ITE 2016

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Green Grass

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Thought we'd get it yesterday, but nothin. How can it take this long to get a computerized test back? Slower than molasses.

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ITE? I'd forgotten that I took it already. Did everyone else have technical issues upon starting the exam too?
 
ITE? I'd forgotten that I took it already. Did everyone else have technical issues upon starting the exam too?

Yes. A friend on the east coast said she got to look at a lot of questions before the glitch and was able to study for an hour or so during the downtime. Meanwhile in my time zone we had the glitch from the get go.
 
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Whoa. That seems ill-advised / "illegal"? In any event, we had glitches that led to an hour's worth of nonsense time as well.
 
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Yes. A friend on the east coast said she got to look at a lot of questions before the glitch and was able to study for an hour or so during the downtime. Meanwhile in my time zone we had the glitch from the get go.
Truly idiotic friend. Why would anybody cheat on a test that's supposed to prepare one better for the board exam?
 
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With last years exam, results came out on the Friday exactly one day short of six weeks. I too expected the results. I emailed my PD and haven't heard anything back yet.
 
My residency took the exam in two groups. One of the groups also got to see questions and talk/study. Is this any surprise? The ABA are a bunch of f@cking ******s. Cant wait to donate to them when I eventually take MOCA!
 
By the way... I just cant say enough about giving up a Saturday each year to take a practice exam I could have passed my intern year of residency. :) *cough* go f@ck yourself ABA *cough*
 
By the way... I just cant say enough about giving up a Saturday each year to take a practice exam I could have passed my intern year of residency. :) *cough* go f@ck yourself ABA *cough*
Many anesthesia residents used to not be able to pass the ITE until their CA-3 year. I don't know how it's scored now, but that used to correspond to a score of 32, which is nothing to write home about. That's why they broke up the written boards into two exams, because of all the geniuses in the specialty who were not studying properly.
 
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Those who had the glitch had to stay in the examination room at my institution. The ITE is an unpleasant necessity that we all have to deal with. No need to insult each other. It is unfortunate that people decide to cheat on it. Fortunately more than ITE results are used to select fellows or jobs.
 
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Those who had the glitch had to stay in the examination room at my institution. The ITE is an unpleasant necessity that we all have to deal with. No need to insult each other. It is unfortunate that people decide to cheat on it. Fortunately more than ITE results are used to select fellows or jobs.
That's how it should have been all over. Unfortunately we will be graded against people that had a huge advantage. And ITE scores do matter, so it's not as simple as saying "gee shucks".
 
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Because fellowship programs care about ITE scores.
Then the person should study harder.

This fake it till you make it attitude should not be acceptable in medicine.
 
Then the person should study harder.

This fake it till you make it attitude should not be acceptable in medicine.
I'm not saying it's right, or acceptable.

Once upon a time the USMLE was just a pass/fail test to be used for licensing, but now it's the #1 factor in residency selection.

And once upon a time the ITE was just a tool for resident self-assessment and board prep, but now it's a factor in fellowship selection.


You asked a question about motivation:
Why would anybody cheat on a test that's supposed to prepare one better for the board exam?

And I answered it. :)
 
I'm not saying it's right, or acceptable.

Once upon a time the USMLE was just a pass/fail test to be used for licensing, but now it's the #1 factor in residency selection.

And once upon a time the ITE was just a tool for resident self-assessment and board prep, but now it's a factor in fellowship selection.


You asked a question about motivation:


And I answered it. :)

I can't wait till MOCA Minute percentage correct is used for hiring/credentialing ;)
 
Honestly seems like ITE is THE major factor for competitive fellowships unless you have some sort of "in" which makes this whole thing such a joke

FWIW, I had a few CA-3s tell me they got their ITE scores the past 2 years during the second week of April
 
I just matched and I'm starting my residency this July. I apologize if this sounds like an idiotic question...
If fellowships use ITE scores as a determining factor, shouldn't they also look at your performance on the BASIC exam? Theoretically, shouldn't performance on the BASIC outweigh performance on the ITE? How is the BASIC graded? Pass/fail? Percentile?
I tried looking for the answers on the ABA website but couldn't find exact score reporting information.
It's pass/fail but the top 10% get a letter telling them they are so. I've heard that some programs request a list of keywords as a surrogate for percentile, but that still has to be a rough estimate.
 
