Neurology Board Exam

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cellarera

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For the ABPN Neurology board exam:
  1. Is there a guideline/de facto passing score? (It likely changes a bit from year to year)
  2. How much time did you commit to studying (in hours/weeks/months), and then did you pass or fail?
  3. If you used the Beat the Boards question bank, was the actual exam easier or harder than these? What sort of scores were you getting on their practice tests and how did it correlate?
Thanks!!!

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I am also interested in these questions. Thanks
 
For what it's worth, I took the exam in 2017.

1) The score changes bit by bit each year. You don't know how many correct/incorrect questions you can get to pass.
2) I used 2 months to study, about 30 mins each day, with about an hour on the weekends.
3) For studying I used: Mayo Clinic Board Review book (I think you can use this as the primary text), Comprehensive Review in Clinical Neurology by Esteban Cheng-Ching, and Board Vitals. I bought NeuroPrep, and I did not like it. The interface was very dated, and all the questions were minutiae that I didn't find helpful for the actual exam. I'd say the exam was a bit harder than the BoardVitals question bank, however they hit on the major points for you to review, and what things you need to memorize. Also BoardVitals borrows many questions straight out of Dr. Cheng-Ching's book.

Compared to the RITE: I think the test is about as hard as the RITE, if a bit harder. For reference, I did not do well on the RITE on PGY-2, I did marginally better PGY-3, and mid 80's percentile in PGY-4 (the one year I studied).
 
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thank you for your reply. Regarding Comprehensive Review in Clinical Neurology by Esteban Cheng-Ching, was it closer to the actual test? and for Mayo board review, how were you able to revise from it in the end?
 
I'd say the questions on the book + Board Vitals kinda gave me a sense of what I needed to study more, and what I needed to know cold.

Regarding how I made it through the book: I basically divided it into 10-12 pages a day, which was manageable to do for a few months while I covered the material and did questions.
 
Can anyone comment on how hard are the actual board questions? from Chin Chang (comprehensive review in clinical neurology) stand point ? is there a double negative type questions ?
 
I don't remember many if any double negative questions. In fact, I finished the test about two hours early, and so did most of my classmates. This wasn't because the test was easy, rather the questions are extremely direct to the point where you don't have to "think" much about the answers. You either know it, or you don't. A good amount of them are minutia based, and you will most likely get the same concept or even the same question more than once on the test, and this is apparently normal.

Word of caution, some of the questions in the test are "test questions". I got psyched out by one particular stem that was being tested and was defective on my exam (lacked the multimedia needed to answer the question), and it was in the vignette section so it had about 5 sequential questions to it so keep that in mind.

Hope that answers your questions!
 
It was really helpful. Thank you so much for your advice.
 
Does anyone have the passing score from the year they took the exam? (Score, not rate)
 
Does anyone know where I can get access to old Rite exam questions please? Apart from neuroprep and things like that, I mean the actual questions or answers of questions used in the Rite exam?
Thanks in advance
 
For what it's worth, I took the exam in 2017.
For studying I used: Mayo Clinic Board Review book (I think you can use this as the primary text), Comprehensive Review in Clinical Neurology by Esteban Cheng-Ching, and Board Vitals. I bought NeuroPrep, and I did not like it. The interface was very dated, and all the questions were minutiae that I didn't find helpful for the actual exam. I'd say the exam was a bit harder than the BoardVitals question bank, however they hit on the major points for you to review, and what things you need to memorize. Also BoardVitals borrows many questions straight out of Dr. Cheng-Ching's book.

Compared to the RITE: I think the test is about as hard as the RITE, if a bit harder. For reference, I did not do well on the RITE on PGY-2, I did marginally better PGY-3, and mid 80's percentile in PGY-4 (the one year I studied).

This is the general consensus on what resources to study with when I asked both recent grads and a few attendings a few years in practice. This is my plan personally: Mayo Clinic Board Review Series + Comp Review in Clinical Neurology + Board Vitals. I've been reading the Mayo BRS, and it is wonderful. I wish I started reading that text as an R2. Will let you know how this works out in a year!
 
Hi there.
I am looking for a study partner for neurology boards.
Please reply if anyone interested.
 
Agree with above. Especially re: RITE being harder and the Ching Ching board prep book.

When it came time to study for the boards, I relied a lot more on the AAN SAE tests which you can do for free if you're an AAN member. I thought they were good practice for the exam.
 
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