First time RISEr

[HookeIsMyHero]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I just took the RISE for the first time. I was wondering what other's experiences were taking the exam during their first year. Basically, I have had some surg path, autopsy, and a bit of CP (no hemepath or flow, forensics, cytopath, micro), and there were massive numbers of questions that I didn't know. Any idea what an average performance on the exam has been in the past for a first year? I hear 500 batted around as a decent score. What does this relate to in terms of percentage of ?s correct?
Thanks. Good luck to those yet to take it.

 

[mcfaddens]

I just took the RISE for the first time. I was wondering what other's experiences were taking the exam during their first year. Basically, I have had some surg path, autopsy, and a bit of CP (no hemepath or flow, forensics, cytopath, micro), and there were massive numbers of questions that I didn't know. Any idea what an average performance on the exam has been in the past for a first year? I hear 500 batted around as a decent score. What does this relate to in terms of percentage of ?s correct?
Thanks. Good luck to those yet to take it.

Don't worry too much. You're still a PGY1 and the questions on the RISE this year were 10X more esoteric than they were last year. Don't freak yourself out. You will figure out what they will ask by the time you take your boards (i.e. whatever happens to be hot at the moment right now for CP its molecular and IT informatics) it changes from year to year just keep a pace on the trends and you might figure out what might be tested on. As a first year just get used to day to day path and don't focus on the RISE as a marker of your competency as a functioning pathologist. Residency and everything else is a different story. Im gonna stop there. best of luck.

 

[Pingu]

I haven't taken it yet, but I sure hope the pictures are as delightfully blurry and low-resolution as they were last year. 🙄

 

[cytoborg]

Don't worry, you're only a first year. 500 is considered a score worthy of passing boards - nobody expects you to be at that point yet.

 

[yaah]

I haven't taken the AP part yet, but I thought the CP section was more fair than last year. Of course, I have been reviewing stuff for the boards. There was a lot of stuff I didn't know but I felt a lot of it was stuff I should (and hopefully will) know. Some questions, not so much, but that's CP. THe special techniques was also ok.

In answer to the original question, the RISE score report will include average scores for everyone around the country in each specific year, so you know where you "match up." Bear in mind many first year AP/CP residents have no CP, and others have mostly CP, so there is a wide range of experience. But I think most people in their first year think most of the questions are tough or esoteric.

I think 500 (overall and per section) is considered good, best scores are close to 700 I think, not sure what the maximum is. I don't know how it relates to %.

 

[mcfaddens]

I haven't taken the AP part yet, but I thought the CP section was more fair than last year. Of course, I have been reviewing stuff for the boards. There was a lot of stuff I didn't know but I felt a lot of it was stuff I should (and hopefully will) know. Some questions, not so much, but that's CP. THe special techniques was also ok.

In answer to the original question, the RISE score report will include average scores for everyone around the country in each specific year, so you know where you "match up." Bear in mind many first year AP/CP residents have no CP, and others have mostly CP, so there is a wide range of experience. But I think most people in their first year think most of the questions are tough or esoteric.

I think 500 (overall and per section) is considered good, best scores are close to 700 I think, not sure what the maximum is. I don't know how it relates to %.

The AP part I felt was very reasonable. CP was OK alot of things Ive got to commit to memory before boards but not impossible. The special techniques was either easy or unreasonably difficult. I wont go into it but some of those questions were off the wall. I can see a trend on what they like to ask on the CP and special tec sections, certain subjects got alot more complex and in depth and they were asked over and over again.

 

[yaah]

Once again I thought the cytopath questions were excessive and too vague.

 

[mapledale]

Once again I thought the cytopath questions were excessive and too vague.

I was told that there are many question were repeated from previous years, it that true? Thanks

 

[yaah]

I dunno. There were similar topics, but I don't think there were identical questions. Maybe a couple of the forensics ones but I can't be sure.

 

[Click Here!]

What topics are meant by "special techniques"?

 

[DarksideAllstar]

I took the CP part yesterday-- didn't think that the questions were that bad. Its hard to really take anything out of this since the only real rotations I have had so far are Micro x 4 months, Heme at our community hospital x 2 months, and 1 month of bone marrows. I actually thought that a few questions you could answer with med school pharmacology (ie drug metabolism).

 

[cytoborg]

Yeah, just took the CP part and it wasn't that bad. Some questions I had no chance of even guessing, but most I felt I should know. Whether I actually know them, is a different story.

 

[yaah]

Yeah, just took the CP part and it wasn't that bad. Some questions I had no chance of even guessing, but most I felt I should know. Whether I actually know them, is a different story.

What got me annoyed was that there were some questions/topics I had not heard about at all, and I have been here four years and have been starting boards study.

The other thing that annoyed me is that there were a couple of questions on stuff I had already studied that I didn't know the answer to. That was worse.

