2015 Echo Board-Post Test Impresisons

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HMSBeagle

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I just took the echo boards today. It was brutal and I left the testing center with a bad feeling. Not sure what to make of it. It was a hard test and honestly don't know if I passed. Anyone else feel the same way about this test?
 
Hi all,

I just got done with the echo boards today. It was one of the toughest exams I've taken. To put it bluntly, it will take a miracle for me to pass. I don't want to get caught up in regret.

Therefore, I'm focusing on looking ahead to next year's exam. I was curious to know whether anyone had a better experience than me. I listened to Mayo review (2014) and practiced questions from Klein and ASE. Personally, I think that the exam questions are worlds apart from what is taught in the Mayo review.

Has anyone used any other material that is more exam specific? Also, has anyone read the new ASE comprehensive echo textbook? What is your impression of you have had a chance to read it?

Also, what can I do differently to improve my chances of passing?

Thanks!
 
I just posted my concerns as well! Block 4 was an absolute bloodbath. I was barely able to hold it together. Full blown panic attack after getting home. Found the test very different than what was advertised by Mayo, ASE exam sim and Klein. Plus my program doesn't do strain or congenital at all. That was enough to ensure that I'll be seeing those folks at Prometric again next year.
 
echophobic said:
I just posted my concerns as well! Block 4 was an absolute bloodbath. I was barely able to hold it together. Full blown panic attack after getting home. Found the test very different than what was advertised by Mayo, ASE exam sim and Klein. Plus my program doesn't do strain or congenital at all. That was enough to ensure that I'll be seeing those folks at Prometric again next year.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was tough specially blocks 1 and 4. If I don't pass I don't think I'll be taking it again. I'll be starting a subspecialty next year and between that and the cardiology board I won't be able to study adequately.
 
Block 4 was ridiculous. Not going into specifics, but what was up with all the prosthetic valves?! For blocks 1-3 I felt unsure about ~16 questions each. For block 4 I felt unsure about pretty much half of it. I did the ASE mock exam and was scoring consistently >80% of the questions, and ~70% on klein.

This document in the late 1990s says their passing cut off was 68.5%
http://www.onlinejase.com/article/S0894-7317(01)55987-8/pdf

This document which is much more recent in 2011, does not talk about passing cut off, but does give some percent correct numbers in 2011 and it was around 71% mean.
http://www.echoboards.org/documents/NBE Board Meeting April 2012/Z_Special Report_ASCeXAM at 16 years/1_ASCeXAM at 16 Report.pdf

I honestly don't see my self getting 68.5% of the questions right....

And to make matters worse, we have to wait 10 weeks!

HMSBeagle said:
Yeah it was tough specially blocks 1 and 4. If I don't pass I don't think I'll be taking it again. I'll be starting a subspecialty next year and between that and the cardiology board I won't be able to study adequately.
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I am in the same boat. If I don't pass it this year I won't take it again while doing interventional.
 
Well, I'm glad it wasn't just me!
Brutal test.

I was laughing at some of the questions they asked, saying to myself "oh really? That's what they think is important? And their images were really crappy it was impossible to see exactly what they were asking about on many of the questions!!
I felt that there were far too many questions on prosthetic valves!
I was ok with the congenital section - between the Mayo and ASE videos and reading the congenital chapters in Oh and Feigenbaum, I thought I was prepared for them.

Overall it is a very difficult exam - much more than General or Nuclear. According to the NBE site, the passing rate in 2014 was 68%.
For those planning to take it next year, I would advise starting now and reading cover to cover either Feigenbaum or Oh or both to get your baseline knowledge, then do Mayo and ASE videos, and for questions either Klein or the similar book by Sorrell & Jayasuriya. Mechanical valves & Congenital were emphasized. The physics seemed reasonable for the most part. Understand doppler hemodynamics and calculating gradients between different chambers, continuity equation etc.

Hopefully I will pass - because I don't think I want to go through it again next year! We'll see in two months or so.
 
Echophobic,
Everyone I know, including myself, who took the test thought it was very difficult.
I thought the Mayo review and ASE review were still very useful. But one needs to also read a comprehensive echo book like Feigenbaum or Oh. For questions, Klein or the one by Sorrell & Jayasuriya.
I thought there were many questions that were difficult only because the images were very poor in quality and there was no way for me to tell exactly what they were asking about from the images - I don 't know how one studies for that other than by reviewing several echos and getting good at being able to recognize structures in nonstandard views.
 
