What's new
Updates and improvements
Everything we've shipped to BoardPal, newest first.
Sep 15 to 21 · 13 fixes
21Sep · Mon
START triage diagram fixed, plus fixes from your reports
Fixed- Fixed
The START triage diagram now says yes where it said no, and shows that a casualty who breathes once the airway is opened is tagged red. more ▾less ▴
A student spotted a mistake in the START triage diagram on the Critical Care & Emergency cram sheet, and she was right. The arrow leading on from the question of whether the casualty is breathing said no where it should have said yes: a casualty who is breathing moves on to the breathing-rate check. While checking it we found a second gap in the same step. A casualty who is not breathing but starts to breathe once you open the airway is tagged red, immediate, and the diagram did not show that. It now has its own red branch, and the written START steps on the next page say the same. Nothing was re-paginated, so every highlight and note you have made on this sheet is exactly where you left it.
- Fixed
A wound irrigation question no longer marks a protective gown as wrong for a procedure expected to splash. more ▾less ▴
A question about wound irrigation asked what the nurse should wear besides gloves, and marked a fluid-resistant gown as the wrong choice. A student pointed out that a splash can reach the body and clothes too, and she was right: standard precautions call for a gown whenever a splash is expected, as well as protection for the eyes, nose and mouth. Another question in our own bank already taught exactly that. The question now says the nurse has already put on gloves and a gown, and asks what else is needed before starting. The correct answer did not move, so your past attempts and topic scores are unaffected.
Magnesium sulfate figure fixed and 5 reported questions
Fixed- Fixed
A student caught our magnesium sulfate sheets giving the infusion-toxicity number where the before-every-dose number belongs. Corrected on three sheets, with your highlights untouched. more ▾less ▴
A student wrote in to question one line on the Labs, Fluids & Electrolytes sheet, and he was right. Under the box headed "check BEFORE every dose", three of our cram sheets gave the respiratory rate as at least 12 a minute. That is the figure that tells you a magnesium infusion has begun to depress breathing and must be stopped. The figure for the check you make before giving a dose is higher: the manufacturer's prescribing information puts it at about 16 breaths a minute or more, alongside a knee-jerk reflex you can still elicit and adequate urine output. The two are different questions and our sheets had run them together. We corrected it on Labs, Fluids & Electrolytes, Antepartum and Intrapartum, on five pages in all, and we retitled the magnesium toxicity illustration on the Antepartum sheet so it no longer describes itself as the before-every-dose check. Both numbers now appear, each labelled with the moment it belongs to. Nothing was re-paginated, so every highlight and note you have made on these sheets is exactly where you left it.
- Fixed
Five reported questions repaired, including one tuberculosis question that had two defensible answers. No correct answer moved. more ▾less ▴
Five questions were repaired after students reported them. A tuberculosis question had two statements that both needed correcting, so there was no single right answer; the option about rifampicin turning urine and tears reddish-orange now says what is actually true, which is that the color is expected and harmless and no reason to hold the drug. A question about pain relief after gallbladder surgery asked about a "return visit" that the scenario never described, and now says plainly that the nurse comes back to the bedside. A question about a client on warfarin had a sentence that left it unclear whether the client or the nurse held a belief, and has been rewritten as two plain sentences. An explanation about negligence and what a nurse could have foreseen was rewritten in much plainer language. And an explanation of Freud's parts of the personality now sets out the order they form in and the job each one does, instead of repeating the answer choices back. No correct answer moved on any of them, so your past attempts and topic scores are unaffected.
Undo a crossed-out option; correct answer marked
Fixed- Fixed
Tap a crossed-out option to bring it back. It no longer goes dead after an accidental cross-out. more ▾less ▴
When you cross out an answer option with the small x beside it, that option used to stop responding completely, and the only way to get it back was to tap the same small x again. If you crossed one out by accident, it could look like the question would not let you answer. Now you can simply tap the crossed-out option itself and it comes back. That first tap only brings it back and does not choose it, so a slip never records an answer; tap it once more to select it. This works the same way in practice sessions, mock boards, the diagnostic exam and warm-ups.
Exam-aware flashcards, focus mode and resizable tapes
Fixed- Fixed
Text on a study plan calendar entry no longer runs outside its box. more ▾less ▴
On the study plan calendar, a mock board entry that shows a small Day 1 done check could let that text run past the edge of its box in the week view. The text now wraps inside the box at every screen size. We also built a checker that opens 18 pages of the app at phone, tablet and computer widths and measures whether any text sits outside the box drawn around it; it found nothing else, and it will be run again before future updates.
- Fixed
20Sep · Sun
133 practice questions rewritten to read more like the board exam
Fixed- Fixed
Two facts corrected in question explanations, then swept across the whole library to be sure they appeared nowhere else. more ▾less ▴
Two facts were corrected while we were working through those questions. An explanation about the temporary weakness that can follow a focal seizure said the weak limb is on the same side of the body as the part of the brain the seizure started in. It is the opposite side, and it now says so. Separately, an option about a fluid used to bring down pressure in the head said it causes no diuresis at all; it causes less than the other option does, which is not the same thing, and it has been corrected. We then swept the whole library for both claims to be sure they had not been copied anywhere else: the first appeared once in 15,362 questions and in none of the flashcards, case situations or cram sheet pages.
