Official ABIM Exam/study tools thread!

[Always Working 1234]

Just kinda wanna cry. If my certification letter says "Not Certified" does that mean that I failed? I cannot find my score anywhere, everything is the spinning wheel of death, I am not generally prone to panic but I feel like I'm loosing my mind.

The weird thing is that when I go to My Assessments (pic below) it looks like I passed?

What is going on?

Try searching here https://www.abim.org/verify-physician with your ABIM number

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[Always Working 1234]

SAME! my certification letter also says not certified but I have the same exact picture as yours under assessments. I wish the would just release the score report now cause that would answer a lot of this confusion.

Try searching here Verify Physician Status | ABIM.org with your ABIM number

 

[sss2g2]

Passed!

Wow I use to be on here since step 1. It’s come full circle guys!

 

[Throwaway6969420]

Try searching verify abim credentials or such and put in your ABIM number and it should come up

It seemed like they changed the site a couple hours ago and added new sections about MOC progress, etc.

 

[sammyOMM]

Anyone able to see their score report? This is ridiculous...

 

[srlbrown17]

Score report now where you can click it but it just loads forever and nothing comes up

 

[Dr. Opout]

Score report now where you can click it but it just loads forever and nothing comes up

Stick with it, it did the same thing for me and ended up loading on one of the subsequent tries.

 

[closertoGod]

Just kinda wanna cry. If my certification letter says "Not Certified" does that mean that I failed? I cannot find my score anywhere, everything is the spinning wheel of death, I am not generally prone to panic but I feel like I'm loosing my mind.

The weird thing is that when I go to My Assessments (pic below) it looks like I passed?

What is going on?

Likely you don't, my guess on my case, still unable to see score reports yet

 

[gurriya12]

The scope report is taking forever to load still waiting feeling so depressed it seems like I did not pass, as mentioned on my certification letter.

 

[sammyOMM]

Does it say for anyone else the results will be mailed no score report?

 

[sss2g2]

For those looking for advice for next year now that results are released. Here's some updated information based off my experience.

This is a very, very doable exam. As long as you put some effort into learning medicine (which you should be doing anyway), you should be able to cognitively reason through many of the questions. Try to learn as much as you can during residency. LEARN from your mistakes. Focus on what you don't know. If you encounter something you don't know. Make sure you eventually know it. I think this practice will serve you well in general. You don't need to know all the advanced Acid Base stuff. If you haven't learned this by now. You will never learn it. Forget it and move on.

1)ITE's are absolute garbage, waste of time, poor indicators of future exam success in my honest opinion. How can this exam be standardized if you take it while on a brutal service block compared to peers whom are on an elective? Oh yes and everyone does study for this exam because no one wants to be the weak link in front of their boss. If your peers say they aren't studying, they're lying to you. Remember these are the same hardcore premeds at heart lurking on SDN. They should stop administering this exam.

2)UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD. No. Not MKSAP. UWORLD. Not MedStudy Qbank. UWORLD. Not this new Qbank no one has ever heard of. UWORLD. UWORLD features all the hard question on the test. You will answer the straight forward questions asking you whether to give a statin or not. Where you will struggle are those hard questions having you reason between multiple answer choices. Uworld does an absolute amazing job at allowing you to tap into that cognitive reasoning involved answering difficult questions. Period. End of story. You always used uworld for all your other exams. Now is not the time to change. I started Uworld after graduating residency. There was no time for me to get through this bank prior.I hammered through questions about a month out and it was good enoguh to finish. Make sure to finish this qbank by any means necessary. For extra points, do it earlier. Try to do it more than once. They do trick you. The exam doesn't trick you. What I do here is always answer the question at face value. Sometimes I even answer wrong to not change my clinical reasoning If that makes sense.

3)Don't really need MKSAP. The Heme-Onc part is overkill. Don't need Board Basics either. If you want to annotate in something for active learning, then it may be worth it.

4)Awesome review is overkill in my opinion. Many of the concepts are what specialists need to know. Not what you need for the boards. It is really fast paced and definitely needs to be slowed down. In my honest opinion, all you need is Uworld once again. I really don't think a review course is necessary. Maybe take it if you failed. I would certainly take this course as MOC because I feel it will make sure you are up to date. If you only have a couple weeks from the test, I don't recommend it.

5) The hardest part is sitting down and studying. Now that you finally are done with thegauntlet that is residency, you finally have time in your life again and you want to live it up before you start work as an attending. This is important but unfortunately you have to study a little bit. If you were able to study throughout residency, congrats you deserve to enjoy this time. If you went to a demanding residency, had a family, had extracurriculars and weren't able to study throughout, then you need to grind it out if you want to pass.

