Wow if you knew 50% that sounds pretty good to me. Did you study alot? I take it next week and don't feel confident lol
Yes I studied about 11 weeks putting in 10-15 hours a week so I probably studied ~ 125 hours total. All my study material was composed of the ACCP BCPS review, UpToDate, and some youtube videos on stats. Like everyone else says, if you have stats and study design nailed down, it'll give you a good foundation.
When it comes to study design of case-control vs cohort....
c
Ase-c
Ontrol has two different groups, one with the disease and one without (the
A and
O are different).
c
Oh
Ort has two same groups (the O and O are the same)
Relative ratio is associated with cOhOrt studies (the O's are related)
Odds ratio is associated with cAse-cOntrol studies
I found test-taking stills comes into play with the BCPS. I found it helpful to read the question twice. A few times, I caught myself misreading the question. For example, I read "Which one is the least likely likely to be clinically significant." But the question was "Which one is the MOST likely to be clinically significant?" Read the stem of the question to see what they want answered. Cross out parts of the paragraph that don't have to do with the question so you can make it easier to answer. Try to answer the question without looking at the choices first. Then look at the choices to see if one matched what you thought. But still go over all the other answers just in case you could have missed something.
You have about 1.5 minutes per question. Mark the midway point to see if you have answered half the questions in half the alloted time. If you find the question is really hard, then just flag it and go to the next one. It's better to get two medium questions right and miss the difficult question than the other way around.
The saving grace of the test is that it is multiple choice with only four options. I guarantee more people would fail if the multiple choice gave five answers instead of four. It's pretty easy to eliminate it down to two choices. If you can take a practice exam and get >70%, I think you are good to go. If you get <60%, definitely keep studying. Good luck, may the odds be ever in your favor.