Howdy,
I am the President of BES. My wife and I have been the Directors of the Institute for Professional Preparation at the University of Missouri - Kansas City and we retired last fall just before the Institute closed its Medical Review Program. We are currently consultants to several Medical Schools and Residency Programs nationwide and we provide other types of focused Diagnostic Tests.
Our exams have been used for over 20 years to help medical students evaluate their own performance in answering questions for USMLE and COMLEX tests. We offer two types of exams, a mockboard and two diagnostic exams for Step 1.
Our diagnostic tests are designed to help a test taker meaningfully analyze the types of mistakes they may be making which might depress their ultimate performance on these important exams. Our recap of questions is a way to determine if a person is in fact narrowing answers down to two choices as well as to let a student know the extent to which they are accurately answering questions they think they know. Thus we ask for not only first and second choices, but also confidence in their first choice as well as giving the student the opportunity to change an answer. When finished, the student will receive both a summary report as well as a computer generated analysis with general recommendations for fixing test-taking error patterns. Although the exam is not timed, the computer does collect the amount of time taken and reports if it is too slow or too fast.
As for our Mockboard exam, it is a timed 7-block exam. It has been our experience that sitting for an all day exam prior to the actual event is very beneficial to provide a student with a sense of the endurance needed for the actual test day. We have worked very hard to provide a balanced set of questions (as similar to the USMLE as possible) in order for a student to make a meaningful assessment of their readiness to sit for the actual event. Again an summary report is provided to help a test taker identify their relative strengths and weaknesses. We have always encouraged students to take our exam within a month of actually sitting for the USMLE or COMLEX as we have good reliability of passing with a specific score on the BES Mock. There are a number medical schools using our exam at present and each of those schools have identified their own predictor scores. Our Mockboard is not meant to be used exclusively, but rather with other measures to monitor performance and readiness.
Overall, our focus is to help a student prepare adequately and appropriately for these licensure exams and, most importantly, achieve a score that is commensurate with their abilities.
Please let me know if you have other questions.
Sincerely,
Martin Jolley
