- Joined
- May 6, 2007
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 1
I finished my boards..I found the exams AP and CP to be tough and tricky..Is this a general impression?
Last edited:
I took my Pathology Boards
- Thread starter Pathoresident
- Start date
Like everyone else
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 28,059
- Reaction score
- 438
The boards are not supposed to be easy. Personally I thought that the cytopath portion of the AP exam was very difficult and subjective, and the surg path/molecular/etc stuff was more reasonable. The gross pathology and general path stuff was fairly challenging. CP I thought was challenging but fair for the most part.
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2004
- Messages
- 7,132
- Reaction score
- 1,250
In Tampa, if so did you go to Mons Venus afterward?
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2004
- Messages
- 50
- Reaction score
- 0
Just finished too...AP was ok the first part was the most difficult one. No K-type questions. Slides and the virtual slides were excellent quality very clean and crisp. May be on or 2 were over stained but hey...nothing is perfect. Some questions were rather objective ADH vs DCIS...or atypical CAPSS vs micropapillary DCIS or Spitz vs melanoma etc
The CP is absolutely ridiculous exam..The images were poor quality blurry and unfocused. Micro slides were all low power...Questions about organisms which no body have heard of or will never see in their life time. I don't even wanna talk about the clinical chemistry...I have done 7 year of molecular biology and immunology and have to tell you that some of the molecular questions can not be answered without intimate knowledge of bench work. this exam is so ridiculous that I think Im going to drop it and just get certified in AP only.
No way you can prepare for this boards,forger Osler notes to superficial and you are going to waste money...just do your best and keeps fingers crossed.
My advice: pay 2200 for the AP only when you pass decide if you want to get the CP boards or if you need them..
well that's it...time to power up the Xbox for the next 4-6 weeks..Gears of War 2 is coming...
The CP is absolutely ridiculous exam..The images were poor quality blurry and unfocused. Micro slides were all low power...Questions about organisms which no body have heard of or will never see in their life time. I don't even wanna talk about the clinical chemistry...I have done 7 year of molecular biology and immunology and have to tell you that some of the molecular questions can not be answered without intimate knowledge of bench work. this exam is so ridiculous that I think Im going to drop it and just get certified in AP only.
No way you can prepare for this boards,forger Osler notes to superficial and you are going to waste money...just do your best and keeps fingers crossed.
My advice: pay 2200 for the AP only when you pass decide if you want to get the CP boards or if you need them..
well that's it...time to power up the Xbox for the next 4-6 weeks..Gears of War 2 is coming...
- Joined
- May 6, 2007
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 1
I agree with you..I am disappointed from the CP...many technical things that I will never see in my life as MD...unfair..I will give CP another try in June before I decide to drop it.
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2004
- Messages
- 330
- Reaction score
- 27
Just finished too...AP was ok the first part was the most difficult one. No K-type questions. Slides and the virtual slides were excellent quality very clean and crisp. May be on or 2 were over stained but hey...nothing is perfect. Some questions were rather objective ADH vs DCIS...or atypical CAPSS vs micropapillary DCIS or Spitz vs melanoma etc
The CP is absolutely ridiculous exam..The images were poor quality blurry and unfocused. Micro slides were all low power...Questions about organisms which no body have heard of or will never see in their life time. I don't even wanna talk about the clinical chemistry...I have done 7 year of molecular biology and immunology and have to tell you that some of the molecular questions can not be answered without intimate knowledge of bench work. this exam is so ridiculous that I think Im going to drop it and just get certified in AP only.
No way you can prepare for this boards,forger Osler notes to superficial and you are going to waste money...just do your best and keeps fingers crossed.
My advice: pay 2200 for the AP only when you pass decide if you want to get the CP boards or if you need them..
well that's it...time to power up the Xbox for the next 4-6 weeks..Gears of War 2 is coming...
