca] Crush Step 2: The Ultimate USMLE Step 2 Review (ISBN 1416029761)

Expensive Toilet paper, read 10 min before exam:
This, along with the other books by Adam Brochert are very misleading and very low yield. Just reading this wont help you answer very long, tricky usmle questions. You need to get into the hard stuff : Harrisons Pretest for INternal Medicine is perfect for step 2 as well as Frontrunners Q & A. The problem with most question sources is that they only require you to identify 1 piece of information to correctly answer the question. On the boards, you have to collect Multiple data then make a determination ; plus, their are distractors that no other question bank has ( eg : Kaplan ). Ditch this easy stuff and press your intellect with the challenging things as that is what you will see on test day. I know, this isnt a question book, but it represents the simple minded thinking that lazy people look for when selecting sources. High Yield INt.Medicine is Superb because it has more clinical info than this book and it can be reviewed over fast.

Spectacular:
I am a terrible studier with no attention span whatsoever, yet with the help of this book I went up 25 from my step 1. Here's what I did: I read this book, reread the blueprints books that I had read anyway over the course of third year, did most of the questions in the NMS book, then reread this. Whenever anything important-sounding came up, especially in the questions from the NMS book, I would write it into the margins of crush the boards. It took a fair amount of time, but certainly no more (probably a good deal less) than I spent on step 1. It was also far less painful studying for step 2 than for step 1. The book is a nearly flawless summary of important points. It skips the basics (e.g. assumes you already know what a QRS complex is) and focuses on only the highest of the high yield. In fact, I'd bet that you could beat the mean just by reading this book alone. One minor point, I ran out of time and did not review the "pictures" section at the end of the book (that's one problem with the book. It has very few pictures, and usually just suggests that you "know how to recognize" a given finding). As it turned out, there was not a single picture on my test. Maybe 4 or 5 films, but they were easy to identify. So it's not an issue.

use this book on your last week before step 2!!:
This book will not make you pass Step 2 without any further studying or reviewing. But it is an AMAZING source for last week refreshing. I must have had 30 or 40 questions on my step 2 that I wouldn't have remembered hadn't it been for my review of this little book. The best buy I have ever made. It is so easy to get desperate on your last week, trying to cram all your review books at once. Don't. Read this book and be confident that you are using your last days in the most efficient way possible.

Very good book for the days before the exam!:
This is a very good book for STEP 2. However, it isn't a comprehensive review book, it just emphasizes some important points easy to miss while reading a more detailed review book.

Good outline/material. Too many errors:
While I agree with many posters that this book has just high-yield info and for that it should be applauded, it has way too many errors for my taste. I bought it based on many reviews that I have read, but I am on page 8 and have found an error or misleading oversimplification on every page thus far. For example on page 8 the author states that disulfiram inhibits alcohol dehydrogenase (it inhibits aldehyde dehydrogenase, the second enzyme in the metabolism of alcohol - which is important because aldehyde is what makes you sick). On page 7 the author implies that smoking is the biggest controllable risk factor to prevent heart-disease related deaths. Though I don't have a specific fact to refute that claim, it is likely that diabetes is a greater variable. Don't get me wrong, I like the book. However, the errors are incredibly distracting.