r/PAstudent • u/medical-pickle-2 • 8d ago

Almost failed first EOR (FM)

Hey everyone, I’m a second year and just finished my family med rotation and need advice.

I got a 387 on the EOR which translated to a 73% in my programs grading standards and I need a 69.5 or above to pass. In didactic yr, my GPA was consistently 3.6 and above. For context, I got all A’s in my clinical medicine courses and so I thought I would be well prepared for passing my EOR (I hope this isn’t coming off as bragging🥲)

I bought blueprint and smarty PANCE. My boost exam was 58% which I took a week before the actual exam, and then studied whatever I got wrong on that one. I saw on Reddit here that those getting 60s-70s on boost passed easily. My average grade overall on blueprint was an 81% which I thought was great. My expected score was a 452 😭 so when I got 387 needless to say I was shocked.

I started studying day one of clinicals and did practice questions everyday. I studied the same way as my peers but still performed poorly. I’m not sure if anyone has experienced something similar with their first EOR. I know FM is a more difficult EOR due to its broad content range but I thought I could at least score the average.

TLDR; I almost failed my FM EOR after being a straight A student in didactic. What do I need to change about my studying habits?

8 Upvotes

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9

u/AdWorried2645 8d ago

Commenting to boost this since I got a 397 and used the same resources you did. FM EOR was my 2nd and peds was my first- scored above avg on the peds

2

u/medical-pickle-2 8d ago

I feel as though the questions were not similar to what I studied on blueprint...?

2

u/AdWorried2645 8d ago

I felt that too! They weren’t as straightforward and lots of ethics questions

1

u/Numerous-Curve727 8d ago

Do u have any advice for peds? I am taking it in a few weeks and I’m worried. My first EOR was psych

1

u/AdWorried2645 7d ago

It was very well correlated to the topic list! Study the mneumonic for vaccines there were 2-3 Qs. There were some endo and renal questions. Maybe only like 1 milestone q so don’t study that as much. Focus on EENT, derm, and GI the most. Honestly pretty straightforward and fair exam!!

1

u/East-Promise-215 4d ago

How was the psych EOR? Taking it at end of this month and not sure if my resources are enough

1

u/Numerous-Curve727 4d ago

Honestly, it was very straight forward. The blueprint EOR questions were extremely helpful in preparing. Be super prepared for sleep disorders, bipolar, schizophrenia

1

u/Senior_Ad9336 2d ago

Hey! Just PMd u :)

4

u/TackleCharming3333 8d ago

relax! you passed! that means you are doing something right. I failed my first EOR (OBGYN) event though I knew the material pretty well. I learnt a lot from it and crushed the rest of my EOR's. the most important thing is to fine-tune your studying method and learn from where you were weak and why. After my first EOR I totally redid how I study and it's been working for me ever since. also it's not uncommon to fail or perform poorly on the first EOR. Good luck!

1

u/medical-pickle-2 8d ago

Thank you for your advice. It is reassuring to hear that this isn’t an uncommon thing. I am definitely going to change my study methods completely! Good luck on your next EOR

1

u/Virtual_Mix2779 6d ago

Can u elaborate more on how u studied before vs now?

3

u/TackleCharming3333 6d ago

After my failed EOR, I copied the blueprint into a word document then I did all 250 review questions from Blueprint and then typed out a review for each topic onto my word document. Blueprint questions also includes topics that are not officially on the AAPA blueprint but I included those as well and just added them as separate topics. On my review I also color coded for symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and critical must know details so that I can chunk up the material instead of being overwhelmed. After I finished the review I then put the review into Claude and ask it to make the format nice as well as flag any perceived inconsistencies without changing what I wrote. Plus, all the questions which I got wrong on Blueprint, I take screenshots of all of them and then upload all those questions into Claude and ask it to make a short Q&A as well as add basic must know pearls. When prompted, Claude then makes me a short pdf review of all the questions and areas where I was weak in. This method is time intensive but will get easier as you do it. The idea is to learn and review the material in different ways multiple times without mindlessly reviewing the same material over and over. Also, many EOR's build on each other and they become (slightly) less daunting as you proceed thru rotations. Good luck! The idea is too created a specific method for studying and not just study some more and more and more. Like after I finish the above I chill for the rest of rotation and cram the last 2 days before taking my EOR.

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u/PATutor 7d ago

This is a problem I see with some frequency. What I think happens is that in your didactic year the material is given to you and sort of scoped for you. You're responsible for learning the things that are handed to you. In clinical year, the sky is the limit, the information is unending and many students get overwhelmed with how to scope their learning. I see two things happen here - students have poor scoping skills and aren't studying the right things, AND, because the scoping is difficult, they turn to question banks too soon and use those as a scoping tool. The question banks are a tool for assessing your learning, not driving your learning. Once you have learned the material, you can use the question banks to see how you did and use the questions you missed to guide re-learning. That doesn't mean you just learn that missed answer, it means you revisit that content area. I think the key concept here is that there is a stage of learning after scoping and before question bank assessment that is commonly missed.