I think that everyone has a different subjective experience to this beast of an exam. Personally, I found CP to be reasonable (I am an AP person who read Quick Compendium for CP at least 5 times) and I thought the AP slides were awful, especially the virtual slides. I got asked questions where you needed 40X to make the diagnosis, only the 40X was hopelessly blurry. Pretty much the opposite of your experience. I guess thats what makes the pathology world go around.
If you did an AP/CP residency, then there is no reason to do AP only. Its only $400 more to take the CP portion, and believe it or not, over half the people who take the exam do pass.
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 28,059
- Reaction score
- 438
I had a similar experience to sohsie - there were a handful of glass slides that resembled either bad frozen section slides or were cut by a tech with a major tremor. And some I think had been stained in 1965 and then left out in the sun for a year or two before recoverslipping them last year.
I agree that there were a lot of random and esoteric micro questions and bugs. It was rather amazing to have been going through 8 years of med school and residency, the Koneman book and other review materials and have organisms that you have never even heard of, let alone know what they look like or how to ID them.
I guess the way I figured it was that there were going to be at least 10-20% of questions that I was just guessing on, so when it didn't really get beyond that I felt more confident. I tried to estimate when I was taking it how many questions I was 1) very confident I got right, 2) Fairly confident, 3) not confident but had narrowed it down to a couple choices, and 4) guesswork. I would say the breakdown went 1) 40%, 2) 30%, 3) 20%, 4) 10%. For AP it was surprisingly similar in the 3 and 4 categories (mostly from cytology and breast path questions), but there were more questions I was very confident on.
Personally I did not think the CP images were terrible. A couple of bad wet heme images. The bad images were the cyto images on AP.
I didn't know what to think about the molecular bio questions. It seemed like the questions were either unbelievably obvious or completely random, very few in between.
I agree that there were a lot of random and esoteric micro questions and bugs. It was rather amazing to have been going through 8 years of med school and residency, the Koneman book and other review materials and have organisms that you have never even heard of, let alone know what they look like or how to ID them.
I guess the way I figured it was that there were going to be at least 10-20% of questions that I was just guessing on, so when it didn't really get beyond that I felt more confident. I tried to estimate when I was taking it how many questions I was 1) very confident I got right, 2) Fairly confident, 3) not confident but had narrowed it down to a couple choices, and 4) guesswork. I would say the breakdown went 1) 40%, 2) 30%, 3) 20%, 4) 10%. For AP it was surprisingly similar in the 3 and 4 categories (mostly from cytology and breast path questions), but there were more questions I was very confident on.
Personally I did not think the CP images were terrible. A couple of bad wet heme images. The bad images were the cyto images on AP.
I didn't know what to think about the molecular bio questions. It seemed like the questions were either unbelievably obvious or completely random, very few in between.
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2008
- Messages
- 190
- Reaction score
- 0
This exam is supposed to be gut wrenchingly hard. We all know that its purpose is to separate those who can practice independently from those who cannot.
My boards post-mortem assessment is that the boards are tough but fair. In my opinion, no questions on either test were based on ancient case reports from some third world nation. If you dilligently read decent books and have good case exposure in residency the bulk of the exam content will at least look familiar. There are some esoteric items, but not enough to keep you from passing if you've done your homework.
I maintain that the real enemy on both tests was the clock (more so on CP), there is a limited amount of time to digest the material, make your best guess & move on. I agree that the virtual slides (what slob shoots unfocused pictures with gigantic chunks of crap on the slide?), glass slides (ancient & faded), and photomicrographs (on both tests) all were of pretty terrible quality, but not such that you couldn't make the diagnosis...
Honestly, the real world actually gives us some terrible histology (sometimes routinely) and we still have to deliver the goods.
My boards post-mortem assessment is that the boards are tough but fair. In my opinion, no questions on either test were based on ancient case reports from some third world nation. If you dilligently read decent books and have good case exposure in residency the bulk of the exam content will at least look familiar. There are some esoteric items, but not enough to keep you from passing if you've done your homework.
