How I Passed the PANCE

You’ve made it past didactic, rotations, end of rotation exams, OSCE’s, finals..phew! Now, onto the biggest exam of your...*gulp*..LIFE! Relax, it’s really not that bad. You’ve been preparing for this exam from day 1 of PA school.

​In this blog: I answer FAQs & give some tips on worked for me. I tend to be more on the organized, type A side..so if you're reading this & you're like "WTF..this is giving me anxiety"...take what you need! Know that there isn't only one way to successfully prep for the PANCE, mine is just ONE of many

When did you take the exam? How soon after graduation? Was it enough prep time?
I graduated in late May and scheduled my exam 4 weeks after. This wasn’t by choice. I initially
wanted to take it as soon as I could (days after graduation) but the exams dates were all booked
when I tried to sign up. Procrastination much? Lesson learned: sign up early if you know you want to take it by a certain date! For some, waiting 4 weeks to take the PANCE after graduation might feel like torture. I thought it would make me feel antsy, but it worked out well. I had to factor in moving between NorCal to SoCal & settling in back home, so four weeks gave me a nice pace to go through all of the material.

When did you start studying?
I scheduled my exam 4 weeks after graduation, but I gave myself 8 weeks to get through all the PANCE blueprint topics & enough time to get through sample practice exams.

Weeks 1-4: I was still in summative course, so after a day of lectures (approx 8 am-5 pm), I
would go home & go through the planned material for the day. My schedule these weeks slightly differed because I was in school for a good majority of the day.

Weeks 5-7: I committed to 8-10 hours of studying a day, with Saturdays as a catch up day &
ROSH practice exam questions. Falling behind on material was something that happened to me regularly. Having Saturdays to catch up was mentally reassuring. Sundays were always off. Yoga/dinners/study breaks were also scheduled in!

Week 8: Very little reading, mainly questions the entire week

How do you recommend scheduling your study plan?

• I’d highly recommend scheduling out a study plan..our program actually made us do this & I’m happy they did. Second, use anything that works for you! If that's excel spread sheets, GoogleCalendar, whatever. Just make sure its something you use & will keep you on track. 
• You want to lay out all the PANCE blueprint content, then look at how many weeks you want to give yourself to complete it. Things you want to answer: Do I want to (or more realistically..can I) study x amount of hours/day? What are my strengths? Weaknesses? Do I need more time for a specific content area? Do I study best alone? How do I study best? 

Which planner did YOU use?
I used Passion Planner, which lays out your day from 6 am - 10:30 pm in 30 min intervals. Some people dislike having this much info, I love it. If you're like me, I just printed out the free PDF sheets for 8 weeks. Found here: passionplanner.com/free-downloads/

Where did you study?
Library, coffee shops. Basically anywhere that wasn’t home & could set up my laptop and not be
distracted for hours at a time. I’m usually a home studier, but found myself getting distracted by
the comfy couch, ouuu Netflix, or my cats. Can’t say what will work for you, but just make sure
you have a space specifically for studying & one space for relaxing. Going out and studying
somewhere put me in the mindset of making sure I accomplish most things on my to-do list. It
also made it easy to come home & just relax at the end of the day.

Do you recommend question banks or just studying/reading?

• YOU MUST DO PRACTICE QUESTIONS. You wouldn’t run a marathon without having trained for it with some practice runs, right? Doing well on the exam also means having the stamina to last through a 5 hour, 300 question exam! First 2 weeks, I practiced with one 60 question block in 60 min (the same amount of time given on PANCE). Then worked up to two 60 min block, then three 60 min blocks. By week 6, 7,8..I was doing five 60 min practice block exams in one sitting (Total questions: 300, allocate about 4-5 hours much like the exam). This would be done on Saturdays only.
• I attempted to recreate the exam as much as possible...this meant..NO access to phone, music/headphones, snacks, coffee/water during a 60 min block. Also, programing ROSH so that it wouldn't show me if I got an answer correct or incorrect. I booked a study room at my local library or at a study cubicle with minimal distractions. Once the exam comes around, you’re set! Your mind isn’t freaking out because you've been in this environment before.

Extra tip: I had a notebook specifically for questions I answered incorrectly on ROSH review. Trust me, I nearly filled up the whole notebook by the end.

Things to remember:

• Be sure to study using generic drug names & mechanisms of action
• DO NOT RELY ON WORD ASSOCIATION for studying. A patient will not come in and say...I have “a strawberry tongue.” Lol. But seriously, memorizing word associations for diseases in clinical practice is not realistic. It isn’t realistic for exams either!
• Practice reading EKGs/imaging
• Falling behind on study plans is normal, don't freak out if this happens. Just keep on going & adjust accordingly
• Taking breaks is just as important as studying. Don't burn yourself out in the first couple of weeks! I'd study for long period of times, but trust me..my breaks or days off were never skipped! :)

Resources I loved: There’s a billion resource guides and must haves out there. These 5 worked
for me & stuck to them. At the beginning I would be using too many & it just became hectic. Links included

