Boards part 1 done

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Paulywog

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  1. Podiatry Student
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What did everyone think of boards part 1? LEA seemed really easy and there was more Neuro than I thought.
 
i don't post too often, but I had to give my opinion on this one. The LEA was very easy, the easiest part of the test actually..the rest of the material was just trivial and seemed so irrelevant to being of diagnostic of whether or not we are going to be good doctors. Again, just my opinion
 
I want to add that IMO the test wasn't nearly as difficult as upperclassman made it to be. It was very general and felt as though I was taking a school exam rather than a standardized test. Nowhere near the detail of BRS/USMLE/1st Aid questions.

What actually made it difficult was that I though I was going to get drilled on specifics/obscure path/pharm etc. and ended up getting basic questions I glanced over because I thought "this is too easy, they'll never ask this directly"...well, they did and those were the toughest.

My advice, just stick to the basics and don't get bogged in the detail.
 
UMCanesMD said:
i don't post too often, but I had to give my opinion on this one. The LEA was very easy, the easiest part of the test actually..the rest of the material was just trivial and seemed so irrelevant to being of diagnostic of whether or not we are going to be good doctors. Again, just my opinion
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Agree 100% with the bolded above.

The reason I think LL anat was the easiest part of the exam is because that is what we know the best and what we actually care about. The rest of the exam was a big "wtf". During my studying I tried to focus on diseases and other subjects and how they can manifest in the lower extremity. Needless to say, that was WRONG!!
 
I thought it was a very difficult exam, completely agree w/ a lot of the questions being trivial and what not.

Honestly though some of the questions were dead giveaways, but others were like "are you kidding me?"

Also I thought the end of the exam where we had to select 2 or 3 that apply, were extremely tough.

In the end though 80% of the students pass nationally so as long we're not in that bottom 20% we should okay.

I'd like to celebrate but I don't feel good about that exam at all.
 
g squared 23 said:
Agree 100% with the bolded above.

The reason I think LL anat was the easiest part of the exam is because that is what we know the best and what we actually care about. The rest of the exam was a big "wtf". During my studying I tried to focus on diseases and other subjects and how they can manifest in the lower extremity. Needless to say, that was WRONG!!
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I agree. LE anatomy was very fair. I used First Aid almost exclusively, along with Kaplan QBank questions, and don't feel that prepared me for the type of specific/obscure questions that the NBPME focused on. It seemed as though major concepts were left out and they really focused on the minutiae. Hoping for a generous curve! WTF is exactly what I said.
 
JackedUp said:
I thought it was a very difficult exam, completely agree w/ a lot of the questions being trivial and what not.

Honestly though some of the questions were dead giveaways, but others were like "are you kidding me?"

Also I thought the end of the exam where we had to select 2 or 3 that apply, were extremely tough.

In the end though 80% of the students pass nationally so as long we're not in that bottom 20% we should okay.

I'd like to celebrate but I don't feel good about that exam at all.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Some questions were so out of the realm of being relevant to medical training that I was trying to not laugh and or curse at my computer screen
 
I thought I would be relived after taking the exam, but will not be at ease until the results are in. Why can't they give us results for a computerized test instantly or even within 3 days? I think I beat out the 20%, but it depends on how my guesses turned out. Did anyone else feel like they got more Head/neck anatomy and neurology than they did Lower anatomy questions? I don't think the questions were broken down into percentages by subject as they informed us. Whatever, it is a pass/fail board exam and the scores will not be weighed into being selected for a residency program. Does anyone know when the results will be in?
 
Whisker here,

Do we get a discount if we sign up early for October's exam? :scared:
 
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I think the the most disturbing thing about the test is how worthless the first aid book was. I feel as if i wasted so much time with their detail.
There were many questions i could remember exactly what was in first aid, yet could not answer the question with certainty. I can not explain how frustrating it was to know so much detail in a subject, yet not be able to answer a simple question pertaining to the subject. Though there were some things that were in first aid, but not near the the extent of spending two weeks memorizing everything in there.... there has to be a better study tool then first aid. Even so, i dont know what that would be! .
i feel like we would be better off picking up any other basic science board review book, dentistry, PT, PA... and still gain as much useful info from first aid.
but seriously, were the hell did squalene come from? i had to laugh on that one!
 
