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PA school exam-taking tips

Physician Assistant School Exam-Taking Tips

You found programs on MyPAbox, you applied, and you got in! But now, you’re a student again, and you have to take masters level medical classes, which involves exams. What tips are there for this new type of exam taking?

Build-up

Most PA programs will try to get you “used to” exam taking. Exams will vary greatly depending on your program, but it is typical to have more of the type of exams you are used to and build up to clinical medicine exams. These build upon your knowledge and generally involve a higher level of thinking.

First-order vs. second-order questions

There are different question types. For example, a first-order question would be listing symptoms and asking what disease is this. A second-order question would be listing symptoms and asking what would you use to treat the disease depicted. In the second-order questions, there are two knowledge checks. You have to know the answer of what condition, and secondarily know the answer of the treatment. You can study knowing these types of questions exist.

Be observant

Consider the first exam a scientific experiment for you to acquire a taste for how your program writes exams. Be observant during this first test, so you can alter your study style to be equipped for those types of questions come time. Keep in mind the style of exam may change with the subject, or with the professor that is teaching it.

Cover test

A cover test is a test taking strategy to utilize during the exam. Essentially you “cover” (or just don’t look at) the answer options. Read the question and mentally choose your answer before even seeing the possibilities, then look. If the answer you thought is on there –there is your answer and you are done. If not, you can see which is the closest, and re-evaluate. But this method allows you to not talk yourself out of the right answer when you see other enticing options, and can also save you time from second guessing yourself.

You can’t study everything, so choose wisely

You will be given much more content than you can possibly know by the time the exam comes around. This quantity of information isn’t intended for you to memorize all aspects of. For the exam, you want to study the right things, being the high-yield items. After you take the first exam, you will have a better idea of what kinds of things these are for your program.

Typically, how to identify a condition and how to treat it are important examples. If it is a vague item and not easily differentiated from other conditions, it probably won’t be asked about. If it is highlighted, bolded, or emphasized at length in class, those are high-yield items to know.

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