I just took it as well. Brutal to say the least. Prosthetics was super heavily tested and yes block 4 gave me PTSD too (Hence I am on this forum at 5AM, LOL). For prosthetics, it is not enough to know Acceleration time and pressure half time, one needs to understand every little nitty gritty involved with these valves. I was getting about 75% in ASE simulation. And that was less difficult than the actual test. I agree with EaglesPA that this test really needs studying all through the year, because it is a highly conceptual exam and baseline knowledge is quite important. If I have to take the test again, I would prepare more on hemodynamics, valves, valves, valves.

There were a few physics questions which Im not sure reading any resource would have helped with, but I dint feel it was physics-heavy. Congenital was alright, using the usual study resources. I used Klein, Mayo, Pai, ASE simulation. I felt like I had studied, but I'm wondering now if it was enough. Oh well, time will tell..Good luck y'all.

By 68.5% passin rate, does it mean that 68.5% people pass, or is it the actual percentage reqd to pass? I doubt i'm getting 68.5% 🙁
 
I felt Klein was prolly the most useful resource for me. Mayo videos are good but do not reflect the 'intensity' of the exam, they give basic to intermediate level concepts but certainly the test has higher level questions. Klein was good because it made me think, and thats a large part of what I was forced to do on the test :d
 
braunwald said:
By 68.5% passin rate, does it mean that 68.5% people pass, or is it the actual percentage reqd to pass? I doubt i'm getting 68.5% 🙁
Click to expand...

In the document from the late 90s, it sounded like the actual the actual percentage needed to pass. I have not seen any documents since about what the passing percent score was since then. The passing rate was 68% last year, but we have no idea as far as I know about what the passing percentage is.
 
This definitely is an obscure test with little transparency.
 
Block 4 was absolutely horrible.. I might be sure about 30% of the exam and the rest I either had no clue what they were talking about or got stuck between two answers.
 
It was a horrible test for multiple reasons: 1) The level of complexity of many of the questions was not appropriate for the time allotted for each question. 2) Very obscure and esoteric concepts were tested on the exam. 3) The test does to seem to test proficiency in the area of clinical echocardiography - rather, it seems to evaluate test-taking abilities, ability to remember random facts and minutiae, and luck (were you lucky enough to catch a keyword in a 10,000 word-long question stem?).

I went into that test knowing my stuff pretty darn well. I have scored in the upper quintiles for step 1, step 2, step 3, and did quite well on IM boards considering I did not do any reading for that exam except for some MKSAP questions.

Echo Boards was depressing. Everyone I know who took the exam thought it was brutal. I agree, Block 4 was pretty rough. Many of the questions required multiple-step calculations which took longer than the allotted 1 minute and change.

Would have been nice if the test actually evaluated the examinee's ability to read echo's independently.
 
Some one has a user name EchoboardsPTSD. Come on! It can't be that bad 🙁
As an echocardiographer, I know the physics part of the test can be tough; did not realize that the other parts of the test were also considered to be tough. This becomes important as the test is perceived to be be 'doable' by level 2 training standards. Most fellowship programs tend to neglect theoretical or 'cognitive' training in echo (granted most programs can teach you how to do TEEs and read echoes). This is due to a multitude of factors- everyone is busy making RVUs, paucity of great educators in echo at most programs- may get worse as level 3 echo fellowships don't fill (except Mayo, MGH, Cleveland, UCSF and few others) and not many graduates are doing level 3 echo training (which ideally requires a separate dedicated year of training).
May be NBE needs to look in to this formally..polling all the cardiology/anesthesiology fellows and fellowship directors would be first step. But I would hate for this test to become a means to sell ASE board review and other board review courses, which appears to have already happened. It is the same group of academic '******' who go around the country giving board review lectures and then they make questions for the test (ditto for nuclear).
 
EPADHA said:
Some one has a user name EchoboardsPTSD. Come on! It can't be that bad 🙁
As an echocardiographer, I know the physics part of the test can be tough; did not realize that the other parts of the test were also considered to be tough. This becomes important as the test is perceived to be be 'doable' by level 2 training standards. Most fellowship programs tend to neglect theoretical or 'cognitive' training in echo (granted most programs can teach you how to do TEEs and read echoes). This is due to a multitude of factors- everyone is busy making RVUs, paucity of great educators in echo at most programs- may get worse as level 3 echo fellowships don't fill (except Mayo, MGH, Cleveland, UCSF and few others) and not many graduates are doing level 3 echo training (which ideally requires a separate dedicated year of training).
May be NBE needs to look in to this formally..polling all the cardiology/anesthesiology fellows and fellowship directors would be first step. But I would hate for this test to become a means to sell ASE board review and other board review courses, which appears to have already happened. It is the same group of academic '******' who go around the country giving board review lectures and then they make questions for the test (ditto for nuclear).
Click to expand...

