Best Review Book for Aba Advanced Written Exam
Today'due southinane prototype of the day:
[Updated 1/2021 with M5 and TrueLearn discounts!]
Introduction
For those of you at the outset of your residency trying to program for future exams, please commencement with my guide to studying for the ITE and my entry on studying for the ABA BASIC test, first. And so make your way back here when you're a CA3.
If yous're a CA3 or a graduate almost to take the ABA ADVANCED exam, you're in the right place.
Some basics about the ADVANCED exam
After graduating from residency, you'll take the Avant-garde Test. It focuses on clinical aspects of anesthetic practice and emphasizes subspecialty-based practise and advanced clinical issues. We'll assign you an exam engagement after y'all register and can merely modify your assignment for religious observance, military commitments and medical accommodations.
https://theaba.org/staged%20exams.html
At that place is always a summertime (July) and a winter (Jan) exam period. Verbal dates can be found on the ABA website. For each administration, there are 2 days – you accept no say in which day you are going to have it. Usually the days are Fri and Saturday.
The exam isn't cheap [just it's cheaper than the APPLIED, heh]. Standard registration starts at $875 and late registration is $1375. My residency program reimbursed the price of the exam equally long as I registered during the standard registration period – make sure with your programme what the stipulations are for getting this cost reimbursed.
Only similar the Basic exam, the Advanced has 200 questions and yous're given 4 hours to complete the exam. Questions are usually short and to the betoken. Check out these sample questions to become an idea of the style.
How do y'all have any brownie to advise me?
Well, like the Basic exam, I passed my ADVANCED exam on my offset endeavour, July 2019, immediately upon completion of my residency. I did not pass with the highest percentile [
WAMC [what are my chances] of passing? Show me the data!
Lucky you, the ABA released information on laissez passer rates for the Avant-garde exam between 2011 and 2017. Here's what information technology looks like:
Remember, the Avant-garde is a relatively new test and the start examination was in 2016. The 2 administrations of the Advanced have had 90%+ laissez passer rates, which is reassuring!
Some other question that arises is whether there is any other type of score that can help you lot determine your chances of passing. For those of yous currently in residency, it can be helpful to use your ITE score to determine where you stand up for passing the ADVANCED. This being said, February to July (or January if you take the later administration) can be a long time, so fifty-fifty if you do really well on the ITE, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't study for the ADVANCED!
Here was the breakdown of scaled ITE scores compared to the ADVANCED laissez passer rate:
Every bit you can run into, if you're in the middle of the route or college, yous're probably in pretty good shape for the ADVANCED!
So, if you did okay on the ITE and you're willing to put in some work, you should pass the ADVANCED. This beingness said, you shouldn't blow this examination off!
Some unsolicited communication
Many of you may exist looking frontward to finally graduating residency, starting a new job or fellowship in July. Taking another board exam tin can feel similar just some other annoying job to bank check off. I urge y'all not to accident this test off. While the pass rate is higher than the APPLIED [e.g. oral boards/OSCE], it is even so a standardized exam that is expensive and time consuming. Y'all practice not want to put yourself in a situation where you may have to re-take information technology.
I personally decided to go "straight through" [I graduated residency on June thirty, 2019 and started fellowship on July 1, 2019]. I took my Advanced boards on July 27, 2019 later working a total calendar month in the ICU. Because I was the only fellow in my class that started on July 1st, I had a tough clinical schedule. On meridian of this, I have been planning the American Medical Women'south Association [AMWA] meetings for the last 6 years and this year, the meeting was conveniently scheduled for the same weekend every bit my exam. To say that I was a bit over-committed… is an understatement.
Looking back, if I knew I would be working 3 weeks of nights leading up to the coming together, I would have started fellowship Baronial 1st. By some miracle, I was able to written report plenty for the exam to nonetheless laissez passer. I was falling asleep during the exam, despite my best efforts at sleep hygiene [i.e. melatonin, getting set up for bed early on] the night before.
Long story brusk, brand sure y'all requite yourself adequate fourth dimension to report AND transition into a new role [whether that's graduating, fellowship, a new job, a new urban center, etc].