Our PD says that people who get 500+ scores on RISE sections means you will likely do well enough to pass those areas on the boards. So if I get like a 525 on chemistry, what does that mean? I don't have to study that much anymore? 😉

 

[amygdala_path]

Thanks to the OP, cause I was going to post the same question. I am a PGY1. We have lot more AP in the first year and a few months of CP. I think my worst were CP and special topics. I had no clue to most of those questions. I could atleast guess in AP. There is no way I could have prepared for the RISE.
😀

 

[pathstudent]

What topics are meant by "special techniques"?

Hemepath (flow and cytogenetics), lab management and molecular pathology

 

[mcfaddens]

Hemepath (flow and cytogenetics), lab management and molecular pathology

Dont forget IT (informatics)

 

[yaah]

Dont forget IT (informatics)

Yeah, no kidding. It was like a foreign language. And I've gone to a bunch of lectures on informatics.

All informatics lectures start out very simply, they make sense, then WHAMMO all of a sudden you're in formula world with a bunch of nonsensical jargon. They define simple terms but then fail to define all the terms they later focus on.

 

[Click Here!]

Hemepath (flow and cytogenetics), lab management and molecular pathology

Dont forget IT (informatics)

And apparently psychology! 🙄

 

[CameronFrye]

And apparently psychology! 🙄

I can't believe that damn question was on there two years in a row.

 

[yaah]

I can't believe that damn question was on there two years in a row.

Three years, I think. I still don't know the answer. Could look it up but don't care.

 

[pathstudent]

Dont forget IT (informatics)

whoa. i didn't even know i was being tested on informatics. i thought it was all weird lab management stuff. how did pathology get stuck with informatics? we should punt that stuff to the surgeons.

 

[mapledale]

Our PD says that people who get 500+ scores on RISE sections means you will likely do well enough to pass those areas on the boards. So if I get like a 525 on chemistry, what does that mean? I don't have to study that much anymore? 😉[/quote]

What does it mean for the score 500+? how does it calculate? 😴

 

[SLUsagar]

And apparently psychology! 🙄

seriously...wtf. you think the boards have questions on maslow's stages of dev't?? why the hell does the RISE keep asking these same questions?

 

[LADoc00]

Our PD says that people who get 500+ scores on RISE sections means you will likely do well enough to pass those areas on the boards. So if I get like a 525 on chemistry, what does that mean? I don't have to study that much anymore? 😉

What does it mean for the score 500+? how does it calculate? 😴[/QUOTE]

RISE has zero correlation IMO to board passage...BEWARE, your PD is misinformed.

For one, the CP of the actual boards is much tougher than RISE.

I would study my butt off regardless.

 

[yaah]

No, the PDs aren't misinformed - most PDs have this data. They may be interpreting data incorrectly though. They have lots of data that says scoring over 500 on the RISE correlates with passing the boards - that's all. However, that doesn't necessarily mean much. It probably means that people who score over 500 on the RISE are good test takers and are likely to be ones who study more for the boards and are more prepared, thus more likely to pass.

I think what they suggest by promulgating that data is that if you score over 500 on the RISE, you are on the right track and you shouldn't start panicking about the boards. It doesn't mean they are saying the test questions are equivalent.

It's kind of like saying how people who get good grades in organic chem and cell biology do well on the MCAT.

 

[mcfaddens]

seriously...wtf. you think the boards have questions on maslow's stages of dev't?? why the hell does the RISE keep asking these same questions?

I think good ol Maslow had great self awareness

 

[CameronFrye]

What does it mean for the score 500+? how does it calculate? 😴

RISE has zero correlation IMO to board passage...BEWARE, your PD is misinformed.

For one, the CP of the actual boards is much tougher than RISE.

I would study my butt off regardless.[/QUOTE]

And I've heard from someone who said that the CP questions on the boards were more straightforward than the RISE. After some of the informatics questions and the psychology question, I hope he's right. It seems that people's opinions are all over the map when it comes to the difficulty of these tests.

 

[yaah]

The most consistent thing I have heard about CP boards is that almost everyone thinks they failed, or stood a good chance of failing, immediately after taking it. But they ended up doing just fine. The other recurring theme is that many of the questions you can't study for, you just have to evaluate as you see it and work through it.

 

[Pingu]

There were definitely some word for word repeats, especially on the CP. As for the whole IT informatics part, wtf WAS that? I don't think that there is anywhere you CAN actually learn that. Forensics seemed a bit more difficult this year too. I thought cyto and surg path were good, but that is what I like, so there is probably a large bias there on my part.

 

[cytoborg]

I dunno. There were similar topics, but I don't think there were identical questions. Maybe a couple of the forensics ones but I can't be sure.

I noticed near-identical questions from 2 years ago. In fact I think at least one was identical.

Somehow I doubt the writers of the board exams would repeat questions though.

 

[cytoborg]

What got me annoyed was that there were some questions/topics I had not heard about at all, and I have been here four years and have been starting boards study.

Yeah, it's maddening. The opportunity for random esoteric questions in CP is boundless.

 

[djmd]

I noticed near-identical questions from 2 years ago. In fact I think at least one was identical.

Somehow I doubt the writers of the board exams would repeat questions though.

Uh right sure of course not.