1. MedGeeks Board Review Course/Pharm Review Course—so much YES to this!!! To the point, without all the fluff! I’m an auditory learner so being able to listen & download the episodes was golden
2.  PANCE Prep Pearls— this book is seriously AMAZING! I read this over probably 10 times or so..probably more. During PANCE, I could recall the specific page where the info was located. Ha!
3. OnlineMedEd—so much love for OnlineMedEd. Lectures are amazing. There might be a little bit too much info for PANCE in some lectures, but the charts/work-up flows organizes everything so nicely. Videos are free. Remember to stick to the PANCE blueprint topics.
4. SketchyPath/Pharm--I’m the type of person who learns best when I know the underlying details, anatomy/physiology, mechanism of actions. Sketchy was my absolute favorite & a lot of the times didn’t even feel like studying. How is that possible?
5. ROSH review—I can’t imagine a better question bank! The questions are tough & sometimes makes you feel like you don’t know anything (lol)....but SOOOOOOOO helpful. There’s so many questions to go through & it also gives you an indication on how you might do on PANCE. My score was pretty close to the predicted score it gave me!

Resources I DID NOT like (take these with a grain of salt)

1. PAEASY Question Bank: Disliked this Q bank during PA school, hated it even more for PANCE prep. A LOT of questions are too easy, others are so bogged down with insignificant details. It relied heavily on word association...not realistic for PANCE at all. There are also a lot of mistakes. It gave me an unEASY feeling. Gladly I didn’t pay for this, but really don’t recommend it, even if it is offered through your school. Now having taken the PANCE, can easily say the questions on this Q bank aren’t up to par with difficulty of PANCE questions. Just my opinion!
2. Physician Assistant Exam Review, Pearls of Wisdom, 5th edition: The book is written in question and answer format, not multiple choice. This is probably great for block exams in didactic, but the format was a little too strange for me. Rented it from the library, don't recommend it.
3. NCCPA Practice Exams: I know I probably shouldn't be saying this about the people who basically write PANCE (lol). But, at $50 each, I don’t really think these practice exams are worth it. The results don’t tell you much besides you’re low, borderline, or high proficiency in each content area. May be good for peace of mind, but that’s all. It doesn’t tell you which questions you answered correctly or incorrectly, doesn’t explain answers. You’re pretty much left with, “yay, I’m good at cardiology”.....“oh, I suck at Neuro.” I feel like most people have a general idea of strengths and weaknesses. This just cost me $50 to confirm it & didn’t change my study plan. Sorry, NCCPA.

Test day:

Finding a testing center:

• Book early if you have a specific date you'd like to take it
• Look up the testing center yelp reviews before booking the exam. I know yelp reviews aren’t always the best, but it gave me peace of mind to know most people who took their exam at the same testing center had a great experience. I read reviews for one testing center that had power surge problems on multiple occasions. Uhh, no thanks to that headache.

Location: My exam center was in Orange County, about 1.5 hours away from my home. I knew that I would not want to take a chance on commuting that distance on the morning of my test. I booked a hotel 2 min away from the testing center & stayed there the weekend before my exam. If you will have a long commute the morning of test day, consider this option. Happy I did this!

What did you eat? I know this sounds like a silly question, but I had this same question. So if I had it, others might too. I had a simple but pretty heavy meal--eggs, tofu, avocado toast, fruit, coffee. You want to eat enough to power you through a couple hours, but also don't want to eat so much that it gives you a stomach ache or drink so much coffee that you constantly have to get up to go. I generally have this same meal before a long hike. In many ways, PANCE felt like a long hike with a beautiful destination (PA-C!).

Things I brought with me on test day:

• ID, 2 forms. You can find more info here: What to Expect on Test day by NCCPA
• Water/coffee, snacks (PB&J sandwich, dried fruit, trail mix)—these are all left in the lockers assigned to you in the testing center. Truthfully, I wasn't hungry during the exam & only took a few bite/sips for energy
• Sweater--testing centers are notorious for being cold
• Don’t even bother bringing your notes/books. Most testing centers have a policy that doesn’t allow you to be looking over notes or book inside. Also, will looking over your notes at this time really make a difference?....Nope! You're ready!

How long was the exam?

• There is a 15 min tutorial in the beginning of the exam
• Exam: 5 hours, 300 multiple choice questions. It is divided into 5 sections, each 60 questions with 60 min to complete each block. Before moving onto the next block, you’ll be prompted on screen if you’d like to take a break. You have a total of 45 min allotted for breaks between blocks. Just know that if you want to take a break & leave the exam room (i.e. go to bathroom, eat something), you have to go through all the security checks again to get back into the testing center. In my testing center, that meant showing ID, going through the fingerprint machine, body scan, emptying pockets. Yes, it is seriously that detailed. Just take this into consideration!
• I took about 4 hours, lots of my classmates crushed it in 3! But, it really doesn't matter how long I took. TAKE things at your OWN pace!! You've prepped this long for it, take all the time you need!

After test day:

• DO NOT make the mistake of looking up answers after the exam. The test is over, go celebrate! I went to yoga right after, followed by a nice long nap
• I felt pretty nervous about the results. THIS IS NORMAL. No lie, I thought I failed! Everyone who felt like they failed, passed...including myself! It’s a hard test, but you've been prepping for it for so long.

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If you need the PANCE blueprint content: 

PANCE 2019 Blueprint
File Size:	570 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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PANCE 2018 Blueprint
File Size:	231 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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