I have been tracking this thread carefully while I prepared for the EPPP. I think I am a little different from many of the EPPP takers in that I received my Ph.D. quite a long time ago in 2002! I graduated from a highly research oriented clinical psych program, and subsequently did a post-doc and joined the faculty at a large research medical school. Obtaining a license was not a high priority for me in my 100% grant funded position (getting grants, running projects and writing papers was all consuming)... until the research funds started dwindling and it made sense to finally get my license to maximize my flexibility. So, over the past 11 years, I have become quite specialized, and I found it immensely humbling to brief through the EPPP materials handed "down" to me by a post-doc who recently took the exam. Psychology is such a large part of my identity - I was a psychology honors undergrad, scored high on the psych GRE's, eventually earned entry into a top-ranked clinical science program, and am now recognized as a “junior” expert in my field... but after over 10 years since my internship, I quickly realized that I was very rusty in many areas and there was a quite a bit that had not been covered (or at least I didn’t remember covering) when I took my graduate courses 15 or so years ago!
The materials I received included the 2010 PsychPrep study guide and numerous old practice tests. I was a bona fide flashcard person as an undergrad/grad student, but I knew I did not have the time to make thousands of flashcards. So, I did some investigating and found the inexpensive but very useful StudyPsych EPPP Flash Card iphone ap, which I purchased for $30.
With my usual demanding schedule and as the mother of 2 school age children, like many other EPPP test-takers I had limited time to devote to studying. My first task was therefore to decide how to organize my studying so that I would maximize the time I had. I began about 7 weeks prior to the exam, and created a schedule that involved 3 PsychPrep chapters and 3 practice exams a week, including “re-testing” on items I got wrong on any test. NOTE: I did NOT end up taking this many exams! To determine the order of chapters read, I decided to forego the suggested order by the prep company and instead to begin with the areas that had the highest percentage of questions on the real exam per ASPBB (ethics=15%; treatment, intervention, prevention=14%; assessment diagnosis=13%; cognitive affective bases=13%). I combined this with a few areas that I knew (or at least used to know!) really well, with the idea that I would more easily refresh any rusty patches in those areas. Unfortunately, neither the 2010 PsychPrep materials nor the current StudyPsych EPPP flashcards actually break down their materials the same way as ASPBB currently does, so I read the ASPBB descriptions (on their website) of each area and combined across chapters.
PsychPrep Study Guide (2010): This was a pretty straightforward review, which presented information in reasonable chunks, was written in pretty clear language, and seemed at the time neither too dense nor too shallow. I used it mostly to get a “big picture” refresher (or exposure) to all the major areas. Also, as I took practice tests, I re-read the sections of the study guide associated with each wrong answer. Along with reading the test answer explanation given with the practice tests, reviewing the relevant paragraphs in the text helped to put the information in its broader context.
StudyPsych EPPP Flash Cards: Flashcard ap use was ongoing throughout the 7 weeks, approximately 75 minutes total throughout the day - but pretty much during any “free time” I had - in chunks ranging from 2-60 minutes – e.g., waiting for elevator or meeting to begin, walking to and from work, waiting for my kids to fall asleep at night, etc. I definitely recommend the ap if you do not mind that the response format is free recall (v. multiple choice). I actually preferred this, because I feel it tested my knowledge better, and was a good complement for the multiple choice practice tests. Features of the ap:
1) can combine cards or decks as you like to prioritize mastery of specific domains
2) there are a variety of study modes including browse (where you simply review the cards), and several test modes (where it keeps track of your responses to each card, and you can set the target number of correct responses that you consider mastery, and then it will remove the card from the deck; I would test myself in groups of 10 cards, and then have it repeat missed cards, but the settings are very flexible so you can customize with your preferences);
3) it keeps stats for correct rates and time studied in each domain (or each deck if you have created your own)
4) you can make your own flashcards (which I did for a few meds);
5) it has user friendly features like swipe up for “definitely know” (thumbs up!), swipe right for “know it but not confidently or completely”, swipe down – “definitely do not know” (thumbs down), and it uses your ratings to determine the presentation frequency
6) good content coverage - I would say that much of the content that was covered in the PsychPrep study guide was also covered in the flashcards (this was also reassuring because my study guide and the practice tests are relatively “old” but the flashcards apparently are updated on an ongoing basis).
7) There are info buttons on many of the cards, which allow you to link to additional content about each card if you are connected to internet (you do not need to be connected to use the ap).