Good luck

 

[hushhush88]

Agree with above poster. The only difference for me was that Board Basics was super helpful. I was surprised to see I actually did well on the test and I credit reading Board Basics in helping me pass. But yes, UWorld helped a lot as well.

 

[aspiringcardiologa]

Are we able to see percentile scores based on the raw score? My score was above the mean but still curious what it is since I’ve been told about previous test taker’s percentile score.

 

[seeinghowitgoes]

For those looking for advice for next year now that results are released. Here's some updated information based off my experience.

This is a very, very doable exam. As long as you put some effort into learning medicine (which you should be doing anyway), you should be able to cognitively reason through many of the questions. Try to learn as much as you can during residency. LEARN from your mistakes. Focus on what you don't know. If you encounter something you don't know. Make sure you eventually know it. I think this practice will serve you well in general. You don't need to know all the advanced Acid Base stuff. If you haven't learned this by now. You will never learn it. Forget it and move on.

1)ITE's are absolute garbage, waste of time, poor indicators of future exam success in my honest opinion. How can this exam be standardized if you take it while on a brutal service block compared to peers whom are on an elective? Oh yes and everyone does study for this exam because no one wants to be the weak link in front of their boss. If your peers say they aren't studying, they're lying to you. Remember these are the same hardcore premeds at heart lurking on SDN. They should stop administering this exam.

2)UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD. No. Not MKSAP. UWORLD. Not MedStudy Qbank. UWORLD. Not this new Qbank no one has ever heard of. UWORLD. UWORLD features all the hard question on the test. You will answer the straight forward questions asking you whether to give a statin or not. Where you will struggle are those hard questions having you reason between multiple answer choices. Uworld does an absolute amazing job at allowing you to tap into that cognitive reasoning involved answering difficult questions. Period. End of story. You always used uworld for all your other exams. Now is not the time to change. I started Uworld after graduating residency. There was no time for me to get through this bank prior.I hammered through questions about a month out and it was good enoguh to finish. Make sure to finish this qbank by any means necessary. For extra points, do it earlier. Try to do it more than once. They do trick you. The exam doesn't trick you. What I do here is always answer the question at face value. Sometimes I even answer wrong to not change my clinical reasoning If that makes sense.

3)Don't really need MKSAP. The Heme-Onc part is overkill. Don't need Board Basics either. If you want to annotate in something for active learning, then it may be worth it.

4)Awesome review is overkill in my opinion. Many of the concepts are what specialists need to know. Not what you need for the boards. It is really fast paced and definitely needs to be slowed down. In my honest opinion, all you need is Uworld once again. I really don't think a review course is necessary. Maybe take it if you failed. I would certainly take this course as MOC because I feel it will make sure you are up to date. If you only have a couple weeks from the test, I don't recommend it.

5) The hardest part is sitting down and studying. Now that you finally are done with thegauntlet that is residency, you finally have time in your life again and you want to live it up before you start work as an attending. This is important but unfortunately you have to study a little bit. If you were able to study throughout residency, congrats you deserve to enjoy this time. If you went to a demanding residency, had a family, had extracurriculars and weren't able to study throughout, then you need to grind it out if you want to pass.

Good luck

Just to provide another perspective, because I disagree with some of this (not to say it’s wrong, just think it depends on the person).

For context, recent residency graduate, average to good test taker on mcat/USMLE/ITE.

1) overall agree test is very doable, and I left the center thinking it was fair (way moreso than USMLE for example)

2) nobody in my residency studies for the ITEs. For real. I don’t really care if the ITE stays or goes, but I wouldn’t get paranoid one way or another about gunners and secret studying, and I don’t think your need to study for the ITE to do well on boards.

2) my rough percentile (looking at the distribution - don’t think there is an actual percentile given) on boards was about what my PGY-3 ITE percentile. This is to say if you do fine on your ITE I don’t think you’ll have an issue with boards. Certainly you can improve from your ITE percentile to boards with studying, so this is just to say feel reassured if you did well.

3) I used only mksap, not uworld. If you have failed boards before or are a bad test taker or need to learn the material (didn’t just finish residency) then sure maybe it matters but otherwise I wouldn’t stress about which resource you use just pick one.

