Question bank for the ITE

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kazuma

kazuma

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I'm a CA1 and program stresses ITE performance fairly significantly. I always used questions banks in med school and for the USMLEs. I did about 90% of the Hall questions (some sections twice) until some of my classmates and especially the seniors started using the M5 board review Qbank online (http://m5boardreview.com) because its more like USMLE world. I like the explanations way better than Hall, so far I've been really impressed. Some of the CA3s say that these questions are more whats like on the actual ITEs while other pople say you only need big blue. Has anyone here had experience with the M5 questions - can I just do these questions and not study anything else - because theres only a month left.
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I have no experience with m5. But I took the written boards in August. I can tell you that the questions on the ASA website (old exams) come up a lot. At least the same themes. Do as many of those questions as you can and you will fly. I loved big blue too. Thank you for your time.
 
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Sonny Crocket said:
I have no experience with m5. But I took the written boards in August. I can tell you that the questions on the ASA website (old exams) come up a lot. At least the same themes. Do as many of those questions as you can and you will fly. I loved big blue too. Thank you for your time.
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+1 with above statement. Old ASA exam questions were great and several repeat questions word for word on real exam. Questions I got wrong or wasn't sure about I looked up myself (imagine trying to make your own explanations). Add Hall, Faust, and Big Blue, that's a solid study plan.
 
lushmd said:
The ACE questions are also solid.
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I have a couple of ACE books and I agree that they are good, but expensive and cumbersome to pack around. One of the things I like about Hall and now M5 is the ability to do questions on the fly on my ipad or phone like when I have a few minutes in PRR while waiting for the OR to be setup. I find myself being more productive throughout the day due to mobile q- banks. Its a shame Uworld wasn't available on mobile devices during 3rd/4th year on medicine "education" rounds.
 
I used only M5 questions and M&M to study for my CA1 ITE. When I took the test I was amazed how helpful the M5 questions had been. Seemingly difficult questions on the ITE were easy because I had just read about the concepts on the M5 qbank. In the end I did very well on the test and most of it was due to studying on M5. If you only have a month to go M5 is the way to go, it's very high yield.
 
M5 is put together by an attending at U of AZ. He spent several months leading up to ITE last year with us going through them - the medical principle(s), the anesthesia, why wrong answers were wrong and right answers were right. Made a significant improvement in test scores from the year before.

What M5 has over ACE or old board exams is the ability to concentrate on questions covering specific subject matter - using your time more efficiently. Additionally, portability - being able to access it anywhere means more studying before ITE.
 
Ok, I will be a guinea pig. The coupon code worked, thanks. CA2 this year. 31 last year, haven't studied much this year so far. I will go through all of M5 a time or two before the test and see what happens. My personal goal is a 35.
 
Used M 5 for the actual board exam this summer. I found it incredibly helpful. Like any Qbank the real money is in the explanations. Level of difficulty very similar to both the ITE and board exam. I ve studied from just about every question book for anesthesia from Hall to ACE to old ABA. M5 is the best. That being said the more questions you do the better you will score! So to all the young CA-somethings out there, do it all.
 
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I like the ACE questions a lot -- some popped up on previous ITE's for me. I may have to look into the M5 ones as well.
 
I liked the sample questions too so I pulled the trigger this morning. Now the only question is will I get reimbursed out of my academic fund for it. Not sure if online Q banks count (because we have ridiculous rules about what our academic fund can or cannot be used for).
 
I just signed up for this as I need a new source of questions and it looks
legit. Looking forward to giving it a try.
 
Hey,

I think the m5 is a great tool to prep for the ITE and boards. I did a lot of them before my ITE last year as a CA 2 and my percentile went up about 40% from the year prior. I highly recommend the m5 and especially if you are using M&M to study for boards. Thanks.
 
Hmm, I gave in and purchased the qbank....not sure what to think of it. I must say, I am a little disappointed in the questions thus far. Not sure how ITE worthy these questions/explanations are, but dangit, I hope this investment is worth it in 28 days.

Those that just bought it--what do you think?
 
Just purchased the M5 too. I'm a ca2 and didn't do very well on my ITE to say the least. These questions so far I think are more like he ite - critical care /medicine-ish. But that's exactly why I think I didn't do well (other than not studying enough) last time because there wasn't much about regular anesthesia but more of these types of things.

