Jack Krasuski, Author at Beat the Boards!

Advice When Waiting for Your Medical Board Exam Results

November 8, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: american physician institute, beat the boards, board exam test results, failing board exam, jack krasuski, passing board exam, waiting for board exam, waiting for board exam test results

We’ve had tens of thousands of physicians take our board prep courses and this is what I learned about the weeks waiting for exam results: there is a weak relationship between how you think you did on the exam and whether you passed. Hundreds of times, exam-takers have emailed me feeling terrible about how “horribly” they did, only to find out that they passed. It’s normal to leave an exam feeling uncertain or discouraged. This occurs because: Often the biggest… READ MORE

Does the APBN Test on Landmark Studies?

September 12, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: abpn exam guidelines, abpn landmark studies, apbn, apbn testing landmark studies, beat the boards, Dr Jack Krasuski, jack krasuski, landmark studies

We’ve received a question on whether the APBN tests on landmark studies in their field. We reached out to ABPN for clarification, but they did not confirm nor deny a focus on landmark studies. Thus, I fall back on my own and our clients’ extensive experience in taking ABPN exams. In short, I’ve neither heard nor experienced ABPN directly testing on landmark studies. For example, there will not be questions such as, “Which of the following results was found in… READ MORE

VIDEO: Why the Knowledge / Exam Performance Gap? (Part 1 of 5)

July 26, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam

Below is a transcription of the video (it has been edited for clarity): Many physicians who do poorly on their boards feel frustrated by underperforming on their exam in relation to their medical knowledge and confused by not knowing how to fix this performance gap. Here I explore the first of five contributors to medical board exam underperformance and provide solutions. Poor Focus on Exam Question Due to Anxiety One cause of poor board exam performance is a lack… READ MORE

VIDEO: Diagnostically Focused Questions on Psychiatry Board Exams

June 20, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: beat the boards, board exam tips, diagnostically focused questions, Dr Jack Krasuski, jack krasuski, psychiatry board exam prep, psychiatry board exam question, psychiatry board exam questions, psychiatry board prep, psychiatry board tips

Below is a transcript of the video – it has been edited for clarity. Today I am going to discuss diagnostically focused questions in board exams. You want to recognize the core diagnostic features. There can be a challenge with these diagnostically focused questions as the DSM-5 has a lot of disorders and each disorder has quite a few criteria. These challenges can make it hard to learn all of the criteria for all these disorders, especially for the… READ MORE

VIDEO: What To Do If You Fail Your Board Exam

April 11, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Coping Strategies After Failing a Board Exam Tags: beat the boards, board exam failure, board test prep, coping with failing my boards, coping with failure, hoe to cope with failing a board exam, i failed my board exam, jack krasuski, what to do when i fail

I’m here to talk about a difficult topic with you today. What do you do if you fail your board exam? I know that this is likely a difficult time for you, but I do not want you to be so hard on yourself. Take some time to come to terms with this and then create an action plan for how you are going to do better next time. There is a silver lining when it comes to failing your board exam because we are more than passing or failing an exam.

VIDEO: How to Study More Effectively

March 25, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: beat the boards, board exam study tips, board exam tips, board test prep, how to study, jack krasuski, psychiatry board exam prep, psychiatry board tips, studying for board exams, studying for my boards

Today, I focus on how to study more effectively based on the Landscape of Knowledge. I categorize new information we learn into three tiers of understanding: data, information, and knowledge. A exam candidate can fool themselves into believing they understand the material through familiarity with it even when they haven’t converted it into knowledge through active learning. Here are specific examples that illustrate these points.