4) for reference, I went through mksap once, on random blocks, and got ~73% correct. I passed easily (eyeballing the histogram of scores ~90th percentile). I only did mksap (did questions and reviewed the answers) without any additional resources and was fine. Agree a board review course, multiple resources, additional books, etc are likely not necessary unless you aren’t a recent graduate/are a very bad test taker.

5) definitely agree the heme/onc on mksap is overview.

Overall my takeaway is: residency is the best training for boards but you still need to pick a (just one) qbank to study in the weeks leading up to the test. Otherwise, feel reassured that it’s a doable and fair test and if you did well on your ITE you should feel good going in and not overcomplicate things by doing courses or stressing unless you have mitigating circumstances.

 

[Canmaple]

Just to provide another perspective, because I disagree with some of this (not to say it’s wrong, just think it depends on the person).

For context, recent residency graduate, average to good test taker on mcat/USMLE/ITE.

1) overall agree test is very doable, and I left the center thinking it was fair (way moreso than USMLE for example)

2) nobody in my residency studies for the ITEs. For real. I don’t really care if the ITE stays or goes, but I wouldn’t get paranoid one way or another about gunners and secret studying, and I don’t think your need to study for the ITE to do well on boards.

2) my rough percentile (looking at the distribution - don’t think there is an actual percentile given) on boards was about what my PGY-3 ITE percentile. This is to say if you do fine on your ITE I don’t think you’ll have an issue with boards. Certainly you can improve from your ITE percentile to boards with studying, so this is just to say feel reassured if you did well.

3) I used only mksap, not uworld. If you have failed boards before or are a bad test taker or need to learn the material (didn’t just finish residency) then sure maybe it matters but otherwise I wouldn’t stress about which resource you use just pick one.

4) for reference, I went through mksap once, on random blocks, and got ~73% correct. I only did mksap (did questions and reviewed the answers) without any additional resources and was fine. Agree a board review course, multiple resources, additional books, etc are likely not necessary unless you aren’t a recent graduate/are a very bad test taker.

5) definitely agree the heme/onc on mksap is overview.

Overall my takeaway is: residency is the best training for boards but you still need to pick a (just one) qbank to study in the weeks leading up to the test. Otherwise, feel reassured that it’s a doable and fair test and if you did well on your ITE you should feel good going in and not overcomplicate things by doing courses or stressing unless you have mitigating circumstances.

I agree with this posting.

Thought I'd fail or pass just above the cut-off, but passed well above it! Did approximately 50% of the MKSAP Q-bank questions and studied about 2-3 weeks prior with very limited time due to fellowship. I think the hard work during residency paid off. My PGY-3 ITE score was overestimated slightly compared with my ABIM score report.

Board basics - important summary. It omits too much but gives you a list of things to know to pass the exam.

Q-bank - Matter of style and preference. I haven't done USMLE but was told it is a bit longer and harder. I think this is to aim for higher scoring. I would've chosen to do USMLE after MKSAP if I had more time to study as it offers where you stand in the form of percentile which MKSAP does not offer. This can either push you harder or reassure you esp if you're in fellowship with limited time and if you need some guidance to where you stand. I do not want to discourage people from using MKSAP as it is a good starting point and some of my actual ABIM questions were the EXACTLY same.

Awesome review - good adjunctive resource but a bit overrated. I did it only because my program supported it, but was dozing off nearly half the time.

 

[aspiringcardiologa]

Paying it forward and hope others do so too.

My score: 522
Mean: 472
Passing: 371

Step 1: 240s
Step 2: 220s (fluke?)
Step 3: 230s

ITE PGY-1: n/a (No ITE during intern year as my program does not administer it for PGY-1's)
ITE PGY-2: 70% correct (61st percentile)
ITE PGY-3: 70% correct (44th percentile)


Resources: MKSAP 18 then 19 (digital version) with Board Basics
Study method: Questions whenever I had down time though I didn't start studying significantly until second year before the ITE. There is an option to redo all the questions (or just the questions you got incorrect) for each topic. Spent time reading the explanations. Before the real exam I completed 96% questions (of total 1920) and got 76% correct of 1844 completed (this was after I reseted the questions).

My best advice is to start early with studying - don't procrastinate because who knows when you are in a situation when you don't have free time before the exam to study. I was a bit stressed out because I just started cardiology fellowship and almost last minute was told that I had to switch from a chill rotation to cardiology consults due to a colleague's emergency situation. Needless to say I couldn't focus on cardiology during that month.
Work on your weak spots. Some people had different versions of the test and the topics can be very broad so be prepared. Also Board Basics is probably the most important source with high yield info to review just before your exam. Finally don't neglect biostatistics. Check Youtube for those videos for Step exams.

