the test

[cchoukal]

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where were all the vaporizer questions? what a pain in the rear. I did like how 'throckmorton's sign' appeared among the answers, though.

 

[pgg]

where were all the vaporizer questions? what a pain in the rear. I did like how 'throckmorton's sign' appeared among the answers, though.

Someone's got a sense of humor.

 

[Frank Rizzo]

where were all the vaporizer questions? what a pain in the rear. I did like how 'throckmorton's sign' appeared among the answers, though.

No kidding. Seemed more like a Step-III type of test.

To the bar....

 

[Anes2010]

A mix of random hard questions I'd never study for, and about 50% directly from big blue. I'm glad I used that as my primary source.

 

[hoyden]

At least 10 were straight form the old exams, including even that one in Chu book.

 

[Lonestar]

well, its a terrible way of testing people. so much minutia, it was ridiculous. most of it the anesthesiologist will never use.

Just another way for the ABA to make money. Keep the lower 20% in a chronic test taking cycle. Its an industry in of itself.

Oh and one more thing. The questions didn't have enough information or were very vague. Nice job ABA.

 

[Soup5]

The test was hard for me. I just feel terrible about it. Just like all of you, I worked damn hard to do well on it, but I'm not sure if what I did was enough. Funny thing is, if I were to have read/studied even more, I am not sure if I would have known the questions that I know I missed. Moreover, I missed so many gimmies... I just thought about the answers in a different way but chose incorrectly... sigh.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Sounds exactly like last year.

Lots of minutiae.
Lots of medicine.
Lots of questions where it seems you have to pick the "most right answer".
Feel like crap after you walk out of there.

If you did OK on the training exams and didn't blow this one off, I think you may be pleasantly surprised by your score.

 

[sevoflurane]

Sounds exactly like last year.

Lots of minutiae.
Lots of medicine.
Lots of questions where it seems you have to pick the "most right answer".
Feel like crap after you walk out of there.

If you did OK on the training exams and didn't blow this one off, I think you may be pleasantly surprised by your score.

Do you actually get a score?

 

[usnavdoc]

Do you actually get a score?

I was wondering the same thing. Do we get a score and key words? lol

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Last yeat I found out by email that I passed.

Some time later I got written notice that I passed.

I got a standardized scaled score. Mean was 250, SD 50, and a 209 was required to pass.

You do get a list of keywords lol.

 

[Jeff05]

unbelievable. with a mean of 250 and a sd of 50 and a fail of 209 - they must fail about 20% of all test takers.
based on the fact that this exam was one of the WORST assessments i have ever witnessed, this is a problem.

 

[Noyac]

I'm sure you all passed. You are a smart bunch here.

BTW, what the hell is throckmorton's sign? I could look it up but

More importantly, do I need to know it? Obviously, not.

 

[Bertelman]

I'm sure you all passed. You are a smart bunch here.

BTW, what the hell is throckmorton's sign? I could look it up but

More importantly, do I need to know it? Obviously, not.

Oh, you most certainly need to know it.

http://www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/3050.html


"Also known as the John Thomas sign. Synonym: position of the penis in relation to unilateral disease. Throckmorton's sign is a slang term used jokingly by medical students and residents. A positive "Throckmorton" sign is when the patient's penis lies to or points to the side of the body wherein lies the abnormality on a plain X-ray of the Pelvis. For example, a broken right hip with a shadow of the penis pointing to the right has a positive "throckmorten". If there is no abnormality, a jovial Radiologist might tell the referring Physician; "He's Throckmorten to the right so you might want to check over there.”

 

[usnavdoc]

unbelievable. with a mean of 250 and a sd of 50 and a fail of 209 - they must fail about 20% of all test takers.
based on the fact that this exam was one of the WORST assessments i have ever witnessed, this is a problem.

I agree dude. I mean the american disabilities association? How does that nonsense make it on the test?

 

[leaverus]

Last yeat I found out by email that I passed.

Some time later I got written notice that I passed.

I got a standardized scaled score. Mean was 250, SD 50, and a 209 was required to pass.

