Third years and boards

[ABaverage]

Please give us underclassmen some insight on boards this year. From what I have heard, it is much harder.. and some review books were completely useless. When I spoke with them before taking boards, they kept saying how great it was, but afterwards were dumbfounded.

If you had to retake it, how would you study for it?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[admiralbean]

I bought the KMK books and took the class. I would definitely recommend KMK to future classes. The books combine a ton of material into one source, which is helpful for sure. If I had to do it all over again, I would probably supplement KMK a bit more than I did though. Here are the sections I thought were covered enough by KMK:

-Pharm (systemic and ocular)
-Histology
-General and ocular physiology
-Microbio and immunology
-Systemic and ocular disease
-Contact lens

I would recommend supplementing these sections with books or notes

-Anatomy
-Neuro
-Optics (KMK has a good optics review but their formulas were very different from the formulas we learned in school...it was easier for me to memorize the formulas I already learned)
-Ophthalmic optics
-Bino/motility
-Peds and child development
-Theory and methods (general info about refractive error, prescribing, exam procedures...etc)

This is what I thought about boards:

-It was definitely more difficult than I expected (not that I thought it was going to be easy). I felt extremely prepared going into it and I was a bit caught off guard by some of the questions.

-I was 100% certain on ~30% of the test. About 60% of the test I could narrow down to 2 choices. The final 10% were very difficult questions that I had to completely guess on.
-About 12% of the questions were multiple answer type questions. You have to bubble in ALL that are correct and there is no partial credit. Luckily, they tell you how many of the choices are correct.
-There were a ton of anatomy questions...WAY more than I was anticipating. I would know the blood and nerve supply pathways to ocular structures/face WELL!
-Know the sympathetic/adrenergic, parasympathetic/cholinergic pathways well.
-As far as physical and geometric optics go, the questions from those sections were mostly conceptual rather than problem solving/equation based and there were very few of them.
-Most of optics was ophthalmic optics. There were lots of problems from this section so I would be familiar with those equations and concepts. There were also more low vision questions than I expected.
-Know pharm well because there are lots of questions, but most of them were fairly straightforward...the same goes for pathology.

I would encourage you to start studying early! I started studying in December and I studied almost everyday until boards. Make yourself a schedule and stick to it. There is an overwhelming amount of info to learn so get started early so you don't freak out.

I know that's more info than you were asking for but I hope it helps!

 

[KHE]

I would encourage you to start studying early! I started studying in December and I studied almost everyday until boards. Make yourself a schedule and stick to it. There is an overwhelming amount of info to learn so get started early so you don't freak out.

I know that's more info than you were asking for but I hope it helps!

To me, that amount of studying seems excessive.

I studied lightly for two weeks. And I'm not the brightest guy or was I the best student.

The best advice I can give people on board exams is this:

GO TO CLASS!

That's where you'll learn what you need to know. Not from some ridiculous "review book."

If you just go to class and stay on top of your regular schoolwork, you'll be 95% of the way home. Then, you'll just have to review some old formulas and basic science stuff from first year that you expunged from your brain.

 

[admiralbean]

To me, that amount of studying seems excessive.

I studied lightly for two weeks. And I'm not the brightest guy or was I the best student.

The best advice I can give people on board exams is this:

GO TO CLASS!

That's where you'll learn what you need to know. Not from some ridiculous "review book."

If you just go to class and stay on top of your regular schoolwork, you'll be 95% of the way home. Then, you'll just have to review some old formulas and basic science stuff from first year that you expunged from your brain.

If that is all you studied that is impressive! I always went to class but many of the questions were so picky and detailed that I would never have remembered them without that study time and review before the exam. I started studying during Christmas break and really hit it hard in January/February. Most of my class did the same. I don't know how the test was when you took it KHE but I needed that study time.

Also, please don't think that I am saying that KMK is the only way to study. It worked for me and I'm so glad I used it.

 

[DILLIGAF]

To me, that amount of studying seems excessive.

I studied lightly for two weeks. And I'm not the brightest guy or was I the best student.

The best advice I can give people on board exams is this:

GO TO CLASS!

That's where you'll learn what you need to know. Not from some ridiculous "review book."

If you just go to class and stay on top of your regular schoolwork, you'll be 95% of the way home. Then, you'll just have to review some old formulas and basic science stuff from first year that you expunged from your brain.

