Expert Skills Program Question Bank
Important Note: All questions in the ESP Question Bank are restricted to students who are assigned an eRaider (Texas Tech) password.
ESP Step 1 Prep Year 1
Each block in the Year 1 curriculum listed below is linked to a page containing question sets for use during the ESP Step 1 Prep group sessions.
- A more detailed description of the ESP Step 1 Prep method can be found in the submenu for either the TTUHSC or the nonTTUHSC versions of the Expert Skills Program.
- Each Step 1 Prep group will need to select their questions for each week.
- In year 1, it is recommended initially to only use six concept type questions or three case vignette questions; the goal is to only use one hour for review unless the group chooses to do more.
- The strength of this method is not as much in the time for each session, but the regularity; there will be a carry-over effect that will increase the productivity of your individual study time.
- During the first year, skills are developed for maximum group effectiveness during the second year of the program; test scores should also be higher due to improved learning skills.
- Since weekly topic coverage changes slightly for each year, questions are not organized by the week in the curriculum but rather by topic.
- Questions are grouped into subtopics to permit efficient selection
- Important: Select questions based on coverage in the answer choices, not in the stem!
- Remember that question coverage in any group session requires that the topics have been taught recently in the curriculum.
- Questions selected for each session should be eligible topics for the upcoming exam. This process cannot work on a voluntary basis without fulfilling this criterion.
- All questions in this bank have been screened for relevancy to the Block examinations.
- Relevancy means specifically that the answer choices are all relevant topics that constitute important knowledge that may be tested in any given year.
Clinically Oriented Anatomy (to be added)
- Gross Anatomy
- Embryology
Biology of Cells and Tissues (to be added)
- Biochemistry
- Cell Biology
Major Organ Systems (to be added)
- Cardiovascular
- Renal
- Respiratory
- Endocrine
- Gastrointestinal
Host Defense
- Immunology
- Bacteriology
- Parasitology
- Virology
- Fungi
ESP Step 1 Prep Year 2
Instead of a Curriculum Block organization, Year 2 questions are organized by major discipline. While coverage is assured in the curriculum, the patchwork integration (which is subject to annual revision) creates a maintenance problem.
- The process is the same for Year 1 in the criteria used for selecting the questions used.
- The item bank for Year 2 does not have concept oriented questions and is entirely either case vignette or experimental vignette.
- Every attempt has been made to screen out “fake” USMLE questions.
- Fake questions can still be answered if you can block out the stem, leaving only the lead-in question.
- Another type of fake question cannot be answered if you block out the answer choices; usually answer choices are very short.
Pathology (to be added)
- General Pathology
- Systems Pathology
Pharmacology (to be added)
- General Pharmacology
- Systems Pharmacology
Neuroscience (to be added)
- Neuroanatomy/physiology
- Neurologic systems
- Behavioral Neuroscience
Genetics (to be added)
- General Genetics
- Systems Genetics