Study Resources for the General Surgery Board Exam

Written by Rami S. Kantar, MD, MPH

General Surgery boards include 2 components: The written exam, known as the Qualifying Exam (QE), and the oral exam, known as Certifying Exam (CE). Achieving certification by The American Board of Surgery (ABS) requires passing both exams. This entry reviews the most popular resources for the QE component.

Surgical Education and Self-Assessment Program (SESAP®)

SESAP was developed by the American College of Surgeons Division of Education and provides peer-reviewed educational content. It covers 13 surgical categories and includes 650 constructed, case-based, multiple-choice questions.

The Surgical Council on Resident Education (SCORE®)

SCORE is a nonprofit organization formed in 2004 by the principal organizations involved in American surgical education. SCORE focuses primarily on the five years of progressive education and training that constitute general surgery residency in the U.S.A. The SCORE portal includes more than 950 module topics covering six competency areas, This Week In SCORE (TWIS) - a topic of the week program, chapters from 16 leading surgical textbooks, 3800+ multiple-choice questions for resident self-assessment, 230+ narrated operative videos, 140+ SCORE School webinars, and 80+ anatomical illustrations.

TrueLearn®

TrueLearn is a question bank for general surgery board exam preparation. It contains more than 1500 questions, and it gives learners a percentile based on the number of questions answered correctly, which helps them compare their performance to others.

Best of luck and feel free to reach out with any questions!