8) All in all, WELL worth the modest fee. Even if you do not use it as much as I did, I think it would be a great, inexpensive "on the go" complement to most other study tools.
Practice Tests: I followed the suggestion of jumping right in taking practice tests from the beginning. Although at first I felt that I should study more before I took practice tests, taking these tests right away was very helpful for gaining immediate experience with the question format. In addition to breaking down the content areas where I was obtaining the lowest percentage, I made notes about WHY I was getting questions wrong (e.g., did not READ the question stem CAREFULLY; fell for test trap of answer choice that sounds like a similar construct to the construct the question is really about, etc). My practice scores (excluding the “retest” scores on incorrect items), in the order in which I took them (and labeled as they were given to me), were:
2006-1 = 56%
2006-2 = 57%
2006-3 = 62%
2006-4 = 58%
2006-5=67%
2006-6 = 75%
2006-7 = 76%
Test A=61%
Test B = 70%
Exam 2 = 77%
Exam 1=81.3%
Test E = 75.7%
PEPPO (3 days before exam) = 510
As you can see, I continued to improve, for the most part, BUT was still in the discomfort zone! The 510 on the PEPPO was particularly discouraging. By the time of the exam, I was completing the 200 questions on each practice test in a little over 2 hours, so thought I would have plenty of time on the exam itself. Across all modalities, I think my total study time was approximately 150-200 hours – about 50-60 hours occurred in the week before the exam. However, despite this and despite my improvements in scores over the weeks, I did not really feel prepared.
Exam day arrived. During the “tutorial” phase prior to the exam, I made sure I understood and practiced how to mark items to review and how to eliminate choices – this came in very handy. When the real exam began, I was hit with a very difficult first question, and it seemed to go downhill from there. I felt like approximately 50% of the questions were not in ANY of the materials I had reviewed – and I was marking nearly every other question to return to later- I did make sure to choose an answer to these questions even though I planned to return to them later, which in retrospect I believe was a good move. I found myself reading and re-reading questions that were stumping me, in some disbelief that the content was completely unfamiliar. And then there were questions that I thought I knew the answer to, but for which I just could not seem to keep myself from falling for test-taking traps, or from second-guessing myself for FEAR that I would fall for a test-taking trap! For many questions, I could narrow the choices to 2, and then had to guess. I completed going through my initial pass of the 225 questions with only a short 30 minutes remaining to review all the questions I had marked for review. I was very uncertain on many of these questions, and I finished my frenzied review with just one minute to spare.
Like so many others have reported on this thread, I walked out of the room deflated, somewhat in shock, and fairly confident that I had failed. In fact, when people asked me how it went, my standard response was “My only consolation is that many people say they feel like they failed afterwards...” I wanted to hold out hope, but at the same time, I didn’t see how I could have possibly passed. I could remember in some detail approximately 15 questions – which I looked up to find that I had gotten 10 wrong and only 5 correct. And these were the questions I remembered specifically– there were so many that I basically had no clue, and was simply taking a shot in the dark, hoping that my general knowledge about how things ought to work would have somehow translated into what these particular studies (which I had never heard of) had actually found. Faced with the unthinkable possibility of having to take the test AGAIN, I spent a lot of time considering how I could have studied better or differently…
I took the exam on the 30th of the month (scheduled based on the info about the scores being released from the test centers on the 15th and last days of the month) and received an e-mail notification exactly one week later saying that my score was available. I couldn’t bring myself to look at my score for several hours, because although I was certain I had failed, I wanted to be able to retain that small inkling of hope that I passed. I finally brought myself to do it, and with heart pounding, brought it up on the screen. And burst out crying – crying like when I received my acceptance letter to grad school – crying like when I got my job offer… near hysterics from relief. 635 – I had PASSED!
I was, and remain, pretty astounded about that.
I apologize for the LENGTHY entry, but because reading this thread was so helpful for me as I prepared, I wanted to also share my experience in case it might be helpful to others. It turns out the materials I used were sufficient to pass, even many years post-Ph.D. Prioritizing my studying based on the highest concentration content areas seemed to have worked well. Clearly, the practice exams and the PEPPO underestimated my final score, and this seems consistent with others reports, but were incredibly helpful for narrowing in on content areas for which I needed further review and for helping me identify (and somewhat rectify) my test-taking weaknesses. And, I can definitely chime in that overwhelming certainty about having failed is not a good predictor of final outcome!! Good luck to all!!