You do get a list of keywords lol.

I'm glad to hear i'm not the only one who thought it was brutal. I also believe that i could have studied another month and probably have done no better; i'm trying not to go back and look up the answers to the ones i know i got wrong - that'll make me feel worse, heheheh. Just trying to forget it about for now until the results come back. Anyway, how can the mean be 250 when there were only 250 questions?? Did you guys have more questions last year?

 

[MTGas2B]

Oh, you most certainly need to know it.

http://www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/3050.html


"Also known as the John Thomas sign. Synonym: position of the penis in relation to unilateral disease. Throckmorton's sign is a slang term used jokingly by medical students and residents. A positive "Throckmorton" sign is when the patient's penis lies to or points to the side of the body wherein lies the abnormality on a plain X-ray of the Pelvis. For example, a broken right hip with a shadow of the penis pointing to the right has a positive "throckmorten". If there is no abnormality, a jovial Radiologist might tell the referring Physician; "He's Throckmorten to the right so you might want to check over there.”

Really? That's great. At least the test writers had a sense of humor.

 

[panetrain]

Just spoke with all my friends who took the Tue test and it sounds like the Monday test was much harder (Unanimous among the people I spoke with today that most (90%) questions were right out of Faust or Big Blue) . Will all test takers regardless of the test they took be graded together? Or, will there be 4 groups of test takers graded separately?

 

[pgg]

Anyway, how can the mean be 250 when there were only 250 questions??

It's some kind of scaled score, fabricated out of data obtained from sheep guts, bones cast on leather by old crones in the ABA cave, and (presumably) our answers.

Just like the 2-digit scores we got on the ITEs weren't percentages or percentiles. But not quite as detached from reality as the utterly bizarre J - T score the MCAT writing sample used to get.

I think needless complication and obfuscation is what they're after with the scoring system.

unbelievable. with a mean of 250 and a sd of 50 and a fail of 209 - they must fail about 20% of all test takers.

Closer to 15% I think, assuming a normal distribution, and also assuming I'm reading the z-score table properly. Of course, the distribution isn't going to be normal, so who knows? Recent years have been around 20% I think ...

 

[Arch Guillotti]

i'm trying not to go back and look up the answers to the ones i know i got wrong - that'll make me feel worse, heheheh.

The first thing I did when I walked out of there was look up about 3 answers I had spewed forth. I got all of them wrong.

I did fine.

 

[pgg]

Just spoke with all my friends who took the Tue test and it sounds like the Monday test was much harder (Unanimous among the people I spoke with today that most (90%) questions were right out of Faust or Big Blue) . Will all test takers regardless of the test they took be graded together? Or, will there be 4 groups of test takers graded separately?

Every one of us knows that day 2 takers talked to day 1 takers about the exam. The ABA knows that too ... of course they won't be simply lumped together.

I don't necessarily agree with the overall thrust of the content they chose to test, but I don't believe they're *****s. I doubt one day's test was deliberately harder or easier than the others, and I doubt taking the test on either day was any kind of advantage.

 

[pgg]

The first thing I did when I walked out of there was look up about 3 answers I had spewed forth. I got all of them wrong.

That's because you didn't look up the answers you knew you got right. 🙂


I was batting about .200 on the ones I looked up yesterday ... I don't think that really means anything. (I did piss me off to see how many of my 50-50 guesses I missed though.)

 

[Lonestar]

yeah me too. I felt confident with about 60% of the questions. Was 50-50 on about another 25% of them. 15% were truly difficult. I did make some stupid mistakes and missed a couple of easy ones. I believe that the passing percentage will be somewhere around 70% or more. I am just hoping that i get some of the ones that i was 50/50 sure so that i can catapult above 70%. I guess we will know soon enough.

BTW, i did jensens course and it really helped. I don't think anything else comes even close. I failed the exam last year by a wide margin. It was my fault because i was burnt out and didn't study. I had passed all my intrainings before with average percentiles and no problem. When i took the test last year, i thought it was hard and i didn't know much. When i got my keywords back, i counted them and i had missed 78 keywords. i think i got about 65% of the questions correct last year. After the exam, i only felt confident with half the questions. This year was definitely better with about 7-10% points. I hope its enough.

