Official ABIM 2015 Thread

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adagio said:
This may have been discussed, so sorry for repitition if that was the case;
I did ITE in first and second year but not in third year as I had an emergency on the ITE day.
Whats the correct percentage (not percentile) of questions I should have solved in ITE in first 2 years to be in the very safe zone just to pass the test? Thanks
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adagio said:
I am aware of this calculator, however, as i mentioned in my post, I had an emergency on the day of the ITE in the third year.
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And do you think somebody did a study on residents who had emergencies and didn't take the ITE in their 3rd year and there's some calculator for it! come on dude

just put the same score as your 2nd ITE or a couple points higher and get a rough estimate
 
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ok. I plugged my number and actually decreased my score from the years. it should be ok if this calculator is accurate in prediction.
 
Pretty quiet forum just days before the exam. It's been a lot busier previous years. Any last minute words of wisdom? If everyone adds one, it could help out in the end. Here's mine. Skip the long questions and do them at the end.
 
There is no point of worrying about it; passing rate last year was 78%. odds are we are on this end. if not, then we repeat it. As simple as that. Life is too short to worry.
 
adagio said:
There is no point of worrying about it; passing rate last year was 78%. odds are we are on this end. if not, then we repeat it. As simple as that. Life is too short to worry.
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where is the stat coming from? I thought it was higher in ABIM website to the extent of 85%
 
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Whew! Glad to be done, obviously won't talk about the specifics of test but had a question on scoring

Out of the 240 questions I kept track of how many I wasn't positive on regarding the answer, that number was 46. Let's say a disaster happens and I get every single one of those wrong, or more likely I get some of those wrong and a few of the answers I was confident about wrong as well. Does this sound safe? I know that they throw some questions away, which is the main reason I am thinking about it.

Thanks for your help
 
Velo75 said:
Whew! Glad to be done, obviously won't talk about the specifics of test but had a question on scoring

Out of the 240 questions I kept track of how many I wasn't positive on regarding the answer, that number was 46. Let's say a disaster happens and I get every single one of those wrong, or more likely I get some of those wrong and a few of the answers I was confident about wrong as well. Does this sound safe? I know that they throw some questions away, which is the main reason I am thinking about it.

Thanks for your help
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Congrats. What's done is done and it's no longer in your hands so don't worry about it. Go to the closest beach, sit in the sun and have a cold drink.
 
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Easy test. Don't sweat it.
 
Hey hope every passes, my exam is next week, I have done uworld with around 60% right , and mksap with about 62%, i have read board basics once, and planning to read it again. Was wondering if any one else did uworld and found to harder than mksap or the real exam? also for those who took the exam how was it ? thanks
 
If you get 200 /240 right you are on the high hand of the curve
 
Anyone with real-world insight regarding this year's test? A lot of you must have taken it by now

Edit: I'm an idiot and didn't scroll up to see a few of the experience posts. My question is where are people placing this exam on the difficulty spectrum on comparison to MKSAP and UW. I pretty much gave up on UW because it was destroying my soul, but after 800 Qs I had a 55% on it. My second run of MKSAP I'm averaging ~70%. In full freak out mode for my test next week
 
I think it's typically been the first or second Monday of October.
 
For those of who have used both NEJM Knowledge+ and know-medge, which is a better qbank for preparing for the ABIM and becoming a better internist? Can anyone cite some pros and cons for each? Thanks for the help!
 
lovinghart said:
For those of who have used both NEJM Knowledge+ and know-medge, which is a better qbank for preparing for the ABIM and becoming a better internist? Can anyone cite some pros and cons for each? Thanks for the help!
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I did knowledge plus and found it to be a decent source that honestly made me a better internist. It provided links to NEJM review articles that supplemented the question and the explanation well. I particularly felt the fill in the blank questions in the review material section helped to solidify my learning rather than focus on recall if the question simply was repeated. This was a bonus for the ABIM as I felt it forced me to truly understand the material. The material covered in knowledge plus is also up to date and covers new material which while may not appear in the exam helps in regards to continuing medical education. I took the ABIM exam this week and found it to be a fair exam. I spent several months preparing for this test and used knowledge plus over the course of a year as my foundation utilizing the links provided to articles to supplement material I felt I needed a better understanding. I did the UWorld Qbank a month prior to the exam. The question style was clearly different from knowledge plus and was rather tricky but I managed to get through it with 70% correct and I attribute this to building a strong foundation over the last year. The exam itself can be tricky and UWorld did a great job by having such questions because it helped tune me in to what I needed to pay attention to. I went through MKSAP intern year and honestly felt this Qbank was okay but not spectacular. I felt the ABIM question style was a mix of various question styles from the three QBanks I used above, but my advice as mentioned by others many times on this forum is to pick one source as your base and go from there.
 
