Frequently Asked Questions

SurgPass is unique because of the team behind it. Many platforms use content-experts which are board-certified surgeons to write questions, but SurgPass is exclusively authored by master surgical educators specifically experienced with boards prep. These are the exact same experts who author the definitive textbooks for the ABSITE and surgical boards. They are also the team that built SurgBoards, which has become the gold standard for the oral certifying exam. When you use SurgPass, you are learning directly from the seasoned educators who actively define and test surgical competency across the country.

The platform retains the good old fashioned question bank familiarity that you have relied on since your first year of medical school. You still have complete control over your study sessions with classic features like tutor mode, timed blocks, and a massive volume of high yield board-relevant questions. Furthermore, the SurgPass interface is custom engineered to exactly mirror the actual ABSITE and ABS QE testing environment. By practicing in an identical digital layout with the exact same question and answer formatting, you eliminate test day interface anxiety and build total comfort before you ever sit for the real exam.

Another significant difference with SurgPass is the integration of multimedia including high-quality illustrations, clinical photographs and videos. No other surgical question bank includes embedded video content. SurgPass is rich with videos demonstrating classic physical exam findings, complex physiological concepts, and operative techniques directly within the explanations. This visual integration transforms a boring reading exercise into a more immersive experience.

Finally, every single question is explicitly written to teach rather than simply assess. There is no focus on fellowship level trivia; the goal is to train you to be an excellent general surgeon and perform exceptionally well on your boards. We test the core bread and butter principles you must know to operate safely and score highly on boards. When you miss a question in the main QBank, the system releases SurgHits using our proprietary active recall system. Instead of leaving you to build your own flashcards, the platform releases pre-written targeted SurgHits to test your specific weaknesses. You can then complete SurgHits as much or as little as you want. You get the comfort of a traditional QBank combined with the most advanced active recall engine ever built for surgical residents.

Building your own flashcards or writing lengthy notes wastes study time and creates an illusion of competence because you can easily convince yourself you knew the answer after flipping the card or page. The SurgPass adaptive learning engine eliminates this busywork by replacing flashcards with active, board style mini questions. We know surgical residents learn best by doing practice questions, which is exactly why every SurgHits is structured as a rapid fire, single sentence multiple choice question accompanied by a concise one sentence rationale.

By relying on questions rather than flashcards or notes, you organically build a massive secondary question bank tailored exactly to your weaknesses. If you complete a thousand questions in the main QBank and miss half of them, you are instantly generating an additional one thousand to fifteen hundred targeted SurgHits. These pre-written micro questions deconstruct the parent topic to test highly relevant board concepts that were embedded in the vignette, even if they were not the primary focus or the correct answer of the original question.

Consider a question about a patient presenting with gallstones, diabetes, and steatorrhea due to a pancreatic mass. If the question is answered incorrectly, SurgPass unlocks two to three SurgHits to be answered at later, optimized dates adapted to your schedule based on how much or how little you log in to the platform. One SurgHits will test your ability to recognize the classic symptom triad of a somatostatinoma, another will test your knowledge of its most common location on the pancreas, and a third will independently test the specific surgical management by forcing you to choose between enucleation and a formal resection. All three of these are themselves usually questions that come up on the ABSITE.

Instead of passively flipping a card, you must objectively select the correct multiple choice option. The adaptive algorithm handles all the heavy lifting behind the scenes. It tracks your performance on these highly specific micro concepts and resurfaces the SurgHits at the exact interval needed to combat the forgetting curve, ensuring these ABSITE concepts and factoids are permanently locked into your long term memory without you ever having to manage a study schedule. This allows you to study the way you learn best: by doing questions, not passively reading notes or flashcards.

Active recall is the process of stimulating the memory to retrieve a fact rather than passively reviewing material. Reading a textbook, scanning an explanation, or re-doing the exact same question you previously got wrong can create a false sense of fluency. When you repeat a question you have already seen, it is easy to remember the answer simply because it feels familiar (recall bias). True active recall requires retrieving information without relying on familiarity. This process forces the brain to reconstruct the reasoning behind the answer and strengthens the neural pathways needed to recall the concept under the pressure of the real exam; this is what SurgPass focuses on.

Surgical trainees are inherently visual learners who operate in a three-dimensional environment. Reading about a procedure is entirely different from watching it performed. SurgPass is the only surgical question bank that integrates operative videos directly into the learning platform; more than 65% of the questions have some sort of multimedia component (video/illustration/clinical photograph/table).