VIDEO: 5 Tips to Minimize Procrastinating on Your Board Exam Studies

January 22, 2019 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: american physician institute, beat the boards, board exam study tips, how to study for my boards, jack krasuski, procrastination, stop procrastinating

Welcome. It’s Dr. Jack and I have 5 tips for you on how to minimize procrastination when it comes to studying for your board exam. Tip 1: De-Emotionalize the Job You Have to Do My first tip is based on a thought experiment. I’d like you to take a minute to imagine that you have a clone of yourself, and your clone is identical to you. They have the same bright smile and winning personality that you do. There… READ MORE

Fear of Board Exam Failure

November 2, 2018 by Jack Krasuski 4 Comments Categories: All Posts, Coping Strategies After Failing a Board Exam Tags: beat the boards, board blog, Dr Jack Krasuski, exam failure, fear of exam failure, how to overcome the fear of exam failure, jack krasuski

Fear can make us behave in counterproductive ways, including how we respond to an upcoming medical board exam, such as a neurology or psychiatry board exam. We have set ways of responding to fear – fight, flight or freeze. Classically, fear is defined as an emotion triggered by imminent danger, as we would experience if we saw an aggressive person running toward us or if we heard breaking glass in our house as we were lying in bed. Anxiety is… READ MORE

Levels of Board Exam Questions

October 5, 2018 by Jack Krasuski 6 Comments Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: board exam, board exam questions, board test prep psychiatry, Dr Jack Krasuski, jack krasuski, levels of board exam questions, psychiatry board exam, psychiatry board exam prep, psychiatry board test prep, sample psychiatry board questions

One way I’ve found categorizing board exam questions helpful is to view them in a hierarchy of three levels, each one building on the previous one and requiring greater use of one’s clinical judgment. My three levels are: Know It → Recognize It → Decide It. Now let me explain and I promise this will be practically helpful and, I believe, comforting even. Know It This lowest level of question relies almost exclusively on recalling some specific piece of information… READ MORE

Screen Functions on ABPN^® Board Exams

September 21, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Strategies to Deploy During the Board Exam Tags: abpn, Dr Jack Krasuski, jack krasuski, video vignettes abpn board exams, video vignettes board exam

Today I respond to two questions regarding the what information is available on the exam screen on ABPN® board exams. Lab Values on ABPN® board Exams I received a question from a psychiatry board exam candidate this week about whether normal lab values are available as a drop down list accessible from the exam screen. We received a response from ABPN® as follows: “We do not provide a drop down list of normal lab values, but when the committee feels… READ MORE

Differentiating Diagnoses on Psychiatry Board Exams

September 17, 2018 by Jack Krasuski 2 Comments Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: board exam tips, diagnoses on board exam, Dr Jack Krasuski, eating disorders, illness anxiety disorder, jack krasuski, somatic symptom disorders

Here’s an important board exam fact: you can study, study, and still further study the DSM-5 and still incorrectly answer diagnostically-focused psychiatry board exam questions. How can this be? If you have ever felt that your exam performance is not as good as your knowledge base suggests it should be, the following insight will partly explain this discrepancy. The discrepancy between knowledge and performance arises from a discrepancy between what you spend your time studying (and memorizing) and what the… READ MORE

Board Exam Study Procrastination

September 7, 2018 by Jack Krasuski 2 Comments Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: board exam test prep, Dr Jack Krasuski, how to not procrastinate, study procrastination

I received a request from a colleague preparing for their psychiatry board exam. Today I tackle this fairly common problem by explaining procrastination, its formation and treatment. Procrastination is a type of avoidance, and avoidance is a common strategy used by many to cope with unpleasant life situations and also is part of several psychiatric conditions. Any disorder with “phobia” in its name is a type of avoidance. The problem with avoidance is that often it is counter-productive and makes… READ MORE

What To Study If You’re Repeating an ABPN Exam

September 4, 2018 by Jack Krasuski 4 Comments Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: beat the boards, board exam tips, Dr Jack Krasuski, how to prepare for the abpn exam, jack krasuski, psychiatry board exam, psychiatry board exam prep, psychiatry board prep, taking the abpn for the second time, what to do if i am taking the abpn for the second time, what to study if i am taking the abpn exam again

If you’re studying for an ABPN board exam that you previously took and did not pass, the question you confront is how you should prepare this time around. Here’s the first important thing to do: Review your last board exam’s “Performance Profile,” that is, the list of exam scoring categories. Review your scores on the big categories (listed below). Any category which you failed or which you passed but not by much, should become your study priority. The thinking goes… READ MORE

