In my last post, I talked about whys and hows, and I gave a little information on when I started studying. In this post I would like to cover my daily studying routine, starting from Jan 2023 and how I had to change it as it got closer to the exam.
As the kids’ school was in session, I used to start studying as soon as I dropped kids off at school, which is around 8:30 am, and I would continue until 1pm. I used to study difficult or new topics first thing in the morning; that way I could distribute the not so difficult topics for the rest of the day while kids would be around. Later in the day, I used to practice questions and study small topics that didn’t take a lot of time.
I kept a journal. Writing a journal was a game changer. I used to emphasize the things that I achieved in the past (doing required credits for licensing and TOEFL). Just to remind myself that I had successfully completed tasks in the past and I could do it again. On that same note, I would like to remind you readers that if I could do it, you could do it as well.
I maintained a planner too, because I had so many things to do in a day, such as, taking care of kids’ school, activities, cooking, and studying was not too easy to handle. I broke everything down into parts and scheduled it for the next three to four days. Every 4 days, I used to schedule what to study. Scheduling for more than a week didn’t work for me.
I continued to follow aforementioned studying habits and schedule until late May 2023. Once the school session ended, I would wake up at 5 am and study a few hours before kids were up.The last two months before the exam, I spent 8 hours a day just reviewing the content and practicing questions. I made sure I covered everything from the following list.
What did I study?
- Susan B. O’Sullivan PT EdD Physical Rehabilitation.
- TherapyEd review guide.
- TherapyEd Physical Therapy Course Manual Version 8.0
- Carolyn Kisner & Colby Therapeutic exercises
- David J. Magee Orthopedic Physical Assessment
- FLC class notes and LSP material. Priyam covered everything I needed, and I combined it with the Full live course and made notes.
Readings from full live course. I cannot stress how important it is to study these topics. I made sure I studied each and every topic from the list.
- Basics- scales, Muscles, nerve supplies, dermatomes, myotomes. I reviewed all the basics once a week.
- Practice tests- Therapyed, Sullivan, FLC, MCQS, and peat. I analyzed all the test questions. When I studied a topic I reviewed the content until I was perfect about it. I practiced 30 questions every day. I used to think critically about the peat questions.
In the last month, I used to choose a subject, for instance MSK, study the contents first and then cover all the practice questions of MSK from all the tests on that subject, especially peat. This gave me a good understanding of how NPTE works.
I practiced questioning and answering myself. I would always summarize the topic in a variety of ways in my mind.
Hard topics- I made a list of hard topics and reviewed them multiple times to make sure I got them. I reviewed them the day before the exam.
I took PEAT one month before the exam, but I did not pass because I took the test with a lot of distractions. Although I felt discouraged, I did not stop; I just kept reviewing the content.
Active learning is important to retain what you learn. Every time I picked a topic to study, I made a short summary of what I studied, emphasizing things that I needed to remember the most. This practice helped me a lot. I was able to review the difficult topics several times before the test, because reviewing my own notes was quicker and easier to remember.
Three days before the exam, I just glanced over each and every topic to just feel confident. This is very, very important. I still remember, in my college days, I always glanced over the content before the exam.
On exam day morning- I went over the modalities, prosthetics gait deviations, orthotic gait deviations, etc.
In the exam, I was very relaxed. I sat down and imagined myself taking a sample test at home. I spent 50 seconds for each question. I did not look at the time so often because it made me anxious. With harder questions, I eliminated two wrong options first, then spent a little more time choosing the final answer.
This is all for today. See you in my next post probably with a few flashcards…
Please don’t forget to leave and comment and to subscribe.
Written By Umaraj.
PhysioUma 
Leave a comment