Your subscription time does not start the moment you purchase. The clock begins the moment you manually activate your QBank from your account dashboard through the desktop website. This flexibility allows you to secure your subscription now and activate it months later when your dedicated board preparation truly begins.

No, you are not allowed to pause your subscription.

Yes, you can reset all your questions back to the “new” state. To do this, navigate to the “Create Test” tab in your dashboard. Under the “Test Content” section on the right side of the screen, ensure you are on the “By Question State” tab and click the blue “Reset all questions back to new” link. Please note that you are only allowed to perform this action exactly one time per subscription. Resetting your questions will not erase your historical performance analytics. Your data remains completely intact so you always maintain an accurate reflection of your true clinical mastery.

We do not offer a free trial.

No. SurgPass strictly prohibits the sharing of subscriptions. We actively monitor for suspicious login behavior and reserve the right to suspend accounts that violate our terms of service.

• Timed Mode: This mode simulates the high-stakes environment of the actual ABSITE or ABS QE by enforcing a countdown timer. The explanations and correct answers are completely hidden until you submit the entire exam for review.

• Untimed Mode: This mode removes the pressure of the clock, allowing you to carefully read and analyze complex clinical vignettes at your own pace. Like timed mode, explanations and answers remain hidden until the full test is completed and submitted.

• Tutor Mode: This is the most popular mode for active learning. In Tutor Mode, the timer is disabled, and the comprehensive visual explanation which includes operative videos and custom illustrations can be revealed after you select your answer.

Yes. SurgPass features a dedicated, fully native mobile application for both iOS and Android. With the the app, you can take full-length tests, review operative videos, and clear out your daily SurgHits directly from your phone while waiting between cases in the OR lounge.

Because SurgPass utilizes an adaptive engine and features operative videos embedded directly into the explanations, an active internet connection is required. This ensures your performance data and spaced-repetition intervals for SurgHits are instantly synced across all your devices.

Your percentile rank is calculated by comparing your performance on first-time, primary QBank questions against the entire national cohort of residents utilizing SurgPass. You also have the option to compare your performance against your cohort of residents. Your performance on SurgHits do not inflate or alter your primary QBank score.

All new subscriptions must be activated on the desktop platform before they will appear in your mobile application. Log in to your account via a web browser on your computer, navigate to your dashboard, and manually activate your new subscription. Once activated, the QBank will immediately sync and become available on your mobile device.

If you have purchased the comprehensive Bundle and have both subscriptions active simultaneously, you can easily toggle between the ABSITE and ABS QE question banks. Tap the dropdown menu located at the top of your mobile home screen to switch between the two. The app will always default to whichever subscription you accessed most recently.

No. To maintain security and streamline your account management, our mobile app does not support the purchasing of new subscriptions, upgrades, or time extensions. All transactions must be completed securely through the desktop website.

While you have full access to create and complete tests on the mobile app, we highly recommend utilizing the desktop platform for your primary exam preparation. The larger desktop screen provides a better viewing experience for the operative videos and clinical illustrations, and it accurately simulates the physical interface you will experience on exam day. The mobile app is optimally designed for rapidly clearing out your daily SurgHits. It allows you to efficiently complete dozens of targeted micro-questions while walking through the hospital or waiting between cases.

SurgPass content is updated annually by content creators specifically experienced with boards prep. The annual updates severe two purposes. First, the questions are updated to reflect what is currently tested on the boards, recognizing that the very latest clinical guidelines do not always make it to the exam immediately. We also strategically update the questions to test similar concepts in different ways. This ensures that the platform feels fresh if you use it year after year, actively preventing recall bias.

If you spot a potential discrepancy, please utilize the dedicated “Feedback” button located directly within the testing interface. Our team of surgical educators reviews these submissions regularly to ensure our content remains the undisputed gold standard for board preparation.

Yes. We partner with general surgery residency programs nationwide to provide premium institutional access. Whether you are looking to purchase the ABSITE QBank for your intern class or the complete Bundle for your chiefs, we offer tailored institutional pricing. Please reach out to us at support@stg-surgpass.ideamakr.com.

Program directors or chief residents can initiate an institutional purchase by navigating to our Contact Us page and reaching out, or by sending an email to support@stg-surgpass.ideamakr.com. Our team will provide a customized quote and handle the onboarding process for your entire roster of residents.