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RedAnesthesia

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What did everything think of the boards? I felt it was very challenging. Some gimmes but so that were completely off the wall.
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i thought it was very challenging. absolutely no idea how i did, i could have failed.
 
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Congrats to finishing! Pass rate is close to 90% so you most likely did fine...

If you think you feel terrible after this test, wait till the orals lol
 
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BobBarker said:
Especially when the tables don't make any sense...
Click to expand...

Yeah seriously...considering how much time and money is spent preparing for this, the least they could do is check for typos.
 
Yeah let's not give hints to the people taking it tomorrow.

Do you get a percentile of how you did or is it just you passed or you failed?
 
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You get a percentile and a 3 digit score. I talked to a buddy who thought he failed last year. He ended up scoring greater than 90th percentile.
 
Be glad you didn't take exam in the mid 90s when passing rates for both the writtens and the orals hovered around 60s and 70s passing rate as opposed to the mid to high 80s passing rate these days.

Either people are getting smarter. Or they are better prepared to take the test. Or the aba changed the way they pass people.

Who knows. The aba can do whatever they want in terms of scoring the exam.
 
I think the correct explanation for the pass nadir in the 90s is simply that in those gloomy days programs underfilled with marginal residents and a lot of FMGs (English as a 2nd language is a big oral board handicap).

If anything I view that as a credit to the ABA, that standards were held and not lowered to pass 85% of candidates, no matter how shallow the pool got.
 
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pgg said:
I think the correct explanation for the pass nadir in the 90s is simply that in those gloomy days programs underfilled with marginal residents and a lot of FMGs (English as a 2nd language is a big oral board handicap).
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Excuse me, but only bad English as a second language is a handicap. (Any good speaker has about the same chances to pass as an American grad.) On the other hand, poor medical knowledge in native English is an even bigger one. But I agree, anesthesia in the 90's tended to attract a number of "undesirables", which is exactly where we are headed again.

I hated my written boards, but I will remember fondly the orals. Highly professional people, very pertinent questions.
 
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And in the same vein as the caliber of residents and the quality of study aids has increased they haven't decided to just arbitrarily fail 20% of test takers just because.
 
Maxfli said:
Anyone know how long it took for results to come back last year?
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Looks like about a month from the thread last year. Plus the ABA website is going to be down for 2 weeks starting Aug 15th according to the email last week
 
I have a very bad feeling I will be retaking this test. Keep remembering so many dumb mistakes. Nothing I can do now though. Always did well on ite's too
 
wmc24 said:
I have a very bad feeling I will be retaking this test. Keep remembering so many dumb mistakes. Nothing I can do now though. Always did well on ite's too
Click to expand...
If you have passed all 3 ITE's (scored at least 32), there is a 92% probability that you'll pass the written on the first try.
 
That was awful! So many questions that I had never even heard of. Even the ones I narrowed down to 2 answers, I ended up picking the wrong one... My scores were 33, 32, 40 but still feel very nervous. We'll see what happens, its gonna be one tough month
 
okayplayer said:
Got a 39 on my last ITE but I still feel like **** after this one. I would never look down upon anyone that failed. Hard test, so much range to it.
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I would. But that's just me. :)

There is a huge difference between a good score and a passing score. Failing the written puts the person in the bottom 20% of the specialty. All of my classmates who failed had also done poorly on their ITEs and USMLE Steps, so there is usually a pattern. And no, it's not dyslexia or whatever the latest popular excuse is.

Now the oral boards are a different story, as long as the person does not fail them more than once.

Being board-certified doesn't mean crap nowadays, and not being does not correlate with clinical performance either, but the latter will prevent other anesthesiologists from trusting your judgment.
 
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I'm mostly bitter about the fact that their tables were screwed up. They didn't even screen their questions properly to notice. Not to give away test material, but clearly one particular table comparing values was mislabeled, and I think completely missing another column of data.
 
Well, that was HARD. Don't feel like I passed at all. Horrible questions, including one I'm pretty sure had two correct answers, not to mention those horrible (typo) charts.....thanks ABA. I'm not sure I could of done anything more to answer some of those questions--especially section 1 for me....well, the damage is done. :boom:
 
FFP said:
I would. But that's just me. :)

There is a huge difference between a good score and a passing score. Failing the written puts the person in the bottom 20% of the specialty. All of my classmates who failed had also done poorly on their ITEs and USMLE Steps, so there is usually a pattern. And no, it's not dyslexia or whatever the latest popular excuse is.
Click to expand...
Totally disagree that there is a wide margin between a good and poor score. It is actually quite narrow. How do I know this? I took my last ITE score, which was the 30%, added the total number I got right, and compared it to the number you had to get right to be in the 50% (the report provides the breakdown for the 50%, 75%, and 90% I believe). The difference? 5 QUESTIONS. Yup, you can jump up 20% points by simply answering 5 more questions correctly. Conceivably then just a few questions wrong could bump someone near the mean into the fail category. This is why I think any one can fail this exam, particularly if you had a set of questions that dont jive with your knowledge base....or if you just had a bad day. Good luck to all who suffered through this beast! The worst part is sitting around for a month wondering if I failed.
 
