Hi, I just took APCP boards and am seriously concerned that I failed CP. Yes, I know most people feel that way after the test. But I guessed on about half of the questions. Assuming I get all those wrong, that means that I only got 50% of questions right -- fail. Can anyone who's already been through the process comment on their level of confidence after the exam and whether that correlated with their result?? Can't wait until August to know for sure. Thank you!
just took boards...
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I had a very good friend I had known literally since freshman chemistry. We did undergrad together, did research in adjacent chemistry labs and somehow ended up doing residency at the same place. He took the exam first and said the CP portion was the hardest exam he had taken in his life. Given both of us had dabbled in graduate level biophysics crap figuring that was the 'hardest of the hardcore', I proceeded to do the freak out and broke up the 2 exams into 2 sessions separated by several months.
This turned out to be key.
But yeah everyone feels they failed that MF'er.
This turned out to be key.
But yeah everyone feels they failed that MF'er.
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Felt the same way when I took CP... same with my classmates. ended up doing OK. Some of the stuff they test really feels like its out of 1970 in terms of materials and methodology
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I know a dermatologist who, after completing AP/CP and dermpath, decided he really only liked skin and proceeded to complete a dermatology residency. During a derm slide session a couple of months ago one of the derm residents was complaining about how difficult the derm boards were and how much they had to know. He looked at the resident and told him "I have now taken and passed board exams in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, dermatopathology, and clinical dermatology. The easiest of all the exams was clinical dermatology and the clinical pathology exam was the most difficult exam I have ever taken in my life. You have it far easier than the pathology residents."
The CP exam is a beast, and I've met very few pathologists who walked across the road to Maggiano's, The Palm, or Bahama Breeze (my personal choice) who were confident that they passed (but obviously most do). Kudos to all who take and pass the CP exam.
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LOL
A good entrepreneur would open up a liquor store, dingy bar, and strip club across the street from the ABP office.
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I actually thought the AP practical was the hardest part. Lots of fuzzy scanned slides and hated using the stage of the scope to look at the slides. The cytology images were also really hard. I talked to several up and coming cytology fellows and even they were like "WTF!". I'm glad that they changed the scoring for AP so that the test is all combined rather than having to pass the written and practical separately to pass AP as a whole. Made up a lot of points on the AP written which was much easier IMO. A lot of people finished the AP written in under an hour. Scoring will be the same next year for CP.
I took the exam last week and here are some thoughts/tips:
I booked the hotel on Priceline (Bid/Name your own price) and got the same hotel (Intercontinental Tampa) for $80 a night. That's quite a bit of savings compared to the "discounted rate" through ABP (I think it was around $140 a night). There are only 2 four star hotels in that hotel zone in Tampa (Airport South-Westshore), and the alternative hotel is not too far away from the Intercontinental Tampa, so I thought it was worth the gamble. Please note that hotel zones and star rating on Priceline sometimes change, so do check the Hotel list here http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?app=hotel_lists&tid=78 before placing your bid.
You can request a fridge in your hotel room for no additional charge. I went across the street to Walgreens for some grocery shopping the day before the exam since I didn't want to worry about what to eat for breakfast/during the lunch break. Turned out I had plenty of time for lunch on both days, and ended up ordering take-out from the Indian restaurant right across from the street (need to order 30 minutes before hand), so it wasn't really all that necessary for me. But it's still nice to have the option available.
AP exam: I thought the glass slide/virtual slide section was very straight-forward. It is entirely dependent on how many slides you've pushed during residency. I would say most of the cases are on the same level of difficulty as the ones in California Tumor Tissue Registry sets. There were few zebra cases, but they were pretty distinctive; you would know the diagnosis right away if you have seen a case before. As already mentioned above, the virtual slides did not have very high resolution, but it was mostly doable. It was a tad bit annoying that there were quite a few needle biopsies, and we had to use the mouse to drag across the field many times. I finished this section in two hours and had some time to go to the gym before getting lunch.
The afternoon written portion was pretty easy too; most questions were only 2-3 sentences long. I finished in an hour. I was mostly dreading the image section of the exam, as people said it was the hardest part of the exam because half of the questions were cytology (which is true). I flipped through Baby DeMay the night before and Bethesda Pap Smear and Thyroid right before the image section of the exam to get myself "in the zone" for cytology, and I think that helped me quite a bit.
CP exam: Overall I felt pretty good about the CP exam. It was certainly not as easy as the AP exam, but it was due to the fact that there were some fairly random trivia type questions, especially in chemistry and blood bank. I was glad that I went over the RISE exam item descriptors, because a few of the trivia type questions showed up again -- and I wouldn't have gotten those questions right if I hadn't come across them on the RISE.
