By Alicia Podwojniak M4
Everyone has mixed opinions about Chat GPT and other forms of artificial intelligence. When the concept began to gain traction last year, I found myself viewing it in a negative light. I distinctly remember a friend teasing me about how Chat GPT would soon take away all our jobs. She even pointed out that it had passed the USMLE Step exams, which triggered a defensive response from me. The idea of a robot passing an exam that I, and many others, had stressed over for years made me quickly dismiss the notion.
A few months later, I had a change of heart. I realized that AI was not just a passing trend but rather, becoming a substantial presence in our lives. I felt like I was being stubborn and resistant to change, much like my parents during the tech boom of the early 2000s. I understood that not embracing new technology could put me at a disadvantage, and I wanted to learn how to use AI tools to enhance my education and training.
Today, I want to share how Chat GPT can be leveraged to generate high-quality practice questions to aid in studying for exams like USMLE/COMLEX. I didn’t set out my studying with the intention of using Chat GPT; in fact, I only used it in the last final days of my studying but wished I started earlier – and thus, I’m writing this post to share its potential benefits.
As I was studying for my Step 2 exam several months ago, I had a few practice questions without answer keys. I posted them into Chat GPT to see if it could generate an answer key with quality explanations. To my surprise, it did, and I figured I could use it as a tool to create more questions. At this point, I was mainly reviewing the ethics and biostatistics just days before my exam. I had exhausted my resources (UWorld and Amboss), so I asked Chat GPT to generate some questions.
Here is an example prompt: “You are a writer for the USMLE Step 2 CK exam. I am a medical student looking to enhance my learning, have exhausted my resources, and need more practice questions. Please generate five high-quality, difficult, Step 2 CK-level practice questions on ethics and quality improvement. Please include the answers and explanations for wrong answers.”
Here is a real example question generated from the above prompt:
Unsatisfied with the answer explanations, I followed up with: “Please give more thorough answer explanations for question 1.”
And it provided a more thorough series of answer explanations.
The most important aspects of using these tools to augment studying is twofold:
- Understand that it is not the gold standard and should not be used as a primary study source.
- Prompting is the most critical aspect of generating a solid practice question.
I’m not an expert in AI, but I found it helpful in generating a few extra practice questions. To reiterate, I’d personally recommend only using this to supplement your studying and exhaust the tried and trusted resources first. I shouldn note a word of caution with believing everything Chat GPT says as fully truthful, as it has been known to provide false, or made up, responses. With that being said, always fact check its outputs and be confident in your strong base of clinical knowledge. Happy studying!
Alicia is a fourth-year medical student at Rowan SOM in New Jersey, with an interest in applying to surgery, aspiring to become a plastic surgeon. She has a particular interest in working with pediatric populations and is deeply passionate about medical education. She received her Bachelor of Science at The College of New Jersey, where she majored in Biology and minored in both Public Health and Psychology. Outside of her academic pursuits, Alicia enjoys running, practicing yoga, and reading on the beach. She is an avid animal lover with a special place in her heart for her dog.