Hey everybody,

Hard to believe that the NPTE is so close again.  This will be arguably the busiest 2 days of NPTE test taking in the history of the exam!  There are two days scheduled due to the likely influx of new graduates and candidates getting ready to take the exam.  Again, it is so important to know where your Prometric center is BEFORE you hop in the car to go take your test on Tuesday or Wednesday.  I hope you’ve all studied hard and are ready for the exam.  I know I’ve shared some of these thoughts before, but I want to revisit some key thoughts I had right after I took the NPTE 2 years ago.

1. I felt like the test was fair.  Sure there were some challenging questions, but overall, I felt confident that at some point in my education, I had been taught the answer or the way to think through that particular question.
2. I felt very angry about some of the questions.  Perhaps the hardest part about the exam was trying to distinguish between what would be considered 2 correct answers.  The tricky part was trying to come up with the BEST answer.  This can be a challenging proposition, and I’m sure that many of you will have similar feelings after the exam.  I remember coming home and telling my wife that while I was familiar with it all, I had NO IDEA how I had done.
3. The time went quicker than I had anticipated.  Five hours on an exam may seem like a lot, but working steadily over 250 questions made it just fly by.  I found myself struggling to limit my time on each question to approximately 1 minute to make sure I had enough time for each item.

After the exam, I waited in great impatience for the exam score.  On day 3 after the exam, I began calling my state licensing authority to ask if they had received it.  I called every day until on day 5 or so they had the score and told it to me over the phone.  I had passed and done really well, and the state had issued me a license.  My sincere hope is that each of you who have studied so hard and put in the blood sweat and tears get that same feeling.  Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help you out during this stressful time.  I have had a number of emails from students asking me for some last minute advice or if there is some secret to the test.  There are certainly no secrets, but here are some study hints:

1. Study practice exam questions and give yourself about a minute for each.  This way you are familiar with the pace you must take.
2. Guess, but guess wisely.  You’ve certainly heard about the statistics of how students will change their answer from the correct one to the incorrect one because they talked themselves out of it.  If there is a particularly hard question, eliminate the impossible choices and go with your gut feeling on the correct one.  Only change it if there is a VERY good reason to alter your selection.
3. Read the question, read the question, read the question, read the question, reread the question, and then read the question again.  Make sure you know what it is asking so that you can answer it correctly.  This is perhaps the most common error of students—trying to skim through the material and assuming things about the question.  Read the question.
4. Breathe deeply, work steadily, don’t stress out, get enough sleep the night before, put the silencing headphones (provided) on, and find your happy place.  Relax—you’ve been studying for this for ages.

I hope some of these thoughts help.  You can so do this.  Good luck!