Unfortunately some people I know from medical school and residency did not pass. I am sure they are great doctors so just shows that this is a dumb, expensive ~$1500 exam that just measures your test-taking ability and not your ability as a physician. Don't lose hope if you failed it once or multiple times. Find out what went wrong. I thought the test was moderately difficult like 4 or 5/10 so I was initially a bit worried, but still confident that I at least passed (since passing is at least 30th percentile from what I've heard).

Moreover, ABIM needs to find a way to avoid the system crash issue as this has happened before. It was nerve-wracking to not be able to know if I passed or not for 3+ hours...couldn't log into Physician Portal nor check the verification status.

My goal was to do well enough to confidently pass and be eligible to take the cardiology boards. No more internal med exams for me - Cardiology all the way. 😄

 

[Throwaway6969420]

For those looking for advice for next year now that results are released. Here's some updated information based off my experience.

This is a very, very doable exam. As long as you put some effort into learning medicine (which you should be doing anyway), you should be able to cognitively reason through many of the questions. Try to learn as much as you can during residency. LEARN from your mistakes. Focus on what you don't know. If you encounter something you don't know. Make sure you eventually know it. I think this practice will serve you well in general. You don't need to know all the advanced Acid Base stuff. If you haven't learned this by now. You will never learn it. Forget it and move on.

1)ITE's are absolute garbage, waste of time, poor indicators of future exam success in my honest opinion. How can this exam be standardized if you take it while on a brutal service block compared to peers whom are on an elective? Oh yes and everyone does study for this exam because no one wants to be the weak link in front of their boss. If your peers say they aren't studying, they're lying to you. Remember these are the same hardcore premeds at heart lurking on SDN. They should stop administering this exam.

2)UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD. No. Not MKSAP. UWORLD. Not MedStudy Qbank. UWORLD. Not this new Qbank no one has ever heard of. UWORLD. UWORLD features all the hard question on the test. You will answer the straight forward questions asking you whether to give a statin or not. Where you will struggle are those hard questions having you reason between multiple answer choices. Uworld does an absolute amazing job at allowing you to tap into that cognitive reasoning involved answering difficult questions. Period. End of story. You always used uworld for all your other exams. Now is not the time to change. I started Uworld after graduating residency. There was no time for me to get through this bank prior.I hammered through questions about a month out and it was good enoguh to finish. Make sure to finish this qbank by any means necessary. For extra points, do it earlier. Try to do it more than once. They do trick you. The exam doesn't trick you. What I do here is always answer the question at face value. Sometimes I even answer wrong to not change my clinical reasoning If that makes sense.

3)Don't really need MKSAP. The Heme-Onc part is overkill. Don't need Board Basics either. If you want to annotate in something for active learning, then it may be worth it.

4)Awesome review is overkill in my opinion. Many of the concepts are what specialists need to know. Not what you need for the boards. It is really fast paced and definitely needs to be slowed down. In my honest opinion, all you need is Uworld once again. I really don't think a review course is necessary. Maybe take it if you failed. I would certainly take this course as MOC because I feel it will make sure you are up to date. If you only have a couple weeks from the test, I don't recommend it.

5) The hardest part is sitting down and studying. Now that you finally are done with thegauntlet that is residency, you finally have time in your life again and you want to live it up before you start work as an attending. This is important but unfortunately you have to study a little bit. If you were able to study throughout residency, congrats you deserve to enjoy this time. If you went to a demanding residency, had a family, had extracurriculars and weren't able to study throughout, then you need to grind it out if you want to pass.

Good luck

Agree with above poster. The only difference for me was that Board Basics was super helpful. I was surprised to see I actually did well on the test and I credit reading Board Basics in helping me pass. But yes, UWorld helped a lot as well.

I thought Board Basics was helpful as well. I only started using it about a week before the exam and wish I had used it sooner. Uworld and BB all the way.

 

[kevinsword91]

Long time lurker who resurrected my pre-med SDN account to add my experience.

Result:
Easily passed and scored above average. ITE scores were 45(2nd year) and 65(3rd year).

Study Resources:

• Did 10% of MKSAP questions, but didn't like how granular it was. Skimmed MKSAP books throughout 3rd year.
• UWorld - bought in 3rd year and was my primary study source. Completed about 15% prior to end of 3rd year. Very similar questions from this showed up on the actual exam. Did dedicated studying after 3rd year for 1.5 months. Finished all questions and did a little bit a second round.
• Board Basics - Started a couple weeks prior to exam and wish I had gone through it more times earlier. High yield information.