The practical section was heavy on chemistry and blood bank, as expected. I skipped all the antibody panels and saved them until the end, which was sound advice passed on from a senior resident before me. Do glance at the answer choices before you start doing the cross out; it might save you some time. And as the blood bank guy says, first look at the autocontrol.
CP written section was littered with many random questions as mentioned above. Don't let these questions discourage you; if you think it's random, chances are, everybody else in the room feels the same way. I don't think I would have prepared for these questions adequately even if I spent two more months reading the ASCP compendium for CP or other CP resources. I estimated that I knew about 75% of the questions and had to guess (or pick from one of the two or three remaining viable answer choices) on the remaining 25%.
CP image practical was heavy on heme and microbiology, and I felt very comfortable about this portion of the exam. The questions were about the same level of difficulty as the RISE exam. If you have access to old RISE exam questions, then the image questions might be a good resource to use.
Overall, I felt confident about how I did on the exam. I think having scored well on the RISE exam was definitely a confidence booster, which helped me relax and keep calm (in the face of those random questions) on the real exam.
I booked the hotel on Priceline (Bid/Name your own price) and got the same hotel (Intercontinental Tampa) for $80 a night. That's quite a bit of savings compared to the "discounted rate" through ABP (I think it was around $140 a night). There are only 2 four star hotels in that hotel zone in Tampa (Airport South-Westshore), and the alternative hotel is not too far away from the Intercontinental Tampa, so I thought it was worth the gamble. Please note that hotel zones and star rating on Priceline sometimes change, so do check the Hotel list here http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?app=hotel_lists&tid=78 before placing your bid.
You can request a fridge in your hotel room for no additional charge. I went across the street to Walgreens for some grocery shopping the day before the exam since I didn't want to worry about what to eat for breakfast/during the lunch break. Turned out I had plenty of time for lunch on both days, and ended up ordering take-out from the Indian restaurant right across from the street (need to order 30 minutes before hand), so it wasn't really all that necessary for me. But it's still nice to have the option available.
AP exam: I thought the glass slide/virtual slide section was very straight-forward. It is entirely dependent on how many slides you've pushed during residency. I would say most of the cases are on the same level of difficulty as the ones in California Tumor Tissue Registry sets. There were few zebra cases, but they were pretty distinctive; you would know the diagnosis right away if you have seen a case before. As already mentioned above, the virtual slides did not have very high resolution, but it was mostly doable. It was a tad bit annoying that there were quite a few needle biopsies, and we had to use the mouse to drag across the field many times. I finished this section in two hours and had some time to go to the gym before getting lunch.
The afternoon written portion was pretty easy too; most questions were only 2-3 sentences long. I finished in an hour. I was mostly dreading the image section of the exam, as people said it was the hardest part of the exam because half of the questions were cytology (which is true). I flipped through Baby DeMay the night before and Bethesda Pap Smear and Thyroid right before the image section of the exam to get myself "in the zone" for cytology, and I think that helped me quite a bit.
CP exam: Overall I felt pretty good about the CP exam. It was certainly not as easy as the AP exam, but it was due to the fact that there were some fairly random trivia type questions, especially in chemistry and blood bank. I was glad that I went over the RISE exam item descriptors, because a few of the trivia type questions showed up again -- and I wouldn't have gotten those questions right if I hadn't come across them on the RISE.
The practical section was heavy on chemistry and blood bank, as expected. I skipped all the antibody panels and saved them until the end, which was sound advice passed on from a senior resident before me. Do glance at the answer choices before you start doing the cross out; it might save you some time. And as the blood bank guy says, first look at the autocontrol.
CP written section was littered with many random questions as mentioned above. Don't let these questions discourage you; if you think it's random, chances are, everybody else in the room feels the same way. I don't think I would have prepared for these questions adequately even if I spent two more months reading the ASCP compendium for CP or other CP resources. I estimated that I knew about 75% of the questions and had to guess (or pick from one of the two or three remaining viable answer choices) on the remaining 25%.
CP image practical was heavy on heme and microbiology, and I felt very comfortable about this portion of the exam. The questions were about the same level of difficulty as the RISE exam. If you have access to old RISE exam questions, then the image questions might be a good resource to use.
Overall, I felt confident about how I did on the exam. I think having scored well on the RISE exam was definitely a confidence booster, which helped me relax and keep calm (in the face of those random questions) on the real exam.
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I took my boards back before Memorial Day, so it seems weird that some people are just now finishing...
I didn't get any special hotel deals, but I did manage to fly to Tampa for free. I specifically got one of the Delta credit cards last fall, used it for a couple of months to spend the required amount of money to get the bonus/reward Skymiles and I had enough for the round trip. I still haven't decided if I'm going to keep the card or cancel it, as it has an annual fee after the first year.
