Study Strategies

Researching the best PA exam review methods and details can be overwhelming. Rather than doing the time-intensive searching yourself, you’ll find the answers to common questions here. This post will help clarify what types of study options exist, which one(s) are right for you, and what you need to know to prepare for your didactic read more…

Researching FNP certification exam details and the best exam review methods can be overwhelming—especially when you’re balancing patient care, your personal life, and now preparing for your NP certification. Rather than doing the time-intensive search yourself, you’ll find the answers to common questions here. This post will help clarify what types of exam review options read more…

Researching the best OB/GYN exam study tips and board review methods can be overwhelming. Rather than doing the time-intensive search yourself, you’ll find the answers to common questions here. This post will help clarify what types of study options exist, which one(s) are right for you, and what you need to know to prepare for read more…

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected board exams across many specialties, with some being postponed or canceled due to health concerns and testing center closures. Here is the pertinent information about the ABOG Qualifying (written) Exam and how to prepare for it during COVID-19. When is the ABOG Qualifying Exam in 2020? As of May read more…

As an emergency medicine physician who sat for two ABEM Certification Exams, I am excited to see that ABEM has made the ConCert Exam online and open book amid coronavirus (COVID-19). Nonetheless, being able to access resources while taking the exam may not be any easier or lead to a higher score than taking the exam read more…

We already know the pass rates for the AANP Family Nurse Practitioner and ANCC Family Nurse Practitioner Exam hovers around 80%. This article is going to show two very easy ways to help increase your Family Nurse Practitioner Certification Exam Score by 100 points. 

While there is no magic pill or wand to significantly increase your exam score, these two techniques are the most useful, easy to implement and only requires a little of your time. This means anyone can take advantage of them. The first tactic is to use a system over a couple of months to identify what you don’t know. Sounds easy, right? The key is to go through a curriculum and identify what you don’t know – not what you are weak at – but what you don’t know. The second strategy is to take advantage of human error. Tests are written by humans, of course, and humans make errors. This article will show you 5 very easy techniques to narrow down an answer choice to either the correct answer or to a 50/50 probability – even without knowing anything about the topic. By combining these two strategies, you’ll be able to increase your Family Medicine certification score by 100 points – which could be the difference between passing or failing. Let’s get started.

Crushing the OB/GYN shelf exam is equally about HOW you study as it is WHAT you study. The latter is far easier to communicate, but I hope to convey an overall ethos regarding the best approach to studying medicine. First, a note on how. Have you ever heard the expression “the best diet is the read more…

Obstetrics and Gynecology is an exciting, dynamic, and captivating field–especially when you’re hitting the wards for the first time. However, positioning yourself to score a top mark on the OB/GYN shelf exam is challenging because much of the content is specific and unique to this clerkship alone. When I was going through third year, I read more…

Historically, PA classes and exams are replete with “buzzwords”—key words or phrases that are associated with particular diagnoses. And the thinking is, if you know the buzzwords, you’ll score higher on your exams. Meanwhile, there is talk that the boards are moving away from including buzzwords in their questions. Whether this is the case or read more…

This article covers two easy strategies to help increase your American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) or American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGACNP) certification exam score. These two techniques are useful, easy to implement, and only require a little of your time. The first strategy is to identify what you read more…

This article covers two easy strategies to help increase your score for the Psychiatry Resident-In-Training Examination® (PRITE®) and increase your likelihood of passing the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) Psychiatry Board Exam. These two techniques are useful, easy to implement, and only require a little of your time. The first strategy is to read more…

At my medical school, everyone recommended taking the Clinical Electrocardiography elective in the fourth year. A kind man who had been interpreting ECGs for over 25 years taught the elective. We all had to read Rapid Interpretation of EKGs by Dale Dubin, and each day we spent hours going through real ECGs and trying to read more…

So you have to take the Pediatrics End of Rotation™ Exam (EOR™)… Perhaps you have children, take care of a little one, or have no exposure to kids aside from the five weeks spent at your clinical site getting sneezed and urinated on. Either way, this article will hopefully help you prep for the daunting PAEA read more…

Clinical rotations are exciting—finally you get to practice what you’ve spent all of didactic year learning about! But, they also come with their own challenges: the PAEA End of Rotation™ Exams (EOR™). I have completed three rotations thus far into my clinical year: women’s health, general surgery, and internal medicine. I passed all three of read more…

PAEA End of Rotation™ Exams can be grueling and intimidating, but with the right tools and techniques, there’s no need to worry! You can use many study techniques and habits to be successful and confident when taking your exams. Visual, auditory, kinesthetic—different learning styles are better for each learner, and it is important to adapt read more…

I graduated from Clarkson University’s Physician Assistant program in May 2018 and am a Family Care Physician Assistant in a small, rural, underserved Upstate New York town. I took my PANCE 2 weeks after graduation and PASSED, so I started working on July 1st. All of my friends who graduated the year before me said read more…

Nobody gets to be a certified PA just for having good bedside manners. If you don’t practice, you don’t pass your PA exams; as a historically poor test taker, this meant months of anxiety and stress leading up to the PANCE. I felt that no matter what method I was using, I couldn’t be sure read more…

[Updated 1/15/2020] Since this post originally appeared on June 30, 2019, thousands of PANCE scores have been reported. As expected, the PANCE passing rate dropped to approximately 93% for first-time test takers. Year Pass Rate 2015 96% 2016 96% 2017 97% 2018 98% 2019 93% Back in January 2019, the NCCPA released an updated Content read more…

Your board exam is coming up. You are probably contemplating mountains of study material and trying not to have a meltdown. Your instinct might be to rely on coffee, cramming, and prayer, and you would not be alone. Do not trust that instinct. Multiple cognitive psychology studies2,3,6,7,10,14 show that cramming is not ideal for long-term read more…

This article is going to show two very easy ways to help increase your ABFM Certification score by 100 points. We already know that pass rates for the ABFM exam hover around 90% for all test-takers. And we know that superior test-taking skills alone are not sufficient to pass the exam. While there is no magic pill or wand to achieve this, these two techniques are the most useful, easy to implement and only requires a little of your time. This means anyone can take advantage of them. The first tactic is to use a system over a couple of months to identify what you don’t know. Sounds easy, right? The key is to go through a curriculum and identify what you don’t know – not what you are weak at – but what you don’t know. The second strategy is to take advantage of human error. Tests are written by humans, of course, and humans make errors. This article will show you 5 very easy techniques to narrow down an answer choice to either the correct answer or to a 50/50 probability – even without knowing anything about the topic. By combining these two strategies, you’ll be able to increase your ABFM certification score by 100 points – which could be the difference between passing or failing. Let’s get started.