Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Last Minute CHT Prep Tips
630 Plays2 years ago
Josh and Miranda cover some simple prep tips for mastering the Certified Hand Therapy exam.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to CHT Exam Preparation
00:00:05
Speaker
Hi, I'm Josh McDonald. And I'm Miranda Materi, and we are Hand Therapy Academy. If you're thinking about taking the CHT exam, and we love helping people pass that, we have normally a little conversation with some of our course finishers right before they take the test, and we thought it'd be great to share some of that information with you guys about the week before and the day of the test.
Effective Study Strategies for the CHT Exam
00:00:26
Speaker
So some tips and tricks we have on things to kind of get your mind ready when you get really close to game day. So Miranda, what's one of your top tips that you like to give people?
00:00:35
Speaker
Um, so I do have a few of them, but I would say one of my top tips is making sure that you're not like necessarily cramming that whole week before, but it is okay. If there's like one topic that you need to like refresh on the morning, morning off to get it in your brain, it's okay to do that. Like five to 10 minutes before maybe 15, maybe you write out like sensory assessment or sensory return or some, just one of those topics that you know, you have to know, but you don't quite have it memorized yet. And I think that's totally okay.
Utilizing Brain Dump Sheets
00:01:06
Speaker
And leading into that too is the idea of the brain dump sheet. How much do you wanna spend time putting information down on that sheet? You're supposed to have a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Sometimes you get a tablet, you gotta be flexible if that option pops up in front of your testing center. But if you've been prepping this whole six, nine month, 12 month process on filling in the sheet for the things that are gonna matter the most for you, when you get there, you may know those things so well, you don't need to put them down. They're probably not the things you need to
00:01:35
Speaker
cram on right beforehand that Miranda was talking about. But you got to decide, are those things I need to spend some time writing down for cross-referencing later? Or just roll into it because I know the brachial plexus and the order of innervations and tendon transversation and asthma. I know all that stuff well enough. I don't need to dedicate that time.
00:01:51
Speaker
It also depends on if your testing center allows you to fill that out before your clock starts or if it's after. It's supposed to be after. Lots of people telling us like, oh, I sat down and filled it out and then my test started. So it kind of depends on how what happens when you walk into that room.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
Managing Test Anxiety and Mental Preparedness
00:02:08
Speaker
And then another tip that I like to give people is if they get in there and the first 10 questions are like the blur, right? That's okay. Sometimes it takes your mind's time to warm up a little bit and get into the flow of things. So take a couple of deep breaths. You know, you might have some of that performance anxiety as well.
00:02:25
Speaker
and get your mind a chance to warm up a little bit. And then maybe you go back to those first 10 questions at the end and look over them one last time. So give yourself time and your mind time to warm up with the questions. In fact, I know some standardized tests will give you automatically 21s to warm up before you go into the test. But that's not the case with HTC. You have to either do your own little warm up before or use those first 10 as your warm up and come back to them. Yeah.
Answering Strategies and Avoiding Penalties
00:02:54
Speaker
Keep your panic factor low. Just relax. It's a long process. There's lots to go through. When Miranda talks about coming back to questions, we encourage people to keep a note, maybe in a corner on that brain dump sheet. As you're going along, if there's questions that you're not sure about, still put down an answer. Put down the first one that comes to your gut that you think is right. Put that down. Write down the number and maybe just a little Q word like
00:03:18
Speaker
Um, like media nerve question mark so that when you finish your test and you come back to those, I need to go to 27 and 53 and you have some frame of reference, 200 questions later, what was kind of in your mind and what you were thinking of.
00:03:33
Speaker
but make sure you get an answer down for every single question on some like ACTs and whatever. It doesn't hurt you if you don't put down an answer. It does here. No answer is a wrong answer. So get something down so that if you run out of time, you still have an answer there. But if you have time, come back and now you have some point of reference of which questions to come back to. And just some little cue about what was sticking out in your mind or what was the hesitation there. Yeah, definitely.
Maintaining Routine and Exam Day Tips
00:03:58
Speaker
Another tip is to
00:04:02
Speaker
It's not a podcast session unless we hear Miranda's dogs in the background. Okay, so I am going so one last tip is to not eat a huge breakfast the morning of so they have done some research if you use it either big breakfast is totally throwing me off. But if you eat a big breakfast, all the blood goes to your stomach and not your brain where which you should be using to think and process information.
