How To Retake a Board Exam

In my years as the Dean of Students and then the Dean of a College of Optometry, I spent many hours counseling students that did not pass their National Board Exam (NBEO) the first time. I always told them that the most difficult thing was to get motivated to retake the Board exam the second time. I've seen students be successful on the retake and I've seen students fail the retake. From these experiences, I've refined my recommendations to them to these three items. I hope that people reading the blog may benefit from my experiences with hundreds of students.

1) Do practice questions! I think that services like KMK and OptoPrep are helpful, but I have found that students need to do more practice questions. Colleagues in medical schools actually require students preparing for retakes to complete a certain number of practice questions from a database. I think this is a good practice! I would suggest that students preparing for a retake should complete 1000-1500 practice questions! That sounds like a lot, but this effort does two things for the student. First, it makes you a better question reader. The more that you practice, the less often you will be tripped up by the language or distractors. Second, there are only so many ways that you can ask an anatomy or optics question. So, the more that you experience the more likely you will see a similar one on your retake examination! Both of these things are important to your success!

2) Have an accountability partner. In life, we are very good at fooling ourselves! We can plan to study for 3-4 hours per day, but then spend half of that time looking at social media or going down a "rabbit hole" on YouTube. Hours disappear and time is not recoverable. So, I recommend that you have someone to hold you accountable. This person could be a faculty member, a classmate or even a parent. The person doesn't matter as much as the willingness to keep you on track. You won't want to let them down and you will stick to your well planned schedule. Often, we would recommend that two students facing retests would work together to be accountability partners.

3) Work on your mental health! That's a big statement, so let me break it down a bit. First, facing a retest is extremely stressful. Often if feels like "everything" is riding on the success of the retake. That is not true, but that's often how it feels! So, work to make sure that you are managing your stress during this time. Visit a counselor or therapist. Talk to a trusted friend or colleague. Do something to make sure that you are not a bundle of nerves! Second, work on any test-taking issues that you have. Many students face "test anxiety". I can tell you from 30-years of experience that test anxiety is a real thing and it is very impactful (in a negative way). So, read a book, watch a video, or talk to an expert to decrease your test anxiety. I have found some great resources online to recommend to students over the years. (Thomas Frank's YouTube videos, for example) Make sure that when you are taking an exam, you are focused on the question at hand. Too many times, students have told me stories about how they start calculating their score after each confusing question and worry about how that will impact their life. That's not good! You should be focused on one question and then move on to the next question. That's it. That is where your mind has to be focused.

So, there you go. These are three critical things that you can do to help with retaking a national board exam. I'll be the first to admit that it is very challenging to retake a high stakes exam, but it is manageable. You can do it!