Did 90% of all my studying in the three months prior to the exam including a Mayo Board Review course my residency pays for and gives us off to take in June. If I had fellowship or needed to start working following residency, I would have needed to started studying earlier.

 

[DrMetal]

Take no pride in this accomplishment, for all it means is that you knew how to study for and pass someone's version of a multiple-guess medical exam, and taking exams is something you've already demonstrated aptitude in.

Take the utmost pride in completing a pre-medical curriculum in college (no small feat), completing medical school, a residency, and +/- a fellowship.
Take the utmost pride in the high-quality healthcare you've already been delivering (regardless of board certification status) to your patients, who couldn't care less about this silly credential.

Also, please consider joining an alternative BCing body, such as the NBPAS.

Now, if I'm so adamantly against BC, why would I suggest joining another BCing body? Because we need this competition: it is via competition and fractionation that we bring down the evil house. In 1944, members of the Nazi party fractioned off eventually helping yield Hilter's necessary demise.

Did I just compare the ABIM to the Third Reich? No . . .well, maybe a little, I'll stop here.

My standard Fall bump in this thread.

 

[EckXXX]

Paying it forward and hope others do so too.

My score: 466
Mean: 472
Passing: 371

ITE PGY-1: 44th Percentile
ITE PGY-2: 35th Percentile
ITE PGY-3: 16th Percentile

Did not take the USMLE

COMLEX:
1: 553
2: 545
3: 596

Program Provided Material: Awesome Board Review, NEJM, & MKSAP 19/18

I took the ABIM on Aug 15th (the earliest offering). After finishing residency, I opted to delay working as hospitalist in order to study.

-Awesome Board Review--> I took the mid-July course online (a week straight through), which marked my full time commitment to studying. I found the material extremely helpful at identifying my weaknesses prior to full time q-bank studying.
--It is not for everyone as the course was very fast paced and exhausting, but I found the source material to be a gold mine for high yield material (mostly algorithms for screening/testing and high yield buzz words).
--I reviewed the supplemental course material twice prior to the exam (probably took 8 days total).
--Overall: I could see this course being overkill for many people, but I really appreciated the fast paced inoculation into the testable material. Felt like I was more efficient at focusing on high yield topics afterwards.

-MKSAP 19 --> this was my primary q-bank. I agree and cannot emphasize enough that the oncology questions are WAY overkill for the ABIM exam. Onc on the boards is looking for screening and next steps, not detailed treatments.
--After going through the qbank twice, I reverted back to MKSAP 18, probably around two week prior to the boards

-Board Basics--> After reviewing the ABR material, if I still had questions on certain subjects, then this was my go to source material. Extremely high yield. I feel strongly that this book and a solid q-bank are probably all a candidate needs to pass.

On week prior to the exam, I spent my time with a study partner bouncing random questions off one another and reviewing personal notes.

Two days prior to the exam, I took it easy and spent as much quality time with the family as possible.

Test Day: Get quality sleep the night before; make sure you know where the testing center is ahead time, to include expected delays due to traffic; and always make sure you have water and some snacks for the breaks.

Walked out feeling like crap. The easy questions I had down to 50/50 and picked incorrectly, stuck with me and really made me question whether or not I passed.

Happy it's done with, not happy that the website took over 8 hours to give me my raw score--not to mention my fellow residency friends that were losing their minds because they did not know to check the "verify ABIM" tab to see if they passed or not.

Best of luck to all next year!

Cheers!

 

[sammyOMM]

Passed, I wanted to share my experience as I am not the best test taker by any means. This exam is do-able however.

I did not pass the ABIM last year. I also took the AOBIM this year, but since I passed the ABIM, the results don't matter as much for AOBIM now.

My ITE scores were below par (less than 10th percentile my 3rd year). This year, I did awesome review twice (one in fall and one in June). The notes are extremely high-yield for this test. Even though the pace is fast, it is a great course of getting together high-yield topics.

After doing awesome review in the fall, I did U-world from January - April one pass. Then another pass from April - June. In the last month, I stuck to awesome review notes and kept reviewing them. 2 weeks prior, I read the highlighted portions of board basics too.

Get a good night sleep before your test. Do awesome review, uworld, and review board basics highlighted sections if you have time. That's all you need. Don't make the mistake I did first time by using too many resources. Stick to the basics and you will pass. There's only so much material they can test us on.

