Psychiatry Boards Prep vs Board Vitals???!!!

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mopsych

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Hey guys,
Anyone use psychiatry boards prep for the initial certification exam last year and have good results? Any thoughts on how it compares to Board vitals or BTB? Any comments would be appreciated as I am super stressed about what to study in the limited time I have....

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BV is just like the test, most people I know didn't use anything else. What is psychiatry boards prep, must be something new?
 
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BV is just like the test, most people I know didn't use anything else. What is psychiatry boards prep, must be something new?
Yea--PBP came out a few yrs ago, written by psychiatrists. I heard BV has a lot of esoteric stuff/errors, what did you think? Also, did you use anything else? Kenny/Spiegal, Prite Ninja, Old Prites, Kaufman Neuro? Thoughts on BTB?
 
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Hey guys,
Anyone use psychiatry boards prep for the initial certification exam last year and have good results? Any thoughts on how it compares to Board vitals or BTB? Any comments would be appreciated as I am super stressed about what to study in the limited time I have....

I actually used Psychiatry Boards Prep so I can help! My friend used Board Vitals and Beat the Boards and she let me use her subscriptions so I can give a little perspective for what it's worth. Here's my not-so-expert analysis haha:

Quality of Questions:
winner: Psychiatry Boards Prep = A
Beat the Boards = A -
Board Vitals = B -

Psychiatry Boards Prep seems like the clear winner here because their questions felt like what I saw on the real board exam. They seem well written, all written by actual psychiatrists in the field. Nothing random or weird. Their explanations are very good and seem to come from articles on PubMed.
Board Vitals have some really good questions, and some really awkward and random questions that feel like they just didn't fit. It was like someone opened a text book and wrote questions from it. BtB had decent quality of questions but I did see mistakes, and while some felt like the board exam others did not. So it was a mixed bag with BtB.

Multi-Media Options:
winner: Beat the Boards = A
Psychiatry Boards Prep = B
Board Vitals = B

BtB is the winner here for offering lots of lecture videos and PDFs for their customers. I saw lot and lots of videos. That's not my thing, I don't like using videos to study since they're slow and uninteresting but if it works for you then check them out. I didn't see learning videos for PBP or BV but they both have video case vignettes (Psychiatry Boards Prep are professional).

Learning Efficiency and Interactivity:
winner: Psychiatry Boards Prep = A
Board Vitals = A -
Beat the Boards = B

This is where I think Psychiatry Boards Prep really shines because it's just like UWorld where you pick how many questions you want from any category and the system generates a mock board exam based on what you pick. For example, you can pick, say, 12 schizophrenia, 10 bipolar, 13 psychotherapy, 20 neurology, 5 paraphilia, and 5 clinical vignettes and the system creates a board exam using those questions. And you can create as many exams as you want. It's pretty nifty. I was able to quickly practice weak spots, and ended up doing rather well in those sections on the board exam. BV and BtB don't have anything that comes close to this. You can pick some categories in BV but that's about it. BtB offers video lectures but it's tons of material that one might find overwhelming and slow to get through.

Clinical Vignettes Quality:
winner: Psychiatry Boards Prep = A
Board Vitals = B+
Beat the Boards = C -

I'll keep this brief. Board Vitals had pretty decent video vignettes but they seemed amateur. Topics seemed right, questions were ok, but actors and filming quality seemed lacking. They also didn't have as many videos as Psychiatry Boards Prep. PBP I'm guessing hired professional mental health actors. They were really good. Filming quality was high too. Questions presented in a sequential fashion just like on the real board exam and their questions felt like the real thing. As for Beat the Boards, I never found any video clinical vignettes. I think BtB relies on you learning using their online lectures to get through clinical vignettes. Maybe they're there but I couldn't find any.

Overall:
winner: Psychiatry Boards Prep = A
Beat the Boards = B+
Board Vitals = B

So this is just my opinion so take it with a grain of salt. After looking at all 3, I was happiest with Psychiatry Boards Prep. The questions I saw on Psychiatry Boards Prep felt like the questions I saw on my board exam. I also really appreciated the ability to pick and choose questions to create my own tests. That by far was very helpful to my passing the board exam. It allowed me to focus on my weaknesses more than the other websites. The quality of questions seemed higher on Psychiatry Boards Prep. It also comes down to learning style. If you want to watch lecture videos all day the try Beat the Boards. If you want tons and tons of random questions try Board Vitals. Maybe some people want that.

If anyone has more questions I'll try to help out!
 
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I thought BTB + one other question bank was plenty. Do lots of questions and take a look at the ABPN content outline to focus your studying (i.e. ~20% of the exam is depressive disorders and schizo spectrum disorders). Good luck!
 
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I can’t find psychiatry boards prep - is it the APA board prep resource ?
 
Boards Vitals, at least for PRITE review, was trash. Isn't psychiatry board prep the one that just copy pastes the explanations directly from StatPearls? Or am I thinking of a different one?
 
I can’t find psychiatry boards prep - is it the APA board prep resource ?

it's found here: psychiatryboardsprep.com

I agree with witty fools review pretty much. I did Psychiatry Boards Prep and it came closest to my actual board exam. It was really good. A friend told me her entire program used it. Highly recommended.

Boards Vitals was so so, and like the above poster said pretty useless for PRITE prep.

BTB was lots of videos I couldn't finish. Some were good, some were useless.

Hope this helps....
 
I'm looking for a prep program that offers
1) a timer function that times as you do questions,
2) the ability to turn on and off answer explanations,
3) graphs of my progress and % right and wrong, and
4) the ability to create as many practice tests as I want.

Which one provides all these 4 things, if any?
 
I'm looking for a prep program that offers
1) a timer function that times as you do questions,
2) the ability to turn on and off answer explanations,
3) graphs of my progress and % right and wrong, and
4) the ability to create as many practice tests as I want.

Which one provides all these 4 things, if any?

Psychiatry Boards Prep does all these things you seek. Definitely check it out.

It has a timer, ability to turn on and off the answers, it has pie charts to show you your results, and you can create as many tests as you like. I know someone who created over 100 customized board exams on there and aced the board exam :p
 
I liked Psychiatry Boards Prep too.

Their questions were the closest to what I saw on the real psychiatry board exam.
 
Thats weird that people like it so much. The questions are very frequently bizarre, a lot of them less than 10% of people get right according to the choices, theres errors, questions out of left field, and the comparison to other people feature doesnt work.

Are you guys getting paid to say this?
 
Thats weird that people like it so much. The questions are very frequently bizarre, a lot of them less than 10% of people get right according to the choices, theres errors, questions out of left field, and the comparison to other people feature doesnt work.

Are you guys getting paid to say this?
lol I was gonna say BtB seemed to be the standard that pretty much everyone in my residency and then fellowship used for the adult boards. Less than 10% of people getting a question right seems to indicate it's either a poorly written question (literally less than chance) or testing on very esoteric facts.
 
Just want to say I purchased PBP to supplement my PRITE study and have to say I’m woefully unimpressed. It is very cheaply made and the explanations are clearly cut and paste (really long) or hastily written and unhelpful (3 sentences). Will not purchase again once my subscription is up and will try something more mainstream for my actual boards.

I should note I did get the psych and neuro qbanks with a 50% off code for total of $199, so if you just want lots of questions for cheap it can serve that purpose I guess.
 
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