Passed ABA Written Qualifying Exam on second attempt — what finally clicked
Failed my first attempt by about 15 points and spent the next 8 months completely rethinking my approach. I'd been relying too heavily on Miller's Anesthesia and not doing nearly enough practice questions — probably 200 total for my first sitting, which wasn't anywhere close to enough for a 200-question exam.
Second time around I did around 1,800 practice questions over 16 weeks, averaging 90 minutes a day on weekdays and 3–4 hours on Saturdays. My score jumped from 68% to 84%. The biggest shift was focusing on clinical pharmacology and cardiac physiology — together those probably make up 30–35% of the exam based on what I saw.
If you're in residency right now, start early. I know attendings who didn't open a review book until 6 weeks out and barely squeaked by. The WQE is harder than people give it credit for, especially pharmacokinetics and the physics sections. Use your off-service rotations to grind questions.
The physics section blind-sided me. Thought my pharm was solid at 78% but physics was dragging everything down. Spent the last 4 weeks doing nothing but gas laws and equipment questions and it made a real difference.
Cardiac physiology is no joke. Pressure-volume loops, Starling curves — make sure you can draw all of it from memory. That's probably 8–10 points right there.
1,800 questions in 16 weeks tracks with what worked for me. The UWorld anesthesia bank is worth every dollar if you haven't used it — the explanations on wrong answers are where you actually learn.
How long before the exam did you start focused prep? I'm 5 months out and not sure when to shift from broad review to question-focused. Your 16-week timeline sounds about right.
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