Transcript
josh MacDonald: Hi, I'm Josh McDonald.
Miranda Materi: And I'm Miranda Matieri and we are Hand Therapy Academy.
josh MacDonald: Let's talk a little bit about practice tests. And if you're studying for the CHT exam, when should you take them? How many should you take? What do you get out of them? Like, what are we supposed to do with practice tests?
Miranda Materi: Yeah. And I will start this by saying everybody is different, right? So what works for one person may not be the solution for the other person. So we'll give some practical guidelines and share the rationale for why we make those recommendations. But just know that, you know, you have to know yourself as a learner as well.
josh MacDonald: Yeah, yeah. um So we should also give the disclaimer, we have practice tests, we designed ours a specific way. And so we're going to give recommendations and kind of some research behind things. And that's why we designed those the way that we did.
josh MacDonald: um But this is kind of advice that we got from doing some research on when to take them, how to structure them, and what to get out of them.
Miranda Materi: Yeah. And so for ours, we have three and we specifically made them to last the four hour amount time or to keep at least for you to keep track of that time. And it's not like you have to stop taking at the four hour mark, but where we want you to keep track of your time that you're taking it. And then once you're done with the test, what you got wrong and then the rationale for why it is wrong.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. And so the purpose of the practice tests is a couple of different things. One, so that you get the idea of what kind of questions are going to be asked, right? So you and understand, okay, it's not just multiple choice, but how are they phrasing questions? What kind of subject matter are they going to ask me about? And how deeply are they going to Like, what are the questions going to be? But then also figuring out how do I do in that test environment? So we have specifically three tests that have 200 questions with a four hour timer going so that you get an idea of do I get tired? Do I get thirsty? Does my brain get kind of foggy after an hour of doing this or two hours of doing this? Like what is your experience during that test taking process so that the first time you step in there and it counts and costs money is not the first time you've gone through this kind of simulation.
Miranda Materi: Right. And do you need glasses? Right? Like if you're sitting there staring at a computer screen for four hours, you might get a headache.
josh MacDonald: yeah
Miranda Materi: You might, you are like, maybe I should have worn my glasses for that. Maybe I should have made more breakfast on that day. So really trying to simulate what it's going to really be like at that exam center, um, and knowing how your body responds to staring at the screen for four hours.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. So when you do practice tests, try to simulate that environment. Try to set it up so that, you know, if you can, kids don't bug you, you've isolated yourself. I'm going to sit down and focus on this for the four hours.
josh MacDonald: Maybe you have to take a break. Maybe you have to get up and kind of do a couple of laps around the room or whatever, but sit back down, keep going. If you have to on our tests, for example, you can pause it and come back to it later. Most tests you can practice. I mean, but try to set that situation up so that, you know, how am I going to do on that fourth hour of doing that? I don't know if I've never been there before. It's like running marathon. You got to run a lot of miles to get there.
Miranda Materi: Yeah, you got to train, right?
josh MacDonald: Yeah.
Miranda Materi: We're training your brain to be able to withstand that many questions and to work for that period of time at a high level.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about maybe how many practice tests you should take. Let's say, for example, you're going to study for six months that you're an experienced therapist, you're comfortable with the hand therapy content and you treat and make splints and know the majority of diagnoses, but you really have to kind of dial in for, for six months. mean How many times would you say someone should take a practice test during six months?
Miranda Materi: Yeah, so for ours, i recommend three to six. And it really, so we have three tests. So i either say you take that test once and depending on how well you did, I might recommend that they do it again at a later date. So really, if you're doing six months, you're doing a test every month.
Miranda Materi: But if you're scoring relatively high on those first three and you go you've gone back through and you've looked at all the questions and you understand why you got it wrong, there may not be a lot of value in taking that test again, other than if you're just trying to make sure you have the endurance and the pace for it.
josh MacDonald: Yeah.
Miranda Materi: But I think, so if you score well, I'd say three in that six month period is good. If you're not doing well on those, on and I can only speak for ours, right? Because I'm not as familiar with the other tests that are out there.
Miranda Materi: I can only speak to ours and the analytics that we've gotten from our members taking these practice tests and how they then scored on the actual exam. So if you're doing well, three, if not so well, maybe six.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. And not so well. The idea is that when you're done taking the test, You know what to do with the information. So if you have an idea of what you missed and why, you go study that.
Miranda Materi: Mm-hmm.
josh MacDonald: Go work on that area. Our tests give you like subcategories. So flexor tendon, pediatrics, shoulder, research anatomy. And so, okay, I did really poorly with research terminology. I should go work on that stuff.
josh MacDonald: Even if you don't have the categories from someone else's test, Go spend the time on the things you got wrong. If you end a practice test and all you have is a raw score, that doesn't give you any idea. That's a metric of how you're doing, but it doesn't guide your studying anymore. Let your test and maybe your guide is I need to practice four hours of test taking, but let that practice test be more than just a metric of how I've done so far. What is it going to mean for what I need to do for the remaining months left of studying?