I would have to agree with KHE here....when I took boards, there were a lot of people that had all kinds of books, flash cards, etc. I basically took a bunch of binders to the library for about 3 weeks, making sure to relearn some of the stuff that I'd forgotten that is pure memorization. (theoretical optics formulas, MSP, etc) I think that if you are really having to study hard to PASS boards, you must have been starting from a pretty low level from school.

With this said, I do know that there was a concerted effort to make the boards "more clinical" recently, and that this years edition contained a lot of MSP and psychophysics that caught people off guard.

 

[admiralbean]

I think that if you are really having to study hard to PASS boards, you must have been starting from a pretty low level from school.

Well I was hoping to do more than just "pass". I wanted to do well. I'm not the smartest person in the class by a longshot, but like I said, most people in my class studied similarly. Maybe SCO is encouraging us to over prepare but I honestly believe that 2 or 3 weeks of review is inadequate.

 

[KHE]

I would have to agree with KHE here....when I took boards, there were a lot of people that had all kinds of books, flash cards, etc. I basically took a bunch of binders to the library for about 3 weeks, making sure to relearn some of the stuff that I'd forgotten that is pure memorization. (theoretical optics formulas, MSP, etc) I think that if you are really having to study hard to PASS boards, you must have been starting from a pretty low level from school.

With this said, I do know that there was a concerted effort to make the boards "more clinical" recently, and that this years edition contained a lot of MSP and psychophysics that caught people off guard.

MSP?

I hate them. They don't pay enough for exams and I hate having to use their lab.

 

[Shnurek]

The boards get harder every year almost. When you guys took them, KHE and DILLIGAF they were easier so maybe you guys didn't have to study as much. All the continuing education you guys do gets added to the boards so more info is fitted into them than previous years.

 

[KHE]

The boards get harder every year almost. When you guys took them, KHE and DILLIGAF they were easier so maybe you guys didn't have to study as much. All the continuing education you guys do gets added to the boards so more info is fitted into them than previous years.

How you could possibly make a statement like that?

When I look at the sample questions of the NBEO (admittedly, they are just sample questions) I don't find them to be any more difficult than what I had.

Did you guys get questions on calculating the percentage difference in the image size of a space eikonometer? Calculate Brewster's Angle? Those are the ones I remember. lol

 

[KHE]

How you could possibly make a statement like that?

When I look at the sample questions of the NBEO (admittedly, they are just sample questions) I don't find them to be any more difficult than what I had.

Did you guys get questions on calculating the percentage difference in the image size of a space eikonometer? Calculate Brewster's Angle? Those are the ones I remember. lol

You know what.....sorry to quote my own posting here....but I thought we could have a little fun.

Why don't you students post up some questions...maybe do like 5 each and practicing optometrists will answer them. I know we could always look up ones we don't know but I will personally pledge the honor system that I won't do that.

Go ahead.....post up some questions.....

 

[Shnurek]

How you could possibly make a statement like that?

When I look at the sample questions of the NBEO (admittedly, they are just sample questions) I don't find them to be any more difficult than what I had.

Um, simple logic? Are you telling me the boards do not get harder even though optometry is progressing towards more clinical practice? Where do you think the new students get tested on all the stuff you've been learning in CE? As for the sample questions, maybe they just forgot to update them, I don't know.

With this said, I do know that there was a concerted effort to make the boards "more clinical" recently, and that this years edition contained a lot of MSP and psychophysics that caught people off guard.

You saying DILLIGAF is a liar? Clinical/pathology is harder. There is a reason why med school is harder and optometry is getting closer to ophthalmology every year.

Here is an article from the NBEO from 2001 about restructuring the boards.
http://www.optometry.org/articles/restructure_boards.pdf
Another one from 2006:
http://www.optometry.org/examrestructure.pdf
And here is a more recent link showing you that another restructuring took place for the class of 2010.
http://optometryboardexams.com/news.aspx

 

[DILLIGAF]

Sorry for the short-hand....MSP refers to monocular sensory perception, or basically stuff on the neurology of the eye. Also, I want to stress that of the 2 whole people I have talked to about this year's boards, they both told me that there was not AS MUCH disease on there as they had planned on. These things like MSP and Phyphiz are very theoretical, and that caught MY HUGE sample off guard. Granted, these were Nova students that get drilled on disease to a degree that should be illegal in most states....so I am guessing that there was a lot of very basic pathology on there that they did not really realize was a disease oriented question. I could be completely wrong. I am out of the loop and I know that

With all of this said, I would have to disagree that the boards get harder every year. I think that someone that took them 5 or 10 years ago does not have a markedly harder board than someone now....BUT, I will be the first to tell you that MY board was considerably easier than the stuff the grads take now. Mine was 16 years ago, and back then the pharmacology, BV (sorry, binoc vision), and oph optics was not near as vast and varied as it is now. (Example: For us, there were really about 3 glaucoma drugs, and most of them treated acute angle closure, like pilocarpine.Today, there are more like 30) I had to learn a lot of theoretical optics stuff (like KHE's Brewsters angle) that is largely gone out of the NBEO completely.