Agree with the all comments above. Glad it's over with, but I still won't be able to get rid of those little doubts in the back of my mind until scores come in. I know that I made a few dumb mistakes (including clicking next before I had picked an answer 😱), but hopefully the easier LE section can make up for what I didn't know in the other sections.:xf:
 
whisker is back again!

how long do we have to wait for the board scores? I've heard 2 weeks...then someone else told me 6 weeks.
 
My experience..

I took mine at 8am. 205 questions felt like forever. I agree LE was the easiest part. I felt like there were tons of questions from biochem and physio. At one point, i felt like i was guessing every other question. What's up with so many mark 2 or 3 that applies? They said there will be a few but 13? I know they will drop a bunch and it will be scaled. In short, i felt like i was guessing about 45% of the questions. I think i am gonna have to take it again in october...

oh forgot to say that, i focused a lot more on disease and syndromes and other important stuff while they asked undergrad questions..
 
Bshah said:
My experience..

I took mine at 8am. 205 questions felt like forever. I agree LE was the easiest part. I felt like there were tons of questions from biochem and physio. At one point, i felt like i was guessing every other question. What's up with so many mark 2 or 3 that applies? They said there will be a few but 13? I know they will drop a bunch and it will be scaled. In short, i felt like i was guessing about 45% of the questions. I think i am gonna have to take it again in october...

oh forgot to say that, i focused a lot more on disease and syndromes and other important stuff while they asked undergrad questions..
Click to expand...

Funny you mention undergrad questions because I knew about 7 questions because of my undergrad education in exercise science. Many of the things I didn't learn in Pod school but I remembered from undergrad.
 
kelus said:
I think the the most disturbing thing about the test is how worthless the first aid book was. I feel as if i wasted so much time with their detail.
There were many questions i could remember exactly what was in first aid, yet could not answer the question with certainty. I can not explain how frustrating it was to know so much detail in a subject, yet not be able to answer a simple question pertaining to the subject. Though there were some things that were in first aid, but not near the the extent of spending two weeks memorizing everything in there.... there has to be a better study tool then first aid. Even so, i dont know what that would be! .
i feel like we would be better off picking up any other basic science board review book, dentistry, PT, PA... and still gain as much useful info from first aid.
but seriously, were the hell did squalene come from? i had to laugh on that one!
Click to expand...

I still remember learning about squalene in pharm, something to do with Lamisil. I think Terbinifine inhibits fungal squalene epoxidase.
 
.
 
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good job krabmas! Im glad some one knew of it.
Im sure squalene was mentioned in my pharm class as well, yet for the life of me i could not remember it. squalene will always make me smile from now on, ahh fond memories.
 
Agree with you all. I thought it was difficult. I went thru First Aid and I could've spent valuable study time doing something else.

Paulywog - I definitely felt like a lot of my exam was head/neck v. LEA.

Bshah - I had a lot of biochem as well. Those pick multiples at the end really shake you up!

Kelus - Yeah, I feel the same way. We could've studied something else (but God knows what) and had better results than the USMLE book. 🙁 I agree with the frustration about knowing everything about certain subjects that you think will probably be "high yield" but end up getting tested on some obscure factoid that you've never heard of.

I felt crappy last night, but after talking to my classmates and seeing the responses on here, I feel a little more at ease (but not by much). You hope that the aftermath will be less stressful than before, but it's quite the opposite!

Good luck to us all!

MGT
 
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I hope you all passed.

In case you do have to re-take the test... study lean over and over and know it cold. If you get 100% correct on the LEAN portion you could practically guess on the rest of the test and pass.

In case you want to learn some more info for the test try these books:

Buzz Words

Foot and Ankle Secrets
 
scrlet52 said:
Yeah but they asked for the squalene herbal supplement and its effects...not the enzyme
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Whisker here.

Yea Mr. scrlet is right on this one.
its not an enzyme....


