2024 Cardiovascular Anesthesiology Specialist Exam Experience Part 2: Exam Overview and Exam Day
This is Dr. Anes, an anesthesiologist.
This time, I am bringing you the second part of my experience with the Cardiovascular Anesthesiology Specialist Exam!
Introduction
I can hear you asking, "I want to know how to study!" but before that, to help you grasp the overall picture of the exam, I will first introduce the exam overview and what the day of the exam is like. I will talk about
study methods in detail next time, so please wait a little longer!
Postscript: I successfully passed the 2024 exam!
From Application to Receiving the Exam Admission Ticket
After completing the application, you will receive an email with instructions on how to pay the exam fee.
That is the beginning of a long waiting period...
The admission ticket finally arrives just before the exam, so you will definitely feel anxious, wondering, "Did I apply correctly?" (laughs).
By the way, when you combine the application fee and the exam fee, it becomes quite an expense.
It is an exam you want to pass on the first try if possible, isn't it? (*Specific study methods will be introduced in the next article!)
Exam Overview
Timing: October-November every year
Location: Tokyo
Time: Reception starts at 9:00, exam from 10:00 to 12:00 (2 hours)
The exam format is the same as JB-POT, a CBT format.
Writing utensils are provided by the secretariat, and a calculator function is built into the PC
. The exam instruction sheet also had plenty of blank space for calculations.
The items to bring are very simple:
・Exam admission ticket
・Photo ID
only!
The exam consists of 80 questions in total:
Knowledge questions: 55-60
Clinical questions: about 25
. You answer on the PC, but it is designed with a user-friendly feature that allows you to "I want to review this later!" by marking the questions. Since you can mark them and move on for now,
it is easy to manage your time.
How to Spend the Time Just Before the Exam
The day before, I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo.
A final push at the hotel... although, it is almost impossible to review all the materials at this stage (it is a battle against time).
My strategy: On the Shinkansen and at the hotel, I focused on reviewing only the "Specialist Course Lecture Textbooks" and one carefully selected book.
In particular, for the Specialist Course Lecture textbooks, I reviewed the ones I had thoroughly filled with notes!
As a result, I feel like about 20% of the questions on the exam were "Oh! I heard this in the lecture!" I am convinced that they were the
most cost-effective study materials!
Finally, the day of the exam!
I arrived at the venue around 9:20 AM. Many examinees were already outside the room doing some last-minute cramming...
Since study materials are prohibited in the exam room, I intended to use this time to organize important formulas and guidelines in my head, but in reality, I just spaced out (I'm only human).
The exam instructions began 10 minutes before the start.
And so, the fateful two hours began.
While solving the problems, it seemed like one after another would require a second look, so I drew a line for the ones I was reasonably confident about and only marked the ones I wasn't.
Thanks to the specialist course lectures, there were many questions where I thought, 'I know this!', which gave me some peace of mind.
I finished solving them relatively smoothly and had 30 minutes left to review all the questions.
Since I had time to spare, I checked every question regardless of whether I had marked it or not.(Actually, I found one question where the answer I had chosen before reviewing was the correct one, but that's a secret...)
On the way home, I felt strongly that I want to pass this experience on to my juniors.
Through this exam, I once again faced my own immaturity and realized that this is not the goal, but a new start. Now, next time, I will introduce in detail the long-awaited
study methods for the Cardiovascular Anesthesiology Specialist exam.
Thank you for reading until the end!
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