I just found out I passed the PANCE, here's how I did it

[J. Leaulite]

I remember studying for the PANCE and feeling like I wasn't doing enough compared to others on this board. I was warned against looking online to see who passed and who failed because it would inflate my anxiety regarding what I did and what I didn't do.

 

Before the PANCE I honestly didn't think I did enough based on what I saw online, but looking back, I probably did much more than I gave myself credit for.

 

In the end, I was scoring about 62% on Kaplan Questions (out of 300 question timed exams), about upper 60's in LANGE questions, and I had mostly green with some borderline in the practice PANCE from NCCPA. CME Resources predicted I would have a score well over passing, and while I did pass by a decent margin, it wasn't even close to my CME Resources score.

 

So, here was what I did:

 

1. I probably started too late, but I started casually reviewing material around 5 months before my exam. I was, at that point, much more concerned about my end of rotation exams so I honestly didn't feel the fire under my bum. I really started to heat up around 3 months before hand.

 

2. CME Resources 5-day Conference. This thing was a Godsend. It really showed me where I was weak and I honestly feel like it elevated me big time. I have no affiliation with them, but I felt like and still feel like it was money well spent. They also have a money back guarantee. I took it about 3 months before my exam, so my "practice PANCE" score that they gave me was WAY higher than my actual score, by over 100. However, the questions and the materials they provided were invaluable to me.

 

3. Kaplan Questions/LANGE questions/Step-Up to Medicine. I was told to do about 3000 questions. With all the options and books out there, I had no idea where I'd get all these questions. Kaplan had the best preparation questions, easy. LANGE was a good source of questions, but they were often coded wrong and they were asked in crazy ways that the PANCE would never ask you. Step-Up to Medicine was great for studying, not great for practicing as far as questions (more on that later). Combining Kaplan (1165), LANGE (~1200), Step-Up to Medicine (~300), Two Practice PANCE questions from NCCPA (240), and CME resources (~500) I ended up with 3000 or so unique questions. Which leads me to:

 

4. Practice Practice Practice PANCE! After I graduated I spent a minimum of 6 hours a day studying for the PANCE. In the last two weeks I did "Practice PANCEs." I sat myself at a computer and did 300 Kaplan questions with 5 60 minute sections and 45 minute breaks just like the PANCE. I can't remember how many of these I did, but it was well over 5 or 6. It showed me what my Stamina was like and what times I needed to eat and what sections I consistently underperformed. I averaged something like 62% on all 5 sections when it was all said and done, I was told that was decent for Kaplan. In the end, I was averaging high 60's for any practice questions I did over long periods of time. I saved the Kaplan questions for this purpose because nothing else breaks down your performance specifically like Kaplan.

 

5. Books. Step-Up to Medicine was invaluable. I was told to read through Current about once while in PA school but read through Step-Up twice. It was a great tool to brush up on conditions and pull out the important tidbits. I mentioned earlier that the questions weren't very good for practicing, but they ARE very good for LEARNING. So, if I could do it all over again, I would read a section of Step-Up to medicine and just do the 25 chapter questions after each section to be sure I got all the info and go from there. Save the Kaplan questions for exams and use Step-Up/LANGE to test your subject knowledge. Pull out LANGE if you need practice-PANCE questions. I had literally no other books than LANGE, Current (Not in the later months), and Step-Up.

 

6. MISC- I did the Kaplan online lectures and I got access to the Kaplan online course about 3 weeks before my exam. I don't know if I'd recommend it because it rehashed a lot of what CME Resources already did for me (and did better, IMO), and it was just a live replay of the pre-recorded lectures for the most part. The live questions to TAs are nice, and it forces you to study for 3 hours at a time, but I'm not sure it contributed greatly to my score.

 

I hope this helps someone out there. I wanted to get it out as soon as I knew I passed because I was desperately looking for this information before I took my exam. I'd like to end by saying that my way isn't the only way to prepare, and my experiences with different resources don't mean they will or won't work for you specifically. My scores may not reflect the normal scores of those who pass and those who fail, but I wanted to give some numbers to whet your appetite.

 

Good luck to everyone!

[FixIt]

Thanks for posting this. I was wondering what kind of scores I should be getting with the Kaplan Qbank (I'm averaging between 55-75%, usually around 65) and I'm about 70% of the way through the whole bank. I like your idea of doing blocks of 50 and increasing your stamina. I've got a week left before my exam. It seems like Kaplan questions are a little more complicated than what might be on the exam--was that your feeling too? And LONG question stems. But I always have leftover time so I guess that's good...

[Corpsman2PA]

How have you done historically on your exams in school? I just passed the PANCE myself, and can tell you it was a fair, well written exam.

 

People get into trouble trying to memorize material, which is useful for exams, but you also need to be able to work through a presentation, develop a differential and know the proper plan/tx/etc.

I've heard Kaplan goes pretty deep on questions. I used PA Easy and Hippo, studied for about 2 weeks 6-7 hrs a day doing questions/watching lectures on Hippo. Felt good coming out of the PANCE and passed it.

 

The reason I ask how you've done historically, is because that's a good indicator of how you'll do on the PANCE. Struggle with passing tests in PA school? Probably gonna struggle on the PANCE. And vice versa.

 

They're not wanting to fail people. Quite the opposite.

 

I found that a good portion of my answers came from my previous experience or patient encounters during clinical year.

 

What I also found, is that there is a lot of Fear-Mongering from businesses/institutions trying to capitalize on the fear of PA students scared of failing the PANCE.

Remember over 94% of first time takers passed last year. Odds are that you're going to be one of them this year.

 

Keep up the hard work, study hard, relax, and go kill the PANCE.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JP86]

You don't think you did enough?! You did more than anyone I've ever known, but it looks like it payed off and now you're ready to start your career. Time to pay off those loans! I'm throwing a kegger if that day ever comes around... Congrats on passing!

[J. Leaulite]

I've been gone for a while, but I was going to answer some things:

 

I did reasonably well in PA school on exams. We didn't have ranks, but I was probably in the upper quartile of my class just listening around. I had some tests that threw me for a loop and some that I Aced. I kept at least a B average on everything, squeaked some A's here and there.

 

As far as comparing practice questions to the PANCE (admittedly I have a hard time remembering how they went), I would say that the PANCE had much shorter stems and had pretty straightforward answers if you knew them. It was simply a matter of "Do you actually know what we're asking and what to do, or do you question it?"

 

Kaplan was a bunch of Long stems that asked a simple Question. I would say that Kaplan tries to trip you up by giving you a lot of information to process wheras the PANCE trips you up by giving you only just enough information to make a decision. One way Is to say something like "5-year old Child has single Target Lesion that developed after camping trip, what is the treatment of choice?" 

 

The PANCE is expecting you to think "Oh! That's OBVIOUSLY Lyme disease! Drug of Choice is Doxycycline!" That will be an answer. They wanted you to know that Doxy is not to be used in young children. So, you essentially have Several questions:

1. What Disease would a child pick up while camping?

2. Of those diseases, what presents with a Target lesion?

3. What's first line treatment for that disease?

4. Can I use that in Kids? If Not, what can I use?

 

Short question, but it has 3-4 hidden questions. If they wanted to be really mean, they could say the kid had neurologic or systemic symptoms, which further complicates your treatment plan. They might also do something like leave Azithromycin out as an answer and leave cefuroxime in there with Doxy and probably some other Cephalasporin ("Cephalexin is used to treat skin conditions, right?!") and a fluoroquinolone for good measure.

 

The PANCE was DENSE whereas Kaplan is just wordy.