So how many retakers do we have on this forum.
 
I felt like instead of 20% LEA there was more like 10% I literally counted only 25 questions I can recall every question, and there was 30% patho which if even I studied the format they were given wouldn't have even made a difference. The percentages did not match what they told us they were going to give. WTF is that about.

Overall this is how I felt:
I felt like I probably knew 50-60 for sure then maybe narrowed another 50 or so questions down to two answers choices and guessed on the rest of the 100, literally blank guesses. During the test I was thinking to myself with some of the questions WTF would I do to study the 100 that I completely guessed on i'd never seen anything like it before. They weren't in the USMLE.

I still feel like crap, I feel like someone who studied 1 week would have done the same than me who studied 3 months. If the student who studied for 1 week guesses better better than me on the 100 questions then that person had better luck. It really wasn't a fair exam.
 
if i failed... i would not be surprised
if i passed... it's out of pure luck
i studied my @$$ off, and that did not help one bit for this exam. i've heard the classes before us moan and groan after the exam, and now i completely understand why. i just wish i was allowed to flip a quarter to answer the majority of the test. it sad to think this test will determine if we become doctors or not.
 
whisker here.


I agree that the outline with the break up of total %age for each section is BS.
I had a lot of neuro and general anatomy.

Also, did anyone else get histo pictures?
It seems like I got the harder test cause everyone I talked to finished so early.
 
I told you FA was a waste. Also, please don't discuss the content of specific questions, tis against the TOS.
 
then what review books would you use if first aid was useless?
 
First aid was not worthless, but I would not read any specific things in FA. Just stick with the basics...I would use BRS Physio, Goljan rapid review for path.
 
Clinical micro and pharm made easy worked for me.
 
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dddunit said:
then what review books would you use if first aid was useless?
Click to expand...

High-yield/BRS/Class notes. The LEA questions and perhaps others, are submitted by professors at each school and modified by NBPME for fairness.

They were the exact format as the practice tests, some exact repeats, some slightly more challenging.

More challenging, to me, in that FA teaches you more about how to identify a pathology, but leaves out relevant info (starting materials, specific enzymes, pathways, etc) that are very basic, but its extremly difficult to answer a question with information you didnt study.
 
Just want to caution you all here to not talk about specific items you saw on the test. You can get into some big trouble that way and I don't want to see anyone get into any drama.

I agree with the sentiment above that LE anatomy was easy. In my opinion it was almost too easy. I felt like I over studied the details of that material and they asked trivially easy questions 95% of the time. Stuff that my kid brother who's taking high school anatomy might know about the lower extremity at this point. :laugh:

Then came the rest of the exam which was (as mentioned above) off the charts hard. We all felt like the USMLE, BRS flash cards, Made Ridiculously Simple books, class notes, Kaplan Bank, NBPME practice tests, etc. did a sub par job (at best) of teaching us the material and stressing things that helped on the test at least in terms of things the NBPME wanted to know. Maybe for the USMLE I would have been studying in the right direction. Anyway! Me personally... I could have studied another YEAR and still not had a better chance on those topics.

General sentiment at the OCPM after party was that we were guessing way more than half the time on topics aside from LE anatomy. We are also hoping for a hefty curve. The group of people I was talking to... we are all well over 3.0 gpa people and all ranked in the top half of our class of the 100 and something students remaining. We all felt like we failed it for sure unless the curve is massive. Which is a pretty sad statement to have to make after all that work we put in over 2 years. 🙁

For 2011 Boards part I takers reading this...

If I could go back in time knowing what I know now. I would have spent less time on LE anatomy unless of course you remediated it during the year and are still feeling confused on what goes where. I would have certainly studied just the basics instead of wasting time on details. Study what a general practitioner would be expected to know on their USMLE test! (I guess this is all part of "Vision 2015" LOL) I also would have spent less time reading and re-reading USMLE over and over again as was suggested by upperclassmen. I also would have spent MORE time doing my BRS pharm flash cards I guess.