I've been hitting big blue hard and this seems like a nice complement. I'm hoping these questions are a little harder than the actual ITE. The cardiac wasn't too bad but the chronic pain is really tough!! Feeling a bit dumb but hopefully that's good. Anyone else think these are hard!!??
 
Thanks bro for sharing this site with us. I swear I would always search for online qbanks and the only thing that'd come up is that anesthesiaprep site - not this. Weird. Makes me wonder what else is actually out there.
 
Googling "M5 board review" brings up the M5 site with the first link and a bunch of unrelated stuff with the other results. We are probably in the first 100 users I would imagine.
 
BobBarker said:
Googling "M5 board review" brings up the M5 site with the first link and a bunch of unrelated stuff with the other results. We are probably in the first 100 users I would imagine.
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Exactly. Makes me wonder if there's other useful websites out there we're not privy to.
 
Anyone have any direct experience with this qbank vs. Anesthesia Prep?
Seems like M5 is a much better deal on the surface (900+ vs 250 questions, 1 year vs. 1 month subscription)
 
I've noticed a lot of the residents using that now. From what I saw it looked pretty darn good. I always learned better doing questions then reading a chapter cold- especially during residency when its hard to find good study time. The more questions you do the less boring reading the text book will be...in my experience, and you retain more. If there was a (reasonably priced) online question bank when I was a resident I'd been all over that too.

To the OP - unless these questions are beyond awesome, you definitely should read a text book too, IMHO.
 
I bought it about a week ago based on reading this thread. Its a great resource especially if you're burnt out on reading. The explanations are more "conversational" as others have said, and they are very good Money well spent for sure!
 
I also bought the M5 question bank based on this thread (we write the ITE each year in our program here in Canada). So far very happy with it. Occasional typos but otherwise seems pretty high yield.

Cheers,
UBCmed09
 
Ive been doing them in review mode whenever I get a chance. I haven't had many opportunities to do a whole section in one setting and score it, but I'd say I average 50-80% correct. I still have about 200 questions to go and I'd like to repeat the high yield sections by Friday. My lowest sections are areas that I haven't had much exposure to like regional, OB, chronic pain etc. Before starting the M5 q-bank I had scored mid 80th to mid 90th percentile on the AKT 0, 1, and 6. I'm sure the ITE is going to be more difficult than the AKT but I feel like I have been learning and solidifying some key concepts with the M5 questions, so hopefully it will translate into a decent ITE score. Best of luck to everyone on Saturday. :thumbup:
 
kazuma said:
Ive been doing them in review mode whenever I get a chance. I haven't had many opportunities to do a whole section in one setting and score it, but I'd say I average 50-80% correct. I still have about 200 questions to go and I'd like to repeat the high yield sections by Friday. My lowest sections are areas that I haven't had much exposure to like regional, OB, chronic pain etc. Before starting the M5 q-bank I had scored mid 80th to mid 90th percentile on the AKT 0, 1, and 6. I'm sure the ITE is going to be more difficult than the AKT but I feel like I have been learning and solidifying some key concepts with the M5 questions, so hopefully it will translate into a decent ITE score. Best of luck to everyone on Saturday. :thumbup:
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How long had you been doing these questions?

I started on the 4th (I think?) and I've got a good amount to go. I think I've done a little over 50% but I'm also taking meticulous notes and going through it on review mode.

Started out doing pharmacology, now doing physiology. I did ortho/trauma which was easy Step 2/3 like.
 
Doctor4Life1769 said:
How long had you been doing these questions?

I started on the 4th (I think?) and I've got a good amount to go. I think I've done a little over 50% but I'm also taking meticulous notes and going through it on review mode.

Started out doing pharmacology, now doing physiology. I did ortho/trauma which was easy Step 2/3 like.
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I started doing M5 questions a week or two before I started this thread so around mid to end of Jan. I haven't been taking notes, but I should. I just read the explanations slowly and make sure that everything makes sense. If the explanation makes sense then I move on, if not I look the concept up and read about it. Best of luck bro!
 
kazuma said:
I started doing M5 questions a week or two before I started this thread so around mid to end of Jan. I haven't been taking notes, but I should. I just read the explanations slowly and make sure that everything makes sense. If the explanation makes sense then I move on, if not I look the concept up and read about it. Best of luck bro!
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Hopefully I can finish by the middle to end of the week and then review whatever I can.

Thanks you too, bro!
 