It was very hard to go back and study after not passing last year. Stay motivated and stick to the high-yield resources. If you don't pass first time, I strongly suggest doing awesome review to solidify the basic knowledge. Good luck!

 

[PreMedSS]

Posting to pay it forward considering I used this thread this summer

ITE scores as followed
PGY1 - 1% (everyone said it didn’t matter)
PGY2 - 20%
PGY3 - 46%

Didn’t study throughout my PGY3 year. Started probably beginning of June. Crammed uworld twice and read board basics maybe about 3 times. I attended awesome review but didn’t pay attention. Ended up using last years copy and reviewed the big topics the few days before the exam. Overall was shook the day of the exam because it was hard.

Final score 537. Avg was 472. Passing 371

All in all, you can totally cram for this exam tbh. There’s no way you can fail this if you effectively revise board basics and uworld multiple times. I took the summer off to do so. If you don’t have that luxury, start studying early.

Now what the hell is the longitudinal knowledge assessment

 

[Sherlock Holmes123]

Hope this helps at least one person. I would consider myself a decent multiple choice test taker.

Credentials: Graduated from a Community Program. Step 1 and 2 in 230's, Step 3 215.

ITE scores: 1st year: 65%, 2nd year: 68%, 3rd year: 78%.

Real deal: 596, Average: 472, Pass: 371.

I agree that exam is doable as long as you are prepared. Someone said that everyone studies for ITE which I agree but my preparation was different in the sense that once I finished my first year, I read a lot of articles, guidelines from official websites, and if I have a case, I would review a lot of information pertinent to that case including differentials. I feel what you learn during residency helps you a lot in a sense to have a great foundation.

Preparation: Scheduled my exam in March for 29th August. Started preparation in March and just did UWorld, nothing else. I would do like a block every other day in the initial days just to get myself oriented to the multiple choice setup. On the side, I was also reading other things as I mentioned above. My preparation was very slow with UWorld and I realized it pretty late like very close to the exam. I went through it just once overall and I had like 68%. Also I saved the tables on the uworld as flash cards in the app itself. I read through them once before the exam. Leading to the exam day, had lot of stress going into it, both in terms of exam and personal life as well. Felt weirded out each and every block but later after walking out realized that this is probably the stress getting to me.

Tips: I would say start may be in March/April reading UWorld and Looking back, I should have done it at least twice so I recommend the same. Have some time at the end to review the saved slides/tables just as a last revision. Get quality sleep before the exam. Take coffee, protein bars, and some snacks to keep yourself going through exam. Definitely recommend to take some Advil or Extra strength Tylenol especially if you are like me who gets headaches after a block or two. Relax after you are done as it isn't going to change the outcome of the exam so what is the point in worrying.

Let me know if any questions.

 

[flyfish1]

When should I take Awesome Review? It looks like they offer them as early as January and as late as July. What's the best time?

 

[MikMik6]

When should I take Awesome Review? It looks like they offer them as early as January and as late as July. What's the best time?

I did it in June, so I felt like the info was still fresh in my mind then

 

[hopeful2278]

Is there anyone who has done a rescore? Could not find any threads that show this….

 

[Cookie2225]

Hello,
I stalked this thread pretty much every day while waiting for my results so leaving my experience here for next years takers.
Background: IMG. Went to busy residency program but was more or less academic regardless.
Always been a decent standardized test taker and scored above average in all steps.
Cant remember my ITE scores other than 1st year which was around 50th percentile. I personally never studied for this and in fact, as a PGY3 i was busy applying for fellowship and just wanted to finish exam as fast as possible to be on top of my email in case any interviews rolled in.

Started using MKSAP in January (program gave it to us) but pretty inconsistently. Around end of June had done around 60% and Avg was somewhere low 60s. I personally didn't like MKSAP. Felt like explanations weren't that great and I didn't feel like I was actually learning.
Moved across country for fellowship. Got Uworld mid July, tried really heard to do questions every day despite busy felllowship; finished uworld early August with 59% correct first pass.
At this point I was scared thinking I wasn't gonna pass. I read board basics (sadly didn't have time for all of it, but did read the chapters I scored the lowest on Uworld). Also did incorrect in Uworld x1.
Took test on the very last day. I would say around 1/2 the exam were pretty fair questions (like basic stuff you learn in residency). The rest were either questions only a specialist would know or stuff you could kinda reason your way through.

