Trying to go through the drill problems for Section 1 on TIA is mind numbing. Having to read these memos just to get to a problem that does not require as much time as it took to read the prompt is exhausting.
Not anything specific, just in general
is this suffering over yet?
Can I just say how dumb this exam is? I’m going through the Spring 2021 exam, and here is question 3c:
Critique the study design and conclusions of the journal entry “Effects
of a Population Health Community-Based Palliative Care Program on Cost and
Utilization”.
What kind of a crap question is that? I’m supposed to memorize this random journal entry and all of the conclusions that were drawn? Give me the conclusions and let me critique them. I don’t understand why we have to memorize every little thing here!
Ok, rant over. Back to memorizing every little thing.
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Agreed it was a dumb question and hopefully an outlier since that article is the only real case study on the syllabus (other than AZ medicaid and MA Exchange).
The suffering is not over yet!
Main thoughts:
This is the least prepared I feel for any exam ever. Is it bad that my best expectation is to just make a solid first attempt. Mostly due to this exam’s reputation.
I’m just glad I’m not taking FV again. I was supposed to fly through it and let’s leave it at: that did not happen.
That’s a particularly egregious question, but there are a lot of past questions that are similarly ridiculous
I totally agree. That’s just one example out of many of why this exam is dumb.
I’m just ready to stop caring about this exam!
Definitely feeling the least prepared for this exam as well. I understand the material well but I do not have the details down enough for a pass unless I get lucky. If they test large parts of the syllabus I might have a shot, but obscure questions from one page of readings will kill me (and that seems to be what they like to test on). I’m going for a solid attempt and just going to read the source material for next time.
That may have been the worst question I have ever seen on an exam. That was a fringe questions for a fringe topic. I memorized all the real material from that section since it was new material only to see that on the actual exam. I was unhappy to say the least.
This exam has been brutal to study for. Knowing the core concepts is not a formula for success. This exam is all about memorizing lists, then being able to figure out which list they want. Then hoping the lists you memorized show up on the exam. And just for fun lets throw in a new tone deaf exam administer that totally fails to understand the intensity and anxiety of this exam.
I have memorized more lists than any other exam for tomorrow, and I feel like I need 2x more memorized to pass this thing. I have a chance IF the questions happen to align with my strengths, but going into Thursday Im putting myself at 40/60 odds.
100% agree, and the second half of that is the hardest part. When I look over past exams, I’ll have no idea what they’re asking for. Then I’ll look at the solution and think “oh, I had that entire thing memorized!” I’m super anxious that I will have the info in my head and just not know what they’re looking for on exam day.
Yup, that’s me too. I made it through the first two exams without memorizing a whole lot of notecards. I don’t think it’s possible to do that on this exam.
We share all the same frustrations.
One thing I noticed about an exam that randomly chooses 20 lists to ask- they rarely ask the same list 2x. I spent a day looking at last 3 sitting and literally crossing of possible list questions to try to narrow the material. There is some stuff that is always fair game (RBC calc for example), but many of the list questions should only appear every 4 years or so.
This also means that taking past exams for practice is useless… You can only study them to look at how they ask questions and what they have asked recently.
One topic I think is reallly due is MM reinsurance. They have asked 1 reinsurance question over the last 4 years, it was about DI.
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I think there was someone who put together spreadsheets detailing what topics were “due”. I even bought it for a past exam, but I don’t remember what it was called.
Ive noticed in past exams that they like to group a topic together into questions. For example, on one exam I saw that they asked for models used for care management and then a question about how to review literature. Going through that I saw the first question and thought “I have no idea what they mean” then I saw the second question and thought “Oh these were both from the readings about Opportunity Analysis!”
I think a lot of people will shuffle flashcards or something when studying for this, but that seems counter intuitive. I think studying sections together is optimal.
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The upside of being convinced that I won’t pass tomorrow is I’m not worried about optimizing for tomorrow’s exam
Agree very much. Context is everything.
I ripped out the “Lists” pages just to be able to refer to manual and lists at the same time.
When studying a section I generally have the textbook, the manual, the lists, and my own notes open at same time. What’s up in the air is how much I retained of all that.
My favorite, especially with the ASOP and list and describe considerations lists — very similar wording in the header or question but have different lists
Fun thing, the considerations when performing risk valuation (ASOP 46) activities and risk treatment (ASOP 47) activities are the same. First time I saw that I thought there was a misprint on my notecards.