I had a question regarding one of the explanations and emailed them (m5). The same freakin day I got this fairly long, detailed, totally personalized email about the subject. I mean detailed and not stock at all. Really impressed that they would take the time to do that! Still have tons of questions to go... Unfortunately when I go fast I don't retain anything, glad it's a year subscription.
 
How does the score on ACE correlate to ITE scores? Approximately what percent is correlated (like a 70% or an 80%)?
 
My scores on this have been all over the place (just finished the whole thing today). I probably averaged around 60-65%. Got 70-80%'s on some sections, which would be followed up with a couple low score sections. Got a frickin' 37% in the muscle relaxant section, and I always thought this was a strong subject for me!

At any rate, I always felt that the harder the questions, the better (U-World was modeled this way). There are certainly some gimme questions but a lot of tricky ones as well.

Good luck to all on Saturday!
 
overall the qbank was real good. some identical and exact q's/concepts.

unfortunately, i could not finish all of it in time. i think it might have hurt me when it came to cardiac/thoracic topics, and one peds and one neonatal question. but i also guessed some stuff right too. also forgot some topics i should've known but now i won't ever forget it, it's what i get for over-thinking it.

im gonna look to finish this qbank off and then use periodically through the year since i have a year subscription.

how long will the exam take to be scored? congrats to being done and best of luck to all of us!
 
I hope not long because this was on the computer..first time for us..im guessing for everyone.
What did you guys think of it today? Hard..easy?
As for people who took this qbank what did you guys think...reading this thread it seems like most of you guys liked it..how about post ITE?
 
gasorrad said:
I hope not long because this was on the computer..first time for us..im guessing for everyone.
What did you guys think of it today? Hard..easy?
As for people who took this qbank what did you guys think...reading this thread it seems like most of you guys liked it..how about post ITE?
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i thought there were a good dose of gimmes and a good dose of hard questions. then a good dose of tricky q's. of course, i left my comment above.

i just hope i did well enough percentile-wise. i know there are a lot of geniuses who take this exam.
 
I got through the qbank although had to rush through it to complete it. I'd say 85-90% of the exam was covered by the m5 bank (as in concepts not specifics...but the way some of the Q's were written I still had a hard time with a bunch. I'd say there were 5% not covered and 5-10% I was so confused about I have no clue what to think. And those ECG was so small on the screen if it was something more subtle there's no way I could tell what that was . Whatever the case I feel WAY better this year than last year!! Definitely going to go through the m5 again more slowly through the year.
 
Thought it was much harder than last year for sure. A lot of esoteric questions...serious lack of basic questions. And plenty of stuff designed to trick you as mentioned by others.

I agree that although there wasnt a lot of directly similar questions in m5, the concepts are there. I'll be using it next year as well for sure.
 
IMO the M5 questions covered 90-95% of the concepts on the exam. The other 5-10% were either esoteric or questions that could have two answers depending on the source you read. I definitely think the M5 is more current too. I seemingly wasted a fair amount of time on basic science/Physics/machine type Hall questions last fall. It would have been nice to do the M5 questions a second time, unfortunately I just finished them this week. I thought the explanations were golden and really helped me remember key concepts that were tested today.
 
I did all of the questions on the M5 except for the neonatal set and peds/ent. I did a few of the high yield question sets a second time around. Did it in review mode and read all of the explanations.

I felt the M5 was harder or pretty much right on as for the real deal. I think this helped me in a big way and I plan on (this isn't a plug...) using M5 the rest of the way through since I like the way it's organized (in terms of topics) and then using (not unlike M5 suggests) another source which mine will be M/M. Maybe re-reading a couple good chapters in Baby Miller.

Wrapping up CA2 year and throughout CA3 it's going to be one big board prep stretch for me. No more f.cking around and lower yield stuff. Sure, I'll print sections off from texts to carry them around during the day etc but mostly it's going to be board review questions of at least the M5 (and I may look into ACE as well) persuasion.

I read a good amount of Barash for my subspecialty reading (CA2) which I found lacking elsewhere. But from now on it's going to be mostly high yield board review with a little M/M reading mixed in. Maybe some Barash for select cases. I really liked the M5 and especially since it's designed to help you LEARN the concepts which they feel are highly testable. So, I didn't feel like it was a "waste" and only doing strategic studying. I felt I learned quite a bit of good information and it even helped clear some things up which our texts are less clear about.
 
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