Blog - Beat the Boards!

ABPN® Exam: What’s in Scope and Out of Scope on the Psychiatry Board Exams?

August 30, 2024 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: ABPN board exam, ABPN exam, abpn exam guidelines, board exam prep, Dr Jack Krasuski, psychiatry board exam, psychiatry board exam prep, psychiatry board tips, Psychiatry boards

As part of our ongoing quality assurance, I’ve been reviewing and addressing comments left by learners regarding specific multiple-choice questions that make up our ABPN® exam psychiatry 2300+ question QBank. (Our QBank allows each learner to comment on any and all QBank questions.) One of the most common comments I’m encountering is one that questions whether the topic of the QBank question is in the scope of the exam, meaning whether it is a learning point that is tested on… READ MORE

Neurology Topics on the ABPN Psychiatry Board Exam

August 6, 2024 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: ABPN board exam, abpn psychiatry certification exam, psychiatry board exam, psychiatry board exam prep

Prepping for an ABPN Psychiatry Board Exam? Get a comprehensive Psychiatry Board Review Course from Beat the Boards! to get your board prep on track. There are two questions I get asked related to neurology disorders on the ABPN psychiatry board exam: Are the neurocognitive disorders included in the neurological disorders category? What should I study when studying the neurological disorders on my psychiatry exam? Neurocognitive Vs. Neurological Disorders On ABPN Psychiatry Exam First clarification: the neurocognitive disorders topic on… READ MORE

What Are Dimension 1 and Dimension 2 on the ABPN Exam, and How Do They Affect Exam Preparation?

August 5, 2024 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts

Here’s a representative question I received from a colleague preparing for the ABPN exam. “What exactly do we study for Dimension 2? Is it just interwoven into all the other topics? There are a bunch of extra topics that don’t seem to be assigned to any specific topic tested on. Would some of it be those?” Let me briefly present Dimension 1 to set the context. For example, Dimension 1 on the ABPN exam fo Psychiatry Certification lists 24 topics.… READ MORE

Benefits of In-Person Attendance at the Beat The Boards! Psychiatry Certification and CC Course – July 16-20, 2025

June 25, 2024 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts

Our annual live Beat The Boards! In Person Psychiatry Review Course is coming up in July. Let me share the benefits – as I see them – of attending this course in-person. Pros of In-Person Psychiatry Course Attendance CRAMMING Cramming for an exam, if that’s all you do, is not a great strategy, but it can be a key part of a greater preparation strategy. Attending the Beat The Boards! Psychiatry Board Review gives you the opportunity to review… READ MORE

What to Study if You’re Repeating an ABPN Board Exam

October 30, 2023 by Jack Krasuski 6 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

Repeating an ABPN board exam? 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… READ MORE

Should I Take a Combined ABPN Board Exam?

October 19, 2023 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: abpn, ABPN board exam

If you’re reading this, it probably means you’re double or triple boarded and you’re struggling to decide whether to take a combined ABPN board exam or, instead, take the two or three individual exams in the specialty areas in which you’re seeking to maintain your board certification. I cannot decide for you, but I can lay out the pros and cons so you can make a more informed decision. Important Information About ABPN Combined Continuous Certification Exams Note, first,… READ MORE

Why Taking a Board Review Course at the Last Minute is a Good Idea

September 6, 2023 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: board exam, board exam prep, board test prep

I know I’m biased in favor of board review courses to help you prepare for board certification exams. After all, I started the Beat The Boards! courses and continue to present many lectures at several of them. Despite this, I think I can convince you of the wisdom of getting a board prep course, even if it’s last minute. Reason # 1: There Is No Downside to Getting a Board Review Course At least when it comes to the Beat… READ MORE

Bridging the Gap: The Benefits of Telepsychiatry in Addressing the Psychiatrist Shortage

August 4, 2023 by Laura Tobias, American Physician Institute Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: psychiatry, psychiatry board exam, telepsychiatry

The demand for psychiatric services in the United States has been steadily increasing over the years, especially during and since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, an alarming shortage of psychiatrists is only growing larger, creating a significant barrier to accessible, timely mental healthcare. There are many benefits of telepsychiatry that can help bridge this gap. Currently, over 150 million people in the U.S. live in areas that do not have enough mental health providers. Furthermore, over half of the counties nationwide… READ MORE

Should I Maintain My Board Certification for as Long as I Practice?

