Written Exam results are in!

[mille125]

No recent data that I can find. The percentile breakdown I got with my July 2006 ITE score suggested that the pass rate that year was (IIRC) 83%. I didn't get a percentile breakdown sheet with my 2007 score.

From http://www.asahq.org/Newsletters/2003/04_03/kapur.html


Anesthesiology was hurting in the mid-90s and programs were taking anyone with a pulse. The 46% pass rate in 2000 surely reflects a lot of marginal candidates and FMGs. These very low pass rates actually support their claim that a pass is based on some minimum knowledge level (at the simplest level, a certain % of questions correct), rather than a predetermined failure rate as some have suggested.

Some more about the history of the exam and how passing scores were determined in the past: http://www.asahq.org/Newsletters/2004/09_04/certif.html




Everyone who took the ITE or the real thing signed a statement agreeing to not remove test materials or memorize them. The Boards for many specialties have been known to hunt down and punish people who violate that agreement. As the rumors go, certain Boards have withheld certification from offenders. Posting them on a public forum is a bad idea.

IIRC Winged Scapula stated that SDN has been lawyer-assaulted (damn their oily hides) for the names of members who post ITE/board questions. Everyone talks about remembered questions to classmates but you're asking for trouble if you commit anything to writing.

this is absolutely true....everyone appreciates your altruism but do not post any exam questions.....

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[studypartner]

hello. I also this exam. Unfortuantely my second attempt i have not made it.

 

[studypartner]

Hello. I took it twice and did not pass. I got 202 last year and waiting this year's score. How do i go about studying? I did big blue X3, starr X 3.
Does anyone know what happens if you fail third time? Would I still be eligible to take the exam?
I'm also looking for study partner.

let me know

i have no idea how pass this exam now


thanks

 

[CambieMD]

Any recommendations for oral exam. Is Board Too Stiff worth my time. I am thinking about attending the Ho course.


Cambie

 

[benjamin248]

Hello. I took it twice and did not pass. I got 202 last year and waiting this year's score. How do i go about studying? I did big blue X3, starr X 3.
Does anyone know what happens if you fail third time? Would I still be eligible to take the exam?
I'm also looking for study partner.

let me know

i have no idea how pass this exam now


thanks

Don't worry. I know a friend who failed x2 and recently just passed on his 3rd attempt. You will pass. the pass rate is 85-90% I think.

Just make flashcards of every tidbit list of information from Starr/Big Blue (mostly Starr) that you don't already know. Then just review your flash cards over and over and over. That way, you're studying what you don't know x 100, not what you already know x3.

Trust me. This is the key. I'm just an average student, never passed the ITE, and I procrastinated my studying and had to resort to this method of cramming Starr 1-2 weeks before the test. Strangely enough, I know I am much better clinically which goes to show what bullsh*t this test is.

This method will help so you don't miss any of the basic give-me questions in order to maximize your score. The rest of the general clinical/esoteric questions require your best judgement/luck, respectively (i.e. hard to study for or not in Big Blue, Faust, Starr, etc.). Here's an example of one of my flashcards:

Ex.
PAOP > LVEDP
MS
A.myxoma
PEEP
Tip in I/II

PAOP < LVEDP
Dec. compliance
AI c early M closure
25 mmhg >

Good luck. You will pass.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Don't worry. I know a friend who failed x2 and recently just passed on his 3rd attempt. You will pass. the pass rate is 85-90% I think.

Remeber that this is the pass rate for 1st time takers. For all repeaters the pass rate has been around 30 to 50 percent. Sometimes <30%

 

[mille125]

Hello. I took it twice and did not pass. I got 202 last year and waiting this year's score. How do i go about studying? I did big blue X3, starr X 3.
Does anyone know what happens if you fail third time? Would I still be eligible to take the exam?
I'm also looking for study partner.

let me know

i have no idea how pass this exam now


thanks

If you fail a third time, you will need to do additional training before you are allowed to take it again. You need to do EVERYTHING possible to maximize your chances. Take one or two review courses. Know a primary source very well (almost verbatim). Flash cards are also a good idea. Buy some audio tapes to listen to during your commute to work. If you can afford to do so and it is allowed by your partners, consider taking 3-4 months off from your practice. Make this exam a priority. That means no destractions. No going out to football games. No vacations. No meeting friends for dinner. Study, study, study starting now. You can do it. Good luck.

 

[mille125]

Don't worry. I know a friend who failed x2 and recently just passed on his 3rd attempt. You will pass. the pass rate is 85-90% I think.

