UWorld Medical Reviews

I have never left a review for any app in my life, but using UWorld on the iPad has become so frustrating that I feel I need to warn others. UWorld is great content-wise, but it will NEVER remember your answers. It will constantly allow you to finish exams but will not remember you have logged in. It’s clear that there is a timer that automatically logs you out on the backend but does not log you out from the front end. This means you will start a block of questions, you must finish them all immediately. If you have to see a patient and minimize UWorldMedical then attempt to resume your block, it will allow you to keep answering questions BUT WILL CRASH when you get to the end. This means you’ll have to relog in then repeat the 20 questions you did when you were logged out by the system.

The creators of the material do a great job. UWorldMedical developers have created one of the worst users experiences on this device.

I purchased 90 day access to step 3 qbank on the mobile app for $499 believing that it would include the ccs cases that are so important for step 3 studying.

Today I went onto the uworld website on my desktop to look for the ccs cases I thought would be included only to discover that they were not included in my subscription! Additionally a 90 day access subscription to the step 3 qbank WITH the ccs cases and the 2 self assessment forms is actually 100 dollars LESS on the desktop version at $399. I have so far not heard back from uworld about this discrepancy. This feels very unfair that the cost is extra and I did not get the CCS cases with my subscription.

I have reported bugs with highlighting, scrolling, the magnifier, and many other problems with UWorldMedical through the Uworld Support email. Still no changes every time UWorldMedical updates with bug fixes. The content in UWorld is amazing, but the iPad and iPhone app suffer from the same issues (again, highlighting, scroll glitching when you highlight too close to the top of the page, and highlighter button going missing if you highlight too fast), and I can’t give a good rating to UWorldMedical when the developers are doing NOTHING to fix these issues. Already reported these bugs to the developers through email, nothing changes.

Super annoying that trackpad doesn't work with UWorldMedical. If, for example, you try to click on option A, the cursor will randomly drop down to option C making it impossible to click option A with the trackpad. This then forces me to use the touch screen to click on answer options. The only clue I have is that, when the cursor drops down like that, it changes shape from the circle cursor to the single line cursor (as though select text). I don't know why the change in shape causes change in coordinates, but this needs to be fixed! THEY NEED TO TEST UWorldMedical ON THE APPLE MAGIC KEYBOARD FOR IPAD BECAUSE IT DOES NOT WORK FOR TRACKPAD!!!

The method by which UWorldMedical displays lab values is a deal breaker for me. It covers the question text and does’t allow simultaneous highlighting of the text which mandates a total change in how I handle timed questions. Worse, any movement of the lab values window or scrolling within that window is lost once the window is closed (to highlight text etc) and reopened. There is enough room on an iPad screen to put the lab values side by side like on a pc. Alternatively, show the lab value window while allowing interaction with the question text and answer choices and save the pane and the place last scrolled to when the window is reopened within the same question. These issues don’t allow me to use UWorldMedical at all in timed mode. Only untimed or review. Please fix!

This is still an issue months later

UWorld is good, in terms of content and what it’s meant to be used for. But the phone app is simply awful.

If you leave UWorldMedical idle for even an hour, and you decide to open a graphic in a question answer, it won’t open. Then you have to restart UWorldMedical . The problem when you restart UWorldMedical is that UWorldMedical does not properly keep track of where you were during a test. It usually is about 5 or 6 questions behind, sometimes 10 or more, forcing you to answer those questions however you thought you did before so as to keep accurate data about what you got wrong or right.

It’s terrible in this regard. They need to fix this now otherwise competitors like AMBOSS and USMLE Rx will be the go-to insteadz

Update: months later in 2021 I still can’t highlight answer explanations. I’m looking back at reviews from 2years ago asking uworld to fix the ability to highlight text on the iPad of answer explanations with replies from the developer that they’re working on it… let me repeat this again, from 2 years ago.

Months ago:
With as expensive as this Q bank is there’s less patience for faults in software like the highlighting feature not working. On an IPad Pro UWorldMedical itself doesn’t even allow you to highlight and on the website (full web version) you can highlight the question, but not the explanation even though you see the yellow highlight circle when you select text.

