How to Estimate Your Exam Prep Time

One of the most common questions we receive at Beat The Boards! is: “How many hours should I devote to preparing for my board exam?”

On the one hand, I have a firm answer: 200 hours for a specialty exam and 150 for a subspecialty exam.

On the other hand, I have no answer at all. Vast differences in study time and effort exist among individual learners and for different exams. Instead, I have a way for you to arrive at an answer that makes sense for you.

Personal Factors

• Personality: Are you more cautious and risk-averse, and willing to bear the cost of devoting more study time? Or are you more tolerant of risk and possible failure for the benefit of devoting less time to study?
• General life strategy: Is your approach more “I always want to do my best” or more “I just need to pass this exam. I won’t get more brownie points for a high score.”
• Previous exam performance: Are you someone who’s always passed your exam or someone who’s sometimes failed?
• Previous approaches to exam prep: If your approach to taking and passing exams has worked, you’re likely to take a similar approach with upcoming exams, making adjustments based on time constraints, etc.
• Time factors: Exam candidates are constrained by the number of available hours they have. So, another good move is to plan a longer study season that allows accommodating oneself to one’s work schedule. That way, busy rotations or work schedules are likely to be offset by less busy times.

Exam-Related Factors

• Type of exam: For ABPN exams, scope drives study time. The general Certification/Continuing Certification exams in Psychiatry and Neurology span a wide clinical waterfront and simply take longer to review well. In contrast, ABPN subspecialty exams (e.g., Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, Geriatric Psychiatry, and others) are shorter, cover a narrower range of topics, and—crucially—map to conditions subspecialists manage every week. If you practice in the subspecialty you’re testing in, much of the blueprint aligns with your daily work, which makes targeted prep more efficient.
• Exam pass rates: Exams across medical specialties and subspecialties have a wide range of pass rates. A candidate for an exam with a high pass rate should nevertheless prepare for the exam, but will likely do so at lower intensity, and rightly so. Other exams are made to be so difficult that everyone in the field knows that deep and serious prep is in order.  
• Estimating rather than guessing:  An estimate is based on data. A guess is a shot in the dark. The best way to obtain data about a board exam and one’s performance on it is to complete one (or more) practice tests. They are often eye-opening to exam candidates. When the candidate takes such a practice test early in their prep season, they are pleased with themselves for getting grounded while there is time to develop a robust study plan or pivot from a current one that is now evidently inadequate. Of course, those exam candidates wait until the last minute to orient themselves through a practice test, then feel like beating themselves up for not doing so earlier.

My Wild Recommendation

Back to my glib answer: 200 hours for a specialty exam and 150 for a subspecialty exam. This is what I consider a moderate approach. I know of exam candidates who devote 400-500 hours. I trust they know themselves and their performance histories, and so I trust their approach to an upcoming exam. On the other hand, some candidates devote 40-50 hours total. If they’re doing this with intention and knowledge that this has always been enough, then I cannot criticize them. Of course, there are many exam candidates who do not prepare at all and still pass. More power to them.

Another way to think about exam prep, and one that lowers the temperature on exam stress, is to frame exam prep as increasing one’s chances of success. Studying a little is better than not studying at all. Studying moderately and adequately is better than studying a little, unless that ‘little’ amount is supported by a history of successes.

Next Steps – Good News!

I hope that helped. Now for some good news.

At Beat The Boards!, we have practice tests that not only cover the requisite topics on each exam, but to also reflect the weight of the topics on the exam. We have a formula that provides you with a custom prep schedule that accounts for 1) the weight of the topics on the exam you’re taking, which is 2) adjusted to your relative performance on those topic questions.

But wait for it!

This practice test and custom schedule recommendation, called EXACT, is completely FREE and without obligation.

After you plan your study schedule, sign up for the How Not to Fail Your Psychiatry Board Exam course for a step-by-step approach to smarter prep.

And be sure to download the free Psychiatry Board Exam Manual to see how ABPN-style MCQs really work—recognize core features, avoid common traps, and think like a test writer, not just a test taker.

There is no cost and no commitment to these free resources. It’s all upside for you. And for us? We’re glad to help.

Yours in Board Exam Success with Less Stress,
Dr. Jack