Hey everyone!
Just passed! Whoo hoo! Over 600 too! Guess I studied too long.
Anyways, the two weeks leading up to the test I was in this thread looking for advice, help, and comfort (which I received). I thought I would pay it forward.
Here is my story:
So in October I was done with my post-doc hours. In September I had begun my gathering of materials. This included both physical and electronic versions of everything. Workshops, chapters, practice tests, flash cards...from all major publishers as well! Just a ton of information. I had also purchased a flash card app on my Android phone that was extremely helpful. I initially started with the physical books, reading the chapters and taking notes in a notebook for later review. That fell through after two weeks of pure boredom. I decided to go through a first practice test. Oh man was that eye opening. I seriously scored below 50%. I barely knew anything at all. After that test, I kicked it into high gear. I was going through practice tests at home and at work (I had access to over 30 of them) and making flashcards of all the answers I got wrong. Then, for about an hour at night, I would go through each flashcard and try and memorize it. This went on during the weekdays and on the weekends I would go through the psychprep chapters and make more flashcards. I made too many.
Fast forward to November. I was done with studying. My initial push of motivation was now completely used up. I would find myself drifting off to thinking of other things while studying and had drastically improved my practice test scores (easily up to 90%'s on every single one I had taken). I felt ready and wanted to get it over with. I submitted for my ATT letter and went onto the prometric website to sign up. Every single center was filled until the end of December! Ugh!! I wanted to take it late November or early December! Nope, nothing until the 30th.
Well that was no fun. I set my date and continued my minimal studying, believing I was very very ready. That is when the PEPPPO came into play. About two weeks before my test date, I decided to take the PEPPPO as recommended by many on this board. Well, that was crazy. I was so glad I did. I only scored a 390 on it. Yes, a 390. With everyone here saying how this is representative of what you will get on the EPPP my heart sunk into my stomach.
I transformed into a study machine. No joke. I probably studied for nearly 8 - 10 hours a day for the next two weeks. My wife barely saw me, I was sneaking study time in at work, and every spare minute I spent going through practice tests or on the flashcard app. I was scared and anxious beyond belief. All I could imagine was receiving a non-passing score and having to do this all over again. Did I mention my wife is in her third trimester as well? Yeah, that did not help to reduce my anxiety!
Test day rolled around and I was beyond nervous. It took me almost the entire time, maybe 30 minutes to spare after having gone through my marked items. The test was pretty similar to the PsychPrep questions, but with added "what the heck are they asking" terminology. I actually saw maybe 20 of the same exact questions that are on the PsychPrep and AATBS practice tests. Glad I went through both! There were other questions that took a total of 1 second to answer and even more questions of the whole, "I truly have no idea what they are asking despite reading this question eight times over." I would say that I knew, for a fact, probably 50 of the questions. I was 100% for sure. I did not know, for a fact, at least 50 more. The rest were up in the air. I knew a majority of the concepts and could mostly get it down to two answers and would do my best to try and figure it out. On some I felt so proud after I worked it out, linking multiple concepts and coming up with an answer. Other times, a vocabulary term would come up and just mess me up. I knew what they were asking but not what exact part of the concept they were asking about. Of course I had those questions that I had studied for, remembered answering, then looked up afterward to see that I had answered them wrong. Ugh!
Long story short, I left the test feeling like it could have gone either way. I was neither confident of passing or failing. I was preparing myself for the failing score, in my mind. I of course, stopped studying and focused on other things that were actually enjoyable.
Again, I took the test on December 30th. Received my results on January 8th. Passed with flying colors. I received an email and had to log into the ASPPB to get them. I was beaming and am so happy that horrible hurdle is done with. For those of you reading this, you will pass, no matter what others tell you. If you put in the time to memorize the nonsense they want you to regurgitate back to them, then you will pass.
Final tips:
- Gather all your materials and decide a method...then stick with it!
- Practice tests are your bread and butter!
- Try and get, no matter how old, practice test versions from both PsychPrep and AATBS. They both seem to match very similarly to the EPPP (PsychPrep the most).
- Take the PEPPPO and use it as motivation.
- If you feel like you failed, that is normal.
- You only need 2-3 months to study (1-2 hours a day, 4 hours a day on the weekends)
- When your motivation is lost, take a challenging practice exam for remotivation.
- Schedule your test date early!
- And the best tip I was ever given: NEVER TELL ANYONE EXCEPT MAYBE YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER WHAT DAY YOU ARE TESTING. This will relieve ungodly amounts of stress and pressure of "everyone knowing you failed."
Please feel free to contact me if you want to know anything else. I feel as though I am a seasoned battle veteran now when it comes to the EPPP and can hopefully help someone else pass.
Also, if you are interested in the materials I used:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...ectronic-format-mp3-pdf-doc-etc-tons.1049819/
Good luck!
-SF