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Thanks for your opinion goodstuff! Would welcome the thoughts of other people who have used nejm knowledge+ and Know-medge for strengthening their IM knowledge base and preparing for the ABIM. Thanks again!
 
What day is the exam scores released this year? Last year , it was the last week of October.
 
Any resources that list essential equations that should be memorized for the exam?
 
beyondbethany said:
Any resources that list essential equations that should be memorized for the exam?
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A friend of mine took it last week and said he only had simple anion gap equations on his test. Anecdotal, but that's all I got.
 
Probably a good idea to know lights criteria, and anion gap with delta delta. Also ideal body weight calculation so you know how much tv to give an incubated patient with ards. Anybody else in freak out mode? My exam is tomorrow
 
Rongy_Dringus said:
Probably a good idea to know lights criteria, and anion gap with delta delta. Also ideal body weight calculation so you know how much tv to give an incubated patient with ards. Anybody else in freak out mode? My exam is tomorrow
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Mine is tomorrow, have resigned to my fate of likely failure
 
Best of luck captopril, do lets us know how it went with some pointers thanks
 
Well, it's over with. Studied since February, 4k total cost later, and still walk out of this thing feeling awful. You would think after taking it twice before that id probably know half the whole abim qbank by now. Anyway it's done. All I can tell you is go in confident and do your best. I don't know where they get some of their god awful questions from.
 
flyingfree234 said:
What % do you have to get correct to pass - 60% or 70%?
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You need somewhere between 70% and 75% to pass the exam. 370 is the absolute pass score. ABIM has some weird way of coming up with that number.
 
Just finished post-exam beer #2, so thought I'd chime in.

Some of the questions seemed intentionally super-vague, and some were gimmes. My prep was very limited: MKSAP early R3 year (of course I forgot it all by the time July rolled around), 800 UW questions. I tried to get through BB3 but maybe hit 50% of it. Based on that background, I'd say the exam was tough but I could see how an adequately prepped individual might not find it too hard.

The questions are definitely more forgiving than UWorld but leave a lot of detail out compared to MKSAP. Just wish I had hit either one of those harder...will have to wait until October to see if I'm my fellowship's outcast.

Can't wait for the ABIM to be overthrown so this test can get tossed out. ¡viva la revalucíon!

Good luck everyone.
 
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Gah what 75%?! Seriously? I read that it was 65%. Does anyone have a link for that 75%? That seems kind of high to me yikes.
 
flyingfree234 said:
Gah what 75%?! Seriously? I read that it was 65%. Does anyone have a link for that 75%? That seems kind of high to me yikes.
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Nobody will be able to give you a link to anything because these are numbers that were pulled out of various butts.

The only number that matters is the minimum passing score. How ABIM gets there will vary by exam year as the weight of questions gets scaled based on how many examinees answer them correctly and incorrectly. Every question is not worth X points. Some are worth 0.3X and others 3X (N.B. those numbers were pulled out of my butt) but they settle around a mean (or median, or mode...I didn't do all that great on the hard core stats stuff) of X.

The % correct thing is usually used in relation to the % correct on some Q bank that translates to a passing score on the exam. 70% is often tossed around as a good baseline, especially with respect to MKSAP and UWorld. I can tell you that my overall MKSAP score was 73% and I passed comfortably.
 
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I took it on the 3rd. I think the test was fair. I felt very confident after I finished but less now after thinking about some questions. BB3 and MKSAP were very very helpful. Anxiously waiting on results now.
 
Hi All,
I am taking the ABIM certification next Tuesday. I am looking for a partner to do a rapid revision on skype. Please let me know if you are interested.
 
PGY2 here, anyone have any experience with Med Challenger question bank?

I bought MKSAP 17 qbank to go over the next two years while we are doing mksap in the program. Usually we do one book a month.
 
drgorre said:
Hi All,
I am taking the ABIM certification next Tuesday. I am looking for a partner to do a rapid revision on skype. Please let me know if you are interested.
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drgorre said:
Hi All,
I am taking the ABIM certification next Tuesday. I am looking for a partner to do a rapid revision on skype. Please let me know if you are interested.
Click to expand...