I maintain that the real enemy on both tests was the clock (more so on CP), there is a limited amount of time to digest the material, make your best guess & move on. I agree that the virtual slides (what slob shoots unfocused pictures with gigantic chunks of crap on the slide?), glass slides (ancient & faded), and photomicrographs (on both tests) all were of pretty terrible quality, but not such that you couldn't make the diagnosis...
Honestly, the real world actually gives us some terrible histology (sometimes routinely) and we still have to deliver the goods.
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 6, 2007
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 1
I agree with all of the above.
- The aspect of difficulty of the exams is very subjective and it mainly relies on the areas of weakness of the examinee.
- The written part of the AP as well as the CP was fair. However, the practical section of both of them was "tricky" in a large portion of this section. Phrasing of the choices was challenging..you go down to two choices just to find out that the difference between the two is subtle..you end up clicking on one and move...This reminds me with the USMLE style, which stresses on the distinguishing features/criteria of each disease/disorder/lesion rather than the general diagnostic clinical picture of the entity.
- On the CP practice section, there was emphasis on the "technical" issues..many new techniques that we don't know how to interpret appeared..
- Time was critical in the practical parts of both CP and AP...and more killing in the CP.
- Recalls/remembrances helped me a lot. There were many topics that you may never imagine to appear but I was able to answer and very fast..just because I read them from these remembrances.
The baord has many high yield topics/key or buzz words that you have to know...Unfortunately, the review books in the market are limited and the only way is go over the remembrances.
- Overall, you have to know how to approach the exam rather than just having a great fund of knowledge. The exam is tricky and you can easliy miss very simple questions...You cram a huge amount of knowledge which can make you forget things (even basic ones) very easily.
- To Yaa and others:
If God forbid and we have to repeat the exam, does any one like to have a study partner for discussion of certain topics and exchanging materials and tips? If any interested, email me and let me hear from you once we receive the results.
doctor_newyork at yahoo.com
- The aspect of difficulty of the exams is very subjective and it mainly relies on the areas of weakness of the examinee.
- The written part of the AP as well as the CP was fair. However, the practical section of both of them was "tricky" in a large portion of this section. Phrasing of the choices was challenging..you go down to two choices just to find out that the difference between the two is subtle..you end up clicking on one and move...This reminds me with the USMLE style, which stresses on the distinguishing features/criteria of each disease/disorder/lesion rather than the general diagnostic clinical picture of the entity.
- On the CP practice section, there was emphasis on the "technical" issues..many new techniques that we don't know how to interpret appeared..
- Time was critical in the practical parts of both CP and AP...and more killing in the CP.
- Recalls/remembrances helped me a lot. There were many topics that you may never imagine to appear but I was able to answer and very fast..just because I read them from these remembrances.
The baord has many high yield topics/key or buzz words that you have to know...Unfortunately, the review books in the market are limited and the only way is go over the remembrances.
- Overall, you have to know how to approach the exam rather than just having a great fund of knowledge. The exam is tricky and you can easliy miss very simple questions...You cram a huge amount of knowledge which can make you forget things (even basic ones) very easily.
- To Yaa and others:
If God forbid and we have to repeat the exam, does any one like to have a study partner for discussion of certain topics and exchanging materials and tips? If any interested, email me and let me hear from you once we receive the results.
doctor_newyork at yahoo.com
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 28,059
- Reaction score
- 438
Well, I took it in May so I already know that I passed. I think the whole concept of a "study partner" is really individual. I have never willingly studied in a group (which means that in college I did study in groups occasionally, but only because there was a girl I had a crush on in the group) and don't ever want to. It decreases my studying efficiency by about 75%. While it may help you think of things you forgot to study or didn't look at from a certain perspective, in the end it just doesn't work much for me. At the most I would discuss difficult areas with others to see if they had any tips for remembering it. But other people love group studying.
