Advantages of knowing how to answer Board questions correctly and attending small group sessions.

Often times students fail to understand key elements of the content underlying board type questions. These are best corrected when they articulate their (improper) understanding in a small group discussion with peers, instructors and facilitators. This does not happen in lecture; students can leave a review lecture with the same misunderstanding they came in with. Students really don’t recognize what they do not understand until they try to explain it, and the small group gives them the opportunity to self correct. This skill is highly desirable when answering any type of medical board question.

Practicing questions, once the student has learned our approach, is a huge part of our daily schedule. The goals of practicing how to effectively answer board-style questions has many benefits. Here are some of them:

• It allows students to apply our highly effective technique to help them pick the right answer especially when they get it down to two possible answer choices.
• Students notice an improvement in their test taking performance.
• Students begin to develop a sense of self-confidence when they see higher scores during question group. Educational research has shown that students who are self-confident report higher scores.
• Students learn how to efficiently pace their timing during the exam so running out of time does not become an issue.

In some of our sessions we work in small groups which has many advantages:

• It allows the instructor to ensure that the student has a clear and defined interpretation of the work at hand and is logical in his/her thought process.
•  It highlights for students an awareness of when reasoning process is disorganized which then leads to a misinterpretation of questions.
•  It provides opportunities to improve comprehension.
•  It helps students, together with the facilitator, figure out their own personal style of learning.