Regardless, left exam convinced I wasn't going to pass. I literally would get palpitations every time I thought about the test and couldn't even sleep the night before results came out (scores came out pretty close to the day they came out last year so I just figured it was gonna be that week).
Finally results come in and it took me about 4 hours to download my actual score report. But I was showing up as certified so I knew I had passed.
I ended up getting >500 (passing score 379 I believe).

My advice is start studying as early as you can so that you dont feel so overwhelmed at the end, especially if also starting fellowship. I would also recommend definitely using Uworld over MKSAP, but again this is just my personal opinion. Most people dont feel like they did well after taking the exam, but I believe this is normal.

Good luck next year everyone!

 

[fecal]

Just my two cents-

I never took ITE seriously and my goal was to get out of the test as soon as possible. Got 5th (!) percentile my third year and passed ABIM.

Everyone learns and studies differently and everyone will tell you their opinion on which Qbank is best. But one thing I think is true for everyone is that questions are the most important thing you can do. Do as many practice questions as many times as you possibly can.

I think Uworld is the best but recommend completing two Qbanks. I thought board basics was great to reference on weak subjects.

I walked out of the test feeling like a failed. I even practiced what I was going to say to my program director (GI) in the event I did fail. Ended up passing comfortably.

Congrats to every one who passed and good luck to those taking it again. I have no intention to ever take this test again so will enjoy being IM certified for 10 years before it expires! Now I will start stressing about GI boards in a few years…..

 

[docapella]

Just my two cents-

I never took ITE seriously and my goal was to get out of the test as soon as possible. Got 5th (!) percentile my third year and passed ABIM.

Everyone learns and studies differently and everyone will tell you their opinion on which Qbank is best. But one thing I think is true for everyone is that questions are the most important thing you can do. Do as many practice questions as many times as you possibly can.

I think Uworld is the best but recommend completing two Qbanks. I thought board basics was great to reference on weak subjects.

I walked out of the test feeling like a failed. I even practiced what I was going to say to my program director (GI) in the event I did fail. Ended up passing comfortably.

Congrats to every one who passed and good luck to those taking it again. I have no intention to ever take this test again so will enjoy being IM certified for 10 years before it expires! Now I will start stressing about GI boards in a few years…..

What does it matter to fellowship PDs how fellows do on IM ABIM?

 

[gutonc]

What does it matter to fellowship PDs how fellows do on IM ABIM?

It shouldn't. But unfortunately for some it does. Which is embarrassing (for them).

 

[TransformerInWestVirginia]

It shouldn't. But unfortunately for some it does. Which is embarrassing (for them).

completely disagree.

If you fail ABIM you will be at risk for fail specialty boards.
Also, if you failed once and do not take it seriously, you may fail the second year. and if it is a 2 year fellowship, you will not be able to sit for the specialty boards.

I hate micromanaging administrators as much as the next guy but to this I think it is appropriate to micro manage.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Test Date: August 23rd 2022

I never took ITE seriously, in fact I thought it was the biggest waste of time in residency all together. Each year, I would take the exam, but I would never study for it and I would never prepare for it like I should've been.

Year 1 - ITE: 67%
Year 2 - ITE: 62%
Year 3 - ITE: 64%

As for the study preparation, I took the Rahman course in April 2022, but at this point, I really hadn't officially started studying as of yet. In fact, I really started grinding mostly the mid-July leading up to my exam date (roughly ~ 6 weeks out.). This I feel like was a mistake, I wish I had started slower and earlier, so that I felt like I knew the material. My study preparation was consistent with uWorld (subject by subject) and basically 12-16 hour days at the library. I didn't have time to finish uWorld appropriately, in fact I skipped multiple sections all together (e.g. statistics, psychiatry, social and legal, general internal medicine, ophthalmology, ENT) I didn't get a chance to complete. I finished all of the major sections (e.g. Cardiology, Pulmonology, Nephrology, Neurology, GI, Endocrine, Rheumatology and Hematology/Oncology).

Afterwards, I just took the exam and hoped for the best.

Exam Result: 415
Passing Score: 371
Exam Average: 472

What I wish I had done, I wish I had finished uWorld earlier prior to me starting in July and used the time in July to just iron out the details. It's much easier to just review Rahman notebook over the course of the 2 months in summer than having to worry about learning everything in uWorld and still reviewing Rahman (despite the fact that they do overlap). I was very blessed that I was able to pass, I do not recommend anyone taking this exam lightly, you should study at least minimum 3 months out (lighter studying) and then ramp your studying to dedicated time a month before.

