I recently passed the EPPP (while in graduate school; I worked with a state to get approval for this) so I wanted to share my study approach and results for anyone who may be interested.
I used AATBS for studying. While they provided a LOT of information, I found that it was pretty helpful and reassuring to read through all of it.
I studied for two months, with the second month involving more studying than the first. The final 10 days before the exam, I really ramped things up.
I read every chapter in the AATBS online book. As I finished each section of a chapter, I would take the Section quizzes; I would retake a quiz until I got most questions right, if needed. At the end of a chapter, I would take a Domain quiz.
Periodically, I would take a Practice Exam in study mode.
I tried making flash cards, but I found that I just hate flash cards. Instead, I made one long running Word document with all of my notes. These would be derived from the Program Reviews provided throughout the chapters in the book, plus what I learned from taking Practice Exams / Domain quizzes (if it told me I got a question wrong and it was information I didn’t know, I added it to my notes in my own words). By the end of my studying, my notes document was almost 70 pages long, and I would break it up into individual domains.
For the first 50 days of studying, all I did was read through the book, take Section quizzes, take the occasional Domain quiz, and take the occasional Practice Exam in Study mode. At the end of these 50 days, I also took a Final Exam Simulation. By this point, I had taken all 8 Practice Exams once, read all pages of the book, taken all Section quizzes, and taken all Domain Quizzes.
For the final 10 days before my exam, I shifted my studying into high gear. I figured at this point, I could give it an all out sprint. Here’s what that looked like:
- Read my study document for 30 minutes twice per day, morning and night. Here, I’d focus on what seems to be the foggiest at the moment.
- Go through every practice Exam that I’ve taken, reading each question and learning why I got it wrong, or why I got it right, updating my running notes accordingly. Then, I’d wait 3-6 hours and retake the same Practice Exam.
- Go through every Domain Quiz, reading each question and learning why I got it wrong or right, updating my running notes accordingly. Then, I'd retake the Domain Quiz immediately.
- Go through every Section Quiz and retake it again and again until I get it right.
- Note that I did not re-do Domain Quizzes or Section quizzes for the following sections: Psychological Assessment, Social Psychology (because I knew this stuff very well already), Statistics and Research Design, and Test Construction. With the exception of Social Psych, I refrained from re-do’s here because I knew my limits (I wasn’t good at this stuff and wasn’t likely to become good at it within a week) and knew that my efforts were better focused elsewhere.
- A few days before the exam, I took the SEPPO-P1.
- A couple days before the exam, I took the Final Exam Simulation 2.
Doing all of this, I was studying about 1-2 hours per day during the first 50 days, and about 4-6 hours per day during the final 10 days.
Taking the EPPP was an interesting experience. The questions were quite different from what I practiced doing (pulling from a few different domains instead of just one per question), so I felt like the AATSB Practice Exams were not a good simulation of this. The AATSB Final Exam Simulation was a decent simulation of this, and the SEPPO-P1 was a close simulation of this (though it felt a little more difficult than the actual EPPP). However, all of this work ensured that I knew the material backwards and forwards.
During the exam, I would take my time, read each question once or twice, each answer once or twice, and ask myself what the question is REALLY asking. When I didn’t know what was right, I could usually know what was at least WRONG by recognizing that certain answer options better described something other than what the question asked. I did the first 110 questions in one sitting, and took a bathroom break. Then I did the second 115 questions in a sitting, and took another bathroom break. Finally, I went back through each question and ensured I was happy with my answers; I only changed 5 or 6 answers doing this. All in all, the exam took about 2.25 hours going at this pace.
Final EPPP score: 641.
Below are my practice test scores for anyone who finds this info helpful:
Date | Exam | Score | Time Spent |
---|
4/15/2024 | Assessment Exam | 46% | Unsure |
4/27/2024 | Exam 1 | 52.89% | 1 hour 33 minutes |
5/8/2024 | Exam 2 | 56.44% | 1 hour 34 minutes |
5/17/2024 | Exam 3 | 60.44% | 1 hour 28 minutes |
5/23/2024 | Exam 4 | 61.78% | 1 hour 51 minutes |
5/29/2024 | Exam 5 | 62.67% | 1 hour 47 minutes |
5/31/2024 | Exam 6 | 68.89% | 1 hour 39 minutes |
6/4/2024 | Exam 7 | 63.11% | 1 hour 38 minutes |
6/5/2024 | Exam 1 Re-try | 88.44% | 1 hour 16 minutes |
6/7/2024 | Exam 8 | 65.78% | 1 hour 57 minutes |
6/8/2024 | Final Exam Simulation 1 | 66.22% | 1 hour 34 minutes |
6/10/2024 | Exam 3 Re-try | 96% | Unsure |
6/11/2024 | Exam 2 Re-try | 90.22% | Unsure |
6/11/2024 | Exam 4 Re-try | 93.78% | 58 minutes |
6/12/2024 | SEPPO-P1 | 67% | Unsure |
6/13/2024 | Exam 5 Re-try | 96.44% | 56 minutes |
6/14/2024 | Exam 6 Re-try | 98.67% | 49 minutes |
6/15/2024 | Exam 7 Re-try | 96.89% | 51 minutes |
6/16/2024 | Final Exam Simulation 2 | 67.11% | 1 hour 41 minutes |
6/17/2024 | Exam 8 Re-try | 97.78% | 52 minutes |
6/18/2024 | EPPP | Score: 641 | About 2.25 hours |
Good luck everyone! You can do this if you take your time to study and take lots of practice exams!