I am generally a responsible student and tend to get my work and studying done in advance, and not wait until the last minute. Thus far, I have been successful in adequately and efficiently studying for exams and I have been extremely satisfied with my academic performance thus far. However, I know that the pance is a whole different ball game, and it will take a lot more time, effort, and emotional and mental energy than any exam I have studied for in the past. Thus, I need to spread out my studying, ensuring I am doing a little bit every day so that I do not leave too much over to close to my exam date. 

This is my second to last rotation; I am currently in my OBGYN rotation, I will have a 3 week break in December, and then I will begin my surgery rotation in January ending in the first week of February. I would like to give myself a few weeks to prepare following my surgery rotation, since I anticipate that the rotation will be stressful and exhausting, and leave me little time to focus on studying. Thus, I plan to schedule my PANCE for early March.

When looking back at my weakest subject, I am basically equal across all of the large topics, with my best subject overall being psychiatry. Since cardiology, GI, pulmonology, and orthopedics make up the bulk of the pance, I plan to focus my studying on these topics, since together they make up almost 50% of the pance blueprint. In addition, my weakest topics on the EOC were heme and renal/urology, so I will make sure to go through these topics as well.  I will go through the pance prep pearls book on these topics so that I can ensure that I am studying them in accurate depth, going through a few pages every night, and highlighting,taking notes and making note of pages/ information that I think is specifically important and I want to review again. 

Other than that, I will mostly focus my studying on doing review questions. I will use rosh review the most, since that is what I have found the most helpful. I will also use smartypance and Kaplan review. Starting now, I will try to do about at least 20 questions every night, review them, and look up information I do not know. By the end of each week, I will want to have reviewed 60-100 questions. At some point during the week, I will also try to sit down and do 60 questions straight in a one hour time slot. I will then add on and do 120 questions straight, until I build up the mental stamina and can do 300 questions semi-straight (with 45 minutes of break in between) to properly prepare for the PANCE. On the EOC, I did not have issues with timing, but I did notice that I was having a hard time sitting for so long, and by the 4th section, and especially by the last one, I could barely focus on the questions since I was just so mentally tired. I hope that by doing these questions in a row, I will be able to build my stamina.

During the first week or two after I finish rotations, I will study a little bit more from pance prep pearls, but during this time, I will mostly focus on practice questions, and especially doing long stretches of questions to build my stamina. I will also purchase and take at least one full pance practice exam, to make sure I am on par and ready for the pance. The day before my pance, I will stop studying, relax, exercise, prepare my bag, and attempt to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for the exam.