Studying for the Advanced
I sat down about 3 months prior to the exam to decide which resource I would employ. I'm motivated by some sort of countdown or numeric progress on my studying, so I created a very simple Google spreadsheet with the 3 resources I decided to focus on finishing. For the book, I wrote the total number of capacity at the peak and for each affiliate I read, the bottom of the table updated with what was left. For my question-based resources, I put the number of questions at the summit with the total left at the lesser. I roughly calculated how many chapters/week and questions/calendar week I needed to do in order to end all of the resource with a two week buffer.
I don't know almost you, with every passing yr it has become harder for me to sit downwards and focus on studying. Many of you lot take partners, children, or other commitments that take time and effort. As residents, although it's still "training," it feels more than like a job rather than schoolhouse, which can pose another challenge for studying. Because of this, I really tried to become out of my flat to force myself to report for a specific amount of time. Information technology didn't e'er work, just I recall I got more done this way.
TEXTBOOK. By this betoken, almost of you have discovered your favorite textbook or review book to report from. If you want some ideas, cheque out my ITE post for the resources I've used to report.
REVIEW Book. If I had actress time, I would have taken the ABA Advanced Content Outline and created my own study guide. Merely because I merely had 3 months, I opted to use Anesthesiology Core Review: Part 2 ADVANCED Exam every bit my study guide. The review volume is based off of the Content Outline and is much better than Part One of the series [I found that Role One had plenty mistakes and typos to brand information technology distracting from studying the fabric].
I made sure to read the entire volume and look upward the areas where I was weak. The review book is comprehensive in what it covers for the exam.
QUESTION BANKS. I call back that the USMLE exams have conditioned us to rely on question banks. Anyway, I stand by the TrueLearn Avant-garde Smart Bank [$ten off if you use my link or code "AMANDAXI"] – you just purchase the number of months y'all accept left until your exam and you can access the question bank from your figurer OR your telephone. The app really made a huge difference – many of the other question bank resources do non have a dedicated app or an easy to use interface, so I appreciate this about TrueLearn.
I want to mention that the ABA recognizes that more and more anesthesiology residents are using TrueLearn. Questions are non equally similar as they had been in the by, all the same, the TOPICS are the aforementioned. The explanations should teach you enough to figure out how to answer a question on the topic.
I finished the question bank then went back and did all of the questions I got incorrect over once more. If I had more fourth dimension, I would've completed the unabridged question bank over again. TrueLearn does Not allow you reset your subscription, but has built in tools to permit you to consummate all of the questions a 2nd, third, fourth, etc time.
Finally, some other resource that you tin use if you run out of TrueLearn questions are the ACE books from the ASA. It'due south a pricey resource [with ASA membership, it's $75/volume], and so you might desire to consider sharing it with someone else or asking your residency programme to buy them annually as a resource. My programme purchased the ACE books annually for all of the residents. Although the resource doesn't come from the ABA directly, it has some of the BEST explanations I've seen.
Departing advice
Something I didn't mention earlier was that my ITE performance my CA3 yr was pretty bottomless. Because of this poor performance, I knew that I really had to sit down and commit to learning the fabric. I did exactly what I recommended above and passed my Avant-garde test. It wasn't my best performance [you actually get a percentile score report from the ADVANCED], but it's done and I'm now focusing my attention on the Practical examination.
Even though this is Style in the future for those of yous reading this entry, the mean solar day that you get your score [Pass/Fail] from the ADVANCED, the APPLIED test registration opens. Be set up to register for the APPLIED IMMEDIATELY upon receiving your email notifying y'all that results are available. I didn't heed this advice and am now taking my Applied more than a YEAR later. Every bit a result, my critical care boards take been delayed a yr, too.
Anyhow, recall that YOU'VE GOT THIS.
As e'er, feel free to drop me an email or message on Instagram/Twitter.
Source: https://blog.amandaxi.com/2020/01/28/how-to-study-for-the-aba-american-board-of-anesthesiology-advanced-exam/
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