For me, the difficulty of the exam wasn't really with the "theoretical" or "cognitive" aspects. I was fine with most of the physics and I also liked seeing the questions that tested the concepts of pressure gradients between various chambers, across shunts and using continuity equation, Bernouilli's etc - those are unambiguous and once you understand the concepts you can get most of those questions correct.
My biggest issue was with the quality of many of the images which made it very difficult to see exactly what they were asking about. I also felt that there was an overemphasis on certain things and less on the stuff we encounter daily in everyday echo practice - I admit some of it may be due to recall bias since you tend to remember more the questions you had problems with, but still..
 
Dear EPADHA,
When you say, "It can't be that bad", let me ask you something- What is the purpose of this forum (or rather this particular thread on this forum)? This "thread" was not created to re-emphasize how fantastic the echo boards were. The words "difficult", "brutal", "bloodbath", "horrible", "PTSD" - not from me, "ridiculous" etc were used to describe this test by the various bloggers for a reason.
I felt that the echo training at my program was actually quite good. They did cover many of the "theoretical" or "cognitive" aspects of cardiac echocardiography.
I thought the test in itself was poorly formulated for all the reasons I stated in my previous post.
 
I took this test last year, and felt similar what you guys have said. I was pretty angry, but Ultimately I did well. My guess is my clinical training helped more than anything else.

So, a lot of you probably did better than you think, and besides this test is nothing more than a feather in the cap, not essential to practice/billing/getting a job etc.
 
sorry- did not mean to ruffle any feathers..
Believe me most people who are all freaked out will pass.
 
I think they need to be a lot more transparent about the statistics / passing scores / scoring methodology than they are now. After all nearly 1/3rd of all first time takers fail this test, and the anxiety about it in my opinion is warranted. And for those that think that it has no impact on your career, that is not entirely true. The most recent graduates from our fellowship reported that all three of them were asked for whether or not they took the Echo boards while looking for a general cards job. I don't think it is a deal breaker for any job, but for whatever reason, job market is getting more competitive and soon all these boards will become more relevant.
 
Got results today in email. Passed. Watching ASE videos / Mayo videos and reviewing physics was enough for me. Passed comfortably. The pass rate this year looks much better, about 81% I think based on my report.
 
And for future reference, the mean percent correct of all candidates was about 71-73. I think the passing percent correct is probably 65.
 
medicine_freak said:
Got results today in email. Passed. Watching ASE videos / Mayo videos and reviewing physics was enough for me. Passed comfortably. The pass rate this year looks much better, about 81% I think based on my report.
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I don't think pass rate was that high....only 1 person in my fellowship passed. I missed literally by 1 question. Congrats to those that passed.
 
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Passed. 3 of the fellows from my program gave it and all 3 passed. I got 79% correct, 78 percentile, 3 digit score 600. Considering how terrible I felt the test was, I was pleasantly surprised, LOL.
 
Passed!
After the test I felt like there was a 50-50 chance.
I'm glad I don't have to retake it.
From the percentiles listed on the score report it looks like the percent of people passing was higher this year (somewhere in the 75 to 80% range compared to the 68% in 2014).
I used Mayo review videos, ASE review videos and Sorrell question book. For those taking it in the future I would also recommend reading cover to cover a comprehensive book like Oh or Feigenbaum before using these resources for review.
 
IMDoc607 said:
I don't think pass rate was that high....only 1 person in my fellowship passed. I missed literally by 1 question. Congrats to those that passed.
Click to expand...

On my score card the Minimum Passing Scale Score was 478. Based on the norm table provided, 460 was 13th percentile, and 480 was 19th percentile. Let us assume the Minimum Passing Scale score was 480 ( which would lower the passing rate), based on the norm table the passing rate would be 81% since 19% scored lower than 480.

Sorry about your result, this test was really brutal.
 
medicine_freak said:
On my score card the Minimum Passing Scale Score was 478. Based on the norm table provided, 460 was 13th percentile, and 480 was 19th percentile. Let us assume the Minimum Passing Scale score was 480 ( which would lower the passing rate), based on the norm table the passing rate would be 81% since 19% scored lower than 480.

Sorry about your result, this test was really brutal.
Click to expand...

Ya know, I walked out feeling confident but then I started to catch myself on mistakes that I made. Score was 477. I know I can pass this test. I studied real hard and feel confident in echo readings. Translating that into the exam I know can be different.
 
Passed too. Quite comfortably. Mayo videos and Klein
I still think this is a poorly written test
 
I'm a cardiac anesthesiologist who had previously passed the PTeXAM a few years back. I passed, 90th percentile using Klein, ASE review course, and PTEmasters.com
 
Do Mayo or ASE Board review, Klein , Pai, studied for 2 1/2 months while in busy fellowship ...stay confident
 
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