ABA Advanced Exam 2020

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CBCbeME

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And the wait for exam results begins......Hope I'm not racked with anxiety for the next 2 months as I wait for exam results....

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Entire test was full of nonsense
 
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A nice mix of chip shots and obscure/useless/tricky questions.

it’s really telling, if you look at the missed keywords from many many years versus today, they’ve just started testing more and more obscure things.
 
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What do you guys think were the most effective study resources in hindsight?
 
Everyone uses truelearn, problem is that the test was garbaggio
 
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Everyone uses truelearn, problem is that the test was garbaggio
Agreed. Still feel that Truelearn was one of the best resources, but where it set me up for failure was thinking the questions on the advanced were going to be well thought out and would actually test your medical decision making.

Instead we got questions written by this guy:

hah-got-heem.jpg
 
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Very frustrating exam. True learn and Hall felt like it was hopefully enough to nail enough good/fair questions, and with a bit of luck I will get some of left field questions right but yea the scary part is if I were to have to do this again I would have no clue how to prepare for most of these questions.

I didn’t know SIRS criteria is now a thing again
 
took it in the past. used only truelearn, final percentile was >90% on actual exam.
but walked out of exam feeling it was very difficult and lot of random questions. not sure how much truelearn actually helped, but i think background knowledge accumulated thru the 4 yrs of residency helped figure some stuff out and eliminate wrong choices. i read a lot of anesthesia related material on a regular basis through out residency (mainly this forum ;) )
luckily everything is curved
 
This test is a joke. Such a money grab and not even remotely a worthy judgement of one's anesthetic ability.
 
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Agree that it felt like an odd mixture of plenty of easy first-order questions that >90% will get correct (drawing of classic view of axillary block with an arrow pointing to the musculocutaneous nerve asking what nerve it was) with a bunch of other obscure questions or ones that went pretty deep into the pathophysiology of rare metabolic diseases like porphyria or the nuances of non-dystrophic myotonias. I'm confident that I at least passed, based on nothing but prior experience with exams like these... you always feel crappy walking out but once the curve is applied you did fine.
 
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After taking Basic yesterday, it's good to know that I'll walk out of Advanced next year feeling exactly how I do now lmao
 
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This test is a joke. Such a money grab and not even remotely a worthy judgement of one's anesthetic ability.

Did you feel the orals were a better measure of competency? If not, what do you think is the best way to test for certification? I’m genuinely curious what people would want in an ideal world, assuming there has to be an exam.
 
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Given the ABA efficiency, probably when we show up for oral boards/OSCE in 2024.
 
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I really enjoyed how much the ABA seems to care about my ability to practice in incredibly specific situations/settings that 99% of practicing anesthesiologists will never, ever participate in/encounter. Those of you who have taken it know what I'm talking about.
 
When are results coming out? They said 4-6 weeks the day of the test, curious if anyone has updated info
 
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Not that it necessarily means anything, but the wait between the Basic exam and report dates 2 years ago, was 5 weeks plus a few days, releasing on a Tuesday.
 
Not that it necessarily means anything, but the wait between the Basic exam and report dates 2 years ago, was 5 weeks plus a few days, releasing on a Tuesday.

Meaning it should be Sept 1st then?
 
In the past I know there was a rush in the hours after advanced results came out to schedule your Oral/OSCE (Applied) exams ASAP. Based on recent emails from the ABA about needing to accomodate those who had their 2020 exams cancelled, my understanding is that there is no such need to urgently schedule anything this year - because there is no self-scheduling option, right? We will be assigned a date in 2021, likely in the second half of the year? May or may not still be virtual, decision on that TBD early 2021?

Just making sure I understood their email correctly..
 
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In the past I know there was a rush in the hours after advanced results came out to schedule your Oral/OSCE (Applied) exams ASAP. Based on recent emails from the ABA about needing to accomodate those who had their 2020 exams cancelled, my understanding is that there is no such need to urgently schedule anything this year - because there is no self-scheduling option, right? We will be assigned a date in 2021, likely in the second half of the year? May or may not still be virtual, decision on that TBD early 2021?