00:04:30
Speaker
and stick to your normal routine. Don't do anything new or special or different the morning of. If on a normal morning, on a Saturday, you're going to get up and do some studying or your day going into work, that's the routine you should have here. Whenever your test is, do your normal schedule so you're not going in thinking, oh, I didn't have my morning coffee, or I should have done this, or I went to talk to someone first and hung out with my mom for a while.
Logistics for Exam Day Success
00:04:57
Speaker
Stick to a normal routine so your mind is in a groove that's comfortable for you So you don't have anything kind of linger in the back of your mind saying like oh, this is all out of sorts Yeah
00:05:06
Speaker
Another one that members struggle or they should consider is taking a drive to the testing center the night or the day before. So they kind of know the route and the path. I also always recommend getting there a little bit early and taking your identification, right? So if you don't take your ID, you're not going to be able to take that test. And a lot of times you won't have time to drive back and get it. So get there early, have a list of what you need to have with you, what you plan on taking with you.
Efficient Question Reading and Answer Selection
00:05:33
Speaker
and making sure that you know exactly where your testing center is at. And Miranda and I have kind of different approaches on this next one on how to respond to a given test question. And so it depends on how your mind works.
00:05:47
Speaker
If I get to a test question and there's a relatively long portion to read, I want to know what this question is going to be asking me about because there's going to be all kinds of detail that I may or may not need to know. So if I see it's a long test question, you know, it's a little case study kind of thing, I'm going to scan down real quick and look at the answers and say, OK, they're asking about which nerve is involved.
00:06:08
Speaker
And then when I read it, I don't need to worry about the comorbidities that are listed. I don't need to worry about some of the other details. I'm looking for information that's going to help me figure out what's the issue they're asking about here. So I don't have to get to the bottom. Oh, shoot. I was worried about comorbidities now to go back and read it again. Miranda has kind of a different take on that.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah, so for mine, I like to cover up the answers. And then once I read through the question, what's the first thing that comes to my mind without having the multiple choice listed? Because usually the first thing that comes to what comes to your mind is going to be the correct answer. And sometimes reading all those other answers can make you more confused or doubt yourself. So I think it's especially good, maybe for
00:06:51
Speaker
test takers that have more performance anxiety, they benefit more from those strategies as opposed to Josh's neither a right or wrong. I think it's however you are as a test taker. And then I recommend that when you do practice taking some of these techniques, use it on a practice exam, like we have a couple practice exams, you can practice it on or the purple book answer questions in different formats to see what really works best for you.
Purpose of the CHT Exam
00:07:19
Speaker
If you're using that strategy with all the test questions really too, make sure you read all of the answers. Our brain looks for something that matches what we expect, but there may be something that is this but also. And so don't just jump to the first answer that your eye catches that seems right.
00:07:38
Speaker
Make sure you read all of them because you may find something that's more right or you may have like, oh, OK, OK, I see that it's not just this. It's these both put together. This isn't a test where they do A and B or A, but not C. They don't do that. But just make sure you're reading all of those answer options clearly and not jumping to a conclusion without getting all of the available information first. Right.
00:08:01
Speaker
And we know, they have written this exam, it's not to trick you, right? They're not trying to come up with answers to trick you. They really just want to know if you know the content and if you know the material. So here sometimes people say, oh, you know, they did that. That's like so tricky. It's not meant to be tricky. They're not out to get you or try to make sure you don't pass. They really just want to know, do you know this information?
Benefits of Joining CHT Prep Membership
00:08:27
Speaker
And can you get the CHT credential by knowing this information?
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah. So hopefully those tips are helpful. If it's something you're thinking about doing, that'll give you maybe some ideas for the week leading up to the day of that kind of stuff. If you're considering taking the CHD exam, check out our CHD prep membership. We have a fantastic passing rate of well over 90%. We give clear week by week guidelines on what to study. Videos, all of our courses are included for free. Anatomy TV, flashcards, all kinds of stuff to help you get prepped and ready to pass the exam.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah. And if you are interested in learning more, you want to see the program, you can email me info at hand therapy academy and I can set up a discovery call as well.