Just make flashcards of every tidbit list of information from Starr/Big Blue (mostly Starr) that you don't already know. Then just review your flash cards over and over and over. That way, you're studying what you don't know x 100, not what you already know x3.

Trust me. This is the key. I'm just an average student, never passed the ITE, and I procrastinated my studying and had to resort to this method of cramming Starr 1-2 weeks before the test. Strangely enough, I know I am much better clinically which goes to show what bullsh*t this test is.
This method will help so you don't miss any of the basic give-me questions in order to maximize your score. The rest of the general clinical/esoteric questions require your best judgement/luck, respectively (i.e. hard to study for or not in Big Blue, Faust, Starr, etc.). Here's an example of one of my flashcards:

Ex.
PAOP > LVEDP
MS
A.myxoma
PEEP
Tip in I/II

PAOP < LVEDP
Dec. compliance
AI c early M closure
25 mmhg >

Good luck. You will pass.

I agree. The whole process is bull**** but we still must do it. The oral is especially worthless as it tests one percent or less of actual knowledge (at least written test greater than 50% of knowledge). I am convinced that it is in place only as a "rite of passage".

 

[siednarb]

i believe if you fail 3 times you then are offerend a chance to take the ITE exam of which you need to pass or show some score to their satisfaction after which you then bought yourself 3 more attempts at the actual exam. After these "6" attempts you then have to do an additional year of training of which a fellowship would count towards. This is at least what I have heard - not sure if anyone can verify this - there are a lot of rumors of what happens if...

 

[LightsOut50]

Just letting you guys know I failed as well. I did well on my ITE's and studied my a*s off. I was able to take a month off from end of residency until i started work so I had plenty of time to study. Compared to others in my residency I felt very well prepared. This feels like crap. There is going to me a weight on my shoulders for a year now. I have been working through 8 years of med school and residency just to have the feeling of being an attending and making some money. They just delivered my new furniture and my 52" lcd tv and it feels so empty now. I can't enjoy anything. I let my program director, colleagues and those who wrote me recs down. Worse, I feel incompetent at work. I feel like people will know what happened and will look down on me because of it. Its a shame because I was really getting into a nice groove in my clinical practice. For what its worth, I took the exam on the 4th and it says the 5th as well on the website. Now, I am harboring a fantasy that there was some kind of scoring mistake and that all will be ok. I guess we shall see when letters go out. For now, I am avoiding my friends and family. Working in the hospital we know there are worse things out there... but that does not make this any easier.

 

[objdoc]

Take it easy. I passed, but I know a couple of more knowledgeable anesthesiologists who did not. The process is capricious, so don't let the bastards get you down. Take a month to mourn and then get back to work. I found Big Blue to be very exam focused and helpful, also question books from Hall and Chu. Etherprep online was overpriced but good quality. Baby Miller 5th edition is concise and up-to-date if you want to read a text. For myself, achieving repetition of the material was the key to memorization and regurgitation, and I liked the overlap between text, outline and Q&A's.

Anyone with more Oral Exam advice? I'm thinking: Ho course and book, Board Stiff Three (released soon), lots of practice mock exams. Anyone liked Jensen's stuff? I did well with Big Blue on the written, appears to fit my learning style. Thanks.

 

[pgg]

Board Stiff Three (released soon)

When?

Edit: Never mind, tomorrow apparently.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

I thought that the test overall was pretty fair (I guess). 250 questions is an awful small number to assess 4 years of learning though. The stems seemed shorter than I was expecting. I guess that is a good thing because it made for quick reading. I was able to finish both sections and still have time to review each one without being too rushed. I did use the whole time for each section though.

I had a decent experience at the testing center, they seemed pretty well organized. One thing that I would have liked to seen was the ability to flag questions to come back to later but I believe that this will be addressed by next year according to an article in the recent ASA magazine.

I think that the most important factor in passing the boards is consistent reading throughout residency. I was really good my CA1 year, usually reading for 1-2 hours each night and also on the weekends. My reading started to dwindle CA2 year at least in part due to moonlighting and also being somewhat more "worn-out". CA3 it dropped even further but I still did try to read regularly at least somewhat.

Books that I read during residency:

First of all I did not read jack during my intern year.
As I received the ACE books I read them and I thought that they were helpful.
Throughout residency I read journal club stuff, grand rounds stuff and for presentations/talks.
I bought Big Miller at the beginning of residency. I felt kind of dumb afterwards because there was no way in hell I was gonna read that thing but I kind of like having an authoritative reference.