ABPN States Medication Doses and Schedules Are Not Tested

September 4, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: abpn board exam guidelines, abpn medication doses, beat the boards, Dr Jack Krasuski, jack krasuski

Good news! This last week, our course editorial manager, Michael Cho, contacted the ABPN to clarify their current board exam guidelines, specifically whether medication doses and schedules are tested. The ABPN’s response is that “medication doses and schedules” are not tested. This does not necessarily mean that exam vignettes never include medication doses or schedules, but that doses and schedules are not the focus of the question being asked. All of your Psychiatry Board Exam test prep needs can… READ MORE

Transforming Board Exam Question Data into Exam Performance

September 4, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: beat the boards, board exam questions, data, Dr Jack Krasuski

Have you ever had the experience of performing worse on a multiple choice exam than you knew your knowledge base allowed? If so, this post is for you. To explain where the disconnect between how much you know and how you scored on an exam may occur, I explain the relationship between four concepts: data, information, knowledge, and exam performance. I provide examples, and then invite you to consider where your “disconnect” in this chain of data processing occurs. Let’s… READ MORE

Sleep and Board Exams

August 29, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: beat the boards, Dr Jack Krasuski, enough sleep to ace exam, enough sleep to pass exam, how much sleep should i get for my board exam, jack krasuski, right amount of sleep, sleep and board exams

I’m about to tell you something so obvious you may want to throw something at me. Despite the apparent obviousness, many exam candidates still will make the mistake I’m about to describe and do so for entirely understandable reasons. Let me explain. On the day (or several days) prior to your exam, your anxiety level likely will increase. You may realize you are not as prepared as you would like to be and regret not devoting more time to preparing.… READ MORE

VIDEO: Why are Psychiatry Exam Extended Vignette Questions So Difficult?

August 14, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: Dr Jack Krasuski, psychiatry board exam, psychiatry board prep, psychiatry board tips, psychiatry board vignette, psychiatry exam extended vignette questions

Extended vignette questions now comprise half of the Psychiatry Certification Exam and one quarter of the Psychiatry MOC Exam. This vignette type of multiple choice question is easy in that the topics are not designed to trick you or to cover obscure points. And at the same time they are very hard because they require you to make render a judgment among options that are shades of gray. Listen to Dr. Jack present a detailed and uplifting presentation on how… READ MORE

Pacing Yourself on Your Psychiatry Board Exam

July 23, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Strategies to Deploy During the Board Exam Tags: beat the boards, jack krasuski, psychiatry board exam, psychiatry board exam prep, psychiatry board exam tips, psychiatry board prep, psychiatry board tips

I’ve received several emails from doctors who’ve recently taken their psychiatry board exam. Here are some quotes that I present to you anonymously and then provide my responses. “I recently took the Psychiatry Board exam and I honestly don’t know what to think. I was struggling with time. The vignettes were super long….one of the video was about five minutes long. I did take about four breaks but honestly didn’t have time to eat lunch. I finished about five minutes… READ MORE

Treatment Interventions on Board Exams

July 23, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: beat the boards, board exam prep, how to figure out a treatment intervention, jack krasuski, psychiatry board exam, treatment interventions, treatment interventions board exams

It’s not a secret that board exams test your knowledge of the details of the myriad treatment interventions used in treating patients. In addition to knowing the circumstances of when to choose a particular intervention over another (discussed in other posts), you are expected to know the details of each specific treatment intervention. Thus, the question that arises for the exam taker is “just how much detail about treatment interventions do I need to know?” Each field of medicine has… READ MORE

Recognizing Zebras in Clinical Vignettes

July 23, 2018 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Crack the Exam Question Code Tags: beat the boards, board exam tips, clinical vignette, clinical vignettes, clinical vignettes in board exams, jack krasuski, psychiatry board exam prep

The medical boards pride themselves on presenting multiple-choice questions that are clinically-relevant and fair. In other words, the boards are not trying to trick you. This means that most clinical vignettes will describe patients with a common form of a disease or disorder. After all, these are the cases most of us physicians spend our days assessing and treating. However, as clinicians we do need to recognize the rare condition. So the question is, how do you distinguish whether the… READ MORE