I only noticed one wacko table, but boy, it was f'd up. The column headers didn't match the columns at all. There was even a column header (physiologic variable) over the column that had the answer choices (A/B/C/D).

At least that's one question we know will get thrown out...
 
Our program wasn't shy about sharing scores and when I was the chief I got 4 years of data in an email. Nobody ever dropped significantly. The couple people that failed were on a trajectory to fail. It was not a surprise to anyone.
Don't panic.
If you have been on the bubble, maybe waste some energy on anxiety.
Everyone always says that they did poorly, and then... "It's a miracle! I passed!"
Same with the orals. Though with the oral exam, it is conceivable to do fine, but make a failing error or series of responses leading to probable fail and not realize it happened.
 
So word on the street is that those who took the exam today had the same exact set of questions as those who took it yesterday.

Pretty unfair IMO...unless they scale the results by day taken, the test-takers today would have had an enormous advantage.
 
Mr FancyPants said:
So word on the street is that those who took the exam today had the same exact set of questions as those who took it yesterday.

Pretty unfair IMO...unless they scale the results by day taken, the test-takers today would have had an enormous advantage.
Click to expand...

I hope they don't scale it like that. That assumes everyone is doing the same thing. I am one of the 2nd day test takers, and did not communicate with any test-takers from the day prior before taking my exam.
 
Im with you - if they scale it that way then its unfair for you. If they dont scale it that is unfair to us. Either way a group gets screwed. Is this the first year the exam was offered over 2 days (in light of the CA-1s having to take their exam as well)?
 
This is the first year this specific exam was offered. I briefly spoke with a co-resident after my test, a few questions, there were differences in questions. I didn't want to think about the test any more at that time so didn't discuss it too much. Hope some other test-takers here can let us know if the tests were definitely the same, or if they are different. I can't imagine the ABA being blind enough to miss something like this.

The ITEs were split over 2 days, though, similar to this (half my class on one day, half another day), but I don't recall reading about this issue.

And, also, I didn't notice this wacky table everyone is talking about. Unless I was so stressed I didn't see the mistake.
 
axeon123 said:
This is the first year this specific exam was offered. I briefly spoke with a co-resident after my test, a few questions, there were differences in questions. I didn't want to think about the test any more at that time so didn't discuss it too much. Hope some other test-takers here can let us know if the tests were definitely the same, or if they are different. I can't imagine the ABA being blind enough to miss something like this.

The ITEs were split over 2 days, though, similar to this (half my class on one day, half another day), but I don't recall reading about this issue.

And, also, I didn't notice this wacky table everyone is talking about. Unless I was so stressed I didn't see the mistake.
Click to expand...

Are you taking about the Basics Exam (Ca-1 year) or the regular written exam (Ca-3 year). I think everyone on this thread is talking about the CA-3 written test.
 
Yeah Im talking about the exam all recently graduated CA-3s took. It was the same exam both days....not sure if this is the norm for the ABA. But given how sloppy some of the questions were, it wouldnt be surprising if they didnt realize having the same exact exam both days may not be a great idea.
 
For the CA-3 written board exam, do you guys think there is any way we get results prior to the ABA shutting down the site for maintenance 8/15? Last year it looks like it took a month so I'm guessing fat chance.
 
Would be great if they did! But I imagine it will take extra time because of having to deal with the basic exam for the first time. Also, the fact that the exam was the same both days (am I the only one on here that is completely appalled by this practice?!), will hopefully prompt them to scale the exam differently by day, and would make things even more complicated.

But you never know...fingers crossed for an early score release!
 
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Perhaps the ABA assumes that:
1. when you check the box saying you are not going to share exam questions or answers with anyone that you are actually telling the truth
2. That you are a professional
3. That you are not dumb enough to share test questions for an exam that is graded on a curve
 
Marcel said:
Perhaps the ABA assumes that:
1. when you check the box saying you are not going to share exam questions or answers with anyone that you are actually telling the truth
2. That you are a professional
3. That you are not dumb enough to share test questions for an exam that is graded on a curve
Click to expand...

It would be naive to think that people don't share exam questions with their classmates and friends. Hopefully it is rare, but I'm 99.99% sure it has/did happen.

If this exchange of information does occur, then I would imagine it was done under the very reasonable assumption that the exam wouldn't be exactly the same for all 4 testing sessions (morning and afternoon, both days). Nobody wants to screw up the curve, but then again how in the hell does the ABA think having the same exam both days is a good idea?!

They need to open their eyes - this sort of thing really cheapens the scores for those who didn't engage in this sort of thing.
 
I hope they are released on Friday but my gut says it will be later. There website it would be down at least 2 weeks so I'm guessing it will be down longer than this Friday. I hope you are right about Friday though.
 
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