Focus and concentration play major roles in your exam scores as the exam is incredibly long.
You have to be full-on thinking for like 5 or 6 hours. That’s hours!
I’m trying to think of things I love to do that I know I could NOT do for that long.
Watch TV. Walk. Swim. Run. Drink coffee. Read. Write emails. Surgery (I start fading at the 4 hour mark. Just ask any of my scrub techs). Play with my kids. Hang out on the breach (I think 6 hours is probably enough).
I see this as a MAJOR hurdle. Content is one part of this puzzle, but there are a few others and stamina is one of them.
Are you practicing to build up your stamina?
“How do I do that?” you ask.
One thing I’ve come up with is reading. Read anything. I am really good at taking tests. I have been for as long as I can remember. I went into science mainly because I was a good test-taker and it was less work than writing reports. (Hmmm. Just noticing I write way more than I take tests now).
One of the things that I know made testing easier for me was the amount I read. I read a lot. The average person does not read a book again after college. Not one. By that definition, I read a ton. Last year I read 34 books.
I’m a little behind that pace having completed 8 books so far this year, but one of them is Ayn Rand’s monster Atlas Shrugged. Which is 1088 pages. (Side note. Love it and I think everyone should read it.)
The point is, I believe that reading is a great way to train your brain to READ for 5 hours. Reading anything. Trashy novels and magazines. American history. Computer science. Whatever you enjoy so that you do it.
It has the added benefit of helping clear your mind, so you can fall asleep too. For about a year now, I save novels that I’m not super interested in for before bed. That helps me fall asleep.
I read Dean Koontz’s “Frankenstein Series.” I read Bernard Cornwell’s “The Saxon Chronicles” (now a Netflix series The Last Kingdom)
I also read Ken Follet’s “Pillars of the Earth” and “World Without End,” but I was up for two or three hours with those when I should have been sleeping. Try to avoid this. Read those books in the morning or the afternoon.
If you pick magazines, I’m cool with that, but again nothing sensational before bed. Grab something kinda boring. Read the sensational stuff in the morning or during the day.
Here’s where I say, “All you need is about 30 minutes a day.”
And then you say, “Dude, you have no idea. Where am I going to get 30 minutes a day?”
Lots of things are 30 minutes a day, right? Exercise, planning meals, studying with The Final Step.
Right now , I’ve got 5 of these 30 minute a day things I want to do. I have maybe an hour and half per day to do them. For now, I’ve chosen 3 and, when baseball season ends, I’ll either choose 3 new ones or try to do all 5.
You don’t have to do it all now. You don’t have to do it forever. Life is made up of seasons. Make your choices with that in mind. But whatever you decide, read more.
Even if you can’t find 30 minutes a day, I’ve got a way for you to boost your scores with 30 minutes a month. Read the Physician Assistant Exam Scholars newsletter. Every month it’s packed with actionable content that you can use to boost your scores and find the extra time to do things like read more or maybe just relax for a spell.
Check it out here: Physician Assistant Exam Scholars
Brian Wallace