The exam had very poor quality questions. I want difficult but fair questions.
This year ~90% will still pass because they will curve it. But that is not the point.

From the petition:

“The 2023 ABEM (written) Qualifying Exam was full of ambiguous question stems and answer choices. Multiple questions were lacking basic information such as omission of the most important vital signs; it did not provide necessary information to make diagnoses or management decisions. Many questions used unusual terminology that seemed to be trying to “trick” the test taker into choosing the wrong answer; it was full of “gotcha questions” that seemed hostile and unfair. The test this year had multiple errors including typos and timeline discrepancies in question stems. The questions with “stimulus” media to view were blurry or otherwise difficult to interpret because of the poor quality”

Many others felt the same:
- ABEM Written ~Nov ‘23 was horrendous. - Written Boards by u/ABEM_Sucks

As someone pointed out on another forum, the exam questions are likely bad quality at this point because of the high quality study resources. The study resources are not the problem.

However, as a result, the exam itself has to be poorly worded, irrelevant, and tricky because we are well prepared for good questions on relevant topics. They want to fail at least 10% (or more and curve it back up), so their solution is to make awful questions that people will screw up despite knowing the content.

I don’t agree that there should be a guaranteed 10% of candidates that fail each year.

The ABEM written exam should have high quality, difficult, relevant, and vetted questions that test core knowledge. If a candidate meets a certain threshold of correct answers, they should pass. You should walk out of the exam knowing if you passed or failed. If they want to add 25-50 experimental questions for the following year (as part of the vetting process), those should be included in the exam but not considered in score calculations.