Thousands of surgical residents take the in-service exam in the end of January. They American Boar of Surgery In-Training Exam tests the knowledge related to the General Surgery.
How important is the exam?

I heard from residents in categorical General programs that they don’t care much about the results.
It is true that in private practice, in real life, none of these tests scores mean much. Nobody asks what was your score.

However other residents cite reasons about why it does worth to prepare to ABSITE more seriously.

--- Program Directors prefer Residents with high ABSITE scores. High scores increase a program reputation. High score help to attract better residents to a program
--- Fellowships and private practices Use ABSITE score as a part of evaluation process.
--- Some programs use ABSITE for promotion process. RUSH, for example, starts probation if the score is below 25th percentile. RUSH. Sometimes that cut off score is as high as 30%.
--- Correlation between high ABSITE score and passing the written American Board of Surgery Certification Exam makes preparation worthwhile.

In the recent years some new books and on-line curses make the preparation easier.