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| 10 Key Strategies to Help You Pass Your Licensing or Certification Exam |
| Columns - Professional Development | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 31 May 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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As the author of licensing and certification exam preparation materials, I am quite often asked if there are any efficacious strategies to maximize your score on the exam. My answer is an unequivocal "yes." Here are 10 specific methods that can be easily implemented. 1. Give yourself ample time to prepare for the exam. I am amazed (shocked rather) at the sheer number of counselors who literally wait until the last minute to begin their exam preparation. A woman who received her master's degree over 18 years ago telephoned me several days prior to the administration of her examination. She asked with a high degree of sincerity whether 48 hours would be sufficient in terms of study time. I immediately suggested that 48 hours would barely be enough time to memorize the exam content areas much less study for the entire test!Imagine for a moment that you were working with a client who wanted to become an attorney and thus had to sit for the bar examination. Or perhaps you were counseling an accountant who needed to pass the Certified Public Accountant Exam to secure CPA credentials. I can't imagine that you would condone a client's program of study that commenced just weeks, or worse yet, days before the exam. Personally, I feel that six-to-eight months lead time (if not more) is ideal. 2. Keep the duration of your study sessions brief. Translation: Do not engage in marathon study sessions. For years behavioral scientists have been investigating a phenomenon known as mass versus distributed practice. Mass practice is akin to a long or marathon study session. Distributed practice, on the other hand, means you keep your study sessions short with generous time intervals between each session. The research clearly indicates that distributed practice yields far more desirable results. Unfortunately, if you begin studying just days before the exam then you will be forced to cram. Why not sign a behavior management contract with yourself stating that you will keep your study sessions brief and spaced over a reasonable period of time. Remember to enhance the contract by providing yourself with positive reinforcement for sticking to your plan. For example, you might allow yourself an ice cream treat each time you study for a fifteen-minute interval. Just for the record, if you switch the position of the reinforcer (i.e., you scarf down the ice cream treat and tell yourself you will study after you are finished) the chances are next to none that the strategy will be effective. 3. Don't allow perfectionism to hinder your exam performance. Dr. Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), has been warning us about the dire consequences of perfectionism since the 1950s and it is time that we take his admonition seriously. A woman confessed that after a mere 10 minutes into the exam she exited the room in tears. She was convinced that she had flunked her test. Was she doomed to fail? Hardly! In many instances exams include a healthy dose of questions that are being field tested for suitability on future exams. Typically, the test taker is not told which questions fall into this category. Therefore, even if this woman missed almost half the questions, she still might pass the exam! It is possible that she was stumped by the questions that are not figured into the final score. I admonish the test taker to do a little cognitive restructuring and say, "Well if I really missed about half of the questions I probably made one of the highest scores on the test." 4. If you don't know an answer, guess! On most licensing and certification exams there is no penalty for guessing. Hence, if you leave answers blank you are putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage. 5. Accept the fact that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. When a fellow counselor who was gearing up to take his exam heard that I had developed study materials he admitted that he was perplexed. He exclaimed, "What could they possibly ask that I wouldn't know?" Confidence is a wonderful trait, yet academic arrogance of this magnitude can easily result in a depressed exam score. Individuals who do well on a licensing, certification, or comprehensive exam studied extensively for it. 6. Find or form a study group. From coast to coast I hear positive reports about study groups and how they provide invaluable assistance. Members of the group can lecture on various topics and even create hypothetical exam questions. Best of all, the group provides support and promotes universality (a term you'll probably need to know for your exam, so if you don't know it stop and look it up now). If you are unable to locate an existing study group contact your state licensing or certification committee. If one does not exist consider starting your own group. 7. Create audio study materials for yourself. Research now indicates that many of us are actually auditory learners. Anybody who owns a cassette recorder can dictate key information from textbooks or class lecture notes onto a tape thus transforming tomorrow's traffic jam into a world-class learning experience. 8. Don't expect textbook or exam study guide practice questions to be identical to questions you see on the actual exam. I humorously tell counselors that I have a better chance of winning the lottery without purchasing a ticket than they have of guessing precisely what questions will be on the exam. Practice questions are intended to teach you key material and exam strategies, nevertheless, the exact questions and answers on the exam may differ markedly from those included in practice materials. 9. Experiment with memory devices. We have all heard of simple mnemonic devices such as "spring forward" and "fall back" to remind us which way to move our clocks during daylight saving time. Using association you could easily remember a variety of concepts. Put your memory devices on your study tapes to enhance their usefulness. Be advised that memory devices only need to make sense to you, nobody else, and that humorous ones often work quite well. 10. Take steps to combat test anxiety. As a counselor I don't need to remind you how pernicious test anxiety can be; although according to the Yerkes-Dodson Law a tinge of anxiety may actually improve your score! Relaxation exercises and tapes can be very helpful in this respect as can self-systematic desensitization or self-hypnosis. And although I shouldn't have to say this, if you cannot abate the problem yourself you would do well to seek out another counselor for assistance. Whereas you would ideally expect a client to get help in a situation similar to this, you should do the same. By implementing these 10 key strategies there is an excellent chance that your next set of business cards will sport a bevy of licensing or certification letters after your name. Howard G. Rosenthal, EdD, CCMHC, is the program coordinator of Human Services, St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, and the author of the academic bestseller the Encyclopedia of Counseling, Master Review and Tutorial for the National Counselor Examination and the 15 hour counselor licensing/certification audio program. His web site is www.azuc.com/counseling.             
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