I am not really certain which area of physical therapy I would like to specialize in and therefore am having difficulty selecting the appropriate continuing education courses to take.  I am sure I am not the only one having this problem so I began to search for continuing education courses offered.

The first and most obvious spot I started was the APTA.  You can find continuing education information in their learning center by following this link:  http://learningcenter.apta.org/

While looking for more continuing education courses, I came across physicaltherapycontinuingeducation.org.  This site is compiled of a series of interviews of experts in their respective fields on various topics.  I found these quite interesting and informative and thought I would pass along the link to our rehabstudents.com friends.

Another useful tool I found was through rehabedge.com.  Through rehabedge, you can search for continuing education courses by topic, state, format, provider, instructor, or dates.  You can access their site through this link:  http://www.rehabedge.com/Search.aspx.

These are just a few sites I came across in a brief search.  If you have others please by sure to let us know!

Go to it now! nptebasics.blogspot.com

I studied for 5 weeks, nearly every day. I used a hybrid system between the PTEXAM by Scorebuilders (Giles) and TherapyEd’s Review & Study Guide (O’Sullivan). I stared with O’Sullivan, digging deep into the Musculoskeletal and Neuromuscular sections. Also, like Chad, I had my anatomy atlas (Grants) opened next to the study guide. After those 2 chapters (which are extremely detailed) I switched tactics and used Scorebuilders for my academic review. I am glad I did this for a couple reasons. The layout of the book suited my eye better…I felt more comfortable and could study longer from it. Also, although pertinent, the information inside is not as detailed and has more charts/tables. I think they describe it nicely on the back cover of their book: ” We don’t try to teach you everything there is to know about physical therapy-only the information and strategies you will need to pass the exam.” I felt like TherapyEd was trying to re-teach me everything sometimes, and it got overwhelming. It became my secondary guide if I needed supplemental information.

After those first two chapters I took my first TherapyEd practice exam. This may have been a mistake as I was not prepared at all, but also it gave me a good baseline as to what I would need to focus on in the future. After that, I really took the rest of the practice exams whenever I felt like I had learned more in my weaker areas. No set schedule, but I alternated between Scorebuilders and TherapyEd. I also took the PEAT exams…a long time ago. Here are my practice exam scores:

PEAT 1- 141

PEAT 2- 132

TherapyEd A- 121

Scorebuilders 1- 144

TherapyEd B- 134

Scorebuilders 2- 161

TherapyEd C- 140

Scorebuilders 3- 158

As you can see, I performed better on the Scorebuilders tests. I don’t know that they are any easier, just different. I like how they mimic the PEAT in format with the blue screen, etc. I also found them easier to navigate, etc. I considered purchasing the Scorebuilders Online Advantage tests, but considering I took 8 practice tests I don’t think I really needed it.

I got to a point (after the 161) where all I wanted to do was take practice tests. I think they really helped me identify weaknesses, but they also helped me study. After every exam I went back through the questions with my book and re-examined all my responses, even the correct ones. Scorebuilders was great in that they gave a reason for EVERY response. Not a catch all “refer to information about such and such if you missed this question.”

Finally, I prayed. A lot during the whole process. I am a religious person and this helped me. It may not be something you do, but a little extra help couldn’t hurt, right?

Anyways, I passed the exam and am now waiting for a license. How will you know when you’re ready? I don’t know how to say, but I had a feeling deep down saying I was good to go. Have confidence, study hard, and you’ll do great!

I used Scorebuilders PTEXAM: The Complete Study Guide as my primary study source.  I also attend a review session provided by Scorebuilders.  I supplemented this with a very general review of images (I’m a visual learner) from Clinically Oriented Anatomy by Moore, Dalley, and Agur.  While going through the Scorebuilders book, I wrote down any information I was unfamiliar with to review at a later time.  This was the method I used for studying.

If you are a visual learner as I am, it might benefit you to review our videos of special tests at http://videos.rehabstudents.com/.

I took 5 practice tests including 2 PEATs and 3 Scorebuilders from the CD provided in the book.  My scores were as follows.

PEAT 1: 142

PEAT 2: 155

Scorebuilders 1: 152

Scorebuilders 2: 148

Scorebuilders 3: 149

I took the tests in the order listed above and studied for 24 days after graduation with occasional sessions before I graduated.  I was a little paranoid about my scores not increasing over the course of studying but I did pass the NPTE.  Hopefully this will be of help to some of our readers out there.  If nothing else maybe it will give you a little peace of mind prior to taking your exam.

