Question: “Dr. Jack, how do you recommend pacing ourselves during the clinical vignette sections of the ABPN board exam? You mentioned aiming for 70 seconds a question but how would that work if there is a long vignette question stem or a 2-3-minute-long video?”
This is a great question and I’ll answer it here (and then move on to address a larger question): Not every medical board exam question takes the same amount of time to answer. The pace at… Click to Read More
A Perfectionism That Will Kill Your Exam Performance
This week we completed our 5-Day Psychiatry Board Prep Course in Chicagoland. (It was great to see and speak with so many colleagues there.) At the course, I received several questions from our attendees about what turned out to be a single problem described in different ways. The problem is a manifestation of one type of perfectionism. It arises as a feeling of a strong need to get complete and/or definitive information about a case described in an exam case… Click to Read More
Screen Functions on ABPN Board Exams
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… Click to Read More
Pacing Yourself on Your Psychiatry Board Exam
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… Click to Read More




