Passing score for boards

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Anyone got $2100 to spare? That's just exam, not even travel/hotel.

Oh well, glad to move forward and upward. Congrats to all who passed! Keep faith for those who didn't. Keep reading and doing questions
 
Passed! What a relief...I've never been so anxious about a test result as this one, and the worst part is that i know the feeling of dread after oral boards will be 10x worse!

Chin up to anyone taking it again next year! That thing was ridiculous and I wouldn't for a second look down on anyone who missed the cut based on the minutiae they were testing!
 
Congrats to everyone! I'm so happy I passed. I went into the test way too overconfident. It was the toughest exam I've taken in my life.

To all the residents out there, respect the test and don't blow it off....it was much more difficult than any ITE or ACE exam i took.
 
congrats to all those who passed!! That's awesome, can't wait (I hope) to be in your shoes this time next year!!

So for those that passed, did you feel like the M5 qbank was helpful at all? Or should I stick to ACE and Hall.

Thanks guys, and enjoy this time before orals!!
 
Passed! Lots of hard work for me. Never really did very well on the ITEs mostly because I wasn't motivated. Took 2 odd weeks off before fellowship to do nothing but study 7 days a week. Went over every ACE question twice and M5 twice. Also read Big Blue twice. Two nights before the exam I went over the open anesthesia questions. I bought the iPhone app 190 odd questions. And swear to you I had about 4-5 questions that were EXACTLY like open anesthesia and a few others that were ridiculously similar. DO OPEN ANESTHESIA questions!!!

Cheers.
 
Iluvpassingas said:
congrats to all those who passed!! That's awesome, can't wait (I hope) to be in your shoes this time next year!!

So for those that passed, did you feel like the M5 qbank was helpful at all? Or should I stick to ACE and Hall.

Thanks guys, and enjoy this time before orals!!
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M5+ACE for sure! Hall not so much. Never found it very helpful. Do open anesthesia question bank. Best $25 you'll spend!
 
Femtochemistry said:
M5+ACE for sure! Hall not so much. Never found it very helpful. Do open anesthesia question bank. Best $25 you'll spend!
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A few of my upper levels thought Hall was great.

What makes ACE so great?

My plans for the upcoming CA-2 ITE = Faust (will re-start in Sept) + Open Anesthesia (start in Sept) + M5 + Hall + our departmental ITE review packet.
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
A few of my upper levels thought Hall was great.

What makes ACE so great?

My plans for the upcoming CA-2 ITE = Faust (will re-start in Sept) + Open Anesthesia (start in Sept) + M5 + Hall + our departmental ITE review packet.
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I personally found ace very helpful. Similar style questions and very good explanations. Yes, there are some odd questions here and there but overall, it was very useful resource. I quickly looked at hall and took notes on it and never touched Faust.
 
Passed. Thank. The. Lord. The last 3 days were super nerve racking. Used hall, Jensen x 4-5 times, and a couple of recent ACE questions. I thought the exam was really tough. I always did terrible on ITEs approx 17% each year so future board takers do not be discouraged, just buckle down and study your balls off. Good luck to the next class.
 
Passed. Did Hall in the last 1-2 weeks before the exam. I used M5 for the ITE this year, and saw the biggest increase in ITE score in any year. I felt M5 covered every topic really well, and Hall was good also. For the newer residents, I would recommend building your foundation in the first two years of residency with a core textbook (Baby Miller, M&M, or Barish) and then doing questions the last couple of years. Hall, M5, ACE (although I didn't have time to do these, many friends said they're good), Open Anesthesia (heard these were great), are all good sources of study for the written boards.
 
pgg said:
Congratulations to everyone who passed. One step closer to being done. 🙂
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Well, one step closer to shelling out thousands of dollars and spending many unreimbursed hours to satisfy the MOCA impositions, but still, congrats all the same!
 
epidural man said:
I PASSED!!!!! (5 years ago.....)

Is the list available to everyone? Can I look up and see who passed?
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Yes, the ABA lists all candidates who have passed both their tests. It's at theaba.org
 
epidural man said:
I PASSED!!!!! (5 years ago.....)

Is the list available to everyone? Can I look up and see who passed?
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No, you cannot see a list of those who haveONLY passed part 1. Program directors are mailed a list in December. Currently, the only people able to view a particular test-takers result (pass or fail) is the test-taker him or herself.

