2019 ITE

[hununuh]

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Took ITE for the first time as a CA-0 (PGY-1). I have only done a few months of anesthesia this year, and thought the exam was hard.

Just out of curiosity, based on your experience, was this year's exam similar to previous exams in terms of difficulty? Is this what I should expect next year when I take it as CA-1?

 

[TexasDoc2388]

It gets easier as you learn more anesthesia. Don’t worry you’ll be fine. I thought it was about the same in terms of difficulty as it was the previous times I’ve taken it.

 

[anbuitachi]

Similar to last yr. Easier than 2 yr ago. It's curved anywya

 

[shepardsun]

This year seemed to me to be pretty heavy on single jump questions i.e. identify this structure on some imaging modality, identify the disease process, or the side effect of the drug. Less multistep- identify the diagnosis, then decide what drug to use, then know the side effect of that drug.

 

[bz1024]

Overall, pretty straight-forward and fair exam I feel. You will feel better about it as you progress in your training.

 

[deleted875186]

Similar to prior years. Gets easier after CA1 year, you realize they are mostly easy questions that you know cold with a few really difficult obscure questions, and the occasional controversial question.

 

[pocafx]

Yeah, im an intern and the exam seemed easy. almost all first order questions. given at least half the questions i just clicked C, cause i couldnt even guess

 

[anbuitachi]

This year seemed to me to be pretty heavy on single jump questions i.e. identify this structure on some imaging modality, identify the disease process, or the side effect of the drug. Less multistep- identify the diagnosis, then decide what drug to use, then know the side effect of that drug.

i never felt ITE to be multistep. always straight forward short questions, either know the answer, or narrow it down to 2 and guess, or just it's a wtf question and just guess and move on

it's cause it usually asks for what is the MOST, or the LEAST, or something like that. they'll give you a few decent answers and ask for the best, so the question doesn't have to be long.

 

[Iso4ane]

I feel like it was easier than last year. And I did reasonably okay last year, and studied minimally this year.

 

[anbuitachi]

I feel like it was easier than last year. And I did reasonably okay last year, and studied minimally this year.

well, im sure you all got top 10% cause you are on sdn.

either way the difficulty doesn't matter much cause its curved

 

[shepardsun]

Yeah, I actually think the fact that it seemed so straight forward is probably a bad thing because if everyone does well then the curve will hurt bad.

 

[anbuitachi]

Yeah, I actually think the fact that it seemed so straight forward is probably a bad thing because if everyone does well then the curve will hurt bad.

yea my CA1 year i thought it was harder than ITE i took in CA2 year. Percentile was higher in Ca1 year even though raw score only went up by 1. so even though i thought ca1 yr ITE was harder i still did better. could be because better curve, or b/c people improved more than i did so i did worse as a ca2

 

[Iso4ane]

Yeah, I actually think the fact that it seemed so straight forward is probably a bad thing because if everyone does well then the curve will hurt bad.

Those were literally my first thoughts coming out of the exam. Averages will be higher this year relative to last year. And last years we’re pretty harsh. (There was so little room at the top end.)

 

[DrOwnage]

I don't particularly like this exam because it has too many easy questions, then a couple of ones out of left field that 95% of people guess on. What makes or breaks 75-95th% is literally guessing right on a couple of more questions. Its horribly scaled.

 

[DM27]

The advent of dedicated Qbanks is likely making the averages for these a lot tighter and makes it harder to really ascend into the 90s because the Qbanks realize the value of the esoteric questions. They essentially write most of these questions by hiring anesthesia residents and attendings and sending out sheets of questions based on the random knowledge gaps reported on the ITEs. This also results in some residents who write questions and have better memories plagiarizing (or border-line plagiarizing) questions from the exams. That is why these QBanks will sometimes have question that are near verbatim what you find on the exam.