June 30, 2023 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, Board Certification Tags: board certification, board-certified physician, medical board preparation

My answer for myself is: Yes, I would always maintain my board certification for as long as I see patients. I would not practice with lapsed board certification. Here I present my reason – yes, I have only one reason to remain board certified. This medical-legal reason is relevant to and resonates with me. It may or may not be relevant or resonate with you, but I think it’s good for you to at least be aware of it as… READ MORE

How to Pace Yourself on ABPN Board Exams with Linked Vignettes

September 9, 2022 by Jack Krasuski 1 Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam, Strategies to Deploy During the Board Exam Tags: exam performance challenges, medical board preparation, perfectionism

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… READ MORE

A Perfectionism That Will Kill Your Exam Performance

August 12, 2022 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam, Strategies to Deploy During the Board Exam Tags: exam performance challenges, medical board preparation, perfectionism

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… READ MORE

The World’s Biggest USMLE Step 2 ck QBank Now Available

June 4, 2021 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts Tags: USMLE, USMLE step 2, USMLE step 2 ck

Our QBank team has been hard at work over the last several months developing, compiling, and vetting our new USMLE Step 2 ck QBank. It’s not just any old QBank though – it’s the world’s largest QBank for the USMLE Step 2ck exam. It includes 4,200+ multiple-choice questions written specifically for the USMLE Step 2CK exam. Because of the quality of these exam-reflective MCQs with explanations, we guarantee that users of The Pass Machine USMLE Step 2CK exam pass their… READ MORE

How Not to Lose Your Mind When Preparing for Your Boards

March 24, 2021 by Jack Krasuski Leave a Comment Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam Tags: board exam stress, effective board exam study, minimizing pre-exam worry, stress-control, worry vs. study

If you engage in the behaviors below, you are in danger of losing your mind while in the process of preparing for your board exam. You spend more time worrying about the board exam than studying for it You keep buying more and more board exam prep resources when you’ve barely made a dent in the materials you already have In this post my goal is to help you not lose your mind, that is, to keep your board exam… READ MORE

How to Prepare for Board Exams When Time Is Short

February 8, 2021 by Jack Krasuski 2 Comments Categories: All Posts, How to Prepare For Your Board Exam

Irrespective of how much time you have available to study for your board exam, you need to prioritize your activities. However, the shorter your available time, the more prioritization gains in importance. An additional challenge looms when time is short: even when maintaining discipline and attending to identified priorities, it is easy to let anxious feelings and ruminative worry thoughts distract you from maintaining that necessary discipline. Here’s how to prepare for board exams when time is short. There are… READ MORE

Advice While Waiting for Your Medical Board Results

November 8, 2019 by Jack Krasuski 3 Comments 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 American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Exam 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

We’ve received a question on whether the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology exam (ABPN) includes testing 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 of nor experienced ABPN directly testing on landmark studies. For example, there will not be questions such… READ MORE

Why the Board Exam Performance Gap?

July 26, 2019 by Jack Krasuski 3 Comments 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 board 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 the medical board exam performance gap, or underperformance, and provide solutions. Poor Focus on Exam Question Due to Anxiety One cause of poor board… READ MORE

Diagnostically Focused Questions on Psychiatry Boards

June 20, 2019 by Jack Krasuski 1 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 on the psychiatry boards. 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… READ MORE

What to Do if You Fail Your Board Exam

April 11, 2019 by Jack Krasuski 1 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, i failed my board exam, jack krasuski

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.