The complex questions on the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) exam pose challenges for every test taker — even ones who are highly experienced. If you’re taking the ABIM exam, you’ll face up to 240 case-based questions designed to stretch your clinical knowledge and reasoning skills under the pressure of timed test constraints. Taking ABIM practice exams is the perfect strategy to prepare for test day stress. But managing stress is not the only reason to take practice exams. Here are five more reasons why you should incorporate practice exams into your ABIM exam prep plan:
5 Reasons Why Taking ABIM Practice Exams Are an Excellent Way to Prepare for Your Exam
- Master Time Management While Taking the Exam
A critical factor for passing any timed high-stakes test like the ABIM Certification exam is knowing how to manage the clock. The 240 questions on the exam are broken into four two-hour sessions, with 60 questions per session. This means you’ll have two minutes to answer each question. Taking practice tests will help you develop an effective question cadence, so you don’t get stuck too long on any one question.
How NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Helps
NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Board Review includes two timed practice exams that simulate the actual exam experience. You’ll get used to tackling questions within time constraints so you can perfect your timing. As with the ABIM Exam, you can skip questions and return to them later or change your answers as much as you want within the 2-hour limit. After completing each exam, you can review your results, learn how your performance compares to your peers, and even see key learning points, detailed feedback, and citations for each question.
- Sharpen Your Strategies for Tackling Challenging Internal Medicine Board Questions
Taking practice exams will not only help you master your timing, it will also help you become comfortable with the question format of the actual exam and develop essential strategies for effectively tackling questions. Most ABIM exam questions are multiple-choice, case-based questions that have three distinct parts:- The patient vignette or question scenario
- The lead-in or the question itself
- The answer options, which include one correct answer and several distractors
Tackling complicated medical questions like these within imposed time limits, requires advanced skills and strategies for successfully working through ABIM questions. Taking practice tests will provide opportunities to practice these strategies BEFORE sitting for the exam.
How NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Helps
With the largest ABIM question bank anywhere, NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Board Review will provide you with abundant opportunities to master your techniques for answering ABIM questions. Our questions, including the ones on the practice exams, are in the same format as the ABIM exam. By answering NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine questions, you’ll become adept at answering questions quickly and accurately during the test.
- Fill Knowledge Gaps by Identifying them Early
Research consistently shows that physicians tend to be overconfident about their medical knowledge. Overconfidence can impact performance on exam day. Unfortunately, it can also cause detrimental diagnostic errors. Taking a practice exam at the beginning of your exam prep will help you identify knowledge gaps so you’ll know exactly where to focus your study time.
How NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Helps
With the largest ABIM question bank anywhere, NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Board Review will help you build your metacognitive muscle by asking you to rate your confidence levels as you answer questions. Frequently pausing to consider what you know and don’t know, helps you to avoid overconfidence bias, which will translate to exam success. More importantly, it will prevent medical errors.
- Strengthen Retention for Exam Day with Spaced Repetition
As the saying goes, use it or lose it! Regrettably, most of us will experience learning loss if we don’t revisit information over time. Spaced repetition prevents this from happening by re-introducing previously learned material at strategic intervals. Practice exams are a great way to use spaced repetition to keep your knowledge fresh and strengthen recall.
How NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Helps
NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Board Review is an adaptive learning platform that uses spaced repetition to deliver case-based questions mapped to the ABIM Blueprint. The program’s algorithm serves variations of questions at the perfect intervals for you. This builds automaticity so you can recall information seamlessly during the exam.
- Leverage the Testing Effect to Build
Practice tests provide opportunities to answer questions so you can deploy the Testing Effect to your advantage. According to the Testing Effect, answering questions accelerates learning and retention because it forces you to activate information stored in memory, strengthening neural connections. Also known as retrieval practice, this will significantly improve your recall capacity and speed.
How NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Helps
All of the ABIM practice questions in NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Board Review, including the ones on our Practice Exams, come with detailed feedback, key learning points, and high-quality references that provide the context you need to build deep understanding and sticky knowledge. The AI-enabled algorithms will allow you to capitalize on the Testing Effect to crystallize your knowledge into long-term memory.
Including practice exams in your ABIM exam study plan is a crucial step for success. By taking practice exams, you will perfect your time management during the test, improve your ability to tackle complex ABIM questions, identify and fill knowledge gaps, and solidify your learning through spaced repetition and the Testing Effect. Take ABIM practice exams to build confidence and pass your Internal Medicine Exam!
Learn more about the Practice Exams in NEJM Knowledge+ Internal Medicine Board Review and how our Adaptive Learning Technology will help you perform at your best on test day.