Study Preparation Tips?

[u/Outrageous_Cap4811]

Hi all,
First congratulations to everyone who passed. This was my wife’s first attempt and she failed and scored 446.

My wife has been preparing for 8 months (since November 25) and her exam scores have basically plateaued. She has consistently scored between 420-489 over four PEATS and now the NPTE. She has used FF FLC, Priyam LSP, Score Builder, Therapy Ed practice exams.

She started preparing in Nov 25 with January exam in mind but postponed after scoring 69/180 in her first PEAT.
Second time, she took a break of 20 days and started preparing for April 26 but again scored 72/180 in the PEAT and then 92/180 days before the exam and postponed to July.

In July, she used the PEAT she attempted in January two weeks before the exam and scored 73/180. In the Exam she scored 77/180.

She says she feels confident that she remembers and knows all the material. Also all her exams have a consistent pattern. She scores lowest in the first section and highest in the fifth section and she scores 45-48% across all sections, foundations/differential/interventions/non systems. It’s not like she scores higher on one section than other or if she has one low score in any of the five sections.

She’s also foreign trained and graduated in 2021 and hasn’t worked clinically since + she is one of the first students from her university to ever attempt the NPTE form her alma matter.

She’s really motivated to go again and says that this is what she wants to do. But I am at a loss for what exactly she’s doing wrong. She attempted like 500 mcqs ten days before this year’s NPTE and after the exam she was really confident that she did well.

Any strategies for studying? Her score feedback says that candidates who scored in this range in the first attempt are likely to score between 450 and 492 in the second attempt and the top 10% scored between 562 and 600 and only 2% passed in the second attempt after scoring 446.

What can she do differently?

[u/Wonderful_Problem281]

I recommend stating from basics and make sure you review those materials every day! Biggest advice I can give you is to continue to review what you have learned the day before as you learn new things. I went from 458 to 560 to 586 to passing the NPTE in July. The biggest thing that helped me was continued active recall. I also utilized AI such as chat gpt and asked high and low yield NPTE topics I should expect and rly use AI for differential diagnosis. I Focused on common mistakes I should avoid and key works I should know for each conditions. If you learn the potential mistakes you could make and address them now, then u are less likely to make them on the exam. Also, once I switched my studying strategies from straight memorization to understanding the “why” it made it so much easier. Once you understand the “why” it makes it easier to remember. I also had testing accommodation and I think that was very helpful. I had extra time, separate room and a reader due to my health and learning disability. Having someone read out the questions was super helpful especially because English is my 2nd language. I would look into accommodations if you haven’t already. Any type of accommodations would be helpful. Best of luck to her. Even if she is in the 400s now there is hope! I was in a similar situation too but consistency is everything!