The study plan

• Pick a single intensive board review course and a single-question bank
• Try to enroll in both early into your third year and repeat them. Avoid the temptation to check other sources, please! It will only distract you.
• Avoid the Board review books that are unrelated to the intensive board review course such as board review books from Mayo, Harvard, and MKSAP are not good for the exam-study mindset. Please put them aside!
• Internal medicine textbooks are a good thing to decorate your office! For sure not for the board exam study.
• Practice board-style questions before the board review course to recognize your weaknesses and strengths points.
• Finish the board review course, and go over the question bank, and repeat the cycle.
• Solve board-style questions in 50-100 board-style question blocks.
• Take a look at the exam blueprint to get an idea of each field’s weight in the exam! Make sure to distribute your study time similarly to the blueprint! Also, you may feel very weak or hate a topic that’s only 1% of the exam so you may just totally ignore it and save the time for something more important.
• Please put a schedule for your study and stick to it, but try to study every day, particularly in the last 6 months.
• To simulate the exam environment, try solving questions at various times throughout the day. For instance, tackle some questions in the morning one day, in the afternoon on another day, and the evening on yet another day.

Mental preparation for the exam

• The IM board exam isn’t the end of the world, you can take it again if you fail, skip it, and do it in the next cycle! It isn’t a life and death matter so chill and try to enjoy while prepping for the exam.
• Avoid long hours of studying, take regular breaks, and do something unrelated to medicine. 
• One day before the exam take the official exam tutorial on the ABIM official website to get a feeling of the exam environment and format, practice it so you are ready to jump right into the exam and you can skip the tutorial on the exam day.
• I highly advise against studying or solving questions 24 hours before the exam.
• Plan your exam breaks, I highly encourage you to take at least a 5-minute break after each block but pick whatever you feel comfortable with, just plan it.
• Don’t think about the block you just finished! Forget about it whether you did good or badly, your next questions block is always your first block.
• Once you are done with your exam, celebrate this achievement regardless, and don’t think about it anymore! Remember it isn’t the end of the world.

Exam-taking skills

1. How to set your pace during the exam:

• Keep your eyes on the block timer and adjust your pace accordingly.
• Don’t get stuck on any question, pick an answer, mark it, and then come back later if you have time. Don’t mark it without picking an answer, please! You may not have time to come back to it. 

2. How to read and dissect a board-style question:

This is the topic of our next post.