 

[Noyac]

Good Luck Lonestar. I hope things go better this time around. I'm curious, what was the pass rate last year? 70% pass rate seems awfully low to me. I was under the impression that the pass rate was around 80-85%. I thin the lowest rates were back when i took the exam in 2001.

Also, I don't remember getting a score, just a pass notice. What's up with that? I'm sure I was the highest score.😉 Seriously, I was probably the lowest pass score so they just said "you passed" and left out the "by the skin of your teeth."

 

[IMED4Life]

Would those that used Big Blue as a study aid agree that it was helpful for the exam?

 

[Lonestar]

Good Luck Lonestar. I hope things go better this time around. I'm curious, what was the pass rate last year? 70% pass rate seems awfully low to me. I was under the impression that the pass rate was around 80-85%. I thin the lowest rates were back when i took the exam in 2001.

Also, I don't remember getting a score, just a pass notice. What's up with that? I'm sure I was the highest score.😉 Seriously, I was probably the lowest pass score so they just said "you passed" and left out the "by the skin of your teeth."

Jensen tell us in his review course that passing will be around 70-72%. I think he is right. I don't have any evidence to back up the above statement but i can say with 95% confidence that the passing % lies around 70%. I don't know how many questions the board throws out after that, but the passing percentage maybe higher once they throw out tough/unfair questions.

 

[pgg]

Would those that used Big Blue as a study aid agree that it was helpful for the exam?

Yes, I think so.

I started using Big Blue around December of my CA-1 year, and went through it about 4-5 times over the next 2.5 years.

Big Blue is a good study guide. But even though it's written in outline format and packaged in 3-ring binders, one thing it's NOT is concise - the two volumes total about 450 pages (I think ... I added them up once), and that's not including the keyword summaries at the end of each chapter. Granted at least 40 pages of that are Ranger Run pep talks, poems, and other filler.

400+ pages of any review book is going to contain most of the tested information. I don't believe there's anything in Big Blue that isn't in Faust, or M&M, and those books cost a few $hundred less. It all depends on what style of review and test prep you like. I liked BB for its test-prep focus ... his "Lock & Load" remembered questions or were very high yield. Between the AKT-6, AKT-18, four ITEs, and Monday's exam, each of those "Lock & Load" topics probably appeared 5 or 6 times.

 

[Precedex]

Good Luck Lonestar. I hope things go better this time around. I'm curious, what was the pass rate last year? 70% pass rate seems awfully low to me. I was under the impression that the pass rate was around 80-85%. I thin the lowest rates were back when i took the exam in 2001.

Also, I don't remember getting a score, just a pass notice. What's up with that? I'm sure I was the highest score.😉 Seriously, I was probably the lowest pass score so they just said "you passed" and left out the "by the skin of your teeth."

http://www.theaba.org/pdf/newsletters/ABA-2009-Newsletter.pdf

86% pass for 1st time takers in 2008

 

[leaverus]

Jensen tell us in his review course that passing will be around 70-72%. I think he is right. I don't have any evidence to back up the above statement but i can say with 95% confidence that the passing % lies around 70%. I don't know how many questions the board throws out after that, but the passing percentage maybe higher once they throw out tough/unfair questions.

I don't think you and Noyac are talking about the same thing. It seems to me that you are referring to the percentage of questions that need to be answered correctly by any one test-taker in order to pass the exam; whereas Noy means the percentage of all test-takers who pass the exam. If you really mean that 70% of my answers yesterday needed to be correct, i'm screwed. It IS gonna be a looong eight weeks...

 

[periopdoc]

I did not find blue to be particularly helpful. In fact it would have hurt me on two questions except that I specifically went and looked for the same information in another source because I didn't like the way it was presented in big blue.

I agree with pgg it is not concise.

My best sources were MM, baby Miller, and Barash and primary literature. I recommend looking through all of the figures and illustrations as a quick review the weekend before the test.