Miranda Materi: Right. Yeah, you need to write down what you missed, take notes on what you missed and why, and then review those notes until you feel more comfortable with the content.
josh MacDonald: Yeah, yeah. We get feedback often that our tests seem to be harder than some of the other practice tests and harder than the CHT exam, which we see that as a positive thing, because if you can do well on our tests and getting passing score, you are more than ready for the CHT exam. You can't practice for a marathon by running a bunch of 10 Ks and think you're going to be ready to go. So I'm okay with them being harder. Miranda, how...
josh MacDonald: We have three tests, one, two, and three. Which one would you say is the hardest of them?
Miranda Materi: Oh, gosh. And this like bounces around. um I don't I've heard different things. You know, I've heard the first one's the hardest. and Then I heard the third one. In terms of a benchmark, we have our first one.
Miranda Materi: I feel like people score better on it than they do our third one for whatever reason.
josh MacDonald: Okay. Okay. That's fair.
Miranda Materi: But I'd have to go back and look at all the stats. You know, every time we do a test taking round, we upload those stats and it it changes, but they're all fairly close. I think they're all kind of the same style of question.
josh MacDonald: Yeah, yeah.
Miranda Materi: And then I think Josh and I get this question all the time and, you know, I see it on different like the social media posts is what is a good score for ham therapy Academy exam? Right? So people be like, oh my gosh, I scored a 50 on the practicing test. Is that okay? And it's like, well, it gives us a benchmark of what you need to work on with a 50.
Miranda Materi: You're not likely to pass the actual exam, right? That score is too low. So I don't ever like to deter people and say, no, you're not ready for that exam because, you know, I can't say that they can. I can only tell them what the metrics and what our analytics say. And our analytics say you need a 72 to a 75 on those tests in order to pass the actual exam.
josh MacDonald: Yeah, yeah. And for our metrics, that 72 to 75 is a percentage of the total number correct, right? You got 72% to of the questions correct or more.
Miranda Materi: Yeah.
josh MacDonald: Metrics say you're likely to do very well on the test. That doesn't mean on the test day you didn't eat enough breakfast or you were stressed and didn't sleep well. That doesn't mean you're going to pass. But that's different than the score that HTCC says you have to get on the exam because theirs is based on a much more complex equation of getting rid of some questions and keeping some questions and scaled questions of double difficulty.
Miranda Materi: Right.
josh MacDonald: So we don't have that equation. We just have a base percentage of correction of answers.
Miranda Materi: Yeah.
josh MacDonald: Correct.
Miranda Materi: And we can only say this percentage of people have passed with this level of score, right? So that's basically where our analytics and i just try to be transparent with people.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah.
Miranda Materi: And then I say, it's up to you, you know, if you want to to take the exam and use it, you know, you very well could still pass. I'm not saying you won't, but based on what we have, that's, we're not likely to.
josh MacDonald: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're not going to discourage them from taking it just like I'm not going to tell someone who scored an 85 and say, oh, you're going pass for sure. Like I'm going to say that's a fantastic score, but you got to stay dialed in the rest of the way. Don't coast and cruise your way in and have forgotten things. And yeah, yeah.
Miranda Materi: Yeah. Yeah. So it's very much and people we I want people to reach out and say, hey, this is how I did out on the exam. That way I can, you know, share those metrics that we have with them and provide guidance and encouragement based on their test.
Miranda Materi: Sometimes I know people will ask other people on social media, but if you really want the facts and the data, then, of course, reach out to us because we have it and we share it readily.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah. And let us know, not just like, Hey, I scored a 72. Okay. What did you struggle on? What were the things you did well on? Cause you've got all those metrics. You've got, I think 26 subcategories. What are the ones that you need to go back to? If you were kind of even Steven across all of them, okay, spread your time evenly. But if you nailed flexor tendon and you really struggled on um shoulder and spend some more time on shoulder,
Miranda Materi: Yeah. And if it's all of them, then it very much could be a test taking issue, right? Like, I don't know how to read these questions appropriately, or, you know, I don't know how to properly eliminate based on these questions. So those, when you score poorly across all the domains, then I'm thinking, is this a content issue or is this a test taking issue? And that's something we can dive into as well.
josh MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah. So if you have questions about any of our practice tests or our suggestions on practice test taking, any of those things, don't hesitate to reach out. You can email us info at hand therapy academy.com or you can reach us on social media at hand therapy academy.