Now that I have endless amounts of free time I checked out Penny’s site and it seems to be coming along nicely. On the main page is a directory of sorts with the most helpful links (in my opinion) being found on the left hand side. If you find yourself with some extra time I think you should paruse on over to howtobecomeaphysicaltherapist.org.

Ok enough of the blabber, below is the link to the 40 youtube videos. This comes from a post I found on Penny’s blog. Enjoy!

Click here - 40 informative youtube videos on physical therapy techniques

A member by the name divya12 has created a blog to help others in their preparation for the NPTE.

This site is for helping physical therapists appearing for NPTE. The information given here should only be taken as an aid/tool to help prepare for the license examination and not otherwise. Actual exam questions will not be shared/discussed here.

It is only a few weeks old but already divya has written a few quality posts covering various topics and I would imagine she will have plenty more as time goes by. She seems like she knows her stuff and from slightly stalking her on the forums she has recently passed the NPTE after failing it before so I am sure she can understand what most people are going through when trying to prepare for the test.

I highly recommend this blog!

Go to it now!! physicaltherapyprep.wordpress.com

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to let everybody know how to check to see if you passed the NPTE if you didn’t already know.

Use this link: https://pt.fsbpt.net/spa/ServiceStatus/

Fill in the required information and click continue.  On the next screen when your results are in you will see “Score Received from Prometric – Passed” (which I did!) or failed (which I know none of us will do).  If your results are not in you will just see the authorization to test information.  I took my test June 1st at 12:30 and found out June 2nd at 7:00 AM.  Good luck everybody!

Chad

On a side note, I took my exam yesterday at noon and finished around 5:30pm and found out this morning around 7am eastern time, so 4am out here in AZ. (I didn’t sleep all that great last night… not sure why)

There is new information about the 2011 and 2012 PT test dates that you can share with students and candidates.

I hate reading something that blabs on, on, and on when all I really care about is the bulleted talking points, so here are my quick bulleted points. Remember these reviews only cover the provided CD practice tests and are not reviews of the actual study guides themselves. Those are coming later… much later as I am sooo busy doing my hair.

I have taken a few screen shots of each test to give a better understanding of what I am talking about, but I did not take any of the actual tests mainly because I don’t feel like being sued.

Scorebuilders

http://www.scorebuilders.com/

Like

Actual test is similar to the PEAT and I would imagine the actual NPTE. Each section is broken up into blocks of 50 with a 15-minute break after 100 questions.

You can mark questions to be reviewed so you can go back prior to submitting that block of 50 questions.

I am not 100% positive on this one but I think you cannot submit the 50-question block until you have answered each question. So basically you can’t forget to answer a question.

The break down following the test was informative and semi-easy to navigate.

The printed answer sheet tells you what answer you picked vs. the correct one. So when you look back in the book for the explanation you can see what you chose.

Similar to the PEAT, each question is referenced with a page number so know where to start looking if the provided rationale doesn’t quite do it for you.

Dislike

I felt the questions were too easy when compared to the PEAT and O’Sullivan.

The user interface seemed a bit out dated and not the greatest when trying to look at the break down of your scores.

The score results make it hard to find out the answers to your incorrect questions by category. The interface doesn’t allow you to view only incorrect answers. The user ends up scrolling through all the questions.

TherapyEd aka O’Sullivan

http://www.therapyed.com/nptexamreview.htm

Like

The questions seemed similar to those in the PEAT; they seemed more situational based and overall tougher when compared to Scorebuilders.

The user interface is very easy to use.

You can “Create an Exam”, which basically means you can pick and choose the subjects you want to be tested on along with the 3 included tests.

You are able to go through your missed questions in the software but you still need the book for full explanations.

Very few questions based on straight memorization.

Easy to use interface allowing the user to look through incorrect questions easily by category.

Dislike

The test did not break the test up into 50 question sections like the NPTE nor was there time allowed for a break.

You can and probably will skip a question or two by accident when taking this test. (I did twice, not very happy about it).

After you finished the test, the graded answer sheet doesn’t tell you what answer you picked, only whether you got it correct or not.

Most of the longer clinical scenario questions did not have a detailed answer for them in the book.

The questions are not referenced so you do not know exactly where to look if you have additional questions about the answer or rational.