Hello everyone! I want to share my journey of passing the NPTE!
I’m an adult student who returned to school seeking a career as a PT after practicing as a massage therapist for many years. I had some difficulty during my graduate program in testing mainly due to anxiety during an exam and learning how to study for different courses. This did not change when starting to study for the NPTE.
My college in NY required a Scorebuilders weekend course and purchase of the Scorebuilders review book. This is just my opinion - but this book was not helpful for me and many other classmates of mine. Scorebuilders is for mainly more basic level questions and memorization strategies. The Scorebuilders course was a good introduction to what the exam would be like, however, it just scratches the surface of the difficulty of this exam. Initially, I used the Scorebuilders exams from 2019 and the PEATS.
I failed my first attempt with a score of 564 using only the Scorebuilders book and notes from my college courses. I will also mention I failed my school’s mock board exams.
After failing in July of 2019, I found Final Frontier from another classmate and utilized the course’s lecture material a great deal. I took 2 Therapy Ed exams, 1 Final Frontier exam, and 2 Scorebuilders exams. I passed one Therapy Ed exam just prior to the NPTE in October. I was still worried but at this point I did a lot of work, learned a lot with the FF team and Dr. Singh’s teachings helped me overcome the test anxiety I had felt deeply prior to FF and during my previous attempt. However, I failed again in October 2019 with a 589! I don’t think I ever cried so hard - I was truly devastated.
At this point, I had a lot of stress with being able to pay bills and worked several jobs to make ends meet! I also was worried about my family as we had some unexpected health problems occur! This last attempt I was working 3 jobs and studying constantly as I was determined to make this attempt my last and final one! I decided to try a LSP (licensed study partner) with Steven who gave me access to a lot of his study material that he used to pass the NPTE but also resources that I was not aware of such as the NPTE app for additional practice! I also struggled with terminology during the exam and would get easily distracted by a diagnosis or a term that I was unfamiliar with. I got through this by using quizlets on medical terminology, reading Therapy Ed, and going through the resources Steven provided.
This last attempt (my third) I utilized the entire Therapy Ed book - the third therapy Ed exam from 2019, the final frontier reading list, resources from Steven, and the New final frontier Exam prior to my board exam. I did not pass either practice exam but I will tell you this::: taking multiple exams for me did not help me. It only made me more anxious for the real thing. The exposure to the types of questions that could be asked, the rationales, and the seeing the difficulty of the questions were what helped the most - which I will say that Therapy Ed and Final Frontier do the best job of preparing you for the same difficulty as the actual NPTE.
I passed Jan 2020 - by how much yet I do not know but really it doesn’t matter. My confidence was there this time - the exam was and always will be challenging - but I took my time and DID NOT CHANGE my answers. The key for me was learning to trust myself, not doubting or overthinking.
On the top of my sheet given in the exam I wrote: BE GOLD, DONT CHANGE YOUR ANSWERS...when I started to feel anxious about a question - I closed my eyes for a few seconds - did some deep breathing and moved on. I flagged questions I didn’t know right away and came back to them and went with my gut. This time was different - and for those of you on your multiple attempts that are struggling to pass - maybe this will help you.
You graduated your program - you made it this far. The NPTE is the last step and truly it was difficult for me for several reasons. But in the end - all I needed was the confidence and the right resources and the support to make that happen. I would recommend Final Frontier to absolutely everyone. The team they have is like nothing else and they show you not just what the exam is like but they also show you HOW to take this exam. That is very valuable in and of itself.
My sincerest thank you goes out to Dr. Singh, Steven Castro, and the entire Final Frontier team for being there for me during this process.
I did it !!!! I passed!!!