 

[Dr. Opout]

Passed thankfully. Used UW, MKSAP, and the Awesome Review course. I felt MKSAP was more reflective of the difficulty of questions (although I agree that MKSAP goes a little too deep with oncology and expectation of your chemotherapy knowledge), but UW as always provides amazing explanations/charts for questions. Not sure if I could recommend one over the other; I'm the kind of person who needed to do both banks.

My 3rd year ITE was in the 16th percentile with like 63% correct, so not amazing. I didn't feel great coming out of it, but that provided some comfort to me because anecdotally my score tends to be higher in those situations (possibly because of a more generous curve?). All in all, I'm happy to finally be able to focus on fellowship and never worry about IM board certification again! If anyone has questions, feel free to shoot me a message.

 

[indest]

...ever worry about IM board certification again! If anyone has questions, feel free to shoot me a message.

Don't forget your yearly MOC and fees. Also, don't forget that in 10 yrs, you will need to recertify and take the MOC exam.

 

[aspiringcardiologa]

Don't forget your yearly MOC and fees. Also, don't forget that in 10 yrs, you will need to recertify and take the MOC exam.

I think they were referring that they don’t need to take the internal medicine boards again. With specialization after fellowship and passing the specialty boards, we can focus on MOC for that specialty and not have to do general medicine boards again.

 

[ID4mee]

Thanks to all who posted for years prior to 2022.

Best advice I got was to add UWORLD to my study materials. I was otherwise just going to use NEJM question bank (which my program had bought and I sporadically worked my way through ~ 70% by the time I had completed residency) and MKSAP (which I purchased and was a helpful review in the month leading up to boards but most of the questions were one step, information-regurgitating and onc was definitely too granular). I was getting nervous about the test and felt like the MKSAP questions would not be reflective of 2-step test questions that we’ve all gotten used to taking over the years. My concerns were reflected in the opinions I read here and on Reddit forums. So I took the plunge and bought UWORLD and plowed through it in the last 2 weeks leading up to the test. I scored 74% on uworld and had scored 80% on MKSAP. Note that my score went down on the second question bank; again reflects the questions are harder on uworld. Actual test was a mix of both in my opinion but uworld was more helpful for the harder questions that required critical thinking.

ITE: can’t remember my scores but they were all “low risk” for failure

Boards: passed (!!)
Score: 645
Mean: 472
Passing: 371

 

[bebrave1]

Looking for ABIM study partner 2023
Plan: Board basics (19) reading 2-3 times before exam (will try to study at least 2-3 days/week even if for 30 min, MKSAP 19 questions, UW questions 2-3 months into exam. Awesome Review in May 2023
Please let me know if you are interested. If you have a different plan, I can accommodate/change my plan accordingly so its suites everyone
reply or email [email protected]

 

[DrDreams]

Looking for a 2023 study buddy.

 

[c0pycat]

Looking for a 2023 study buddy.

I’m available.

 

[Jaysonoliver]

Hello guys...Please what's the raw score needed to pass the ABIM?
I read 64 percent (154/240) on Medstudy site for the ABIM 2021.
What's the passing raw score for ABIM 2022. I googled 70 percent (168/240)
Based on missed contents.
Thanks

 

[Jaysonoliver]

"In order to get an ABIM passing score, you need to score at least a 366, which is 64% of questions correct on the ABIM exam. "

What about for ABIM 2022

 

[FellowDoc]

The standardized passing score was 371 for ABIM 2022.

 

[mj2323]

Looking for a study partner. Please PM me.

 

[Dr. Shaimaa]

Looking for a 2023 study buddy.

I am looking for a study partner to go through MKSAP questions and text books. Thanks!

 

[Dr. Shaimaa]

Looking for a study partner. Please PM me.

I am available

 

[Dr. Shaimaa]

Looking for a study partner. Please PM me.

Interested!

 

[mkhan611]

Anyone interested in studying for the ABIM 2023, please email me at [email protected].

 

[dgdg]

UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD, UWORLD.

UWORLD is very very very good, if you use it properly. Active learning (over six months), not just running through the questions quickly.
I found NEJM question bank nearly as good. Consider that if you want to use two and have the time.

 

[c0pycat]

Has anyone tried the ACP internal medicine board review? I see the course being offered in person and online in may and July in chicago and I’m wondering if it’s worth it?!?!

 

[bwill1]

Looking for a 2023 study buddy.

Looking for study buddy aswell for the abim 2023 exam