Now, I still believe that studying for 4 months at 4 hours a day is a tad overkill. I think that there should be a lot of areas where one does not have to study much at all (my 2 sources said disease and BV were in the bag) in order to blow the board away. If you are spending entire SEASONS of the year trying to patch in your gaps, I think thats a touch scary, regardless. Even med students studying for the UMSLE don't spend that kind of time....

 

[admiralbean]

Now, I still believe that studying for 4 months at 4 hours a day is a tad overkill. I think that there should be a lot of areas where one does not have to study much at all (my 2 sources said disease and BV were in the bag) in order to blow the board away. If you are spending entire SEASONS of the year trying to patch in your gaps, I think thats a touch scary, regardless. Even med students studying for the UMSLE don't spend that kind of time....

Christmas break to boards ended up to be a little more than 2.5 months worth of studying. Like I said before, I'm glad I did it. I don't believe it was because I started from a "low level". There were a good amount of easy questions where a broad knowledge base was fine but there were also many difficult and picky questions. I would love to hear from other students who took the boards this year to see how they prepared.

 

[ABaverage]

Well, I believe it's true that boards is now more difficult. They revamped the whole thing and is now more of a challenge. I heard of the 3x3x3 rule for boards... for studying.

Part I: 3 months. Part II: 3 weeks. Part III: 3 days.

It isn't unheard of when people start studying in December. It's whether or not you study everyday. As for me, I am a crammer, and NOT an overachiever. I already feel stressed about boards, so I know I will have to spend more than just 2 weeks to study for the thing. I spent 2 weeks on the OAT and that was already overwhelming as it is.

A student I know had to take boards last year and under circumstances had to take it again this year. He said it was much harder this time around due to the recent changes.

Thanks, admiral, for the advice. I will DEFINITELY remember this whenever I take it. I believe I will be aiming for at least 3 months at 3 hours a day to studying for boards, but it will be tough juggling that with classes...........

BTW, I heard that KMK was just alright. What did you like so much about it?

 

[Ediddy]

I just took boards after having done about 98% of my studying from KMK. For those of you not familiar with KMK, they have about 1000 pages of text based of the NBEO testing matrix which is about 40 pages. KMK then has 'big 8 chapters' which makes up about half of their text, but they believe will represent a majority of the boards test questions.

In my experience, I learned a ton from KMK, but I felt like they missed their mark when trying to anticipate what would be on boards. I knew the 'big 8' chapters inside-out(which is great! its important stuff), but when I was taking the test, questions from the 'big 8' seemed few and far between.

So for students preparing for boards, if you do KMK, I'd suggest doing ~50% of your studying from that. And if they tell you some subjects are low yield/high yield, take it with a grain of salt. While they were lecturing at our school, one of them mentioned that they gave the President of NBEO a copy of their books and he liked it. I couldn't help but wonder after taking boards if the NBEO intentionally made some changes so it didn't match with KMK too much 😉

As far as study time goes... I started casually 2.5 months before and at about 1 month before started studying with most my free time. I wouldn't change the way I did it. I never studied after 9PM, still had time for intermurals and other fun stuff, and never felt like I was behind either. If I started studying sooner I think I would have gotten burned out. If I did the 2wk study plan, I think I would have been overwhelmed. Everyone studies differently, by your 3rd year of opt. school you'll know you learn best and you can set your own study plan- just don't let other people stress you out just because they got an earlier or later start.

 

[jeh198]

I doubt the content itself is any harder than it used to be but one would think the new multiple response questions make it more difficult. Also they did away with partial credit. I believe in previous years you'd receive 1/3 of a point for choosing the best distractor/second best answer.

 

[KHE]

Um, simple logic? Are you telling me the boards do not get harder even though optometry is progressing towards more clinical practice? Where do you think the new students get tested on all the stuff you've been learning in CE? As for the sample questions, maybe they just forgot to update them, I don't know.



You saying DILLIGAF is a liar? Clinical/pathology is harder. There is a reason why med school is harder and optometry is getting closer to ophthalmology every year.