Just curious - what was the glitch that everyone is talking about? I didn't have one on my exam
 
Just curious - what was the glitch that everyone is talking about? I didn't have one on my exam

Roughly 1/2 the country either started late or had an interval during the test that caused the test to pause. People on here are saying their program allowed them to talk/study/ whatever during this
 
And I think the test is scored on a percentile basis, so those people who saw questions are going to really throw off the percentile ranking
 
Last year I took the ITE on Saturday February 21, 2015 and the results were released on Friday March 3, 2015. This year I took it on Saturday February 20, 2016 so if it were like last year then the results should have been released Friday April 1, 2016. ClaireUnderwood, programs are probably starting to look at both. The basic exam will have be administered for the third time this year so it is still relatively new. The Basic exam, as described above, is a Pass/Fail with the top 10% receiving notification (it took like 6 months to receive notification of it). I gave some thought to doing a peds fellowship and have a very good working relationship with the PD at my institution. We discussed the things they look at for consideration and ITE score was ONE of them. Obviously it is easy to look at a single number and compare people by that number.
 
If a large group of people could stop in the middle of the test (1/2 of test takers is a large group) and some were able to discuss it with colleagues or read, it pretty much invalidates the entire exam. This is especially true for tests that are scaled and percentile based.
 
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I spoke to some of those who experienced the glitch. I think it happened either right before they initiated the test or within minutes of starting. I don't know if this was the case across the country. You have to keep something else in mind: some people that take it on day 1 or 2 talk to those before taking it on day 2 or 3. This means that not everyone that takes it on day 1 is on the same playing field as everyone taking at a later date (days 2 and 3). This is an inherent flaw of taking it spread across three separate days. There are numerous statisticians who work the data over on a yearly basis. I have no inside intel as to what they are doing to the data, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it
 
I spoke to some of those who experienced the glitch. I think it happened either right before they initiated the test or within minutes of starting. I don't know if this was the case across the country. You have to keep something else in mind: some people that take it on day 1 or 2 talk to those before taking it on day 2 or 3. This means that not everyone that takes it on day 1 is on the same playing field as everyone taking at a later date (days 2 and 3). This is an inherent flaw of taking it spread across three separate days. There are numerous statisticians who work the data over on a yearly basis. I have no inside intel as to what they are doing to the data, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it

It was not the case on the east coast. Hearing questions secondhand is different than seeing them for yourself.
 
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How can fellowships look at this test and honestly use it to assess the applicants? Half the country cheated or had access to illegal information. It's ridiculous that this test will be used for fellowship applications.
 
East coast, exam was delayed by about an hour as the testing app wouldn't load/allow sign in. My program just had us sit in the computer lab for that hour, it's not like people brought notes etc and were allowed to study, if any of us saw that we'd have stopped it ourselves. But no questions were seen or a period mid-test where we were sitting around chatting about questions.

Seriously, it was annoying, but unless completely different things occurred in different areas it wasn't an error that should change the standardization. Relax.
 
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How can fellowships look at this test and honestly use it to assess the applicants? Half the country cheated or had access to illegal information. It's ridiculous that this test will be used for fellowship applications.
Take a deep breath ...

"Half" the country didn't cheat. Surely a small fraction of the test takers had the opportunity to discuss or look up information, and a fraction of that actually did.

And the ones that did might have answered 3 or 4 questions correctly that they'd otherwise have missed.

Their percentile score won't go from 40 to 70. Yours won't go from 90 to 70.

Fellowships will use the scores. Accept it and move on.
 
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A little birdie has told me that the results may possibly be with our PD now.
 
Results are out. Didn't do as well as I thought but won't be put on probation
 
Just heard back, happily surprised with results. CA2, high 40's. I felt much worse on this test compared to last year's, but still improved.
 
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Just heard back, happily surprised with results. CA2, high 40's. I felt much worse on this test compared to last year's, but still improved.
Is that high 40s with the max score still 50, and passing score still 32, or did they change the scoring system? :wideyed:
 
Yes sir, same system
My hat off to you, sir or madam. You must be in the high 90 percentiles, or close. What is it?

You could pass your written boards today in the top 20%, no doubt about it. I am almost afraid to ask how much you scored as a CA-1. :)
 
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Passing score of 32? I'm assuming that's a 32 at the CA-3 level? Hard to judge what's a good score each year.
All years used to take the same ITE test, and the scoring was the same (with 32 the minimal passing score, and 50 the maximum possible score), regardless of year. Only percentiles were calculated relatively to one's year.
 
All years used to take the same ITE test, and the scoring was the same, regardless of year. Only percentiles were calculated relatively to one's year.
Yep, that's how it is now too. So you're saying a 32 at any level would be indicative of passing for boards?
 
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