I called the night before and scheduled room service to drop lunch off at my room during the break both days. Fairly expensive, but the food was good and it saved me some hassle. I'm not sure how Pollux was able to request an empty fridge - my room (all of the rooms?) had a mini fridge in it that was stuffed to the gills with booze and snacks on sensors that charge your room if you remove anything.
I feel pretty confident that I passed. I "flagged" any questions that I wasn't fairly sure about, probably 30-40% of the questions in each section. So, assuming I missed all of the flagged questions (I hope not!) I would hopefully still have gotten at least 60% correct. For reference, I also scored very well on the RISE as a fourth year (>650 overall).
AP glass/virtual slides:
Overall, most of the cases seemed fair. There were relatively more questions from more common specimen types, like breast, GI and prostate. I agree with Pollux, most of the zebras seemed to be fairly distinctive - generally if you'd seen a picture/recut of the entity, you would recognize it. There were a few that just baffled me. The glass slides that I got were all clean, intact and of good quality - none were faded/poorly stained or broken and no one put them away out of order. The software for viewing the virtual slides was easy to use. There were a few cases that were blurry/out of focus at high magnification. I felt that the biggest problem was the time limit (less than 3 minutes per slide), particularly when a few of the virtual slide cases required you to scan multiple levels/cores/fragments across the entire slide for what could be a very focal finding. This was the only part of the entire exam that I felt rushed on. I made it through all of the cases once, then I had just enough time to glance briefly at the cases I had flagged a second time, but that was it. I definitely didn't have time to go to the gym!?! 😱
The questions were short and straightforward - you either knew the factoid they wanted or you didn’t. I thought that questions involving IHC were reasonable (i.e. they did NOT ask about really old stains no one uses regularly anymore). I felt it was the easiest part of the whole exam.
AP images:
The quality of *most* of the photos were decent. Although, even if the photo was of good quality, that doesn’t necessarily mean I could figure out what they were trying to show on some of the cyto questions. The cyto questions were a mix of super obvious/easy “gimmies” and questions that I could narrow down to 2-3 choices, but would then have to guess. I had the most time leftover at the end of this section (even after carefully reviewing everything I had flagged) and I was able to leave early.
CP practical:
As previous posters have stated, this is essentially all blood bank and chemistry with a sprinkling of lab admin (you can see the breakdown yourself with the “blueprints” the ABP provides on their website). This was the most difficult part of the entire exam for me, but I also felt like I was able to work through and at least make a reasonable educated guess on many questions that seemed awful initially. The lab admin questions were easier and more fair than I expected overall. A lot of the chemistry and blood bank questions required you to really understand/interpret/apply findings in the context of a clinical scenario. The questions were much harder, longer and more involved than those in the Compendium Companion.
CP written:
Overall, I felt that the CP written was a bit more difficult and MUCH more frustrating than the AP written for several reasons. First, it felt like the question writers were often deliberately trying to trick or confuse you - read VERY carefully. Generally, the answer choices were longer than the AP section and many sounded roughly correct at first glance. Distractors could be incorrect due to one tiny/minor detail and each answer choice would be about a *different* detail, so you couldn’t narrow it down to two or figure it out with just logic/test-taking skills. Second (in complete agreement with Pollux here), some questions were extremely esoteric, involving a level of detail that I had never even heard of (i.e. you would need even more detail than what is in the Compendium to answer the question correctly).
CP images:
Questions are micro and heme. The quality of the images was generally decent and, assuming you knew the disease entity, organism or test they were depicting, it was usually fairly obvious what they were trying to show. I agree that the difficulty was similar to the RISE. The thing that I found the MOST frustrating in this section was the choice of content. There were many questions, moreso micro than heme, covering extremely outdated techniques that I specifically did not cover in my studying. I decided that there was a limited amount of time to study and limited space in my memory - I reasoned that outdated techniques were the LEAST likely to be useful to me in my “real life” after the exam, so I didn’t waste any of my time on them.
I didn't get any special hotel deals, but I did manage to fly to Tampa for free. I specifically got one of the Delta credit cards last fall, used it for a couple of months to spend the required amount of money to get the bonus/reward Skymiles and I had enough for the round trip. I still haven't decided if I'm going to keep the card or cancel it, as it has an annual fee after the first year.
I called the night before and scheduled room service to drop lunch off at my room during the break both days. Fairly expensive, but the food was good and it saved me some hassle. I'm not sure how Pollux was able to request an empty fridge - my room (all of the rooms?) had a mini fridge in it that was stuffed to the gills with booze and snacks on sensors that charge your room if you remove anything.