Really there's no way to prepare for the detail they get into on those other topics unless you can photo memorize your class notes page by page and even then it's still a crap shoot. Some questions I recalled later while sitting here at my desk I couldn't even get a straight answer out of the Google machine.

How this test represents "minimal competency" when they curve the hell out of it like this is beyond me. It's like taking a test from one of those 85 year old tenured professors in undergrad that just doesn't care anymore and the class average is like a 40%. You end up learning nothing more than how to handle stress! :laugh:

Summary: "I hope you are a lucky guesser and that the people you are taking it with have a panic attack and skip 40 questions. 40 questions that you happen to took a good guess on." :luck:

Here's hoping I still have a career in 1 month!
 
Whisker here


If anyone here is still depressed about the boards. PM me, I have a great solution.


Remember, god gave us hands, make good use of them. :claps:
 
boards were easy🙂
 
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anyone else getting a little irritated with this whole process. Not only was the test just ridiculous, but we are now almost 3 1/2 weeks removed from taking a COMPUTER based exam and we have no idea how we did yet. Those of us at Barry just finished our summer semester and a lot of us are going to be traveling at the time when our scores do in fact arrive. I am sure a lot students at the other schools are in the same boat as well.
 
I had pretty much forgotten about them. I don't play the waiting game well so I've been "focusing" on other things.

The reason that it takes so long is because the NBPME has to do a question analysis and decide which questions are actually fair game as well as to determine a cut off as to what is a "passing score" as it is different every year. So I am fine if they want to their time, as long as they are throwing out the questions that I missed.
 
Word on the street has it that the Ohio school received their board scores already. Did anyone else? Why did Ohio get the results before everyone else?
 
AZPod received theirs today...

100% pass rate from Class of 2012!
 
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WTF!!!??? Why is DMU the last to find out!?

I could say "hey congrats guys!", but I wouldn't actually mean it until I found out that I passed as well.

I think we're supposed to hear something Thursday.
 
Hopefully you guys will find out soon. We haven't gotten our official letters yet, but they told our office today and we got the news from our Associate Director during a meeting we had. So maybe your school already knows, but just hasn't told you yet...
 
Best advice I have ever heard came from Dr. Paul Kim, DPM. Adv. Surg. course director at AZPOD. He said (paraphrasing) "Relax. The NBPME board exam is written with the lowest common denominator in mind - you know who you are. If you are not at the bottom of your class, have a little faith in what you learned over two years and don't worry about it". Turns out, he was prophetic. Practically everyone leaves the exam thinking they failed, and then finds out they passed. People worry needlessly. Most of the rediculous questions in the exam that seem "impossible" to answer are exactly that and they are put there as a guage to identify potential cheating and other irregularities. If you are not a slug, take a breath, calm down, and don't worry about it. Chances are (80%) that you passed, and those are good odds. Remember, you don't have to outrun the lion, just the other 20% who are slow....
 
Nice Quote. I keep telling myself to relax, but I have to purchase a car in a week and finances are tight and I just need to know for sure so I can budget things out.
Congrats to Arizona on 100% pass rate!
Our office is going through a transition because of the new dean coming this month, so I don't know what they are doing. I might have to make some phone calls.
 
ldsrmdude said:
Hopefully you guys will find out soon. We haven't gotten our official letters yet, but they told our office today and we got the news from our Associate Director during a meeting we had. So maybe your school already knows, but just hasn't told you yet...
Click to expand...

I think you're right. From what I've heard, the dean's office already has the results and they are just torturing us in the meantime. But sources say we can stop by and find out our results tomorrow. Hopefully I'm just a little faster than the slow ones...
 
Wait, so AZPOD and ohio students already found out their scores or just the deans?
 
In NYCPM, 74 out of 75 students passed. 🙂)
 
Tell you what, since everybody is going to come on here and brag about their passing rate being 95 percent or so, but the national average will be 80 or so, how about we only post links to official school website pages. I would think a school would put it up on their site as soon as possible. Because we all know some things don't add up
 
I just saw NYCPM's facebook page and they said 99% pass rate, and everyone knows there is nothing more official than facebook
 
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