Failed my first RCIS attempt by four questions in January and just got results back from the retake — passed with a 78%. I know a lot of people here are in the same spot I was, so I wanted to share what actually changed between attempt one and attempt two.
The biggest shift was switching from just reading review books to doing timed rcis practice test sets every single day. I was averaging about 62% on my first round of practice questions before the first attempt. After eight more weeks of targeted drilling I was consistently hitting 74–76%, and the real exam felt more manageable because of it.
Hemodynamics and radiation safety were my two weakest areas, and I spent about 45 minutes a day just on those topics for the last three weeks. The catheterization lab procedure questions felt more familiar once I stopped trying to memorize steps and started picturing the actual workflow from my shifts in the cath lab.
If you're within 5 points of passing don't get discouraged — targeted review over 6–8 weeks makes a real difference. Happy to answer specific questions about the content domains.
Congrats on the pass! I'm scheduled in three weeks and hemodynamics is killing me too. Did you find a specific resource that explained Fick calculations in a way that actually stuck? The textbook explanations read like they were written for engineers, not cath lab techs.
Eight weeks of targeted drilling sounds about right. I did ten weeks before my first attempt and still came up short on the pharmacology questions. The vasopressors and anticoagulants section is dense and they test it from multiple angles.
I sat for mine last fall and the radiation safety section was heavier than I expected — probably 12–15 questions just on that domain. Definitely worth dedicating real time to scatter radiation principles and dose reduction techniques.
Thanks for posting this. I failed in March and have been dreading scheduling a retake because I didn't know what to change. Knowing that 6–8 weeks of focused work moved someone from 62% to passing gives me a concrete target to aim for.