Here is an article from the NBEO from 2001 about restructuring the boards.
http://www.optometry.org/articles/restructure_boards.pdf
Another one from 2006:
http://www.optometry.org/examrestructure.pdf
And here is a more recent link showing you that another restructuring took place for the class of 2010.
http://optometryboardexams.com/news.aspx

More Clinical makes the test EASIER because it's not as conceptually difficult. At least, I always found that to be the case. Why do you think that the pass rate goes up for each successive part as it gets "more clinical."

Answering questions about drugs and diseases is not as difficult in a multiple choice format than trying to calculate bizarre optics equations or trying to figure out crap about the nonius horopter, the space eikonometer or the leaf room.

 

[admiralbean]

I liked KMK because it gave lots of well organized info all in one place. I talked about it a little in a previous post but I thought some sections were adequate and like Ediddy said, some missed the mark. For me, using KMK was a better option than trying to sort through my old notes especially for sections like biochem, physiology, microbio and immunology. If I had to do it all over again, I would supplement KMK more than I did though. I would not have been able to solely use the NBEO matrix and my class notes efficiently. I am not that organized.

 

[DawgOD]

I'm an SCO student, and I heard this year's boards they heard about KMK and switched up the test... so everything they were preparing you for, they put the opposite on the test.

 

[Shnurek]

More Clinical makes the test EASIER because it's not as conceptually difficult. At least, I always found that to be the case. Why do you think that the pass rate goes up for each successive part as it gets "more clinical."

Answering questions about drugs and diseases is not as difficult in a multiple choice format than trying to calculate bizarre optics equations or trying to figure out crap about the nonius horopter, the space eikonometer or the leaf room.

I guess it depends if you are more of a physics person or a biology person. I actually enjoy optics (though I hated organic chemistry) so for me clinical might be harder. Btw sorry for the somewhat harsh reply I just was pissed off that you considered me a total idiot by saying "how could I make this statement" lol

 

[JMU07]

Sorry KHE, it's kind of against NBEO rules to post questions from the test. Also, the calculators that they supply for boards now are four-function with no trig, so they don't test any formulas with trig functions (they only test the concept of the idea, not the actual math).

Basically, the way KMK did their review class was the way they've always done it - they told us what to focus on and what not to spend a lot of time on, to learn "buzzwords" to help us remember certain things. I really did learn a lot from the course, but a lot of stuff they emphasized was almost completely absent from the test. And then the NBEO did the "multiple answer" questions which almost all of them I couldn't figure out the last choice. I wish I could give some examples but again, it's against the rules. It was just really frustrating to spend so much time learning what is really clinically relevant and important and then not see a lot of it on boards.

Our review course at SCO was during Christmas break so I took the course, and then didn't start studying until spring semester started in January. I probably studied 2-3 hours a day. Not too much. The main thing you have to remember when studying for Part I is that you are NOT going to remember every single little detail, so don't sweat it if there's something in particular that won't stick in your brain.

 

[Jay12]

I also took the KMK course. I def. thought they did a great job in organizing all of the information for me. The class also helped students to not get "lost" in all of the information that was in their books, but rather focus on the "bigger picture" of things.

I studies for approx. 3 weeks, which consisted of a few hours each day. It's really hard to gung ho on studying, especially when you still have classes, clinic, finals, etc.. going on in your life, but I would say that the majority of studying came in the last week or so, when our school actually allotted us time to just focus for the upcoming exam.

The exam was far from a walk in the park. I recall upperclassman telling me last year that they came out of the exam thinking that they had failed, or had no clue on how they think they might have done (even on the verge of tears in some cases)....and boy, did I feel the same. After two days of consecutive testing, it was a little disappointing to have that feeling coming out of the exam, in addition to the mental and physical fatigue that you endure.

The biggest challenge, in my opinion, had to have been the multiple response. You have to understand that in order to get one of those questions right, you have to pick all the correct answers (i.e. no partial credit). It always came down to either knowing 2/3 responses, 3/4 responses, and having to guess the last answer.

Overall, I believe I was prepared for the exam. KMK did do a pretty good job in organizing all of the information for me, I would highly recommend future students to take the course. I just don't know how they could have prepared us for the multiple response questions, considering this was the first time that the NBEO implemented the format, perhaps future KMK classes will?

Now it's just the waiting game, here's hoping that my fellow colleagues and I get that "P"

 

[Retinopathy]

Bump.

Wondering if anyone else would give any advice on preparing for NBEO I.