Just making sure I understood their email correctly..
That is my understanding as well. In fact, I was thinking of not even paying for the exam for many months. The return on investing 2400 is probably significant.
 
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That is my understanding as well. In fact, I was thinking of not even paying for the exam for many months. The return on investing 2400 is probably significant.

If you put that in the market in the spring you would have nearly 4k
 
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So ppl aren't paying for the orals now I assume?
 
I certainly am not. There doesn’t seem to be any advantage of payoff right now, they won’t even give you a date or a gaurentee that they will test you by the end of 2021. They’re exam guidelines say they don’t give refunds under any circumstance, so as soon as you pay you can say goodbye to your money.
 
Passed as well. Time to see how scheduling for Applied works out.
 
Heard it was a weird exam! People whonpassed what resources did u use and what do you recommend ?
 
Very weird exam, but TrueLearn and M5 were enough to at least get me a pass. Don't know what percentile I got, don't care.
 
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Heard it was a weird exam! People whonpassed what resources did u use and what do you recommend ?
Did the truelearn bank in the 2 weeks before the exam. Just get a good night sleep, complete an anesthesia residency, and you’ll probably be fine.
 
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I keep hearing from different people that they’ll end up basing dates on the order that people register and pay in. Any different thoughts on that?
 
I only did TrueLearn and passed, the questions I got wrong likely weren’t in a text book.
 
I paid in case they assign dates based on order paid (unclear about that). My practice should reimburse me though so it's not high risk to me.
 
Those who passed, how well were you doing on Truelearn Advanced qbank?
 
Those who passed, how well were you doing on Truelearn Advanced qbank?
80th plus percentile first pass. 97th percentile second pass; but during board prep I wasn't sure (and I'm still not sure) if truelearn was reflective of whether or not I would pass boards since I had seen/done 50-60% of the questions prior to Advanced exam prep (during ITE prep)
 
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So for those who have already registered, what sort of information do they give you after? Does it say anything about when they will schedule you, or is it basically "thanks for the zero interest loan sucker, we'll see you when we see you"?
 
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"We will email you with your exact date, time and hotel information approximately three months prior to your exam week." (Somewhere between Jan 1 and Dec 31, 2021)
 
"We will email you with your exact date, time and hotel information approximately three months prior to your exam week." (Somewhere between Jan 1 and Dec 31, 2021)
That’s complete bull****. They’re going to give you a random exam date some time that year, and will tell you three months before the exam date. Exactly why I have yet to pay them for this.
 
Hotel information? What happened to it being virtual?
 
Hotel information? What happened to it being virtual?
They must be banking on getting back to in person exams ASAP. Again, I think it’s ridiculous for the ABA to expect us to pay 2400$, wait over a year to take the exam, and then give us absolutely no information about the exam until a couple months before the date.

if a large proportion of us don’t register immediately for the exam I bet the ABA will start giving some info, may even commit to virtual for the entire year. But if everyone just signs up and pays the ABA, you can gaurentee they will take the money and continue this nonsense.
 
They must be banking on getting back to in person exams ASAP. Again, I think it’s ridiculous for the ABA to expect us to pay 2400$, wait over a year to take the exam, and then give us absolutely no information about the exam until a couple months before the date.

if a large proportion of us don’t register immediately for the exam I bet the ABA will start giving some info, may even commit to virtual for the entire year. But if everyone just signs up and pays the ABA, you can gaurentee they will take the money and continue this nonsense.

What if they decide to just mandate everyone to register and pay now?
 
One of the other faculty at my shop is an examiner, he said they were told they would be doing virtual for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately he also said that includes OSCE, which seems beyond stupid to me.
 
What if they decide to just mandate everyone to register and pay now?
Than if course I would promptly register .....

but they haven’t, and I see no need to pay them for services they will drag their feet to do sometime over a year from now.
 
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