With all of the various options for question banks out there, it is hard to know which one medical student should be using. One of the question banks which has been growing in popularity in the world of medical education  is Amboss. In addition to just being a question bank, Amboss is a library of clinical and basic science articles which focus on Board Review and clinical practice. But  what specifically does the amboss learning platform offer which other question banks fall short? This article will provide a comprehensive review of the amboss question bank, and tell you whether or not you should purchase this product to help you in your medical studies

What are the features of the Amboss Question Bank?

Study Plan Feature

This is a very good feature because it is essentially an organised and logical way of organizing all of the information in every organ system. For example, if you are currently studying Cardio in your pre clinical courses, then you could utilise the Cardiology Study plan which contains all of the relevant basic science and clinical information for Cardio. This feature is valuable for those who prefer to self study.

Quiz analysis

After every question bank session an analysis of your performance points you to your areas of weakness. Additionally this analysis includes your performance relative to other users of the platform who did the same questions.

Filtering Functionality

This question bank has a very good filtering functionality because pretty much every topic which is important for the pre clerkship as well as for clinical rotations is contained in an article. Additionally the create a custom quiz function allows you 

Table quizzes and flow charts

Amboss contains tables of the most important and high yield topics that tend to show up on boards and and school exams. Users have the option of clicking on the table and then are able to view the table in a self quiz format that blurs the actual table content. Amboss appears to be the only question bank on the market with this featyre

Amboss also contains flow charts that breakdown clinical workups for certain clinical conditions. 

Create a Quiz

Amboss’s create a quiz function stands out because it has a high filtering ability. Users can filter based on article, organ system, and discipline. Filtering by individual article is valuable because it allows users to have a more targeted approach to their studying because it allows you to create your own quiz on one specific topic. Additionally it allows users to adjust the difficulty level, as well as choose to be tested on questions already attempted, or new questions altogether that have never been attempted.

Other features

One very good feature about Amboss is that after each quiz session. The platform highlights in red the sections in an article that you missed questions on. This is a very convenient way of letting you know where your week points are.

How are the Questions in the Amboss Question Bank?

Question Difficulty

Amboss is known for having questions on the more difficult side. 

Step 1 and Step 2 questions

Amboss allows users to choose whether or not the quizzes contain questions from step 1 step 2 and stepp 3. This is another great aspect of the platform because users are able to study for multiple board exams. This is in contrast to many other question banks which make you purchase step 2 questions separately from step 1 questions.

In addition to having both Step 1 and Step 2 Questions, The amboss create a quiz feature allows you to actually create custom tests that have questions which are from Step 1 and Step 2

Similar Products to the Amboss question bank

I would say the 2 most similar products are StatPearls Question Bank as well as the Boards and Beyond Question bank. Both of these. have a lot of questions which are clinically focused and allow you to quiz yourself on separate individual topics, rather than just taking all of the questions at once

What Should be Improved About the Amboss Question Bank

There are not that many negative features about the platform, however one thing that I would improve about it, is the ability to go back and edit custom quiz sessions once you have started the quiz. For instance, if users  begin making a custom quiz and put the settings to show questions from say 3 topics, once they begin the quiz, they arre unable to go back and add in another topic in the custom setting. This may be something that is not 

Additionally, Amboss would benefit from having some way of incorporating spaced repetition into the platform. Similar to platforms such as lecturio and picmonic Amboss should keep track of how often you are reviewing the questions that you have already done, and then every day let you know how many questions you should review as well as specifically which questions you should review.