What are you planning to review? Board basics ?, if yes-- I am interested.
 
keats83 said:
What are you planning to review? Board basics ?, if yes-- I am interested.
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I was reviewing USMLE world, available now 11:30am eastern time, if you are interested send a message to my inbox please.
 
Hey guys, I took the ABIM a couple of days ago and was curious how others felt coming out of the exam...

Personally, I had pretty mixed feelings. IMHO the sections seemed to get progressively more difficult. After the first two sections I felt pretty confident, but by the end of the exam I was thinking that I might have failed. I certainly made a handful of bonehead mistakes (switching answers from correct to incorrect, over thinking questions, etc.).

Did anyone else have a similar experience?
 
IM 2015 said:
Hey guys, I took the ABIM a couple of days ago and was curious how others felt coming out of the exam...

Personally, I had pretty mixed feelings. IMHO the sections seemed to get progressively more difficult. After the first two sections I felt pretty confident, but by the end of the exam I was thinking that I might have failed. I certainly made a handful of bonehead mistakes (switching answers from correct to incorrect, over thinking questions, etc.).

Did anyone else have a similar experience?
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I felt somewhat good after blocks 1-2 but I think I flagged 40% of block 3 which was disheartening. Block 4 felt reasonable. When I was on the fence, I stuck with whatever my initials gut said. Challenging exam for sure.
 
go lakers said:
I felt somewhat good after blocks 1-2 but I think I flagged 40% of block 3 which was disheartening. Block 4 felt reasonable. When I was on the fence, I stuck with whatever my initials gut said. Challenging exam for sure.
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I bet you a fair majority of people made "boneheaded" mistakes. I, too, made a few which I relaized once I got out of the anxiety driven mindset of this exam and was able to think clearly. I hate to say this, but in my own personal testing experience I have always made at least a few stupid mistakes on easy stuff. Fortunately, it has not come back to bite me. Having said this, I anticipated when walking out I would have made a couple and I did. Because of the high stakes associated with this exam, the perpetuating angst only intensifies, but you can't let it snowball. However, I take comfort in knowing that when I did blocks of Qbank questions in preparing for this exam I made stupid mistakes then when reviewing my answers and still managed to hit my target percentage correct. I even remember making stupid mistakes on the in service exam and still manged to do reasonably well. Im sure many can relate. So for those thinking about the careless, boneheaded, or stupid mistakes they made, I would emphatically say that you are not alone. If you prepared well and did decent on your in service exams, the statistical odds are on your side come this October.
 
I thought that the first and second block were moderate to hard ; but it just suddenly became easy on the third and the fourth with the fourth block being the easiest.
 
I'll also back up what a few others have said, UW was great for the material, but put me in a "what one word are they trying to trick me with" mindset that I didn't think the test was doing....Good luck all!!
 
I took the test last week and I thought it was a weird one. It's not anything like MKSAP and not even UW. The questions varied from super easy to "What the f*** I don't even know what they're talking about right now!". My first block was super hard and then things got a little better. Overall, I didn't leave the test feeling very comfortable. I'm going to forget about it for 3 months now.
 
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Took the exam today, thought it was not that easy, i would say 20 questions per block are give aways, 20 questions are like u need to put some thought into and the rest of the 20 are pretty hard, some with things one has never heard before. I think it is passable but i dont agree with seniors and attendings saying just doing residency is enough, u have to prepare for it. MKSAP and Uworld , i think it was represented by MKSAP better, as uworld tries to trick you more but gives u more info in the stem, in the real exam i thought information in some questions wasnt enough u had to assume some your self, hope it helps the people taking it next year. and i hope im not one of them :p
 
Just got done with it as well.

Just like a lot of people said some blocks were easy and the others were tough.

I believe a lot of the material is fairly well covered in MKSAP review.

Does anyone know when the scores come out?
 
I didn't think any of the blocks were "easy", that makes me a little nervous that people felt that way... I felt they were all fairly mixed. I felt that I "recognized" just about everything on the exam, but within the topics they seemed to focus on the super minute details that weren't emphasized in MKSAP, etc. I agree with one of the above posters that the distribution was about 1/3 easy, 1/3 tricky but able to be reasoned through, and 1/3 "wtf" fact recall. I heard from someone that we need to get 70% right to pass? I hope they are more generous than that!
I'm scared...hope I don't have to go through the pain of studying again
 
I really thought MKSAP was not enough. Out of all the prep materials, it did not help much as much as I had expected ; my experience on it ran counter to how well folks talk about it.It might be predictive I say but not so useful. Well, lets wait for the results now. Thats all I can do now.
 
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