When doing questions in tutor mode, app repeatedly freezes on a question such that when one swipes to go over to the next question, the current question repeatedly displays despite the swiping animation being completed. Even more annoying is the fact that you can see the session timer continue to run in the background, and the software records the question one is trying to get to as seen but “incomplete”. Attempting to “Suspend” the session does not work and the only way to resolve is to quit UWorldMedical . Apart from this annoying bug, great app. Will update this review once bug has been rectified.

I sent emails several times to the support group of UW and once even had a screen sharing session where I showed 3 or 4 bugs on Mac, Windows, iOS. It was about half a year ago and nothing changed. The main problem is: currently, text/images cannot be saved to different side of the flashcard if one side is already added. Ipad is almost replacing the laptops and PCs, but the application doesn’t allow you to select anything at all after you added some graph or a part of explanation to one side of the flashcard.

This is a recent bug for me using UWorldMedical. Sometimes when I answer a question and quickly move on to the next one, the letter choice from the previous question would somehow get carried over to the next question. I know I didn’t pick the answer myself because the time spent on that question would always be 0 seconds. It’s been very frustrating but also happens intermittently enough that I do not know how to reproduce the issue to fix it.

The UWorld app is a pretty good way to access the Qbank. However, UWorldMedical doesn’t support control with an external keyboard or even the magicKeyboard of iPad. Since I put my iPad on a stand while using UWorldMedical (and I believe many would do the same), it is very inconvenient to touch on the screen and navigate among different questions. I would definitely rate UWorldMedical with a big FIVE STARS if the developers can add external keyboard support to this great app.

Used it for Step 1/2 prep and during 3 I believe they took away the desktop app and made it online only. Ever since then, the mobile apps have been not working so well on apple devices. I want to access my IM board question bank, but it’s not available on mobile. Pretty useless to have this installed on my phone if I can’t do questions while on the go.

I love using UWorld. The questions and explanations are top tier, and the images are great. I only wish there could be a function to write notes in the margins when using my iPad. I think that would be a game changer for studying. I don’t really find the notebook feature to be very helpful. I think being able to write in the margins and draw things out on my own within UWorldMedical would add to the active learning piece and allow for even more engagement with the information

I think UWorldMedical is a great representation of the website version. It’s useful to have on phone when on rotations like OB, for example, where the next delivery will be 4 hours later. I use the iPad version a lot and I think it looks and works really well. However, I think it needs more functions when using a magic keyboard with the iPad though. It would be nice if when swiping with two fingers on the trackpad would go to next question. Also when highlighting things, it currently requires a two finger tap with trackpad. It’d be nice if like on the desktop version it highlighted automatically. These are small things but would really be nice to have.

Off the top of my head I can say that UWorldMedical is very helpful when away from your computer. The speed of notes and navigation is irrefutably faster on a PC/Mac platform + mouse but this a great way to get away from the craziness and review on the beach.

I wish there was the ability to use a graphic or table and make additional notes on the same side of the flash card. Maybe you can but I haven’t figured it out yet.

It’s a great app and I especially love that you can put it in dark mode, which is helpful for late night/early morning questions. It’s super easy to use on-the-go.

I do wish that you could select multiple pools of questions (e.g. unused AND incorrects) like you can on the desktop version. Not being able to do so has really foiled my study plans several times…..

I am an International Medical Graduate..doing my very best to try ace my forthcoming exam. Doing Uworld as given me some eye opener to my weaknesses and hopefully I will achieve my aim of scoring very high. I pray I score above 260. Laughable but possible through Uworld. It’s been a great, great tool! Good pictures too! I wonder if those behind this uworld are “aliens” that are too meticulous to be true.

I hope there will be more videos added to Uworld in the future too.

God bless Uworld and bless my sweats!

Great app. Was excited with the new notebook feature. However I am not able to type notes into the notebook using an external keyboard on my iPad. I am only able to type notes when using the screen keyboard. Would really appreciate being able to type into the notebook using an external keyboard. Please fix this. Thank you!

After the recent update, I’ve had trouble highlighting text on my ipad. When I highlight it, the window scrolls up uncontrollably and if I scroll back down, the words flicker and it moves back up. I can only fix it by pressing the arrow key to the previous or next question and then going back.

I have been using UWorldMedical for two days. I think that it is good because it has a lot of tools that help us in our achievements. I recommend it to people who wants to prepare the USMLE steps and to improve the medical knowledge