- Fixed
19Sep · Sat
Choose how many questions when you add a practice topic
Fixed- Fixed
Choking first aid updated to the 2025 guideline in one mock question and the Sick Child A cram sheet. more ▾less ▴
Choking first aid now follows the 2025 guideline everywhere. For a conscious child or adult who cannot speak or cough, current guidance alternates five back blows with five abdominal thrusts; older teaching used abdominal thrusts alone. One mock board question offered back blows as a wrong answer, so we replaced that option, and the answer stays abdominal thrusts. The Sick Child A cram sheet now gives the child sequence as five back blows then five abdominal thrusts on pages 11, 12 and 21, with the older answer noted beside it. Infants are unchanged: five back blows, then five chest thrusts. Your marks on the sheet stay where they are.
- Fixed
BoardPal now opens on older iPads and iPhones running iOS or iPadOS 15.4 or later. more ▾less ▴
BoardPal now opens on older iPads and iPhones that cannot update past iOS or iPadOS 15, such as the iPad mini 4 and the iPad Air 2. On those devices the login page used to come up completely blank, in every browser. If you gave up on an older tablet, update it to the newest software it offers (15.4 or later) and log in again with the same email and password. The notice shown on browsers that really are too old also stopped suggesting Chrome or Firefox on an iPad, because that never helps there. From a student who could not log in on an iPad mini 4.
- Fixed
18Sep · Fri
Start this deck over is now really on every deck page
Fixed- Fixed
Start this deck over now works on every deck page. more ▾less ▴
Rated a run of flashcards wrong by accident? Open the deck and tap Start this deck over. It sits on the all-caught-up screen and as a small link under a running session, and a second tap that names the number of cards confirms it. Every card in that deck comes back as new, while your review history, streak, and daily counts stay exactly as they were. We announced this button in July, but the change never reached the site, so anyone who looked for it could not find it. It is live now, and we are sorry for the wait.
- Fixed
17Sep · Thu
Three more practice questions on points the bank had stopped asking
Fixed- Fixed
11 flashcards corrected after a source check. more ▾less ▴
Eleven flashcards were corrected after each was checked against a primary source twice: neuroblastoma diarrhea is caused by VIP, not catecholamines; clotting is more common in HHNS than in DKA rather than unique to it; tamsulosin matters even if the client has stopped taking it; and eight smaller wording fixes. Your review schedule on these cards is unchanged.
- Fixed
16Sep · Wed
Answers stay sealed until you have answered
Fixed- Fixed
Reviews reveal an answer only for a question you actually answered. more ▾less ▴
A saved "finished" record for a diagnostic or a practice set could be made to list questions you had never answered, and the review screen would then show the correct answer and the explanation for them. Two things changed. A practice review now reveals an answer only for a question you actually answered, and the records behind both reviews can no longer be written from outside the app. Your own finished sets and diagnostics read exactly as before. One visible difference: if you skip a question in an exam-mode practice set, its review no longer shows you the correct answer, because you never answered it. Tutor mode is unchanged, since you answer every question there.
Consent for minors now follows Philippine law
Fixed- Fixed
Flashcards and a question on minors' consent now follow Philippine law. more ▾less ▴
Two flashcards and one practice question taught that a married or self-supporting minor may consent to her own care. That is not Philippine law today. In the Philippines a person consents for herself on reaching 18 (RA 6809), and a marriage under 18 is void, so a parent or legal guardian consents for a younger patient while she gives her own agreement. The flashcards and the question's explanation now teach the Philippine rule, which the cram sheets already used. The question's answer key did not change.
Bookmarks never show an answer early
Fixed- Fixed
Bookmarks now only hold questions whose answer you have already seen. more ▾less ▴
A question can now only be bookmarked once its answer has been shown to you: a question you answered, or any item from a diagnostic, practice set or mock board section you finished. Resources > Bookmarks follows the same rule, so it never shows the answer to a question you have not reached yet. The Bookmark button works the same as before on every review screen.
More flashcards now link to their cram sheet
Fixed- Fixed
38 more topics now link straight to their cram sheet. more ▾less ▴
After you flip a flashcard or answer a practice question, the "Go deeper" row links to the cram sheet that covers that topic. On 38 topics it said "Cram sheet coming soon" even though the sheet was already out, including sick child, psychiatric disorders, respiratory, spinal cord, musculoskeletal, reproductive health, health laws, community health, school and workplace health, community mental health, health education and research. Those topics now open their cram sheet.
Clearer explanations on questions that ask you to spot the mistake
Fixed- Fixed
Four reported questions and one flashcard corrected, answers unchanged. more ▾less ▴
Four practice questions and one flashcard reported by students were corrected: a moral development question whose wording matched how review centers describe a higher stage, an ethics question that was hard to read, a question on a child's tooth-care habits that asked the wrong thing, a recovery-room suctioning explanation, and a scope of practice flashcard that gave its answer away. No answers changed.
- Fixed