The only public list of test passers is of those who have passed parts 1 (written) and 2 (oral exam). They are listed as 'certified' at theaba.org. If someone passes part 1 but never part 2, there is NO public list where this is noted.
 
Awesome feeling... and well deserved. 👍

Now take a day for yourselves. :banana:

yoda-beer.jpg
 
Passed!!!

Was always low on ITEs (<10%), always working with poor didactics. Weekends and nights I did family stuff instead of reading.

Studied hard for 6 months and really killed it last 6 weeks.

I used a lot of sources (big blue, big blue course, ACE, Hall, open org, baby miller) and they all were good. There's no magic book with all the answers, I think one just has to study a ton of hours and know a source or 2 very well...and hope to get enough correct to pass.

The exam was VERY hard, easily hardest test I've ever taken. I saw co-residents who smoked every ITE drunk and/or crying afterwards b/c they were sure they failed. Don't blow it off.

Congrats.
CJ
 
Passed!! Found out two days later than everyone else which was hell but in the end worth it! Now to drum up some serious cash.....
 
I was one of the lucky people who had to re-take this exam this year, and I have to say that the exam was so much easier than last year. The detail and complexity of the questions was much different this time. I'm so glad to have passed, but I wish I had taken this version last year!
 
Passed! Crazy difficult exam. So happy to be done with it.

For the CA-3's on this forum, take the exam seriously. You need to study really, really hard for it. Don't blow it off because it's a beast.

I think the fundamental problem with the preparation is that there really isn't a single book out there that EVERYONE agrees is essential. If you ask 15 different people who successfully pass the exam, you'll get 15 different answers.

Here's my $0.02:

Hall & Chantigian: Overall a solid resource for studying. I recommend going through it once as a CA-3 in preparation for the ITE. The key is take notes such that you have a condensed outline of this book (gleaned from the explanations to the questions). This will be roughly 50 pages or so of outline. Many people go through Hall multiple times. I think it's a waste of time because you already know the answers after one pass through. Better to create an outline and move on to the next resource.

ACE exams: Also a very good resource for studying. I did approximately 700 ACE exam questions. I recommend that you start ACE exams AFTER you've created the outline from Hall. After each ACE exam, you can go through the answers and add some notes to your outline.

Big Blue: Mixed feelings about this one. The problem with this thing is that it's just too damn big and a bit scatterbrained in presentation (plus the author has an odd fixation on Rangers). Overall, I found it difficult to learn from. I went through it once. Not sure if it helped because I focused so much on ACE exams and Hall for studying. Just to be safe, it's probably worthwhile to get your hands on a cheap copy and go through it once. Undoubtedly you'll pick up a fair amount of info passively.

Faust: I don't recommend this book unless you have photographic memory. It is DENSELY packed with info, to the point that it's essentially unreadable. There are so many details that if you take notes from it, your outline will be almost as long as the book!!

m5: I did roughly 180 of these questions. Overall I have mixed feelings about them. Some people swear by them but I found the Hall and ACE questions to be more helpful in preparing for the exam. I would recommend subscribing and only doing questions in your weak areas (you'll know what they are as you start studying). This will help supplement Hall and ACE questions. Again, whatever info you glean from these questions you should add to your outline.

Baby Miller: Useful resource but not sufficient per se. At my program we had to read it cover to cover in the first month of residency. If you haven't read the whole thing by the time you're a CA-3, I would recommend that you read the whole thing. This is essential to have the framework for studying later (i.e., cramming in all the ridiculous details that the Board loves to test!!).

2 weeks before the exam you should have a relatively thorough outline of material. Go through it every day, ACTIVELY RECITING THE MATERIAL FROM MEMORY. Once you can go through the whole thing, reciting every detail, and do it in roughly 12-15 hours, you're ready for the exam.

At the end, I had probably 100 pages of condensed outline that I went through.

Good luck everyone! It's stressful but very doable if you focus and work hard.
 
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EtherBunny said:
Passed! Crazy difficult exam. So happy to be done with it.

For the CA-3's on this forum, take the exam seriously. You need to study really, really hard for it. Don't blow it off because it's a beast.
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Actually, isn't the passing score based on how well everyone does (curve based)?

If that is the case, I think all CA-3s should band together and promise to do horribly. :meanie:
 
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