Right at the start of the CA1 year I read Baby Miller and this of course was very helpful. Shortly thereafter I read Anesthesia Secrets very quickly. Now some will chortle at this but I found the book to be a pretty good rundown on just about everything. I was very glad that I read it because it touched on many subjects that I had no clue about. At least after I read it I felt like I was a little better versed on just about everything. Read the Gaba book quickly. Then I slowly plowed through M & M which was a good read and I found very helpful. Before the ITE I read Faust which I like a lot and also read the Hall question book. I did very well on that particular ITE and I think it is a direct result of having read those two books.

CA2 year was more of a grab bag of books. Read a short book on OB that I can't remember the name of. For peds I did not read the Cote book that was expected, that sucker was way too big. Instead I read the shorter requisites book by Litman. For regional I read the NYSORA book which I thought was pretty good. Read a book called perioperative care in cardiac anesthesia and surgery by cheng/david which was not too bad of a read. Read a few throwaway books at some point: Anesthesiology examination and board review by Mcgraw Hill (pretty weak). Anesthesia Review by Michelle Bowman-Howard (kind of blah but an easy read). Board Stiff (decent but simplified). Also the Anesthesiology Board Review pearls of wisdom (Robertson/lubarsky/ranasinghe) &#8211; not too bad.

Did the Barsh question book at some point and found it pretty useful.

I don't remember reading too much my CA3 year (!)

I did read the board stiff tee book and now can recall very little of it.
In the spring of my CA3 year I read the new baby Miller and found it very worthwhile. The content didn't seem to have changed too much but the pictures and graphs were nice. In the spring I made it through the first book of big blue.

If I had to do it again I probably wouldn't buy big blue. Some people swear by it and I know people who passed using it as their sole study source but I just really didn't like it that much. I though all his sayings like "ranger, attack!" were stupid and trivial and were almost as dumb as all the inspirational quotes that he put in there. The two books could have easily been condensed into one because so MUCH stuff there is continually repeated. At the end of each chapter he gives a summary which is usually a word for word repeat of the previous chapter. Repetition is good but I could just turn back a few pages rather than wasting a few more trees! I am going to burn this book unless somebody wants it for cheap.


I studied pretty hard for maybe 2 weeks 6-8 hours a day. I definitely could have studied more and would have been kicking myself had I not passed. But it is HARD to study tons after 8 years of punishment.

What I studied for the boards themselves:
I took notes when I did the Hall book and other review books and I reviewed them.
Hall book again.
Book 2 of big blue.
Read all the ACE books again.
Barash question book again.
Flipped through the Starr book quickly but didn't get much out of it.
Did the old exam (Chu) which I found to be a quick read and very helpful.

And that's it I think.

Hope this helps.

 

[studypartner]

I can study over the phone, online or in person.
Currenlty i'm in NYC metro area.

let me know if anyone want to start a study group.

thanks

kp

 

[CambieMD]

Statistics show up on the test every year. Unfortunately,this topic is not covered in my review books. I read the statistics section in Big Miller. I found Modaks book to be helpful.Modaks book reviewed the keywords from 2007. A little reading can get you easy points on the exam. The Barash question book had a few statistics questions.

Cambie

 

[CambieMD]

So now the scores are going to be mailed in the middle of October instead of early in October.
I will not really relax until I hold a piece of paper in my hands that says I passed this test.

Cambie

 

[Arch Guillotti]

So now the scores are going to be mailed in the middle of October instead of early in October.
I will not really relax until I hold a piece of paper in my hands that says I passed this test.

Cambie

I just went to the ABA website and saw that message as well, that is highly irritating. I want that piece of paper in my hands as well.

 

[narcusprince]

Straight from the Higher Ups. The In-training exams were mailed on Thursday the Oct 2, 2008.

 

[timtye78]

(repeated above post)

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Straight from the Higher Ups. The In-training exams were mailed on Thursday the Oct 2, 2008.

I don't believe it. Would have been here by now.

 

[rsgillmd]

I don't believe it. Would have been here by now.

My former program director says she talked with the ABA, and was told the inservice results were mailed on Friday.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

My former program director says she talked with the ABA, and was told the inservice results were mailed on Friday.

I will be glad to be proven wrong!

 

[Blueprint]

Inservice is different from ABA written, correct? The inservice results may have been mailed to PDs, yet the delay mentioned on the ABA site may pertain to the ABA written scores...as Arch says, I need it in my hand to believe it....

 

[Lasvegas]

Hello everone. I am very greatful to say I passed.

Does anyone know if the ACGME has a section where it states what percentage of a programs graduates passed in a given year. In our program we had two fail. I don't know who, but that would make this years pass rate at about 95%. I would be curious to know about the percentage of other programs, and am sure others might like to know this info as well.