The old ITEs were interesting, but I found that I could pretty much breeze through them and get ~90% correct whereas that was not the case with the real exam. Perhaps it was just the difference in it being an actual testing situation, but I thought it was a significantly more difficult test.

Hope I don't have to do it again next year.

- pod

 

[coprolalia]

I agree that the test was ridiculous, at least the version I took on Monday. I talked to a couple of my residency classmates afterwards, and none of us think we did very well. I thought the question about cerebral bloodflow was ridiculous, personally, and should not have been on the board-certification exam for an anesthesiologist. There were too many others to name. We'll see, but not feeling incredibly confident right now.

I think we need to come up with our own anesthesia-related "Throckmorten's" sign. You know, like when the surgical service gets an xray on a patient who went to the unit after the case is over and you find out that the tube was in the right mainstem during the entire case? (Happened to a buddy of mine.)

-copro

 

[ReefTiger]

I took the test on Tuesday, and I thought it was not a great assessment of what I know. Lots of minutiae, but also lots of easy questions--if you knew them. There were a lot of poorly written questions that I thought I knew the answer to until I saw the answer choices. For example the _____ that is MOST likely to _____ is?

Then they would give you answer choices where more than one answer caused it, and there is no way to find a comparison of those effects in a book. Just like many said on here earlier-I could've studied for another month and not really gotten anymore questions correct. Really, really annoying.😡

Big Blue had a lot, but not 90%. Big Blue has more than a few errors in it. Would Big Blue alone be enough to pass? I doubt it very seriously.

I got like 70% correct in the entire Hall book and all the ACE questions, so I have to hope that will translate to a pass. The wait begins.....

 

[Noyac]

I thought the question about cerebral bloodflow was ridiculous, personally, and should not have been on the board-certification exam for an anesthesiologist. There were too many others to name. We'll see, but not feeling incredibly confident right now.-copro

Cerebral bloodflow is very important to an anesthesiologist therefore should be on the exam.

So what was the question and why do you think it shouldn't have been there?

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Actual questions shouldn't be posted. Discussion in general terms is better for these types of tests.

Remember, a number of the questions are experimental.

 

[coprolalia]

Cerebral bloodflow is very important to an anesthesiologist therefore should be on the exam.

So what was the question and why do you think it shouldn't have been there?

Yes, cerebral bloodflow (CMRO2, autoregulation, CPP, TBI, etc.) is important. No argument there.

But, trust me when I tell you (in keeping with Arch's warning), and everyone who took the test will agree, this question tested some irrelevant minutiae that I will never use nor care about. Anyone else remember that question?

-copro

 

[CambieMD]

The old ITEs were interesting, but I found that I could pretty much breeze through them and get ~90% correct whereas that was not the case with the real exam. Perhaps it was just the difference in it being an actual testing situation, but I thought it was a significantly more difficult test.

Hope I don't have to do it again next year.

- pod

I found the old exams to be rather difficult. My score on old exams ranged from 50-80 %. Some of the listed answers were wrong. The Barash study guide has great cardio and resp questions. There is even a statistics section.

I timed myself when I studied with questions. I had an answer sheet and graded myself.

To pass the exam you must get about 70% of the "graded" questions correct.
The year that I took the exam 30 questions were not graded.

I do not like Big Blue. I have a copy that I need to get rid of. Send me a pm if you are interested.

Cambie

 

[JP2005]

it was def rough! keeping my fingers crossed......

 

[Ultra Man]

How did the real test compare with the 2009 ITE. Did the keywords feed back help with the content on the ABA part 1 test. Takeing test in 2010 and planing on using keywords as guide to study. Any input appreciated.
Thanks,
Ultra

 

[hoyden]

How did the real test compare with the 2009 ITE. Did the keywords feed back help with the content on the ABA part 1 test. Takeing test in 2010 and planing on using keywords as guide to study. Any input appreciated.
Thanks,
Ultra

Wait 8 weeks WITH US. We know our ITE results. Then we will know the real ones - and only knowing this variable will take away the confounding bias of the study 😉