Oral Board Study Plan - Ultimate Board Prep

[cheeseburgerandfry]

Does anyone have advice on how to actually move through Ultimate Board Prep? What study schedule did you use? How much time did you take to prepare? Did you do one case a day? Two? Did you read through the case first then practice out loud? Did you practice out loud first then read through? Did you supplement each case with other material? Did you make note cards?

I know there are lots of threads about study materials. I would like to keep this discussion to what people actually did, no detail is too small.

If others would like to detail their failing strategies that may be helpful as well.

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[DM27]

I went through all of the UBP materials in a little less than a month. I just alternated being the examiner/examinee with another person each day and we each did a case. I would go back and read the materials from the answers and clarify or write down anything I wasn't previously confident on or ended up being incorrect in my judgment/recall.

I never prepared or read them out loud in advance and we each went into the cases cold with no prior prep (aside from 5 min for note taking or whatever after we read the main stem).

UBP, in my opinion, is a good resource for general knowledge and guidelines. It is NOT an accurate representation of the exam itself and it is not a good example of how you should be formatting your answers (way too long). It is however a great way to go through some difficult cases and be accustomed to speaking out loud and having to rationalize your judgement. Take the UBP answers with a grain of salt as they are just one (and often a very conservative way) to handle a scenario. The real gem is in the explanations they give and the guidelines they cite.

 

[cheeseburgerandfry]

UBP, in my opinion, is a good resource for general knowledge and guidelines. It is NOT an accurate representation of the exam itself and it is not a good example of how you should be formatting your answers (way too long). It is however a great way to go through some difficult cases and be accustomed to speaking out loud and having to rationalize your judgement. Take the UBP answers with a grain of salt as they are just one (and often a very conservative way) to handle a scenario. The real gem is in the explanations they give and the guidelines they cite.

Thanks for your response. Do you think there is a better source on how to format answers?

 

[DM27]

Try to find a copy of the "ABA official oral practice" PDFs that are floating around. Those are formatted almost exactly like the real test, but provide no answers.

 

[AdmiralChz]

UBP, in my opinion, is a good resource for general knowledge and guidelines. It is NOT an accurate representation of the exam itself and it is not a good example of how you should be formatting your answers (way too long). It is however a great way to go through some difficult cases and be accustomed to speaking out loud and having to rationalize your judgement. Take the UBP answers with a grain of salt as they are just one (and often a very conservative way) to handle a scenario. The real gem is in the explanations they give and the guidelines they cite.

Yes! UBP gives sometimes 2-3 paragraphs of answer to a given question. In the real deal you might get 2-3 sentences before the examiner decides you get it and moves on, asks a clarifying question or attempts to lead you in a different direction (can be helpful or hurtful, “a colleague suggest...”).

Most important is being able to frame answers and give a quick 1-2 point answer for things, if they want more detail you’ll be asked (especially if you mess up, hah!). It’s OK to go “on second thought, that’s not what I’d do” or the like if you realize a mistake, the same with “I’m not sure” or “I’d ask a subspecialty colleague for assistance with X diagnosis”

 

[AnesRunner]

Does anyone have advice on how to actually move through Ultimate Board Prep? What study schedule did you use? How much time did you take to prepare? Did you do one case a day? Two? Did you read through the case first then practice out loud? Did you practice out loud first then read through? Did you supplement each case with other material? Did you make note cards?

I know there are lots of threads about study materials. I would like to keep this discussion to what people actually did, no detail is too small.

If others would like to detail their failing strategies that may be helpful as well.

I spent 5 weeks studying (during fellowship). Only used the UBP PDFs. Would just read the stems, practice speaking my answers to myself, and then read UBP's answer. I think it's vital to use questions/stems that have answers like UBP does (even if they are far from perfect or you disagree with their management). It teaches you how to articulate your answers succinctly and what your responses should sound like. I would recommend practicing with others. I didn't, so I had plenty of anxiety the day of. Would have probably helped to have practiced with others. In the end, it didn't matter though. Best of luck!

 

[crash2500]

Board stiff and 4 mock orals from just oral boards. Best things to get a feel ou how you will actually answer the questions on the exam. It is essential to get this down or you will likely get flustered during the exam. Wait till the last few weeks to do the mock orals. They will try to get you to buy more exams but you will gre an idea when you should be good. This was essential to me passing.

Use ubp as a knowledge source only. Make sure you kno something about every topic covered in ubp. There's like 60 cases but the topics repeat themselves.

 

[Turtlez]

Is UBP a prep course or a book? Can someone kind please attach a link? Thanks!!

 

[Dawkter]

Here is my advice after taking it this past year (with a little added info):

1. Ultimate board prep books 1-6 have all the information you need. Get through all the cases at least once so there are no surprises on the actual test date. No other sources are necessary— the answers in UBP are long and detailed but this leads to over preparation.

2. Nothing can make up for practicing with a colleague or an examiner. I would recommend taking somewhere between 3-5 formal practice exams with feedback given to you after each one.

3. For the OSCE portion, the 16 page ABA PDF covers everything you need to know. The most challenging aspect of this is echo for those who are not regularly doing cardiac cases.

4. On the actual exam, you will get cut off, pushed on answers you give, and will have to transition to different topics rapidly. Take time to gather your thoughts before answering the question as your answers will be more fluid and concise. The exam pace is FAST! You will definitely not have time to recite a full UBP answer.

5. Practice outlining so you can anticipate questions based on just reading the stem.

6. I’m not sure that a course is necessary since a lot of your time during a course is spent learning passively. Practice verbalizing stem answers with a friend on a regular basis— this is probably the most useful way to prepare.

 

[DM27]

I agree with all of this and I highly endorse point 3. The ABA PDF is essentially the answer sheet for the OSCE. Also, don't let anyone try to fool you about the OSCE, it IS failable.