Lesser Known PANCE Tips
While studying for the PANCE, I read countless tip lists for passing. However, I thought I’d list some that I haven’t seen listed much but are great to keep in mind. Studying all of medicine is overwhelming and exhausting. But you passed PA school - you can pass the PANCE, too!
• Use ONE prep book. All prep books contain the same material, or else they wouldn’t be very good prep books. It’s better to keep your reviewing consistent (wording may vary in the books), as facts will stick better. I used PANCE Prep Pearls by Dwayne A. Williams, which is a fantastic book!
• Don’t spend too much time doing practice questions. I did a lot of practice tests. However, don’t make it anymore than half of your study time. When you answer a question right, rather than reviewing all the material on that one pathology, you are quizzing yourself only on that one fact. You get more out of your study time when reviewing the material itself.
• Know demographics. Test writers write questions based on textbook medicine. Therefore, you will most likely never find a question with a 60 year old male patient presenting with new onset multiple sclerosis - it will likely be a 20-35 year old female. With questions that mention a patient’s race, the race will typically play a role in the diagnosis/treatment. It’s actually considered politically incorrect if it doesn’t, so the question wouldn’t have made it through editing to the final exam version.
• Review similar presentations. Exam writers love making you think of similar pathologies to the correct answer. If it’s a question on the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, there will likely be options for treating osteoarthritis and septic arthritis as well.
• Remember that you don’t have to be a pro at everything. I did painfully average on some of my sections, yet still passed. Focus on larger sections of the blueprint (cardio, pulmonology, GI, musculoskeletal), and spend time reviewing “most likelys”, “gold standards”, and “first lines”. Some sections (like hematology, the bane of my existence) are only 3% of the exam, so don’t spend too much time on those sections. Review books help to laser focus the most important things about each pathology.
• Make a plan and stick with it. A week before my scheduled exam date I was really tempted to postpone it because I felt I didn’t know enough. You may likely feel this way no matter how much you study, so don’t let that feeling haunt you.
• Avoid burnout. Studying for 10+ hours a day for weeks straight may hurt you due to fatigue, so schedule your exam soon after graduation. I took my exam 5 weeks after we finished school (something was funky with our official graduation date so my class had to wait a few weeks), and by the end of that time frame, I was going crazy. Don’t study more than 6-8 hours a day. You passed PA school - you know enough material that you don’t have to drive yourself insane over studying for this.
• Finally, no matter what happens, remember that the PANCE does not determine how good of a PA you will be. It tests if you know enough textbook medicine to be certified, but it doesn’t test your patient interaction skills, your real-life decision making (PANCE patients will always be the best patients - never fighting you on your decisions!), or your drive to continually learn while practicing. Maybe you get test anxiety (like me!) and don’t score well, or maybe by chance your exam version just so happened to test your weak spots a ton. Pass or fail, high score or low score, you may still end up being the best PA a patient ever sees.
