2024 Written Exam Questions
Here at ExamPro we want to be your partner in passing your exams. Keeping that in mind, we have created a new FREE resource for you. Question of the Week. Each week one question will be posted to our website. These questions will be difficult. Getting the correct answer will require some logic and deduction, just like the real exam.We are excited to bring you this tool to help you. Remember the questions will be posted on Thursdays and will only be up for one week. (Answers will be published the next week with the new question).
QUESTION: “Most Likely” Question Format
In a 48 year-old woman undergoing abdominal hysterectomy the most likely postoperative sequela is:
- Postoperative Urinary Tract Infection
- Lower Urinary Tract Injury
- Surgical Site Infection
- Future operation for salpingo-oophorectomy
Last Week's Question:
Discrimination between similar answer choices
Following a LEEP procedure the pathology returns CIN III with negative marginsWhich of the following recommendations would be most appropriate:
A. She should undergo a hysterectomy.
B. She should continue cervical cancer screening for a minimum of 20 years.
C. She should undergo cotesting in 6 months.
D. She should be vaccinated for HPV if not already done.
Answer: C
Discussion:
This question is brief and presents us with a topic for which we are very familiar, the management of a patient after complete excision of cervical dysplasia. The answer choices are notable for two very similar choices in items B & C. As we mentioned in week 7’s question, we should always take note of this pattern when it occurs. Frequently the correct answer will be one of the very similar options.
Exam Strategy and Technique:
Offering several very similar choices among the answers allows multiple choice question writers a method of greatly increasing the difficulty level of questions. This is made even more difficult by the fact that all answer choices may be plausible, but one is the BEST choice. That is true for this question/answer combination. All four of the answer choices could be a correct choice given certain qualifiers, but only one of them is the clear best choice to answer the question as written. Unfortunately, NONE of the answer choices contain blatantly incorrect information to allow immediate disqualification. “Discrimination of Answer Choices” requires the candidate to make fine discriminations of importance and meaning in the answer choices.
This common method of answer choice construction is reviewed in detail in the ExamPro Written Skills Technique Course.
The strategy for approaching a question in this format is:
1. Recognize the similar wording of the answer choices.
2. Determine whether there is one answer choice that can be eliminated with relative confidence. Among the answer choices offered for this question, recommending hysterectomy would not be indicated. While it might be appropriate for specific cases with persistent or recurrent dysplasia and abnormal anatomy as a result of multiple previous excisions preventing a repeat excision, no such history is given. Therefore, elimination of answer choice A is a reasonable first step.
3. Now evaluate the remaining answer choices. As is commonly seen in this type of answer choice construction, two (or more) answer choices are very similar (B and C), in this case related to future cervical cancer screening. The remaining choice is a relatively new topic with which most candidates are likely less familiar, adjuvant HPV vaccination for immunocompetent previously unvaccinated people aged 27–45 years who are undergoing treatment for CIN 2+. Even if we are knowledgeable about this, in this question they do not tell us the age of the patient. For this reason, eliminating choice D would be a reasonable next step.
4. Candidates who practice a systematic approach to multiple choice questions can get relatively fast at completing steps 1 through 3 above. Ideally, as we have done here, they will end up with two choices, of which one is the correct answer! At this point it may be necessary to entertain a 50/50 guess.
5. Using our knowledge of the topic we might recognize the error in choice B. Current recommendations are ongoing screening for a minimum of 25 years. That would lead us to choose choice C which is the correct answer!
Applying these techniques will usually get one consistently down to two answer choices with one being correct, and generally available knowledge will then usually get us to at least a 70% chance of a correct answer. This is far better than the likely 1:3 or 1:4 chance on the difficult questions for a less prepared candidate.
However, we will all face questions in which 50:50 will be our best effort, and having some of these will still, overall, produce much higher percentile rank scores than the average.
The Written Skills Technique Course, part of our ExamPro Board Review Course for the ABOG written board exam, teaches you how to systematically approach each and every question to maximize your score AND your chance of passing. Don’t just “do multiple choice questions,” get our course and learn how to actually take the OB/GYN multiple choice board exam!
Don’t just “do multiple choice questions,” get our course and learn how to actually take the OB/GYN multiple choice board exam!