I feel pretty confident that I passed. I "flagged" any questions that I wasn't fairly sure about, probably 30-40% of the questions in each section. So, assuming I missed all of the flagged questions (I hope not!) I would hopefully still have gotten at least 60% correct. For reference, I also scored very well on the RISE as a fourth year (>650 overall).
AP glass/virtual slides:
Overall, most of the cases seemed fair. There were relatively more questions from more common specimen types, like breast, GI and prostate. I agree with Pollux, most of the zebras seemed to be fairly distinctive - generally if you'd seen a picture/recut of the entity, you would recognize it. There were a few that just baffled me. The glass slides that I got were all clean, intact and of good quality - none were faded/poorly stained or broken and no one put them away out of order. The software for viewing the virtual slides was easy to use. There were a few cases that were blurry/out of focus at high magnification. I felt that the biggest problem was the time limit (less than 3 minutes per slide), particularly when a few of the virtual slide cases required you to scan multiple levels/cores/fragments across the entire slide for what could be a very focal finding. This was the only part of the entire exam that I felt rushed on. I made it through all of the cases once, then I had just enough time to glance briefly at the cases I had flagged a second time, but that was it. I definitely didn't have time to go to the gym!?! 😱
AP written:
The questions were short and straightforward - you either knew the factoid they wanted or you didn’t. I thought that questions involving IHC were reasonable (i.e. they did NOT ask about really old stains no one uses regularly anymore). I felt it was the easiest part of the whole exam.
AP images:
The quality of *most* of the photos were decent. Although, even if the photo was of good quality, that doesn’t necessarily mean I could figure out what they were trying to show on some of the cyto questions. The cyto questions were a mix of super obvious/easy “gimmies” and questions that I could narrow down to 2-3 choices, but would then have to guess. I had the most time leftover at the end of this section (even after carefully reviewing everything I had flagged) and I was able to leave early.
CP practical:
As previous posters have stated, this is essentially all blood bank and chemistry with a sprinkling of lab admin (you can see the breakdown yourself with the “blueprints” the ABP provides on their website). This was the most difficult part of the entire exam for me, but I also felt like I was able to work through and at least make a reasonable educated guess on many questions that seemed awful initially. The lab admin questions were easier and more fair than I expected overall. A lot of the chemistry and blood bank questions required you to really understand/interpret/apply findings in the context of a clinical scenario. The questions were much harder, longer and more involved than those in the Compendium Companion.
CP written:
Overall, I felt that the CP written was a bit more difficult and MUCH more frustrating than the AP written for several reasons. First, it felt like the question writers were often deliberately trying to trick or confuse you - read VERY carefully. Generally, the answer choices were longer than the AP section and many sounded roughly correct at first glance. Distractors could be incorrect due to one tiny/minor detail and each answer choice would be about a *different* detail, so you couldn’t narrow it down to two or figure it out with just logic/test-taking skills. Second (in complete agreement with Pollux here), some questions were extremely esoteric, involving a level of detail that I had never even heard of (i.e. you would need even more detail than what is in the Compendium to answer the question correctly).
CP images:
Questions are micro and heme. The quality of the images was generally decent and, assuming you knew the disease entity, organism or test they were depicting, it was usually fairly obvious what they were trying to show. I agree that the difficulty was similar to the RISE. The thing that I found the MOST frustrating in this section was the choice of content. There were many questions, moreso micro than heme, covering extremely outdated techniques that I specifically did not cover in my studying. I decided that there was a limited amount of time to study and limited space in my memory - I reasoned that outdated techniques were the LEAST likely to be useful to me in my “real life” after the exam, so I didn’t waste any of my time on them.
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Do you mean you hate using the slide holder and the translational control knobs, which some refer to as "training wheels," as opposed to just using your fingers to "drive" the slides? Because I was able to shove the slide holder off to the far side of the stage and drive with my fingers without any difficulty.
They would deliver an empty mini-fridge to your room, in addition to the one that is already full of stuff.
I'm more of an AP-centric pathology resident, and I have been going over at least 50 seminar/study set cases every day on top of my daily duties for the last 6 month to get ready for my fellowship; I actually posted some of the cases in a thread on this forum, in case you're interested. In general, those cases are much more difficult than the cases on the board exam, which is why I felt the AP slide section is a walk in the park in comparison. The fact that we couldn't get the box back once we return it was also part of the reason I finished so quickly, as there's really no point going back to the question without having access to the corresponding slide. For reference, I scored >690 overall on the RISE as a PGY4.
Glad you agreed with most of my comments regarding the difficulty/scope of the exam.
